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Updated: May 25, 2025
He could resist it no longer. "They're lively on the Loulia to-night," Nigel said, as he came up. "Yes," Isaacson answered. He stood while he lighted a cigar. Then he sat down near to his friend. The light from the drawing-room streamed out upon them from the open French window. The shrill sound of the pipes, the dull throbbing of the daraboukkeh, came to them from across the water.
He went up a few steps, and looked over the upper deck; then he called out some guttural words. Almost instantly the throb of the daraboukkeh was audible, and then a nasal cry: "Al-lah!" "And now talk about agriculture!" Baroudi turned away to Nigel, and began to talk to him in a low voice, while Mrs. Armine sat quite still, always watching the Nile, and always listening to the sailors singing.
Almost fiercely the nasal voice of the singing boatman who gave out the solo part of the song of the Nile came over the garden from the river, and the throbbing of the daraboukkeh sounded loudly in their ears. Nigel lifted his head without kissing her. "Those boatmen are close to the garden!" he said. Mrs. Armine wrapped her cloak suddenly round her.
But immediately after dinner, leaving Nigel sitting on the terrace, he went again to the bank of the Nile. The Loulia was illuminated from prow to stern. Light gleamed from every cabin window, and the crew had not only the daraboukkeh but the pipes on board, and were making the fantasia. Some of them, too, were dancing.
And this voice was accompanied by a deep and monotonous murmur, and by the ground bass of the daraboukkeh. Then the chorus of male voices joined in.
Armine had sent by the felucca, and laid it on the coffee-table. Then he turned quickly, and went away through the dark garden. Before he was out of sight of the house, he looked back. Nigel had sunk upon his chair in a collapsed attitude. From the western bank of the Nile came the shrill, attenuated sound of the pipes, the deep throbbing of the daraboukkeh, the nasal chant of the Nubians.
Through the open window came faintly the nasal cry of the Nubian sailor beginning the song of the Nile upon the lower deck of the Loulia. With it there entered the very dim throbbing of the beaten daraboukkeh, sounding almost like some strange and perpetual ground-swell of the night, that flood of shadowy mystery and beauty in which they and the world were drowned.
The singer was beating a daraboukkeh held loosely between his knees. The chorus of nasal voices joined in with the rough and artless vehemence which had in it something that was sad, and something that, though pitiless, seemed at moments to thrill with yearning, like the cruelty of the world, which is mingled with the eternal longing for the healing of its wounds.
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