ngareb, and the two men laughing in the stern gave no
thought to their charge. Calder watched the blaze of yellow light creep
over the black recumbent figure from the feet upwards. It burnt at last
bright and pitiless upon the face. Yet the living creature beneath the
veil never stirred. The veil never fluttered above the lips, the legs
remained stretched out straight, the arms lay close against the side.

Calder shouted to the two men in the stern.

"Move the angareb into the shadow," he cried, "and be quick!"

The Arabs rose reluctantly and obeyed him.

"Is it a man or woman?" asked Calder.

"A man. We are taking him to the hospital at Assouan, but we do not
think that he will live. He fell from a palm tree three weeks ago."

"You give him nothing to eat or drink?"

"He is too ill."

It was a common story and the logical outcome of the belief that life
and death are written and will inevitably befall after the manner of the
writing. That man lying so quiet beneath the black covering had probably
at the beginning suffered nothing more serious than a bruise, which a
few simple remedies would have cured within a week. But he had been
allowed to lie, even as he lay upon the angareb, at the mercy of the
sun and the flies, unwashed, unfed, and with his thirst unslaked. The
bruise had become a sore, the sore had gangrened, and when all remedies
were too late, the Egyptian Mudir of Korosko had discovered the accident
and sent the man on the steamer down to Assouan. But, familiar though
the story was, Calder could not dismiss it from his thoughts. The
immobility of the sick man upon the native bedstead in a way fascinated
him, and when towards sunset a strong wind sprang up and blew against
the stream, he felt an actual comfort in the knowledge that the sick man
would gain some relief from it. And when his neighbour that evening at
the dinner table spoke to him with a German accent, he suddenly asked
upon an impulse:--

"You are not a doctor by any chance?"

"Not a doctor," said the German, "but a student of medicine at Bonn. I
came from Cairo to see the Second Cataract, but was not allowed to go
farther than Wadi Halfa."

Calder interrupted him at once. "Then I will trespass upon your holiday
and claim your professional assistance."

"For yourself? With pleasure, though I should never have guessed you
were ill," said the student, smiling good-naturedly behind his
eyeglasses.

"Nor am I. It is an Arab for whom