When the Captain had mastered this precious effusion, he collapsed upon a stool. "He intends to leave you here alone in the desert. It's—it's marooning, nothing less!" he gasped.
I lighted a fourth cigar and lay back thinking hard. In ten minutes I had made up my mind. I sat up. The Captain was anxiously watching me. "See here, my lad," I said, "in that bundle yonder is the manuscript of a book I have been working hard upon for three years and more. It is the very heart of me. Take good care of it. One of these days—if I live—I'll call for it at your diggings in London. I have your address in my notebook."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said the Captain. "But what's the game?"
"Diamond cut diamond. I'm going a journey. But I'll say no more. Mad or sane, you are eating Ottley's salt, and are beholden to him for his paternity of the exceptionally gifted young woman you propose to marry. Good-bye to you."
I held out my hand. He sprang up and wrung it hard. "You are sure you are doing right?" he asked.
I filled my pockets with his cigars. "I am sure of nothing," I replied, as I did so, "except this—I have been abominably ill-used by a man who under Heaven owes his life to me—and this—I resent it."
I put on my helmet, nodded and left the tent.
The Captain cried out, "Good luck!" Five minutes later I turned and waved my hand to him. He was still standing by the tent flap gazing after me. I thought to myself, "He is as honest as he is good to look upon. He will make May Ottley a gallant husband." I am a reasonably bad Christian, and quite as selfish as many worse, but somehow or another the reflection brought no aftermath of bitterness. The handsome, happy-hearted boy—he was little else for all his three and thirty years—had crept into my heart, and I felt somehow the chamber he occupied was next door to that wherein May Ottley's visage was enshrined. But I had work to do; so I turned the key on both. The sun was so hideously hot that I was forced to hasten slowly. But I reached the Nile under two hours, and found, as I expected, Sir Robert Ottley's steam launch moored to the bank. Her smoking funnel had been the beacon of my march. She was in charge of an old French pilot, a Turkish engineer, and four Levantines, piratical-looking stokers, mongrels all. I stalked aboard with an air of paramount authority. The Frenchman came forward, bowing. He wore a sort of uniform. "Steam up, Captain?" I asked.
"Since morning, monsieur!" he replied.
"Then kindly push off at once. I must overtake the punt that started last night without delay."