hurt, bewildered, wounded. Then suddenly his face brightened. "I know,"
he cried suddenly. "You and I are pretty good pals. There's a tie
between us and all that. Why, it's tel--telepathy, or whatever they call
it. That's what it is."
He got up abruptly. Dick could think of nothing to say but to repeat
the other's words. "Of course, of course. That's it," he said,
"telepathy." He stared--anywhere but at his pal.
"Night, night!" he heard from the door, and before he could do more than
reply in similar vein Arthur was gone.
He lay for a long time, thinking, thinking. He found it all very
strange. Arthur in this emotional state was new to him. He turned it
over and over. Well, he had known good men behave queerly when wrought
up. That recognition of the bird's cry was strange, of course, but--he
knew the cry of a bird when he heard it, though he might not know the
actual bird. That was no human whistle. Arthur was--inventing. No,
that was not possible. He was worked up, then, over something, a bit
hysterical perhaps. It had happened before, though in a milder way, when
his heart attacks came on. They affected his nerves and head a little,
it seemed. He was a deep sort, Dick remembered. Thought turned and
twisted in him, offering various solutions, some absurd, some likely. He
was a nervous, high-strung fellow underneath, Arthur was. He remembered
that. Also he remembered, anxiously again, that his heart was not quite
sound, though what that had to do with the present tangle he did not
see.
Yet it was hardly likely that he would bring in Mary as an invention, an
excuse--Mary, the most sacred memory in his life, the deepest, truest,
best. He had sworn, anyhow, that Iris Manning meant nothing to him.
Through all his speculations, behind every thought, ran this horrid
working jealousy. It poisoned him. It twisted truth. It moved like
a wicked snake through mind and heart. Arthur, gripped by his new,
absorbing love for Iris Manning, lied. He couldn't believe it, he didn't
believe it, he wouldn't believe it--yet jealousy persisted in keeping
the idea alive in him. It was a dreadful thought. He fell asleep on it.
But his sleep was uneasy with feverish, unpleasant dreams that rambled
on in fragments without coming to conclusion. Then, suddenly, the cry of
the strange bird came into his dream. He started, turned over, woke up.
The cry still continued. It was not a dream. He jumped out of bed.
The room was grey with early morning, the air fresh and a little chill.
The cry came floating over the lawn as before. He looked out, pain
clutching at his heart. Two figures stood below, a man and a girl, and
the man was Arthur Deane. Yet the light was so dim, the morning being
overcast, that had he not expected to see his friend, he would scarcely
have recognized the familiar form in that shadowy outline that stood
close beside the girl. Nor could he, perhaps, have recognized Iris
Manning. Their backs were to him. They moved away, disappearing
again into the little summer-house, and this time--he saw it beyond
question--the two were hand in hand. Vague and uncertain as the figures
were in the early twilight, he was sure of that.
The first disagreeable sensation of surprise, disgust, anger that
sickened him turned quickly, however, into one of another kind
altogether. A curious feeling of superstitious dread crept over him, and
a shiver ran again along his nerves.
"Hallo, Arthur!" he called from the window. There was no answer. His
voice was certainly audible in the summer-house. But no one came. He
repeated the call a little louder, waited in vain for thirty seconds,
then came, the same moment, to a decision that even surprised himself,
for the truth we he could no longer bear the suspense of waiting. He
must see his friend at once and have it out with him. He turned and went
deliberately down the corridor to Deane's bedroom. He would wait there
for his return and know the truth from his own lips. But also another
thought had come--the gun. He had quite forgotten it--the safety-catch
was out of order. He had not warned him.
He found the door closed but not locked; opening it cautiously, he went
in.
But the unexpectedness of what he saw gave him a genuine shock. He could
hardly suppress a cry. Everything in the room was neat and orderly, no
sign of disturbance anywhere, and it was not empty. There, in bed,
before his very eyes, was Arthur. The clothes were turned back a little;
he saw the pyjamas open at the throat; he lay sound asleep, deeply,
peacefully asleep.
So surprised, indeed, was Headley that, after staring a moment, almost
unable to believe his sight, he then put out a hand and touched him
gently, cautiously on the forehead. But Arthur did not stir or wake; his
breathing remained deep and regular. He lay sleeping like a baby.
Headley glanced round the room, noticed the gun in the corner where he
himself had put it the day before, and then went out, closing the door
behind him softly.
Arthur Deane, however, did not leave for London as he had intended,
because he felt unwell and kept to his room upstairs. It was only a
slight attack, apparently, but he must lie quiet. There was no need to
send for a doctor; he knew just what to do; these passing attacks were
common enough. He would be up and about again very shortly. Headley kept
him company, saying no single word of what had happened. He read aloud
to him, chatted and cheered him up. He had no other visitors. Within
twenty-four hours he was himself once more. He and his friend had
planned to leave the following day.
