She nodded her head calmly. “Yes,” she smiled, “I suppose it’s too late to do it to-day.”
The sun was going down behind the Pyramids as they returned with linked arms to the hotel; and for a moment that sense of foreboding which is so often felt at sunset in the desert, intruded itself upon his dream of happiness. There were banks of menacing cloud gathered upon the horizon; and from the village of El Kafr, at the foot of the Great Pyramid, there came the far-off throbbing of a drum, a sound which always has in it an element of alarm.
Jim turned to Monimé. “Tell me,” he urged, “that you have no doubts left in your mind.”
“No, I have no doubts,” she answered. “You and I and Ian—we are bound together now right to the end. It is Destiny.”
The period of three weeks which, by consular law, had to elapse before the ceremony of their marriage could be performed, was a time of blissful happiness to Jim. The open desert with its wind-swept spaces of glistening sand, and its ranges of low hills which carried the eye ever forward into its mysterious depths, enthralled him like an endless tale of adventure, or like a native flute-song that rises and falls in continuous changing melody. With Monimé he left the hotel each morning, and, having conducted her to her tent, he would wander over the untrodden wastes until the luncheon hour brought him back to her to share their picnic meal. He would come to her again at sundown, and together they would stroll back to civilization in time to see the last flush fade from the domes and minarets of the distant city. Or, when the painter’s inspiration failed her, they would mount their camels and go careering into the wilderness, riding through silent valleys and over breezy hills, talking eagerly as they went, and sending their laughter echoing amongst the rocks.
For him it was a lazy, sun-bathed existence, rich in the abundance of their love, and unmarred by any cares. He read in the papers that the trial of Jane Potts would not take place before March; and with that assurance he returned to his earlier habit of detachment from the world’s doings, and did not again trouble even to glance at the news. Life was a new thing to him: it had begun again; and the tragic events of the past were, for the present, able to be forgotten.
Even a favourable letter from the publishers to whom he had sent his poems hardly aroused his excitement, so deeply was he in love. It was a somewhat patronizing letter, in which no great consideration for his artistic sensibilities was manifest. The manuscript was accepted for publication some time in the spring, on moderately satisfactory terms; but it was stated that the firm’s discretion must be admitted, and, owing to his inaccessibility, it might be necessary to rely on their own “readers” in the correction of the proofs. He was told, in fact, to leave the matter in their hands, and not to assert himself further than to cable his consent to this agreement; and this he did, without giving two thoughts to the matter. Some ten days later a contract arrived, which he was requested to sign; and having done so, he mailed it back to London, and went his joyous way.
Monimé had been commissioned to paint some pictures of the great rock-temple of Abu Simbel, in Lower Nubia, far up the Nile; and it was therefore decided that they should go there immediately after their marriage, by which time her work in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids would be completed. To this Jim looked forward eagerly; for there was something akin to rapture in the thought of faring forth, alone with his beloved, into distant places, where they would be undisturbed by the proximity of their entirely superfluous fellow-creatures.
At length the great day arrived, and, driving into Cairo, they were married in ten minutes at the Consulate, and thence they sped across to the English church, where the religious ceremony was quietly performed. That night, as in a dream, they travelled by sleeping-car to Luxor, and, next day, continued their ecstatic way to the Nubian frontier. Here the railroad terminates, and the remainder of the journey, therefore, had to be made by river.
The dahabiyeh which they had chartered awaited them at Shallâl, over against Philæ, just above the First Cataract; and their settling in was much simplified by the fact that the local police officer, sauntering on the wharf, recognized Jim, and at once put himself at their service. He had been in charge of the camel patrol which used to visit the gold mines; and Jim had shown him some kindness, which now he endeavoured to return by a noisy but effective show of his authority and patronage.