"Too late? Then the man in the blue gown has gone?"
"Yes. He spoke to me yesterday by the river. The camel men would wait no
longer. They were afraid of detection, and meant to return whether we
went with them or not."
"You should have gone with them," said Trench. For himself he did not at
that moment care whether he was to live in the prison all his life, so
long as he was allowed quietly to lie where he was for a long time; and
it was without any expression of despair that he added, "So our one
chance is lost."
"No, deferred," replied Feversham. "The man who watched by the river in
the blue gown brought me paper, a pen, and some wood-soot mixed with
water. He was able to drop them by my side as I lay upon the ground. I
hid them beneath my jibbeh, and last night--there was a moon last
night--I wrote to a Greek merchant who keeps a _cafe_ at Wadi Halfa. I
gave him the letter this afternoon, and he has gone. He will deliver it
and receive money. In six months, in a year at the latest, he will be
back in Omdurman."
"Very likely," said Trench. "He will ask for another letter, so that he
may receive more money, and again he will say that in six months or a
year he will be back in Omdurman.
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