Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt | Page 7

"Seven's the hour," he said, and rode on.
"Thanks, you fellows," said the Lost One, and walked swiftly away.
As they rode to the Amenhotep Dicky did not speak, but once he turned
round to look after the outcast, who was shambling along the bank of
the canal.
When Fielding and Dicky reached the deck of the Amenhotep, and
Mahommed Seti had brought refreshment, Dicky said: "What did he
do?"
Fielding's voice was constrained and hard: "Cheated at cards."
Dicky's lips tightened. "Where?"
"At Hong Kong."
"Officer?"
"In the Buffs."
Dicky drew a long breath. "He's paid the piper."
"Naturally. He cheated twice."
"Cheated twice--at cards!" Dicky's voice was hard now. "Who was he?"
"Heatherby--Bob Heatherby!"
"Bob Heatherby--gad! Fielding, I'm sorry--I couldn't have guessed, old

man. Mrs. Henshaw's brother!"
Fielding nodded. Dicky turned his head away; for Fielding was in love
with Mrs. Henshaw, the widow of Henshaw of the Buffs. He realised
now why Fielding loathed Hasha so.
"Forgive me for asking him to mess, guv'nor."
Fielding laughed a little uneasily. "Never mind. You see, it isn't the old
scores only that bar him. He's been a sweep out here. Nothing he hasn't
done. Gone lower and lower and lower. Tax-gatherer with a kourbash
for old Selamlik the beast. Panderer for the same. Sweep of the lowest
sort!"
Dicky's eyes flashed. "I say, Fielding, it would be rather strange if he
hadn't gone down, down, down. A man that's cheated at cards never
finds anybody to help him up, up, up. The chances are dead against him.
But he stood up well to-day, eh?"
"I suppose blood will tell at last in the very worst."
"'And while the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return--'"
hummed Dicky musingly. Then he added slowly: "Fielding, fellows of
that kind always flare up a bit according to Cavendish, just before the
end. I've seen it once or twice before. It's the last clutch at the grass as
they go slip--slip--slipping down. Take my word for it, Heatherby's
near the finish."
"I shouldn't wonder. Selamlik, the old leper, 'll lay in wait for him. He'll
get lost in the sugar-cane one of these evenings soon."
"Couldn't we . . ." Dicky paused.
Fielding started, looked at Dicky intently, and then shook his head
sadly. "It's no good, Dicky. It never is."
"'While the lamp holds out to burn . . .'" said Dicky, and lighted another
cigarette.

Precisely at seven o'clock Heatherby appeared. He had on a dress-suit,
brown and rusty, a white tie made of a handkerchief torn in two, and a
pair of patent leather shoes, scraggy and cracked.
Fielding behaved well, Dicky was amiable and attentive, and the dinner
being ready to the instant, there was no waiting, there were no awkward
pauses. No names of English people were mentioned, England was not
named; nor Cairo, nor anything that English people abroad love to
discuss. The fellah, the pasha, the Soudan were the only topics. Under
Fielding's courtesy and Dicky's acute suggestions, Heatherby's
weakened brain awaked, and he talked intelligently, till the moment
coffee was brought in. Then, as Mahommed Seti retired, Heatherby
suddenly threw himself forward, his arms on the table, and burst into
sobs.
"Oh, you fellows, you fellows!" he said. There was silence for a minute,
then he sobbed out again: "It's the first time I've been treated like a
gentleman by men that knew me, these fifteen years. It--it gets me in
the throat!"
His body shook with sobs. Fielding and Dicky were uncomfortable, for
these were not the sobs of a driveller or a drunkard. Behind them was
the blank failure of a life--fifteen years of miserable torture, of
degradation, of a daily descent lower into the pit, of the servitude of
shame. When at last he raised his streaming eyes, Fielding and Dicky
could see the haunting terror of the soul, at whose elbow, as it were,
every man cried: "You are without the pale!" That look told them how
Heatherby of the Buffs had gone from table d'hote to table d'hote of
Europe, from town to town, from village to village, to make
acquaintances who repulsed him when they discovered who he really
was.
Shady Heatherby, who cheated at cards!
Once Fielding made as if to put a hand on his shoulder and speak to
him, but Dicky intervened with a look. The two drank their coffee,
Fielding a little uneasily; but yet in his face there was a new look: of
inquiry, of kindness, even of hope.

Presently Dicky flashed a look and nodded towards the door, and
Fielding dropped his cigar and went on deck, and called down to
Holgate the engineer:
"Get up steam, and make for Luxor. It's moonlight, and we're safe
enough in this high Nile, eh, Holgate?"