at he felt as if he were making a severe physical effort.
His eyes began to ache. His eyelids tickled. He rubbed his eyes,
blinked, put up the glasses, and looked again.

This time he saw a small boat detach itself from the side of the
_Loulia_, creep upon the river almost imperceptibly. The doll was still
moving by the rail. Then, as the boat dropped down the river, coming
towards Isaacson, it ceased to move.

Isaacson laid down the glass. As he did so, he saw the crafty eyes of
Hassan watching him from the lower deck. He longed to give Hassan a
knock-down blow, but he pretended not to have seen him.

He sat down on a deck-chair, out of range of Hassan's eyes, and waited
for the coming of the messenger of Bella Donna.

Although his detective's mind had told him what the message must be,
something within him, some other part of him, strove to contradict the
foreknowledge of the detective, to protest that till the message was
actually in his hands he could know nothing about it. This protesting
something was that part of a man which is driven into activity by his
secret and strong desire, a desire which his instinct for the naked
truth of things may declare to be vain, but which, nevertheless, will
not consent to lie idle.

He secretly longed for the message to be what he secretly knew it would
not be.

At last he heard the plash of oars quite near to the _Fatma_ and deep
voices of men chanting, almost muttering, a monotonous song that set the
time for the oars. And although it rose up to him out of a golden world,
it was like a chant of doom.

He did not move, he did not look over the side. The chant died away, the
plash of the oars was hushed. There was a slight impact. Then guttural
voices spoke together.

A minute later Hassan came up the companion, carrying a letter in his
curling dark fingers.

"The message him comin', him heeyah!"

Isaacson took the letter.

"You needn't stay."

Hassan did not move.

"I waitin' for--"

"Go away!"

Isaacson had never before spoken so roughly, so almost ferociously to a
dependant. When Hassan had gone, ferociously Isaacson opened the letter.
It was not very long, and his eyes seized every word of it almost at a
glance--seized every word and conveyed to his brain the knowledge,
undesired by him, that the detective had been right.

"Loulia, Nile, Wednesday.

"Dear Doctor,

"I find it is better not. When I came on board again I found Nigel