“How can I know anything of it, if it is lost? But what do you know?”
“I, mother? Nothing; I am interested by the story and in old temples, that is all, and I was certain that a person who can interpret the voices of the river, the winds, and the sands, must know all about it.”
“Well, perhaps I do,” she answered coolly. “Perhaps I would tell you also to whom I am so grateful. Come to my hut and we will see.”
“No,” he said, “not to-night. I must go back to my camp; I have letters to write. Another time, Bakhita.”
“Very well, another time, and afterwards perhaps we may visit that temple together. Who can say? But I think that you will have letters to read as well as to write this evening. Listen!” and she held up her hand and bent her head towards the river.
“I hear nothing except a jackal howling,” he answered.
“Don’t you? I hear the beat of a steamer’s paddles. She will be moored by Abu-Simbel in just three hours.”
“Nonsense!” said Rupert. “I don’t expect her for a week.”
“People often get what they don’t expect,” she answered. “Good-night, Rupert Bey! All the gods that ever were in Egypt have you in their keeping till we meet again.”
Then she turned without more words, and by the light of the risen moon began to pick her way swiftly among the rocks fallen from the cliff face, that lay on the brink of the flooded Nile, till half a mile or so further north she passed through the fence of her garden and came to her own mud hut.