He fell from a palm tree three weeks ago."
"You give him nothing to eat or drink?"
"He is too ill."
It was a common story and the logical outcome of the belief that life
and death are written and will inevitably befall after the manner of the
writing. That man lying so quiet beneath the black covering had probably
at the beginning suffered nothing more serious than a bruise, which a
few simple remedies would have cured within a week. But he had been
allowed to lie, even as he lay upon the angareb, at the mercy of the
sun and the flies, unwashed, unfed, and with his thirst unslaked. The
bruise had become a sore, the sore had gangrened, and when all remedies
were too late, the Egyptian Mudir of Korosko had discovered the accident
and sent the man on the steamer down to Assouan. But, familiar though
the story was, Calder could not dismiss it from his thoughts. The
immobility of the sick man upon the native bedstead in a way fascinated
him, and when towards sunset a strong wind sprang up and blew against
the stream, he felt an actual comfort in the knowledge that the sick man
would gain some relief from it. And when his neighbour that evening at
the dinner table spoke to him with a German accent, he suddenly asked
upon an impulse:--
"You are not a doctor by any chance?"
"Not a doctor," said the German, "but a student of medicine at Bonn.
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