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. He fell from a palm tree three weeks ago."
"You give him nothing to eat or drink?"
"He is too ill."
It was a common story and the logical outcome of the belief that life and death are written and will inevitably befall after the manner of the writing. That man lying so quiet beneath the black covering had probably at the beginning suffered nothing more serious than a bruise, which a few simple remedies would have cured within a week. But he had been allowed to lie, even as he lay upon the angareb, at the mercy of the sun and the flies, unwashed, unfed, and with his thirst unslaked. The bruise had become a sore, the sore had gangrened, and when all remedies were too late, the Egyptian Mudir of Korosko had discovered the accident and sent the man on the steamer down to Assouan. But, familiar though the story was, Calder could not dismiss it from his thoughts. The immobility of the sick man upon the native bedstead in a way fascinated him, and when towards sunset a strong wind sprang up and blew against the stream, he felt an actual comfort in the knowledge that the sick man would gain some relief from it. And when his neighbour that evening at the dinner table spoke to him with a German accent, he suddenly asked upon an impulse:—
"You are not a doctor by any chance?"
"Not a doctor," said the German, "but a student of medicine at Bonn. I came from Cairo to see the Second Cataract, but was not allowed to go farther than Wadi Halfa."