At this moment the lady patient who had written to Isaacson from the Nile and mentioned Nigel came up with exclamations of wonder and delight, to engage all his attention.  For nearly an hour he strolled from end to end of the crescent and talked with her.  When at last she slowly vanished in the direction of the temple of Luxor, accompanied by a villainous-looking dragoman who was “the most intelligent, simple-minded old dear” in Upper Egypt, Isaacson, with decision, descended the steps and stood on the sand by Hassan.

“Where’s that dahabeeyah you spoke about?” he said.  “I’ll go and have a look at her.”

That evening, just before sunset he went on board the Fatma as proprietor.

He had been bargaining steadily for some hours, and felt weary, though triumphant, as he stood upon the upper deck, with Hassan in attendance, while the crew poled off from the bank into the golden river.  Despite the earnest solicitations of the lady patient and various acquaintances staying in Luxor, he had given the order to remove to the western bank of the Nile.  There he could be at peace.

Friends of his cried out adieux from the road in front of the shops and the great hotel.  Unknown donkey-boys saluted.  Tourists stood at gaze.  He answered and looked back.  But already a new feeling was stealing over him; already he was forgetting the turmoil of Luxor.  The Reis stood on the raised platform in the stern, still as a figure of bronze, with the gigantic helm in his hand.  The huge sail hung limp from the mast.  Then there came a puff of wind.  Slowly the shore receded.  Slowly the Fatma crept over the wrinkled gold of the river towards the unwrinkled gold of the west.  And Isaacson stood there, alone among his Egyptians, and saw his first sunset on the Nile.  Over the gold from Thebes came boats going to the place he had left.  And the boatmen sang the deep and drowsy chant that set the time for the oars.  Mrs. Armine had often heard it.  Now Isaacson heard it, and he thought of the beating pulse in a certain symphony to which he had listened with Nigel, and of the beating pulse of life; and he thought, too, of the destinies of men that often seem so fatal.  And he sank down in the magical wonder of this old and golden world.

“Don’t tie up near any other dahabeeyah.”

“No, gentlemans,” said Hassan.

Again the crew got out their poles.  Two men stripped, went overboard with a rope, and, running along the shore, towed the Fatma up stream against the tide till she came to a lonely place where two men were vehemently working a shaduf.  There they tied up for the night.

The gold was fading.  Less brilliant, but deeper now, was the dream of river and shore, of the groves of palms and the mountains.  Here and there, far off, a window, touched by a dying ray of light, glittered out of the softened dusk.  Isaacson leaned over the rail.  This evening, after his long months of perpetual work in a house in London, deprived of all real light, he felt like a man taken by the hand and led into Heaven.  Behind him the naked fellahin, unmindful of his presence, cried aloud in the fading gold.