It was almost certain that a steam dahabeah could not unseen have passed the Enchantress Isis at Abu Simbel in broad daylight, going back toward Assuan. Therefore, since it was not moored near the temple, if it had been in the neighbourhood at all it must have dashed on ahead of us in the direction of Wady Haifa. With pleasure would we have given immediate chase, had not the Enchantress been pledged to remain at Abu Simbel till afternoon. Even as it was, I expected to catch up with a boat so much smaller than our own; but Anthony damped my hopes, explaining the difficulties of navigation between Abu Simbel and Wady Haifa. There were, he said, great shifting sandbanks in the water which looked so transparently green, so treacherously clear. Without the most prudent piloting the river was actually dangerous, as new sandbanks had a habit of forming the minute you shut your eyes or turned your back. The Enchantress would have to pick her way slowly through the silver sands of the Nile, which mingled with the spilt gold-dust of the desert shore. All the same, these impudent rascals would find it hard to hide from us at Wady Haifa, especially if we stopped the boat and wired from the next telegraph station to have them watched on the arrival of their dahabeah.
"Perhaps, as they're so clever they'll be clever enough not to arrive at all," was my suggestion. And Anthony could only shrug his shoulders. "Wait and see" had to be our policy.
Happily the Set wandered in and out of the two temples, big and little, all the morning, ignorant of our worries which, even to us, seemed small under the benign gaze of the great Colossi. The three stone Rameses who had faces, wore expressions no one could ever forget; and there was a sense of loss in turning away from them.
A crocodile swam past the Enchantress as she steamed up river; a long, dark, prehistoric shape. He seemed an anachronism, but so did Bedr, with his plottings; yet both were real, real as this Nile-dream of dark rocks, of conical black mountains shaped like ruined pyramids, and yellow sandhills whose dazzling reflections turned the blue-green river to gold.
The next day at noon, we came to Wady Halfa; and the Enchantress Isis who had brought us eight hundred miles from Cairo, was now to be deserted by those with Khartum in view. All save three of the party were going on through this gate of the Sudan, where the river way ended and the desert-way began. Neill Sheridan was turning back immediately, in a government steamer; and a bride and groom who cared not where they were, if with each other, would wait on board the Enchantress until the band of passengers should return from Khartum.
These things had to be thought of. But I meant to let Kruger do most of the thinking, when we landed at the neat, colourful town of Halfa, which lies (as Assuan lies) all pink and blue and green along the river bank, sentinelled with trees. From a distance Anthony and I caught sight of the steam dahabeah seen near Kasr Ibrim, and we could hardly wait to get on shore. The camp was but a mile and a half away, and I had wired in Lark's name, to an officer whom he was sure to know, asking as a great favour to have the passengers on board a boat of that description watched; and requesting him if possible to meet the Enchantress on her arrival. "There he is!" said Fenton, standing at the rail. "I mustn't seem to recognise him, of course. Can't give myself away! But you—" "Good Lord, there's Bedr!" I broke in, hardly believing my eyes. And there Bedr was, looking as if butter would by no means melt in his mouth: Bedr, smiling from the pier, evidently there for the special purpose of meeting us. His ugly squat figure, and the tall, khaki-clad form of the officer, were conspicuous among squatting blacks, male and female, in gay turbans, veils, and mantles, muffled babies in arms, and children dressed in exceedingly brief fringes.
"I'll attend to him, while you powwow with Ireton," said Anthony, ready for the unexpected situation. And while the indispensable if humble Kruger showed the passengers how to get to the desert train, superintended the landing of the luggage, and made himself perspiringly useful, I thanked Major Ireton in Sir Marcus Lark's and my own name.
His news was astonishing. There were no passengers on board the steam dahabeah Mamoudieh. She had arrived with none save her crew, and the dragoman now talking with that good-looking Hadji there. As I murmured "Yes," and "No," and "Indeed—Really!" to the officer, who had kindly worked on our behalf, I was saying to myself, "My dear Duffer, what an ass you were not to think of that!" For of course the men had remained at Abu Simbel, hiding till we should be out of the way, and sending their boat on to put us off the track. A Cook steamer and a Hamburgh-American boat were due to stop at the temple. We had passed both on the river. By this time the two men were doubtless on their way north, making for Cairo and safety.
Still, here was Bedr, looking like a fat fly who had deliberately come to pay a call on the lean and hungry spider. I was impatient for the moment when the need for genuine gratitude and "faked" explanations was over, and Major Ireton had gone about other business.
Then I could follow the Hadji and the Armenian, who had mounted the steps leading up from river-level to the town. Not far off I could see the blue-windowed, white-painted desert train, round which, on the station platform, buzzed and scolded the Set, demanding their hand-luggage and their compartments. But Anthony and his victim (or was it by chance vice versa?) were keeping out of eyeshot and earshot of the late passengers of the Enchantress. Brigit and Monny, who must have seen Bedr, were too tactful to hover near: also they knew "Antoun Effendi" too well to think it necessary.