We could not "see" at once, however, because Anthony had not come on board. Even when the hour for starting arrived, there was no Anthony, no message from Anthony. "Your friend isn't going to leave us in the lurch, is he?" asked Sir Marcus, watch in hand. He had meant to travel with us as far as Beni Hasan, our first stop, and return to Cairo by donkey and train, but had changed his intention and was going off at once—I thought I could guess why. "The Enchantress Isis ought to be under way this minute, but Antoun and you are our chief attractions. We can't leave him behind."
I agreed. We could not leave Anthony behind, but I was not worrying. If he had to drop down out of an aeroplane, I felt sure that having said he would come, he would keep his word. So, while Sir Marcus stared at his watch and fumed, I rushed usefully about among the ladies who clamoured for their luggage, or complained that their cabins were too small for innovation trunks. I showed them how these travelling wardrobes could be opened wide and flattened against the walls, taking up next to no room; I assured each woman in confidence that she had been given the best cabin on the boat; I dealt out little illustrated books about the trip; I advised people which tables to choose in the dining-saloon, and consoled them when the places they wanted were gone. Still, the Enchantress Isis had not stirred, and a rumour was beginning to go round that something had happened, when suddenly I saw Antoun Effendi's green turban.
"Thank goodness!" muttered Sir Marcus, putting his watch into his pocket. And then Mrs. East came swiftly across the deck from the door of her own suite, where she must have stood watching, hidden behind the portière. "Oh, Antoun Effendi!" she cried, and though her face was turned toward us, she did not seem to know that we existed. How Anthony looked at her we could not judge, for we saw only his back; but her eyes must have told Sir Marcus a piece of news. He glanced from her to Fenton, and from Fenton to her, with the expression of a school-boy who has been punished for something he hasn't done. Then he turned to me as though to ask a question; but shut his mouth tightly, as if gulping down a large pill, wheeled, and left me without a good-bye. I wondered, Cleopatra-fashion, what he had done in his last incarnation to deserve these heavy blows in the hour which should have seen his triumph. "What if he changes his mind and doesn't want Fenton and me after all?" I asked myself. To my surprise, I realized that it would be a genuine disappointment not to be wanted by Sir Marcus Lark. The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid had nothing to do with this. It was borne in upon me that I had begun to enjoy the rôle of conductor; and certainly I was learning lessons in high diplomacy which might be useful in my career.
Anthony, who was free as an eagle from questions of innovation trunks and how to give everybody the best cabins, and places at table, looked as if he were bound for the Island of Hesperides, on a voyage of pure romance. The air of gravity and responsibility he had worn in Cairo and in the desert was gone with the starting of the boat. I knew suddenly, without asking him, that his mission had been of a far more serious nature than the transplanting of a sheikh's tomb; that there had been something else, and that it had finished at the last moment in success.
"Sir Marcus was worrying about you," I said, when the importance of unpacking left the deck empty save for Anthony and me.
"You weren't, were you?" He was smiling at me in a friendly, confidential way that showed a happy mood.
"Not I! I knew you'd turn up, as you'd said you would."
"Thanks, my good Duffer. But now it's over, I don't mind telling you that it was a toss up."
"You mean there was a chance of your failing us—in spite of the Mountain?"
"Well, I meant to bring this off somehow. But my first duty was to finish up the Cairo business. I simply had to finish it, and I did. It was a—rather bigger job than the sheikh's tomb racket, though of course that was on the cards, too. Everything's all right now; but I spent last night in getting the full details of an Arab plot to blow up the house of a rich Copt, who's been of great service to the Government. Some of the young Nationalists think that the Christian Copts are put ahead of Moslems by the British, and there are jealousies. The whole set of men concerned in this affair were arrested an hour ago, so all's well with the world! I'm free to turn my face toward the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid—free to enjoy myself, although I must stick to my turban still."