by Arab pedlars.
Mademoiselle’s companion, a Miss Gabrielle Lambert, was a woman of quite a different stamp. She was nearly thirty, with a rather sad, thoughtful face, but unmistakably a lady by birth and breeding, half English, half French, though she never spoke much of herself. Travelling with the two girls was an old and peculiarly shrewd grey-haired Frenchman, an uncle of mademoiselle named Jules Gigleux, a good type of the dandified though elderly Parisian, yet to Hubert – a student of men – he was from the first something of a mystery.
Ahmed, the silent dignified servant with the face of bronze, handed mademoiselle a small plate of bon-bons. She took one, and then turning to the diplomat, exclaimed in her pretty broken English:
“I’ve at last persuaded uncle to take us up to Wady Haifa! I’m longing to see the Second Cataract. We have booked berths by the steamer next Monday.”
“Next Monday!” Waldron echoed. “Why then we shall be fellow-passengers again, mademoiselle. I booked my berth a month ago. I’ve been up there before. You will be much impressed by the rock-hewn Temple of Abu Simbel, the finest and most remarkable sight on the Nile.”
“I read all about it in the guide-books on board the Arabia,” she said with her pretty French accent. “It is to see the wonderful temple that I want to go there, although my uncle has been trying all day to put obstacles in the way. It takes a fortnight, and he seems to want to get back to Paris – whatever for, I fail to imagine.”
“He’s tired of the Nile, like our young friend Chester,” laughed Waldron mischievously. “I really believe Chester prefers a motor-run to Brighton with lunch at Crawley and tea at the Métropole.”
“All this jargon about Rameses, the great god, Osiris, good old Horus, Amen Ra, and all those gods with weird heads of birds and horned animals, the cartouches which the Pharaohs stuck upon everything – oh, it becomes so horribly boring,” declared the young fellow with a yawn. “And everywhere one goes some Arab appears from nowhere pestering you to buy an imitation scarab or some blue beads made in Birmingham a few weeks ago. Why on the Prince Luitpold Regent from Marseilles we had a man bringing over a fresh consignment of Egyptian antiques for the season! He showed me some!”
“Ah!” laughed Lola, “I see you are not held by the spell of Egypt, as we all are. Personally, I love it, and enjoy every moment of the day. It is all so very different to everything else I have seen.”
“You have travelled a good deal, eh, mademoiselle?” asked Waldron, his tea-cup in his hand.
“Ah, yes; a good deal. I’ve seen most of the capitals of Europe,” was her rather vague reply. “But there is nothing like Egypt – nothing half so interesting as life up here, away from modern civilisation and yet so full of up-to-date comfort. I marvel at everything – even at this hotel. They tell me all the food – even the fish and poultry – comes from Europe. All that we eat is brought a couple of thousand miles!”
“Yes,” Miss Lambert agreed. “The English have done marvels in Egypt without a doubt.”
Waldron glanced at Lola, and thought he had never seen her looking so indescribably charming. She was slightly flushed after riding that afternoon, but in her neat, clean linen gown, with her green-lined sun-helmet set slightly back on her head she presented a delightful picture of feminine daintiness and charm.
At that moment Edna Eastham, a tall, well-built girl of twenty-two, crossed the veranda laughing loudly over to two ladies of the party who sat near, and took a vacant table for tea, whereupon Chester Dawson, with a word of excuse, rose quickly and, crossing, joined her.
“Chester seems quite fed up,” declared Waldron when the young fellow had gone.
“Yes. But he’s coming with us up to Wady Haifa,” said mademoiselle.
“Because Miss Eastham is going,” remarked the diplomat with a sarcastic smile.
“Perhaps so. But do you know,” she went on, “I’ve had such awful trouble to persuade uncle to take me on. He is anxious to get back to Europe – says he has some pressing business and all that.”
“The heat affects him, I believe; it is trying to one not used to it,” the man replied.
“Yes. But I think it would be a shame to turn back now that we have got up here so far. He was saying only last night that the trip up from Shellal to Wady Haifa was not over-safe – that the Nubians are hostile, and we might be attacked and murdered!”
“Not much fear of that nowadays,” Waldron laughed. “Our rule here has straightened things out. I admit, however, that there is a good deal of hostility about here, and I believe there are arms on board the Shellal steamers in case of trouble. But we anchor each night in mid-stream and a good watch is kept, while all the crew, though they are Arabs, have been in the service of the Steamboat Company for many years, and are quite loyal. So don’t be nervous in the least, mademoiselle, for I assure you there is really no necessity.”
“Uncle Jules is always fond of discovering dangers where none exist,” she laughed. “I haven’t given the matter a second thought. We are going on Monday – and that is sufficient.”
The broad-shouldered, rather dandified old Frenchman, Jules Gigleux, sauntered out from the hotel and joined them a few moments later. He was rather stout, grey-haired – with a small, well-clipped moustache, and a pair of sharp beady eyes which seemed to search everywhere – a man who, though burly and apparently easy-going, was nevertheless remarkably shrewd and sly.
These latter traits in Monsieur Gigleux’s character had aroused Hubert’s suspicions. He seemed ever watchful and curiously distrustful and shifty – a man who, though he made pretence of being open and straightforward and easy-going, was full of craft and deep cunning.
“Well, uncle,” exclaimed Lola, dropping into French as the man seated himself in the chair vacated by young Dawson, “we’ve just been discussing the possibility of all of us being murdered by Arabs on our way up to Wady Haifa!” and she laughed mischievously.
“It is not very safe,” snapped the old gentleman in French. “I hear that the Egyptian police have a great deal of trouble to keep the country in order between Shellal and Wady Haifa.”
“Ah!” Waldron exclaimed, “I fear, m’sieur, you are somewhat misinformed. That portion of the Nile runs through Upper Nubia, and the people are more loyal to the British than they are even in Cairo.”
“Cairo,” sniffed the old man. “Why, trouble is expected there every day. Sedition is rife all over Egypt. If your Kitchener had not taken such a strong hand a year ago the country would now be in open revolt. The British are not loved in Europe. I say that,” he added quickly, “without disrespect of your country, m’sieur, please understand.”
“Perfectly,” was the diplomat’s reply. “But while I admit what you say is the truth, and, further, that there is a growing discontent, yet I still feel that, as far as we are concerned, though a little handful of Europeans and a great country peopled by Nubians, we are nevertheless quite safe. I was up there two years ago, and we did not even have a police escort when we landed at Kalabsha or Abu Simbel – indeed, we never saw a policeman.”
“Ah, that was two years ago,” remarked Monsieur Gigleux, quite unconcerned.
“Oh, we shan’t come to any harm, Uncle Jules,” his niece assured him. “I intend to have a real good time, M’sieur Waldron,” added the girl, who, having finished her tea, rose and went to the balcony, where she stood alone watching the magnificent
