II

He slipped through Cairo with the same relief that he left the Riviera,

resenting its social vulgarity so close to the imperial aristocracy of

the Desert; he settled down into the peace of soft and silent little

Helouan. The hotel in which he had a room on the top floor had been

formerly a Khedivial Palace. It had the air of a palace still. He felt

himself in a country-house, with lofty ceilings, cool and airy

corridors, spacious halls. Soft-footed Arabs attended to his wants;

white walls let in light and air without a sign of heat; there was a

feeling of a large, spread tent pitched on the very sand; and the wind

that stirred the oleanders in the shady gardens also crept in to rustle

the palm leaves of his favourite corner seat. Through the large windows

where once the Khedive held high court, the sunshine blazed upon vistaed

leagues of Desert.

And from his bedroom windows he watched the sun dip into gold and

crimson behind the swelling Libyan sands. This side of the pyramids he

saw the Nile meander among palm groves and tilled fields. Across his

balcony railings the Egyptian stars trooped down beside his very bed,

shaping old constellations for his dreams; while, to the south, he

looked out upon the vast untamable Body of the sands that carpeted the

world for thousands of miles towards Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the dread

Sahara itself. He wondered again why people thought it necessary to go

so far afield to know the Desert. Here, within half an hour of Cairo, it

lay breathing solemnly at his very doors.

For little Helouan, caught thus between the shoulders of the Libyan and

Arabian Deserts, is utterly sand-haunted. The Desert lies all round it

like a sea. Henriot felt he never could escape from it, as he moved

about the island whose coasts are washed with sand. Down each broad and

shining street the two end houses framed a vista of its dim

immensity--glimpses of shimmering blue, or flame-touched purple. There

were stretches of deep sea-green as well, far off upon its bosom. The

streets were open channels of approach, and the eye ran down them as

along the tube of a telescope laid to catch incredible distance out of

space. Through them the Desert reached in with long, thin feelers

towards the village. Its Being flooded into Helouan, and over it. Past

walls and houses, churches and hotels, the sea of Desert pressed in

silently with its myriad soft feet of sand. It poured in everywhere,

through crack and slit and crannie. These were reminders of possession

and ownership. And every passing wind that lifted eddies of dust at the

street corners were messages from the quiet, powerful Thing that

permitted Helouan to lie and dream so peacefully in the sunshine. Mere

artificial oasis, its existence was temporary, held on lease, just for

ninety-nine centuries or so.

This sea idea became insistent. For, in certain lights, and especially

in the brief, bewildering dusk, the Desert rose--swaying towards the

small white houses. The waves of it ran for fifty miles without a break.

It was too deep for foam or surface agitation, yet it knew the swell of

tides. And underneath flowed resolute currents, linking distance to the

centre. These many deserts were really one. A storm, just retreated, had

tossed Helouan upon the shore and left it there to dry; but any morning

he would wake to find it had been carried off again into the depths.

Some fragment, at least, would disappear. The grim Mokattam Hills were

rollers that ever threatened to topple down and submerge the sandy bar

that men called Helouan.

Being soundless, and devoid of perfume, the Desert's message reached him

through two senses only--sight and touch; chiefly, of course, the

former. Its invasion was concentrated through the eyes. And vision, thus

uncorrected, went what pace it pleased. The Desert played with him. Sand

stole into his being--through the eyes.

And so obsessing was this majesty of its close presence, that Henriot

sometimes wondered how people dared their little social activities

within its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and tennis upon

reclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard upon its

frontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable Thing lay

breathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out. The challenge

of their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost provocative.

Their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference. They ran

fool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their vulgar

hearts. With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap tourist

horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient,

half-closed eyes. It was like defying deity.

For, to his stirred imagination the sublimity of the Desert dwarfed

humanity. These people had been wiser to choose another place for the

flaunting of their tawdry insignificance. Any minute this Wilderness,

"huddled in grey annihilation," might awake and notice them ...!

In his own hotel were several "smart," so-called "Society" people who

emphasised the protest in him to the point of definite contempt.

Overdressed, the latest worldly novel under their arms, they strutted

the narrow pavements of their tiny world, immensely pleased with

themselves. Their vacuous minds expressed themselves in the slang of

their exclusive circle--value being the element excluded. The pettiness

of their outlook hardly distressed him--he was too familiar with it at

home--but their essential vulgarity, their innate ugliness, seemed more

than usually offensive in the grandeur of its present setting. Into the

mighty sands they took the latest London scandal, gabbling it over even

among the Tombs and Temples. And "it was to laugh," the pains they spent

wondering whom they might condescend to know, never dreaming that they

themselves were not worth knowing. Against the background of the noble

Desert their titles seemed the cap and bells of clowns.

And Henriot, knowing some of them personally, could not always escape

their insipid company. Yet he was the gainer. They little guessed how

their commonness heightened contrast, set mercilessly thus beside the

strange, eternal beauty of the sand.

Occasionally the protest in his soul betrayed itself in words, which

of course they did not understand. "He is so clever, isn't he?"

And then, having relieved his feelings, he would comfort himself

characteristically:

"The Desert has not noticed them. The Sand is not aware of their

existence. How should the sea take note of rubbish that lies above its

tide-line?"

