Here Bakhita sat down on the ground by its door, and was very thoughtful whilst she awaited the coming of the steamer, of which either her own ears or perhaps some traveller had warned her. For Bakhita also expected a letter, or, at any rate, a message, and she was thinking of the writer or the sender.
“A mad whim,” she said to herself. “Had not Tama wisdom enough of her own, which comes to her with her blood, that she needs must go to learn that of these white people, and to do so, leave her high place to mix even with the daughters of Fellaheen, and hide her beauty behind the yashmak of a worshipper of the false Prophet? Surely the god of our fathers must have struck her mad, and now she is in great danger at the hands of that dog Ibrahim. Yet, who knows? This madness may be true wisdom. Oh! there are things too high for me, nor can my skill read all her fate. So here at my post I bide to watch and learn as I was bidden.”
CHAPTER II.
TWO LETTERS
When Rupert reached his camp beyond the great temple, he asked the sergeant of his guard whether the Sheik Ibrahim had been there with his servants. The soldier answered that he had seen no sheik.
“He must have been watching to find me alone; lucky I had my pistol with me,” thought Rupert to himself.
Then he ate his dinner, and afterwards sat down and wrote a report of this and other matters to his superiors in Cairo. As he finished copying the paper, to his surprise he heard a steamer hoot, and next minute his orderly informed him that a boat coming up stream was making fast opposite to the temple.
“So old Bakhita was right, after all. What long ears she must have,” thought Rupert, as he started to board the steamer.
She proved to be a Government boat from Assouan, carrying a company of Egyptian troops under the command of a brother-officer of his own, who brought him despatches and private letters. Though one of the latter was in the handwriting of his mother, from whom he was most anxious to hear, as no letter of hers had reached him for some time, it was characteristic of Rupert that he read the despatches first. Amongst other things, these contained an order that he should proceed at once to Cairo, there to advise with his chiefs on certain matters connected with the state of affairs in the Wady-Halfa district. They informed him also that the officer who brought them would stay to carry on his work at Abu-Simbel.
As the boat was to start down Nile at dawn, Rupert spent most of the night in making arrangements with his successor, and in instructing him as to the political position. When this duty was finished, and the company of soldiers had been disembarked and camped, his own packing claimed attention, so that, in the end, he did not get aboard the steamer till nearly four o’clock in the morning—that is, about an hour before she cast off. Going at once to his cabin, Rupert opened his mother’s envelope, to find that the letter within was written with pencil, and in a very shaky hand. Consumed by anxiety, he began to read. It ran as follows;—
My Dearest Son,—My last letter to you was that which I wrote to say how thankful I was to hear that by God’s mercy you had safely passed the great dangers of the battle of Toski, and the delight with which I saw you so favourably spoken of in the official despatches reporting the victory.