Over our heads armies of migrating birds made a network like a great floating scarf of beads, each bead a bird: and the blue water round the slow-gliding Enchantress was crowded with boats of so many hitherto unknown sorts, that they might have been visiting craft from another world: feluccas with sails red or white, or painted in strange patterns, or awninged; some with rails like open trellis work of many colours, over which dark faces shone like copper in the sunshine; rowing boats, "galleys" with fluttering flags, and old soap-boxes roughly lined with tin, in which naked imps of boys perilously paddled. Out from the boats rushed music in clouds like incense; wild, African music of chanting voices, beating tom-toms, or clapping hands that clacked together like castanets. Very old men and very young youths thumped furiously on earthen drums shaped like the jars of Elephantine, once so famous that they travelled the length of Egypt filled with wine. The breeze that fanned to us from beyond the palms and lebbeks, the roses and azaleas, was soft and flower-laden. There was a scent in it, too, as of ripe grapes, as if a fragrance lingered from vanished days when wine for the gods was made from Elephantine vineyards, and fig-trees never lost their leaves. We ourselves, and our big three-decked boat were alone in our modernity, if one forgot the line of gay buildings on the shore. Everything else might have been of the time when the world supposed Elephantine to be placed directly on the Tropic of Cancer, and believed in the magic lamp which lit the unfathomable well; the time when quarries of red and yellow clay gave riches to the island, and all Egypt thanked its gods when Elephantine's Nilemeter showed that the Two Lands would be plentifully watered.
Most of us were going to live on board the Enchantress for our three days at Assuan; but, hearing that lords and ladies of high degrees swarmed at the Cataract Hotel with its wild, watery view of tumbled rocks, and at the Savoy in its flowery gardens, some went where they might hope to cross the path of dukes and duchesses.
The Monny-ites were not "wild" about the aristocracy, nor would royalty (of later date than the Ptolemies) have lured Cleopatra from her suite on the boat. But the whole party was eager for shore, and no sooner had the Enchantress put her foot on the yellow sands than she was deserted by her passengers. The bazaars were the first attractions, for "everybody said" that they were as fine in their way as the bazaars of Cairo; so very soon we were all buying silver, ivory, stuffed crocodiles and ostrich feathers from the Sudan, which now opened its gates not far ahead: the Sudan, mysterious, unknown, and vast.
Cleopatra clung to me, with a certain wistfulness, as if in this incarnation she were not so intimately at home in Upper Egypt as she had hoped to be. Perhaps this loneliness of her soul was due to the fact that instead of seeking her society, "Anthony with an H" seldom came near her now. Something had warned him off. He would never tell me or any one on earth: but, unused to the ways of women as he was, I felt sure that he had been uncomfortably enlightened as to Cleopatra's feelings. The cure, according to his prescription, was evidently to be "absent treatment." But there was another which I fancied might be efficacious; the sudden arrival on the scene of Marcus Antonius Lark.
I happened to know that he proposed a dash from Cairo to Assuan by train, for I had received two telegrams at the moment of walking off the boat. The first message announced his almost immediate advent; the second regretted unavoidable delay, but expressed an intention not to let us steam away for Wady Halfa without seeing him. The excuse alleged was business, but I thought I saw through it, and sympathized; for he whom I had once cursed as a brutal tyrant of money-bags now loomed large as a pathetic figure.
Despite the lesson of the lotuses, I believed that his motive was to try his chance with Mrs. East; that life had become intolerable, unless "Lark's Luck" might hold again; and that he could not wait till the cruel lady returned to Cairo. It was a toss-up, as we walked side by side to the incense-laden bazaar, whether I told her the news or left her to be surprised by the unexpected visitor. Eventually I decided that silence would help the cause; and in thus making up my mind I was far from guessing that my own fate and Monny's and Anthony's and Brigit's hung also on that insignificant decision. I was thankful that Mrs. East said no more of bringing her niece and me together, and that, on the contrary, she dropped dark hints about "everything in life which she had wanted" being now "too late, and useless to hope for" in this incarnation. Why she had changed her plans for Monny I could not be sure; enough for me that she apparently had changed them.
Sir Marcus did not appear the next day or the next, and I heard no more. Indeed, between dread of breaking the truth to Bill Bailey, and self-reproach at letting time pass without breaking it, I almost forgot Lark's love affair. I salved my conscience by working unnecessarily hard, and even helping Kruger with his accounts, when Anthony too generously relieved me of other duties.
How I envied Fenton at this time, because no girls asked him what men they ought to marry; or implored him to prevent men from jilting them; or urged him to enlighten handsome sculptors with wavy, soft hair, and hard eyes resembling the crystal orbs which were to become fashionable in Society! Anthony loved Assuan, and apparently enjoyed displaying its beauties. Not knowing that I hid a fox under my mantle, he meant to be kind in "taking people off my hands," giving them tea on the Cataract Hotel veranda; escorting them to the ruined Saracen Castle which, with Elephantine opposite, barred the river and made a noble gateway; leading them at sunset to the Arab cemetery in the desert, and to the Bisharin village where wild, dark creatures (whose hair was pinned with arrows and whose ancestors were mentioned in the Bible) sold baskets and bracelets and what not. There were really, as Sir John Biddell remarked, a "plethora of sights," not counting the magnificent Rock Tombs, since the Set had definitely "struck" against tombs of all descriptions. But even with an excursion to the ancient quarries, for a look at half-finished obelisks, for once I had not enough to do. And Fenton had snatched Biddy from me as well as Monny. Mercilessly he had them sightseeing every moment. And I could no longer scold Rachel for "letting things slide." To blame her would be for the pot to call the kettle black.
It was on the day of the Great Dam that I screwed my courage to the sticking-place, and made Bailey understand that his fiancée was nobody but Rachel Guest; that she would be Rachel Guest all her life until she became Mrs. Some One-or-Other: preferably Mrs. Willis Bailey. Somehow it seemed appropriate to do the deed at the Dam. And always in future, when people ask what impression the eighth wonder of the world made upon me, I shall doubt for an instant whether they refer to the American sculptor, or to the Barrage.
The way in which we went was so impressive that it was comparatively easy to be keyed up to anything.