There was a moment of tense silence, in which Gordon hesitated and Helena waited breathlessly for his reply. Then with a great effort Gordon answered—
"El Hamdullillah!" cried the two black servants; and then Ishmael sent Zogal into the town and the camp to say that the faithful would bid farewell to Omar in the mosque the following night.
That evening after sunset, instead of delivering his usual lecture to the people squatting on the sand in front of his house, Ishmael read the prayers for the dead, while Gordon and Helena and a number of the Sheikhs sat on the divans in the guest-room.
When the service was over, and the company was breaking up, the old men pressed Gordon’s hand as they were passing out and said—
As soon as they were gone Gordon approached Helena and whispered hurriedly—
"I must speak to you soon—where can it be?"
"I ought to go to the water-women’s well by the Goods Landing to-morrow morning," said Helena.
His eyes were still full of the strange wild light.
At ten o’clock next morning Helena was at the well by the Goods Landing where the water-women draw water in their earthen jars to water the gardens and the streets, and while standing among the gross creatures who, with their half-naked bodies and stark-naked souls, were crowding about her for what they could get, she saw Gordon coming down in his Bedouin dress with a firm, strong step.
His flickering, steel-blue eyes were as full of light as when she saw them last, but that vague suggestion of his mother which she had hitherto seen in his face was gone, and there was a look of his father which she had never observed before.
"Let us walk this way," he said, indicating a road that went down to the empty and unfrequented tongue of land that leads to the point at which the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet.
"Helena," he said, stepping closely by her side, and speaking almost in her ear, "there is something I wish to say—to ask—and everything depends on your answer—what we are to do and what is to become of us."
"What is it?" said she, with trembling voice.
"When our escape from Khartoum was stopped by the letter telling me of my mother’s death, I thought at first it was only an accident—a sad, strange accident—that it should arrive at that moment."