“Yes, or at least all the experts whom we consulted have a theory.  It is that she slipped down the saloon in the dark, gained the deck and thence fell or threw herself into the Nile, which of course would have carried her body away.  As you may have heard, the Nile is full of bodies.  I myself saw two of them during that journey.  The Egyptian police and others were so convinced that this was what had happened that, notwithstanding the reward of a thousand pounds which I offered for any valuable information, they could scarcely be persuaded to continue the search.”

“You said that a wind was blowing and I understand that the shores are sandy, so I suppose that all footprints would have been filled in?”

He nodded and I went on.  “What is your own belief?  Do you think she was drowned?”

He countered my query with another of: 

“What do you think?”

“I?  Oh! although I have no right to say so, I don’t think at all.  I am quite sure that she was not drowned; that she is living at this moment.”

“Where?”

“As to that you had better inquire of our friends, Harut and Marut,” I answered dryly.

“What have you to go on, Quatermain?  There is no clue.”

“On the contrary I hold that there are a good many clues.  The whole English part of the story in which we were concerned, and the threats those mysterious persons uttered are the first and greatest of these clues.  The second is the fact that your hiring of the dahabeeyah regardless of expense was known a long time before your arrival in Egypt, for I suppose you did so in your own name, which is not exactly that of Smith or Brown.  The third is your wife’s sleep-walking propensities, which would have made it quite easy for her to be drawn ashore under some kind of mesmeric influence.  The fourth is that you had seen Arabs mounted on camels upon the banks of the Nile.  The fifth is the heavy sleep you say held everybody on board that particular night, which suggests to me that your food may have been drugged.  The sixth is the apathy displayed by those employed in the search, which suggests to me that some person or persons in authority may have been bribed, as is common in the East, or perhaps frightened with threats of bewitchment.  The seventh is that a night was chosen when a wind blew which would obliterate all spoor whether of men or of swiftly travelling camels.  These are enough to begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think I could find others.  You must remember too that although the journey would be long, this country of the Kendah can doubtless be reached from the Sudan by those who know the road, as well as from southern or eastern Africa.”

“Then you think that my wife has been kidnapped by those villains, Harut and Marut?”

“Of course, though villains is a strong term to apply to them.  They might be quite honest men according to their peculiar lights, as indeed I expect they are.  Remember that they serve a god or a fetish, or rather, as they believe, a god in a fetish, who to them doubtless is a very terrible master, especially when, as I understand, that god is threatened by a rival god.”