But Headley, that last night in the house, felt an odd uneasiness and
could not sleep. All night long he sat up reading, looking out of the
window, smoking in a chair where he could see the stars and hear the
wind and watch the huge shadow of the downs. The house lay very still
as the hours passed. He dozed once or twice. Why did he sit up in this
unnecessary way? Why did he leave his door ajar so that the slightest
sound of another door opening, or of steps passing along the corridor,
must reach him? Was he anxious for his friend? Was he suspicious? What
was his motive, what his secret purpose?
Headley did not know, and could not even explain it to himself. He felt
uneasy, that was all he knew. Not for worlds would he have let himself
go to sleep or lose full consciousness that night. It was very odd; he
could not understand himself. He merely obeyed a strange, deep instinct
that bade him wait and watch. His nerves were jumpy; in his heart lay
some unexplicable anxiety that was pain.
The dawn came slowly; the stars faded one by one; the line of the downs
showed their grand bare curves against the sky; cool and cloudless the
September morning broke above the little Sussex pleasure house. He sat
and watched the east grow bright. The early wind brought a scent of
marshes and the sea into his room. Then suddenly it brought a sound as
well--the haunting cry of the bird with its three following notes. And
this time there came an answer.
Headley knew then why he had sat up. A wave of emotion swept him as
he heard--an emotion he could not attempt to explain. Dread, wonder,
longing seized him. For some seconds he could not leave his chair
because he did not dare to. The low-pitched cries of call and answer
rang in his ears like some unearthly music. With an effort he started
up, went to the window and looked out.
This time the light was sharp and clear. No mist hung in the air. He saw
the crimsoning sky reflected like a band of shining metal in the reach
of river beyond the lawn. He saw dew on the grass, a sheet of pallid
silver. He saw the summer-house, empty of any passing figures. For this
time the two figures stood plainly in view before his eyes upon the
lawn. They stood there, hand in hand, sharply defined, unmistakable in
form and outline, their faces, moreover, turned upwards to the window
where he stood, staring down in pain and amazement at them--at Arthur
Deane and _Mary_.
They looked into his eyes. He tried to call, but no sound left his
throat. They began to move across the dew-soaked lawn. They went, he
saw, with a floating, undulating motion towards the river shining in the
dawn. Their feet left no marks upon the grass. They reached the bank,
but did not pause in their going. They rose a little, floating like
silent birds across the river. Turning in mid-stream, they smiled
towards him, waved their hands with a gesture of farewell, then, rising
still higher into the opal dawn, their figures passed into the distance
slowly, melting away against the sunlit marshes and the shadowing downs
beyond. They disappeared.
Headley never quite remembers actually leaving the window, crossing the
room, or going down the passage. Perhaps he went at once, perhaps he
stood gazing into the air above the downs for a considerable time,
unable to tear himself away. He was in some marvellous dream, it seemed.
The next thing he remembers, at any rate, was that he was standing
beside his friend's bed, trying, in his distraught anguish of heart, to
call him from that sleep which, on earth, knows no awakening.
VIII
EGYPTIAN SORCERY
1
Sanfield paused as he was about to leave the Underground station at
Victoria, and cursed the weather. When he left the City it was fine; now
it was pouring with rain, and he had neither overcoat nor umbrella. Not
a taxi was discoverable in the dripping gloom. He would get soaked
before he reached his rooms in Sloane Street.
He stood for some minutes, thinking how vile London was in February, and
how depressing life was in general. He stood also, in that moment,
though he knew it not, upon the edge of a singular adventure. Looking
back upon it in later years, he often remembered this particularly
wretched moment of a pouring wet February evening, when everything
seemed wrong, and Fate had loaded the dice against him, even in the
matter of weather and umbrellas.
Fate, however, without betraying her presence, was watching him through
the rain and murk; and Fate, that night, had strange, mysterious eyes.
Fantastic cards lay up her sleeve. The rain, his weariness and
depression, his physical fatigue especially, seemed the conditions she
required before she played these curious cards. Something new and
wonderful fluttered close. Romance flashed by him across the driving
rain and touched his cheek. He was too exasperated to be aware of it.
Things had gone badly that day at the office, where he was junior
partner in a small firm of engineers. Threatened trouble at the works
had come to a head. A strike seemed imminent. To add to his annoyance,
a new client, whose custom was of supreme importance, had just
complained bitterly of the delay in the delivery of his machinery. The
senior partners had left the matter in Sanfield's hands; he had not
succeeded. The angry customer swore he would hold the firm to its
contract. They could deliver or pay up--whichever suited them. The
junior partner had made a mess of things.
The final words on the telephone still rang in his ears as he stood
sheltering under the arcade, watching the downpour, and wondering
whether he should make a dash for it or wait on the chance of its
clearing up--when a further blow was dealt him as the rain-soaked poster
of an evening paper caught his eye: "Riots in Egypt. Heavy Fall in
Egyptian Securities," he read with blank dismay. Buying a paper
he turned feverishly to the City article--to find his worst fears
confirmed. Delta Lands, in which nearly all his small capital was
invested, had declined a quarter on the news, and would evidently
decline further still. The riots were going on in the towns nearest to
their property. Banks had been looted, crops destroyed; the trouble was
deep-seated.
