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Frank felt that the Hakim must be with the Emir's friend, and hurrying through the passages and intervening rooms, he found Morris with the professor, Sam, and the Sheikh near to an angareb, or bedstead, on to which the wounded man had been carefully lifted a few minutes before.
The veil never fluttered above the lips, the legs remained stretched out straight, the arms lay close against the side. Calder shouted to the two men in the stern. "Move the angareb into the shadow," he cried, "and be quick!" The Arabs rose reluctantly and obeyed him. "Is it a man or woman?" asked Calder. "A man. We are taking him to the hospital at Assouan, but we do not think that he will live.
The natives seated close to it moved into the shadow of the upper deck, but no one moved the angareb, and the two men laughing in the stern gave no thought to their charge. Calder watched the blaze of yellow light creep over the black recumbent figure from the feet upwards. It burnt at last bright and pitiless upon the face. Yet the living creature beneath the veil never stirred.
I have not mentioned that there were four or five children, all of whom had been turned out, as soon as we entered; and threatened with terrible punishments, by their mother, if they made any noise. "When I finished my meal I went into the guest chamber, threw myself down on the angareb there, and slept till sunset. When I awoke, I found that a native doctor had come, and examined Saleh.
The black veil lay close about the face, outlining the nose, the hollows of the eyes and the mouth; but whether the lips wore a moustache and the chin a beard, it did not reveal. The slanting sunlight crept nearer and nearer to the angareb.
"Likely, sir!" he said scornfully, and he bent over the angareb and began giving little touches to the pillow, making a point of passing his hand over Frank's face and leaning quite close so as to feel his breath play upon his cheek, before laying a hand upon the sufferer's. "I don't care if it is ketching," he said; "I'm not going to leave Master Frank in a hole like that.
"Well," asked his friends in a breath, as he threw himself upon the rug-covered angareb in his room, "did you succeed?" "Ask Ibrahim," he said. "I hardly dare to hope." They turned to the old Sheikh, who made a gesture with his hands. "Excellencies," he said, "I stood there with a knife as it were held at my throat all that dreadful time; but it was wonderful.
The angareb stood in a wash of water on the very spot to which at Calder's order it had been moved that morning. And on the angareb the figure beneath the black covering lay as motionless as ever, as inexpressive of life and feeling, though the cold spray broke continually upon its face. "I thought it would be so," said Calder.
"It is on the cards that Nebbi Khiddr has suggested something of the kind," he said. They were led into the great parade-ground before the mosque, and thence into the Khalifa's house, where another white man sat in attendance upon the threshold. Within the Khalifa was seated upon an angareb, and a grey-bearded Greek stood beside him.
The professor went and talked over all he had heard with the Hakim, and as he did so he felt that there was a compensation for it all in the sight of Harry Frere lying upon the angareb, peaceful and at rest, with his brother grasping his uninjured hand. "The sight of Harry did more good," he muttered, "than all the doctor's stuff."
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