For Henriot drew near to its great shifting altars in an attitude of

worship. The wilderness made him kneel in heart. Its shining reaches led

to the oldest Temple in the world, and every journey that he made was

like a sacrament. For him the Desert was a consecrated place. It was

sacred.

And his tactful hosts, knowing his peculiarities, left their house open

to him when he cared to come--they lived upon the northern edge of the

oasis--and he was as free as though he were absolutely alone. He blessed

them; he rejoiced that he had come. Little Helouan accepted him. The

Desert knew that he was there.

* * * * *

From his corner of the big dining-room he could see the other guests,

but his roving eye always returned to the figure of a solitary man who

sat at an adjoining table, and whose personality stirred his interest.

While affecting to look elsewhere, he studied him as closely as might

be. There was something about the stranger that touched his

curiosity--a certain air of expectation that he wore. But it was more

than that: it was anticipation, apprehension in it somewhere. The man

was nervous, uneasy. His restless way of suddenly looking about him

proved it. Henriot tried every one else in the room as well; but, though

his thought settled on others too, he always came back to the figure of

this solitary being opposite, who ate his dinner as if afraid of being

seen, and glanced up sometimes as if fearful of being watched. Henriot's

curiosity, before he knew it, became suspicion. There was mystery here.

The table, he noticed, was laid for two.

"Is he an actor, a priest of some strange religion, an enquiry agent, or

just--a crank?" was the thought that first occurred to him. And the

question suggested itself without amusement. The impression of

subterfuge and caution he conveyed left his observer unsatisfied.

The face was clean shaven, dark, and strong; thick hair, straight yet

bushy, was slightly unkempt; it was streaked with grey; and an

unexpected mobility when he smiled ran over the features that he seemed

to hold rigid by deliberate effort. The man was cut to no quite common

measure. Henriot jumped to an intuitive conclusion: "He's not here for

pleasure or merely sight-seeing. Something serious has brought him out

to Egypt." For the face combined too ill-assorted qualities: an

obstinate tenacity that might even mean brutality, and was certainly

repulsive, yet, with it, an undecipherable dreaminess betrayed by lines

of the mouth, but above all in the very light blue eyes, so rarely

raised. Those eyes, he felt, had looked upon unusual things;

"dreaminess" was not an adequate description; "searching" conveyed it

better. The true source of the queer impression remained elusive. And

hence, perhaps, the incongruous marriage in the face--mobility laid upon

a matter-of-fact foundation underneath. The face showed conflict.

And Henriot, watching him, felt decidedly intrigued. "I'd like to know

that man, and all about him." His name, he learned later, was Richard

Vance; from Birmingham; a business man. But it was not the Birmingham he

wished to know; it was the--other: cause of the elusive, dreamy

searching. Though facing one another at so short a distance, their eyes,

however, did not meet. And this, Henriot well knew, was a sure sign that

he himself was also under observation. Richard Vance, from Birmingham,

was equally taking careful note of Felix Henriot, from London.

Thus, he could wait his time. They would come together later. An

opportunity would certainly present itself. The first links in a curious

chain had already caught; soon the chain would tighten, pull as though

by chance, and bring their lives into one and the same circle. Wondering

in particular for what kind of a companion the second cover was laid,

Henriot felt certain that their eventual coming together was inevitable.

He possessed this kind of divination from first impressions, and not

uncommonly it proved correct.

Following instinct, therefore, he took no steps towards acquaintance,

and for several days, owing to the fact that he dined frequently with

his hosts, he saw nothing more of Richard Vance, the business man from

Birmingham. Then, one night, coming home late from his friend's house,

he had passed along the great corridor, and was actually a step or so

into his bedroom, when a drawling voice sounded close behind him. It was

an unpleasant sound. It was very near him too--

"I beg your pardon, but have you, by any chance, such a thing as a

compass you could lend me?"

The voice was so close that he started. Vance stood within touching

distance of his body. He had stolen up like a ghostly Arab, must have

followed him, too, some little distance, for further down the passage

the light of an open door--he had passed it on his way--showed where he

came from.

"Eh? I beg your pardon? A--compass, did you say?" He felt disconcerted

for a moment. How short the man was, now that he saw him standing. Broad

and powerful too. Henriot looked down upon his thick head of hair. The

personality and voice repelled him. Possibly his face, caught unawares,

betrayed this.

"Forgive my startling you," said the other apologetically, while the

softer expression danced in for a moment and disorganised the rigid set

of the face. "The soft carpet, you know. I'm afraid you didn't hear my

tread. I wondered"--he smiled again slightly at the nature of the

request--"if--by any chance--you had a pocket compass you could lend

me?"

"Ah, a compass, yes! Please don't apologise. I believe I have one--if

you'll wait a moment. Come in, won't you? I'll have a look."

The other thanked him but waited in the passage. Henriot, it so

happened, had a compass, and produced it after a moment's search.

"I am greatly indebted to you--if I may return it in the morning. You

will forgive my disturbing you at such an hour. My own is broken, and I

wanted--er--to find the true north."

