re his eyes.

* * * * *

It was dawn. The Nile was smooth as a river of oil. Light mists rolled
upwards gently, discovering the rosy flanks of the Libyan mountains to
the sun. The sky began to glimmer with a dancing golden heat. On the
brown bank where the boats lie in the shadow a man stood alone. His
hands were tightly clenched. His lips worked silently. His eyes were
fixed in a stare. And away in the distance up river, a tiny trail of
smoke floated towards Luxor. It came from a steam tug that drew a
following dahabeeyah.

The _Queen Hatasoo_ was on her voyage to Assouan.

THE FACE OF THE MONK

I

"No, it will not hurt him to see you," the doctor said to me; "and I
have no doubt he will recognise you. He is the quietest patient I have
ever had under my care--gentle, kind, agreeable, perfect in conduct, and
yet quite mad. You know him well?"

"He was my dearest friend," I said. "Before I went out to America three
years ago we were inseparable. Doctor, I cannot believe that he is mad,
he--Hubert Blair--one of the cleverest young writers in London, so
brilliant, so acute! Wild, if you like, a libertine perhaps, a strange
mixture of the intellectual and the sensual--but mad! I can't believe
it!"

"Not when I tell you that he was brought to me suffering from acute
religious mania?"

"Religious! Hubert Blair!"

"Yes. He tried to destroy himself, declaring that he was unfit to live,
that he was a curse to some person unknown. He protested that each deed
of his affected this unknown person, that his sins were counted as the
sins of another, and that this other had haunted him--would haunt him
for ever."

The doctor's words troubled me.

"Take me to him," I said at last. "Leave us together."

It was a strange, sad moment when I entered the room in which Hubert was
sitting. I was painfully agitated. He knew me, and greeted me warmly. I
sat down opposite to him.

* * * * *

There was a long silence. Hubert looked away into the fire. He saw, I
think, traced in scarlet flames, the scenes he was going to describe to
me; and I, gazing at him, wondered of what nature the change in my
friend might be. That he had changed since we were together three years
ago was evident, yet he did not look mad. His dark, clean-shaven young
face was still passionate. The brown eyes were still lit with a certain
devouring eagerness. The mouth had not lost its mi