VII

They say that men who know the sleep of exhaustion in the snow find no

awakening on the hither side of death.... The hours passed and the moon

sank down below the white world's rim. Then, suddenly, there came a

little crash upon his breast and neck, and Hibbert--woke.

He slowly turned bewildered, heavy eyes upon the desolate mountains,

stared dizzily about him, tried to rise. At first his muscles would not

act; a numbing, aching pain possessed him. He uttered a long, thin cry

for help, and heard its faintness swallowed by the wind. And then he

understood vaguely why he was only warm--not dead. For this very wind

that took his cry had built up a sheltering mound of driven snow against

his body while he slept. Like a curving wave it ran beside him. It was

the breaking of its over-toppling edge that caused the crash, and the

coldness of the mass against his neck that woke him.

Dawn kissed the eastern sky; pale gleams of gold shot every peak with

splendour; but ice was in the air, and the dry and frozen snow blew like

powder from the surface of the slopes. He saw the points of his ski

projecting just below him. Then he--remembered. It seems he had just

strength enough to realise that, could he but rise and stand, he might

fly with terrific impetus towards the woods and village far beneath. The

ski would carry him. But if he failed and fell ...!

How he contrived it Hibbert never knew; this fear of death somehow

called out his whole available reserve force. He rose slowly, balanced a

moment, then, taking the angle of an immense zigzag, started down the

awful slopes like an arrow from a bow. And automatically the splendid

muscles of the practised ski-er and athlete saved and guided him, for he

was hardly conscious of controlling either speed or direction. The snow

stung face and eyes like fine steel shot; ridge after ridge flew past;

the summits raced across the sky; the valley leaped up with bounds to

meet him. He scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet as the huge

slopes and distance melted before the lightning speed of that descent

from death to life.

He took it in four mile-long zigzags, and it was the turning at each

corner that nearly finished him, for then the strain of balancing taxed

to the verge of collapse the remnants of his strength.

Slopes that have taken hours to climb can be descended in a short

half-hour on ski, but Hibbert had lost all count of time. Quite other

thoughts and feelings mastered him in that wild, swift dropping through

the air that was like the flight of a bird. For ever close upon his

heels came following forms and voices with the whirling snow-dust. He

heard that little silvery voice of death and laughter at his back.

Shrill and wild, with the whistling of the wind past his ears, he caught

its pursuing tones; but in anger now, no longer soft and coaxing. And it

was accompanied; she did not follow alone. It seemed a host of these

flying figures of the snow chased madly just behind him. He felt them

furiously smite his neck and cheeks, snatch at his hands and try to

entangle his feet and ski in drifts. His eyes they blinded, and they

caught his breath away.

The terror of the heights and snow and winter desolation urged him

forward in the maddest race with death a human being ever knew; and so

terrific was the speed that before the gold and crimson had left the

summits to touch the ice-lips of the lower glaciers, he saw the friendly

forest far beneath swing up and welcome him.

And it was then, moving slowly along the edge of the woods, he saw a

light. A man was carrying it. A procession of human figures was passing

in a dark line laboriously through the snow. And--he heard the sound of

chanting.

Instinctively, without a second's hesitation, he changed his course. No

longer flying at an angle as before, he pointed his ski straight down

the mountain-side. The dreadful steepness did not frighten him. He knew

full well it meant a crashing tumble at the bottom, but he also knew it

meant a doubling of his speed--with safety at the end. For, though no

definite thought passed through his mind, he understood that it was the

village _cure_ who carried that little gleaming lantern in the dawn, and

that he was taking the Host to a chalet on the lower slopes--to some

peasant _in extremis_. He remembered her terror of the church and bells.

She feared the holy symbols.

There was one last wild cry in his ears as he started, a shriek of the

wind before his face, and a rush of stinging snow against closed

eyelids--and then he dropped through empty space. Speed took sight from

him. It seemed he flew off the surface of the world.

