He had nearly reached the top when suddenly he remembered the imprisoned beetle; and his fertile imagination pictured, as in a flash, its lingering death. “Wait a minute,” he said, “I’ve forgotten something.” And down the rope he slid to the bottom, while Monimé wrung her hands above.
He picked up the beetle. “Come along, old sport,” he whispered. “Blessed if I hadn’t forgotten all about you.” He placed the little creature in the pocket of his coat, and once more began the painful ascent. The exertion, however, had opened the wound again, and now the blood ran down his face as he strained and swung on the rope. His strength seemed to have deserted him, and had it not been for the two sailors who drew him up bodily as he clung, and at last caught hold of him under the arms, he would have fallen back into the shaft.
No sooner had he reached the surface than he carefully took the beetle from his pocket, and sent it on its way. Then turning to Monimé, who had knelt on the ground, he obeyed her order to lie down and place his head upon her knee, whereupon she began to bathe the wound with water from a bottle she had brought with her. She had also remembered, even in her haste, to bring scissors and bandages; and now with deft fingers she cut away the hair from around the wound, and bound up his head with almost professional skill.
The two sailors were presently sent back to the dahabiyeh, and, as soon as they were out of sight, she bent over his upturned face and kissed him again and again. To his great surprise he felt her tears upon his cheek.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked, tenderly passing the back of his hand across her eyes. “Did I give you an awful fright?”
“No, it isn’t that,” she answered, trying to smile. “I’m only being sentimental. I was thinking about your beetle, and about the text in the Bible that says, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these....’”
It was not many days before Jim had fully recovered from his hurts. The bracing air of Lower Nubia at this season of the year is not conducive to sickness. The vigorous north-west wind seems to sweep the mind clear of all suggestion of ailment, and the sun to purge it of even the thought of infirmity. Monimé, indeed, had difficulty in persuading him to submit at all to her ministrations, dear though they were to him; for the heart is here set upon the idea of physical well-being, and nature thus heals herself.
Sometimes, as Jim walked upon the cliffs in the splendour of the day, his nerves tingling with the joy of life, his thoughts went back to those long years at Eversfield, and he compared his present attitude of mind with that he had known at the manor. There the grey steeples and towers of Oxford, seen beyond the haze of the trees, were sedative and subduing. There the passionate heart was tempered, the violent thought was sobered, the emotions were quieted.
But here the brilliant sunlight, the sparkling air, and the great open spaces, induced a grand heedlessness, a fine improvidence, a riotous prodigality of the forces of life. Here a man lived, and knew no more than that he lived; nor did he care what things the future held in store for him. During these weeks Jim gave no thought to his coming movements, save in a very general way. His mind leapt across the abyss of difficulties which lay in his path, and arrived at the fair places beyond, where Monimé and Ian were to travel hand-in-hand with him.
His attitude towards his little son was shaping itself in his mind at this time into some sort of clear recognition of his parental responsibilities, vague perhaps, but none the less sincere. As an instance of this development in his character mention may be made of a certain sunset hour in which he and Monimé were seated together upon the high ground overlooking the vast expanse of the desert to westward of the Nile.