"
"Read--read," rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly gripping
the chair-arm.
"The fever caught him at Shendy--that is the place--"
"He is not dead--David is not dead?" came the sharp, pained interruption.
The old man's head strained forward, his eyes were misty and dazed.
Soolsby's face showed no pity for the other's anxiety; it had a kind of
triumph in it. "Nay, he is living," he answered. "He got well of the
fever, and came to Cairo, but he's off again into the desert. It's the
third time. You can't be tempting Providence for ever. This paper here
says it's too big a job for one man--like throwing a good life away. Here
in England is his place, it says. And so say I; and so I have come to
say, and to hear you say so, too. What is he there? One man against a
million. What put it in his head that he thinks he can do it?"
His voice became lower; he fixed his eyes meaningly on the other. "When a
man's life got a twist at the start, no wonder it flies off madlike to do
the thing that isn't to be done, and leave undone the thing that's here
for it to do.
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