* * * * *

Indistinctly he recalls the murmur of men's voices, the touch of strong

arms that lifted him, and the shooting pains as the ski were unfastened

from the twisted ankle ... for when he opened his eyes again to normal

life he found himself lying in his bed at the post office with the

doctor at his side. But for years to come the story of "mad Hibbert's"

ski-ing at night is recounted in that mountain village. He went, it

seems, up slopes, and to a height that no man in his senses ever tried

before. The tourists were agog about it for the rest of the season, and

the very same day two of the bolder men went over the actual ground and

photographed the slopes. Later Hibbert saw these photographs. He noticed

one curious thing about them--though he did not mention it to any one:

There was only a single track.

* * * * *

_Sand_

I

As Felix Henriot came through the streets that January night the fog was

stifling, but when he reached his little flat upon the top floor there

came a sound of wind. Wind was stirring about the world. It blew against

his windows, but at first so faintly that he hardly noticed it. Then,

with an abrupt rise and fall like a wailing voice that sought to claim

attention, it called him. He peered through the window into the blurred

darkness, listening.

There is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind. A vague

excitement, scarcely to be analysed, ran through his blood. The curtain

of fog waved momentarily aside. Henriot fancied a star peeped down at

him.

"It will change things a bit--at last," he sighed, settling back into

his chair. "It will bring movement!"

Already something in himself had changed. A restlessness, as of that

wandering wind, woke in his heart--the desire to be off and away. Other

things could rouse this wildness too: falling water, the singing of a

bird, an odour of wood-fire, a glimpse of winding road. But the cry of

wind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world's great

routes, remained ever the master-touch. High longing took his mood in

hand. Mid seven millions he felt suddenly--lonely.

"I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core."

He murmured the words over softly to himself. The emotion that produced

Innisfree passed strongly through him. He too would be over the hills

and far away. He craved movement, change, adventure--somewhere far from

shops and crowds and motor-'busses. For a week the fog had stifled

London. This wind brought life.

Where should he go? Desire was long; his purse was short.

He glanced at his books, letters, newspapers. They had no interest now.

Instead he listened. The panorama of other journeys rolled in colour

through the little room, flying on one another's heels. Henriot enjoyed

this remembered essence of his travels more than the travels themselves.

The crying wind brought so many voices, all of them seductive:

There was a soft crashing of waves upon the Black Sea shores, where the

huge Caucasus beckoned in the sky beyond; a rustling in the umbrella

pines and cactus at Marseilles, whence magic steamers start about the

world like flying dreams. He heard the plash of fountains upon Mount

Ida's slopes, and the whisper of the tamarisk on Marathon. It was dawn

once more upon the Ionian Sea, and he smelt the perfume of the Cyclades.

Blue-veiled islands melted in the sunshine, and across the dewy lawns of

Tempe, moistened by the spray of many waterfalls, he saw--Great Heavens

above!--the dancing of white forms ... or was it only mist the sunshine

painted against Pelion?... "Methought, among the lawns together, we

wandered underneath the young grey dawn. And multitudes of dense white

fleecy clouds shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind...."

And then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of a

wall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. He

heard the "yellow bees in the ivy bloom." Wind whipped over the open

hills--this very wind that laboured drearily through the London fog.

And--he was caught. The darkness melted from the city. The fog whisked

off into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into booming of the

sea. There was a whistling among cordage, and the floor swayed to and

fro. He saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. The

syren hooted--ominous sound that had started him on many a journey of

adventure--and the roar of London became mere insignificant clatter of a

child's toy carriages.

He loved that syren's call; there was something deep and pitiless in it.

It drew the wanderers forth from cities everywhere: "Leave your known

world behind you, and come with me for better or for worse! The anchor

is up; it is too late to change. Only--beware! You shall know curious

things--and alone!"

