One morning, just as they were finishing a silent breakfast, Hussein entered the room, and delivered himself of a few rapid words in the Arabic tongue, which so much upset Daniel that he rose to his feet and paced up and down the floor in great perturbation.
“Anything wrong?” asked Muriel, temporarily unfreezing.
“Yes; very bad news,” he replied. “Old Sheikh Ali is very ill. It sounds like pneumonia. I must go down to him at once.”
He snatched up his hat, and, without taking any further notice of Muriel, hurried out of the room. Sheikh Ali was a man whom he loved and respected, and the possible death of his friend was so great a sorrow to him that his mind was filled full of darkness, like a room in which the blinds have suddenly been pulled down. And the condition in which he found the old man confirmed his worst fears; and presently, in deep anxiety, he hastened back to the house to procure the necessaries for his proper nursing.
“Will you come with me,” he said to Muriel, “and help me to look after him?”
She hesitated. “I am not much good as a nurse,” she demurred, “but I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” he replied, and the words were uttered with genuine gratitude.
Daniel knew something of the rudiments of medical science, and he was aware that there was very little to be done in a case of pneumonia except to keep the patient warm and to maintain his strength. When he returned, therefore, to the Sheikh’s house with Muriel, he was carrying with him a small oil stove with which to warm the sick-room at night, and a pillow in its clean white cover was thrust under his arm, while Muriel held a basket containing a number of articles from the store-cupboard and medicine-chest.
The house, a whitewashed building of two storeys, stood amongst the palms, not more than three or four hundred yards distant from the monastery. As they approached it they heard the sound of wailing in the women’s quarters, and at this Daniel uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“Oh, these women!” he muttered. “We mustn’t let them do that. Wait a minute.”