"Ibrahim Ahmed, my lady."
She looked at his gold-coloured robe, at his European jacket, at the green and gold fringed handkerchief which he had wound about his tarbush, and which covered his throat and fell down upon his breast.
"Very pretty," she said, approvingly. "But I don't like the jacket. It looks too English."
"It is a present from London, my lady."
"Al-lah—"
Always the sailors' song seemed growing louder, more vehement, more insistent, like a strange fanaticism ever increasing in the bosom of the night.
"Where are those people singing, Ibrahim?" said Mrs. Armine.
She put his flower in the front of her gown, opening her cloak to do so.
"They seem to get nearer and nearer. Are they coming down the river?"
"I s'pose they are in a felucca, my lady. They are Noobian peoples. They always make that song. It is a pretty song."