"Ibrahim! Ibrahim!" she cried out.
He rose from the sands and sauntered towards her. He came and stood silently beside her.
"Ibrahim," she began.
She looked at him, and was silent. Then she called on her resolute self, on the self that had been hardened, coarsened, by the life which she had led.
"Ibrahim, do you know where Baroudi is--what he has been doing all this time?" she asked.
"What he has bin doin' I dunno, my lady. Baroudi he doos very many things."
"I want to know what he has been doing. I must, I will know."
The spell of place, the spell of the great and frigid silence, was suddenly and completely broken. Mrs. Armine stood up in the sand. She was losing her self-control. She looked at the dreary prospect before her, growing sadder as evening drew on; she thought of Nigel perfectly happy, she even saw him down there a black speck in the immensity, creeping onward towards his pleasure, and a fury that was vindictive possessed her. It seemed to her absolutely monstrous that such a woman as she was should be in such a place, in such a situation, waiting in the sand alone, deserted, with nothing to do, no one to speak to, no prospect of pleasure, no prospect of anything. A loud voice within her seemed suddenly to cry, to shriek, "I won't stand this. I won't stand it."
"I'm sick of the Fayyum," she said fiercely, "utterly sick of it. I want to go back to the Nile. Do you know where Baroudi is? Is he on the Nile? I hate, I loathe this place."
"My lady," said Ibrahim, very gently, "there is good jackal-shootin' here."
"Jackal-shooting, duck-shooting--so you think of nothing but your master's pleasure!" she said, indignantly. "Do you suppose I'm going to sit still here in the sand for days, and do nothing, and see nobody, while--while--"
She stopped. She could not go on. The fierceness of her anger almost choked her. If Nigel had been beside her at that moment, she would have been capable of showing even to him something of her truth. Ibrahim's voice again broke gently in upon her passion.
"My lady, for jackal-shootin' you have to go out at night. You have to go down there when it is dark, and stay there for a long while, till the jackal him come. You tie a goat; the jackal him smell the goat and presently him comin'."
She stared at him almost blankly. What had all this rhodomontade to do with her? Ibrahim met her eyes.
"All this very interestin' for my Lord Arminigel," said Ibrahim, softly.