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Updated: June 24, 2025
I have spent morning after morning in the Alhambra, and many and many an hour in the Cappella Palatina; and never have I been weary of either, or longed to go away. And this same sweet desire to stay came over me in Edfu. The Loulia was tied up by the high bank of the Nile. The sailors were glad to rest. There was no steamer sounding its hideous siren to call me to its crowded deck.
"He said that you had done it." She took her hand away from his sharply, and sat back in her chair. He did not move. They sat there looking at each other. And their silence was disturbed by the perpetual singing on the Loulia. And so it had been said! Isaacson had discovered the exact truth, and had told it to Nigel! She felt a reckless relief.
The Loulia lay always by the western shore of the Nile, but each night, when she looked from the garden, the cabin windows were dark. She had made enquiries of Ibrahim. But Ibrahim was no longer the smiling, boyish attendant who had been her slave.
But you mustn't think we shall get a Loulia." He laughed. "Millionaires like Baroudi don't hire out their boats," he added. "And if they did, I couldn't pay their price while Etchingham's so badly let." Her forehead was wrinkled by a frown. She hated to hear a man who loved her speak of his poverty.
And often her mind echoed the words of Hassan, when he looked across the Nile to the tapering mast of the Loulia and murmured, "Mahmoud Baroudi is rich! Mahmoud Baroudi is rich!" And she yearned to go, not only to Baroudi, but to his gold, and she remembered her fancy when she sat by the Nile, that the gleaming gold on the water was showered towards her by him to comfort her in her solitude.
She almost threw herself down the bank. "Where is the boat ah!" She stumbled as she got into it, and nearly fell. "Push off!" She sat straight up on the hard, narrow bench, and stared at the lights on the Loulia. "There's a girl on board," she said, in a minute. "Yes, my lady, one girl. Whether Mahmoud Baroudi likin' we comin' I dunno." "Ibrahim!" "My lady!"
But d'you know, though I've never said so, even to you, I believe I really was not quite myself when I took that dip. I think it was because of that I got the chill." "Very possibly." "When I started, I was splendidly well. I mean when we went on board of the Loulia. It's as if it was something to do with that boat. I believe I began to go down the hill very soon after we started on her.
Directly she reached her room, she locked the door, went out on to the balcony, and looked across the river to the Loulia. She saw the Egyptian flag flying. Was Baroudi on board? She must know, and immediately. She rang the bell, and unlocked the door. "Ibrahim!" she said, to the Nubian who appeared. He retreated, and in a moment Ibrahim came, with his soft stride, up the staircase.
The master of the Loulia must surely be expected the man Isaacson had seen driving the Russian horses, and, clothed almost in rags, squatting in the darkness of the hashish café in the entrails of Cairo. And Bella Donna was hurrying back after only one night in Cairo! Isaacson forgot the marvellous beauty of the declining day. In a few minutes he returned to the house.
"What can I doin' for my gentlemans?" "Nothing, except hold your tongue." Hassan retired indignantly. While he had looked at Hassan, Isaacson had considered a proposition and rejected it. He had thought of sending the dragoman with a note to the Loulia. It would be simple enough to invent an excuse for the note. Hassan might see Nigel would see Nigel, if a hint were given him to do so.
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