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THE SLUMBER-SONG OF THE NILE
wail at the end, before they took up for the hundredth time the strain of "Amanuseh, Amananeh."
Suddenly, across the distant song of the boatmen, and seemingly very close to the yacht, came a soft chord struck from a stringed instrument. It was a minor chord, and it trembled away into the silence, for the sailors on the dahabiyeh had abruptly ceased their chanting and everything was still.
Then, quite low and mysteriously sweet, came a man's voice, singing, while the faint curious chords blended in harmony. This is what the voice sang, and what Fen heard, as he lay breathless beside his porthole:
- "Looming into the mighty sky,
- The Memnon sing in the dawn,
- And a thousand gray storks wake and fly
- Over the Nile to the sun; but I
- Sing when the sun is gone.
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