Henriot stammered some reply, and the man was gone. It was all over in a

minute. He locked his door and sat down in his chair to think. The

little incident had upset him, though for the life of him he could not

imagine why. It ought by rights to have been almost ludicrous, yet

instead it was the exact reverse--half threatening. Why should not a man

want a compass? But, again, why should he? And at midnight? The voice,

the eyes, the near presence--what did they bring that set his nerves

thus asking unusual questions? This strange impression that something

grave was happening, something unearthly--how was it born exactly? The

man's proximity came like a shock. It had made him start. He

brought--thus the idea came unbidden to his mind--something with him

that galvanised him quite absurdly, as fear does, or delight, or great

wonder. There was a music in his voice too--a certain--well, he could

only call it lilt, that reminded him of plainsong, intoning, chanting.

Drawling was _not_ the word at all.

He tried to dismiss it as imagination, but it would not be dismissed.

The disturbance in himself was caused by something not imaginary, but

real. And then, for the first time, he discovered that the man had

brought a faint, elusive suggestion of perfume with him, an aromatic

odour, that made him think of priests and churches. The ghost of it

still lingered in the air. Ah, here then was the origin of the notion

that his voice had chanted: it was surely the suggestion of incense. But

incense, intoning, a compass to find the true north--at midnight in a

Desert hotel!

A touch of uneasiness ran through the curiosity and excitement that he

felt.

And he undressed for bed. "Confound my old imagination," he thought,

"what tricks it plays me! It'll keep me awake!"

But the questions, once started in his mind, continued. He must find

explanation of one kind or another before he could lie down and sleep,

and he found it at length in--the stars. The man was an astronomer of

sorts; possibly an astrologer into the bargain! Why not? The stars were

wonderful above Helouan. Was there not an observatory on the Mokattam

Hills, too, where tourists could use the telescopes on privileged days?

He had it at last. He even stole out on to his balcony to see if the

stranger perhaps was looking through some wonderful apparatus at the

heavens. Their rooms were on the same side. But the shuttered windows

revealed no stooping figure with eyes glued to a telescope. The stars

blinked in their many thousands down upon the silent desert. The night

held neither sound nor movement. There was a cool breeze blowing across

the Nile from the Lybian Sands. It nipped; and he stepped back quickly

into the room again. Drawing the mosquito curtains carefully about the

bed, he put the light out and turned over to sleep.

And sleep came quickly, contrary to his expectations, though it was a

light and surface sleep. That last glimpse of the darkened Desert lying

beneath the Egyptian stars had touched him with some hand of awful power

that ousted the first, lesser excitement. It calmed and soothed him in

one sense, yet in another, a sense he could not understand, it caught

him in a net of deep, deep feelings whose mesh, while infinitely

delicate, was utterly stupendous. His nerves this deeper emotion left

alone: it reached instead to something infinite in him that mere nerves

could neither deal with nor interpret. The soul awoke and whispered in

him while his body slept.

And the little, foolish dreams that ran to and fro across this veil of

surface sleep brought oddly tangled pictures of things quite tiny and at

the same time of others that were mighty beyond words. With these two

counters Nightmare played. They interwove. There was the figure of this

dark-faced man with the compass, measuring the sky to find the true

north, and there were hints of giant Presences that hovered just outside

some curious outline that he traced upon the ground, copied in some

nightmare fashion from the heavens. The excitement caused by his

visitor's singular request mingled with the profounder sensations his

final look at the stars and Desert stirred. The two were somehow

inter-related.

Some hours later, before this surface sleep passed into genuine slumber,

Henriot woke--with an appalling feeling that the Desert had come

creeping into his room and now stared down upon him where he lay in bed.

The wind was crying audibly about the walls outside. A faint, sharp

tapping came against the window panes.

He sprang instantly out of bed, not yet awake enough to feel actual

alarm, yet with the nightmare touch still close enough to cause a sort

of feverish, loose bewilderment. He switched the lights on. A moment

later he knew the meaning of that curious tapping, for the rising wind

was flinging tiny specks of sand against the glass. The idea that they

had summoned him belonged, of course, to dream.

He opened the window, and stepped out on to the balcony. The stone was

very cold under his bare feet. There was a wash of wind all over him. He

saw the sheet of glimmering, pale desert near and far; and something

stung his skin below the eyes.

"The sand," he whispered, "again the sand; always the sand. Waking or

sleeping, the sand is everywhere--nothing but sand, sand, Sand...."

He rubbed his eyes. It was like talking in his sleep, talking to Someone

who had questioned him just before he woke. But was he really properly

awake? It seemed next day that he had dreamed it. Something enormous,

with rustling skirts of sand, had just retreated far into the Desert.

Sand went with it--flowing, trailing, smothering the world. The wind

died down.

And Henriot went back to sleep, caught instantly away into

unconsciousness; covered, blinded, swept over by this spreading thing of

reddish brown with the great, grey face, whose Being was colossal yet

quite tiny, and whose fingers, wings and eyes were countless as the

stars.

But all night long it watched and waited, rising to peer above the

little balcony, and sometimes entering the room and piling up beside his

very pillow. He dreamed of Sand.