"What is it, Ruby?" asked Nigel. "Have you forgotten anything?"
"No, no. Is it this side? Or must we have the felucca? I forget."
"It's this side. The Loulia is tied up here on purpose. The donkeys, Hamza!"
He spoke kindly, but in the authoritative voice of the young Englishman addressing a native. Without changing his expression, Hamza went softly and swiftly over the gangway to the shore, climbed the steep brown bank, and was gone--a flash of white through the gold.
"He's a useful fellow, that!" said Nigel. "And now, Ruby, to seek the blessing of the Egyptian Aphrodite. It will be easily won, for Aphrodite could never turn her face from you."
As their tripping donkeys drew near to that lonely temple, where a sad Hathor gazes in loneliness upon the courts that are no longer thronged with worshippers, Mrs. Armine fell into silence. The disagreeable impression she had received here on her first visit was returning. But on her first visit she had been tired, worn with travel. Now she was strong, in remarkable health. She would not be the victim of her nerves. Nevertheless, as the donkeys covered the rough ground, as she saw the pale façade of the temple confronting her in the pale sands, backed by the almost purple sky, she remembered the carven face of the goddess, and a fear that was superstitious stirred in her heart. Why had Nigel suggested that they should seek the blessing of this tragic Aphrodite? No blessing, surely, could emanate from this dark dwelling in the sands, from this goddess long outraged by desertion.
They dismounted, and went into the temple. No one was there except the chocolate-coloured guardian, who greeted them with a smile of welcome that showed his broken teeth.
"May your day be happy!" he said to them in Arabic.
"He ought to say, 'May all your days on the Nile be happy,' Ruby," said Nigel.
"He only wants the day on which we pay him to be happy. On any other day we might die like dogs, and he wouldn't care."
She stood still in the first court, and looked up at the face of Hathor, which seemed to regard the distant spaces with an eternal sorrow.
"I think you count too much on happiness, Nigel," she added. She felt almost impelled by the face to say it. "I believe it's a mistake to count upon things," she added.
"You think it's a mistake to look forward, as I am doing, to our Nile journey?"
"Perhaps."
She walked on slowly into the lofty dimness of the temple.
"One never knows what is going to happen," she added. And there was almost a grimness in her voice.