Henriot stirred uneasily in his chair. He turned with sudden energy to

the shelf of guide-books, maps and time-tables--possessions he most

valued in the whole room. He was a happy-go-lucky, adventure-loving

soul, careless of common standards, athirst ever for the new and

strange.

"That's the best of having a cheap flat," he laughed, "and no ties in

the world. I can turn the key and disappear. No one cares or knows--no

one but the thieving caretaker. And he's long ago found out that there's

nothing here worth taking!"

There followed then no lengthy indecision. Preparation was even shorter

still. He was always ready for a move, and his sojourn in cities was but

breathing-space while he gathered pennies for further wanderings. An

enormous kit-bag--sack-shaped, very worn and dirty--emerged speedily

from the bottom of a cupboard in the wall. It was of limitless capacity.

The key and padlock rattled in its depths. Cigarette ashes covered

everything while he stuffed it full of ancient, indescribable garments.

And his voice, singing of those "yellow bees in the ivy bloom," mingled

with the crying of the rising wind about his windows. His restlessness

had disappeared by magic.

This time, however, there could be no haunted Pelion, nor shady groves

of Tempe, for he lived in sophisticated times when money markets

regulated movement sternly. Travelling was only for the rich; mere

wanderers must pig it. He remembered instead an opportune invitation to

the Desert. "Objective" invitation, his genial hosts had called it,

knowing his hatred of convention. And Helouan danced into letters of

brilliance upon the inner map of his mind. For Egypt had ever held his

spirit in thrall, though as yet he had tried in vain to touch the great

buried soul of her. The excavators, the Egyptologists, the

archaeologists most of all, plastered her grey ancient face with labels

like hotel advertisements on travellers' portmanteaux. They told where

she had come from last, but nothing of what she dreamed and thought and

loved. The heart of Egypt lay beneath the sand, and the trifling robbery

of little details that poked forth from tombs and temples brought no

true revelation of her stupendous spiritual splendour. Henriot, in his

youth, had searched and dived among what material he could find,

believing once--or half believing--that the ceremonial of that ancient

system veiled a weight of symbol that was reflected from genuine

supersensual knowledge. The rituals, now taken literally, and so

pityingly explained away, had once been genuine pathways of approach.

But never yet, and least of all in his previous visits to Egypt itself,

had he discovered one single person, worthy of speech, who caught at his

idea. "Curious," they said, then turned away--to go on digging in the

sand. Sand smothered her world to-day. Excavators discovered skeletons.

Museums everywhere stored them--grinning, literal relics that told

nothing.

But now, while he packed and sang, these hopes of enthusiastic younger

days stirred again--because the emotion that gave them birth was real

and true in him. Through the morning mists upon the Nile an old pyramid

bowed hugely at him across London roofs: "Come," he heard its awful

whisper beneath the ceiling, "I have things to show you, and to tell."

He saw the flock of them sailing the Desert like weird grey solemn ships

that make no earthly port. And he imagined them as one: multiple

expressions of some single unearthly portent they adumbrated in mighty

form--dead symbols of some spiritual conception long vanished from the

world.

"I mustn't dream like this," he laughed, "or I shall get absent-minded

and pack fire-tongs instead of boots. It looks like a jumble sale

already!" And he stood on a heap of things to wedge them down still

tighter.

But the pictures would not cease. He saw the kites circling high in the

blue air. A couple of white vultures flapped lazily away over shining

miles. Felucca sails, like giant wings emerging from the ground, curved

towards him from the Nile. The palm-trees dropped long shadows over

Memphis. He felt the delicious, drenching heat, and the Khamasin, that

over-wind from Nubia, brushed his very cheeks. In the little gardens the

mish-mish was in bloom.... He smelt the Desert ... grey sepulchre of

cancelled cycles.... The stillness of her interminable reaches dropped

down upon old London....

The magic of the sand stole round him in its silent-footed tempest.

