After a few arguments, we agreed with "Antoun," as we usually ended by doing, and soothed our restlessness by visiting Mr. Bronson to tell him of our disappointment. If it hadn't been for Monny, I think the Consul would have taken the point of view that he was now "out" of the affair, but Monny, sapphire-eyed with generous zeal, is rather irresistible. Fired by her enthusiasm, as he had not been by my beguiling, he volunteered to go to Luxor on two or three days' leave, with his wife, to visit a Syrian friend who had often vainly invited them to his villa, and arriving if possible about the time our boat was due. If we succeeded in our quest, we might bring Mabel to them, and they would smuggle her back to the American Consulate at Asiut.
Our great adventure thus postponed, we let the Nile-dream take us once more; and though we had moments of impatience, the dream was too fair to be resisted. Besides, we were all four dreaming it together. Poor Cleopatra was the only one outside, for Rachel Guest was dreaming her own dream, with an extremely practical side to it, unless Biddy and I were mistaken. She wore Monny's clothes, and used her special perfume, and took advantage of the same initials, to accept gifts of filmy handkerchiefs and monogrammed bags and brushes. Also she had firmly annexed most of the men on board who would, in normal states of mind, have belonged to the Gilded Rose. But they all seemed to have gone mad on the subject of Miss Guest. Even Harry Snell, who had been the property of Enid Biddell on board the Candace, on the Enchantress Isis was gravitating Guest-ward, lured by that meek, mysterious witchery which I was trying hard to understand.
We got past Sohâg, and the famous White and Red Coptic Monasteries built by Saint Helena, without jarring notes of any sort in the Nile-dream (save for the failure of our rescue plot): past Akhmin, which Herodotus wrote of as Chemmis: past Girgah, where once stood ancient This, that gave the first dynasty of kings to Egypt: but when we arrived at Baliana to visit Abydos, between Enid Biddell and Harry Snell I had an interlude of nightmare. It was Rachel's fault, but it was I who had to suffer for her sins. I, who had engaged as Conductor of the Set and found myself their Arbiter as well.
Other tourists on other boats do not see Abydos until the return trip; but the aim of Sir Marcus was originality as well as "exclusiveness." This was a special tour, and everything we were to do must be special. Some passengers might wish to stay longer than others at Khartum, or from there go up the White or Blue Nile after Big Game. Or they might tire of the Nile, and wish to tear back to Cairo by train. Sir Marcus was boldly outdoing his rivals by allowing clients to engage cabins for "up Nile" only, instead of paying the return also: and they were not to miss any temple because of this concession. "I consider it an advertisement, and a cheap one," he had explained to me, in saying that we were to visit at Abydos on our way south.
Beautiful smiling donkeys, adorned with beads and amulets, met us at the boat-landing. We ought to have called it Al-Balyana, but we didn't. We called it Baliana, and we pronounced Abydos according to our education. We had a ride of an hour and a half from the boat to the temple; and having sent off Cleopatra and Lady Biddell in a carriage, my conscience was free, my heart light. The sun shone on tawny desert hills, like lions creeping stealthily out from the horizon toward the Nile to drink. There were sweet smells of unseen flowers, and herbs such as ancient Egyptian doctors used, and I looked forward to keeping my donkey near Biddy's. Of course I ought to have preferred Monny's, but then, I could talk of Monny to Biddy, and we had had so many subjects in common since childhood that it was restful to ride even the most energetic donkey at the side of "Mrs. Jones." No sooner, however, had I begun to urge my gray animal after her white one, than I was called by Enid Biddell. "Oh, Lord Ernest! I must speak to you!" she pleaded so piteously that I couldn't pretend not to hear.
When we were ambling side by side, separated from the rest of the party by a gleaming cloud of copper dust, a few long-haired, brown sheep, some blue-eyed water buffalo, and a plague of little birds, Enid turned upon me a pair of tear-wet eyes.
"Why, Miss Biddell, what is the matter—or is it a cold in your head?" I asked anxiously.
"It's not a cold in my head," she confessed. "It's a dreadful, dreadful pain in my heart. And you're the only one who can cure it."
For a fearful moment I thought that she was going to propose. One hears of these awful visitations. But I need not have trembled.
"I feel as if I could say anything to you," she murmured. "You are so understanding, and so sympathetic."