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Updated: June 5, 2025
As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all Faith had written. The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep impression on him almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of his uncle calling him. "Soolsby and me what is there between Soolsby and me?" he asked himself now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes.
If Hylda had not come at that crucial instant, the chairmaker's but on the hill would be empty. Why had not Soolsby told the world the truth since? Was the man waiting to see what course he himself would take? Had the old chair-maker perhaps written the truth to the Egyptian to his brother David. His brother! The thought irritated every nerve in him.
When I asked Soolsby how it came he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. "I had a friend," he said, "and I was set to go and see that friend again.... But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life spills faster than the years," he said.
His eyes opened, he saw and recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby; and, as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an answering look of understanding. Days wore away, but he neither spoke nor moved. People came and went softly, and he gave no heed. There was ever a trouble in his eyes when they were open. Only when Soolsby came did it seem to lessen.
Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from "Our Man"; as Sybil Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty, so Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either. To do right in the matter was to strike her husband it must be a blow now, since her voice had failed.
"Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?" "I grudge her what is yours, my lord " Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction. "Well, since you will have it so, it will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where's the way out, tell me that, my lord?" David spoke impatiently.
"And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never fall again." "You know that you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of God, I never will be a swine again," he said, getting to his feet. "Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow," David said presently. Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. "When will you come back?" he asked eagerly. David smiled.
For an instant the room was terribly still. An instant, and it might be too late. An instant, and Soolsby would be gone. Eglington watched the hand which had been resting on the table turn slowly over to the wire. Why should he intervene? Was it his business? This thing was not his doing. Destiny had laid the train of circumstance and accident, and who was stronger than Destiny?
"And what means that to a common mind?" "That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our Egyptian," she returned. "That he can do our man good or ill?" Soolsby asked sharply "that he, yonder, can do that?" She inclined her head. "When I see him doing ill well, when I see him doing that" he snatched up a piece of wood from the floor "then I will break him, so!"
It would have been an accident. Providence did not intervene; I did. You owe me something, Soolsby." Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment.
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