“That will be jolly,” Jim answered gloomily.
The Consul adjusted his eyeglasses and stared at him coldly. “I must warn you,” he mumbled, “that anything you say may be taken down in evidence against you.”
“That’ll make the journey jollier still,” said Jim. Now that Monimé knew all, and had declared that she loved and trusted him, he was in much happier mood, and could face the shadow of death with sufficient equanimity to permit him to jest with his captors. But exasperation returned to his mind when in answer to his inquiry he was told that his wife had not been informed of his immediate departure, nor had the authorities any concern with her or her movements.
“‘The sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one,’” quoted the Consul, to whom Kipling was as the Bible.
“Oh, shut up!” said Jim. “Get out your notebook and write down that I declare I’m innocent and that the police are bungling fools.”
On the journey down to Cairo he and the Consul occupied a compartment which had been reserved for them. A policeman was stationed in the corridor, and the windows on the opposite side were screened by the wooden shutters which serve as blinds in Egyptian railway trains. There was nothing to do except smoke the cigarettes he had been permitted to buy at the station, or doze in his corner, while his companion complacently read a novel and smoked his pipe on the opposite seat, occasionally glancing at him over the top of his eyeglasses.
Fourteen hours of this sort of thing was enough to reduce him to a condition of complete desperation, and when at last the train jolted over the points into the terminus at Cairo, he had almost made up his mind to bolt and to attempt to return to England on his own account. He was well guarded, however, and soon he was deposited for the night at the Consulate. Next day he was taken, handcuffed, to the station, where he was pushed into the train for Port Said under the eyes of a gaping crowd. He was now in the charge of a Scotch ex-sergeant serving in the Egyptian Police, who had been lent for the purpose; and on the following morning this man, assisted by native policemen, conveyed him to the liner which was to carry him to England.
Here an interior cabin had been assigned to him, a small glass panel in the door having been removed so that he might be at all times under observation; and here for the twelve weary days of the journey he was confined, with nothing to relieve the tedium except an occasional visit from the kindly captain, a nightly breath of fresh air on the deserted deck, the reading of the novels which were considerately sent down to him from the ship’s library, and the playing of his guitar, which by favour of the Cairene authorities he had been allowed to retain.
His depression was deepened by his inability to obtain any news of Monimé, but he presumed that she would know his whereabouts, and she had said that she would follow him to England. At any rate there would be no lack of money for her journey and the ultimate expenses of the trial; for he was now, of course, once more owner of the Eversfield property, and Tundering-West was again his name.
During these days his mind dwelt for hours together upon the problems of life as they presented themselves to a man of his Bedouin temperament, and clearly he began to see that it was not enough merely to live and let live. As he lay sprawling upon his berth, staring at the white-painted walls and at the locked door of the cabin, or as he paced the narrow area of flooring or sat listening to the rhythmic throbbing of the engines, it became apparent to him that the recognition of some sort of obligation to society at large was essential, if only for the sake of his son.