And while he struggled with that strange, capacious sack, the piles of

clothing ran into shapes of gleaming Bedouin faces; London garments

settled down with the mournful sound of camels' feet, half dropping

wind, half water flowing underground--sound that old Time has brought

over into modern life and left a moment for our wonder and perhaps our

tears.

He rose at length with the excitement of some deep enchantment in his

eyes. The thought of Egypt plunged ever so deeply into him, carrying

him into depths where he found it difficult to breathe, so strangely far

away it seemed, yet indefinably familiar. He lost his way. A touch of

fear came with it.

"A sack like that is the wonder of the world," he laughed again, kicking

the unwieldy, sausage-shaped monster into a corner of the room, and

sitting down to write the thrilling labels: "Felix Henriot, Alexandria

_via_ Marseilles." But his pen blotted the letters; there was sand in

it. He rewrote the words. Then he remembered a dozen things he had left

out. Impatiently, yet with confusion somewhere, he stuffed them in. They

ran away into shifting heaps; they disappeared; they emerged suddenly

again. It was like packing hot, dry, flowing sand. From the pockets of a

coat--he had worn it last summer down Dorset way--out trickled sand.

There was sand in his mind and thoughts.

And his dreams that night were full of winds, the old sad winds of

Egypt, and of moving, sifting sand. Arabs and Afreets danced amazingly

together across dunes he could never reach. For he could not follow fast

enough. Something infinitely older than these ever caught his feet and

held him back. A million tiny fingers stung and pricked him. Something

flung a veil before his eyes. Once it touched him--his face and hands

and neck. "Stay here with us," he heard a host of muffled voices crying,

but their sound was smothered, buried, rising through the ground. A

myriad throats were choked. Till, at last, with a violent effort he

turned and seized it. And then the thing he grasped at slipped between

his fingers and ran easily away. It had a grey and yellow face, and it

moved through all its parts. It flowed as water flows, and yet was

solid. It was centuries old.

He cried out to it. "Who are you? What is your name? I surely know you

... but I have forgotten ...?"

And it stopped, turning from far away its great uncovered countenance of

nameless colouring. He caught a voice. It rolled and boomed and

whispered like the wind. And then he woke, with a curious shaking in his

heart, and a little touch of chilly perspiration on the skin.

But the voice seemed in the room still--close beside him:

"I am the Sand," he heard, before it died away.

* * * * *

And next he realised that the glitter of Paris lay behind him, and a

steamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparkling

sea towards Alexandria. Gladly he saw the Riviera fade below the

horizon, with its hard bright sunshine, treacherous winds, and its smear

of rich, conventional English. All restlessness now had left him. True

vagabond still at forty, he only felt the unrest and discomfort of life

when caught in the network of routine and rigid streets, no chance of

breaking loose. He was off again at last, money scarce enough indeed,

but the joy of wandering expressing itself in happy emotions of release.

Every warning of calculation was stifled. He thought of the American

woman who walked out of her Long Island house one summer's day to look

at a passing sail--and was gone eight years before she walked in again.

Eight years of roving travel! He had always felt respect and admiration

for that woman.

For Felix Henriot, with his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopher

as well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimes

breaking out through fissures in his complex nature. He had seen much

life; had read many books. The passionate desire of youth to solve the

world's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brim

with wonder. Anything _might_ be true. Nothing surprised him. The most

outlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. He

had escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe their

vanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of the

universe lies beyond their powers. He no longer expected final answers.

For him, even the smallest journeys held the spice of some adventure;

all minutes were loaded with enticing potentialities. And they shaped

for themselves somehow a dramatic form. "It's like a story," his friends

said when he told his travels. It always was a story.

But the adventure that lay waiting for him where the silent streets of

little Helouan kiss the great Desert's lips, was of a different kind to

any Henriot had yet encountered. Looking back, he has often asked

himself, "How in the world can I accept it?"

And, perhaps, he never yet has accepted it. It was sand that brought it.

For the Desert, the stupendous thing that mothers little Helouan,

produced it.