So grave was the situation that mere weather seemed suddenly of no
account at all. He walked home doggedly in the drenching rain, paying
less attention to it than if it had been Scotch mist. The water streamed
from his hat, dripped down his back and neck, splashed him with mud and
grime from head to foot. He was soaked to the skin. He hardly noticed
it. His capital had depreciated by half, at least, and possibly was
altogether lost; his position at the office was insecure. How could mere
weather matter?
Sitting, eventually, before his fire in dry clothes, after an apology
for a dinner he had no heart to eat, he reviewed the situation. He faced
a possible total loss of his private capital. Next, the position of his
firm caused him grave uneasiness, since, apart from his own mishandling
of the new customer, the threatened strike might ruin it completely;
a long strain on its limited finances was out of the question. George
Sanfield certainly saw things at their worst. He was now thirty-five.
A fresh start--the mere idea of it made him shudder--occurred as a
possibility in the near future. Vitality, indeed, was at a low ebb, it
seemed. Mental depression, great physical fatigue, weariness of life in
general made his spirits droop alarmingly, so that almost he felt tired
of living. His tie with existence, at any rate, just then was
dangerously weak.
Thought turned next to the man on whose advice he had staked his all in
Delta Lands. Morris had important Egyptian interests in various big
companies and enterprises along the Nile. He had first come to the firm
with a letter of introduction upon some business matter, which the
junior partner had handled so successfully that acquaintance thus formed
had ripened into a more personal tie. The two men had much in common;
their temperaments were suited; understanding grew between them; they
felt at home and comfortable with one another. They became friends; they
felt a mutual confidence. When Morris paid his rare visits to England,
they spent much time together; and it was on one of these occasions that
the matter of the Egyptian shares was mentioned, Morris urgently
advising their purchase.
Sanfield explained his own position clearly enough, but his friend was
so confident and optimistic that the purchase eventually had been made.
There had been, moreover, Sanfield now remembered, the flavour of a
peculiarly intimate and personal kind about the deal. He had remarked
it, with a touch of surprise, at the moment, though really it seemed
natural enough. Morris was very earnest, holding his friend's interest
at heart; he was affectionate almost.
"I'd like to do you this good turn, old man," he said. "I have the
strong feeling, somehow, that I owe you this, though heaven alone knows
why!" After a pause he added, half shyly: "It may be one of those old
memories we hear about nowadays cropping up out of some previous life
together." Before the other could reply, he went on to explain that only
three men were in the parent syndicate, the shares being unobtainable.
"I'll set some of my own aside for you--four thousand or so, if you
like."
They laughed together; Sanfield thanked him warmly; the deal was carried
out. But the recipient of the favour had wondered a little at the sudden
increase of intimacy even while he liked it and responded.
Had he been a fool, he now asked himself, to swallow the advice, putting
all his eggs into a single basket? He knew very little about Morris
after all.... Yet, while reflection showed him that the advice was
honest, and the present riots no fault of the adviser's, he found his
thoughts turning in a steady stream towards the man. The affairs of the
firm took second place. It was Morris, with his deep-set eyes, his
curious ways, his dark skin burnt brick-red by a fierce Eastern sun; it
was Morris, looking almost like an Egyptian, who stood before him as he
sat thinking gloomily over his dying fire.
He longed to talk with him, to ask him questions, to seek advice. He saw
him very vividly against the screen of thought; Morris stood beside him
now, gazing out across the limitless expanse of tawny sand. He had in
his eyes the "distance" that sailors share with men whose life has been
spent amid great trackless wastes. Morris, moreover, now he came to
think of it, seemed always a little out of place in England. He had few
relatives and, apparently, no friends; he was always intensely pleased
when the time came to return to his beloved Nile. He had once mentioned
casually a sister who kept house for him when duty detained him in
Cairo, but, even here, he was something of an Oriental, rarely speaking
of his women folk. Egypt, however, plainly drew him like a magnet.
Resistance involved disturbance in his being, even ill-health. Egypt
was "home" to him, and his friend, though he had never been there, felt
himself its potent spell.
Another curious trait Sanfield remembered, too--his friend's childish
superstition; his belief, or half-belief, in magic and the supernatural.
Sanfield, amused, had ascribed it to the long sojourn in a land where
anything unusual is at once ascribed to spiritual agencies. Morris
owed his entire fortune, if his tale could be believed, to the
magical apparition of an unearthly kind in some lonely _wadi_ among
the Bedouins. A sand-diviner had influenced another successful
speculation.... He was a picturesque figure, whichever way one took him:
yet a successful business man into the bargain.
These reflections and memories, on the other hand, brought small comfort
to the man who had tempted Fate by following his advice. It was only a
little strange how Morris now dominated his thoughts, directing them
towards himself. Morris was in Egypt at the moment.
He went to bed at length, filled with uneasy misgivings, but for a long
time he could not sleep. He tossed restlessly, his mind still running on
the subject of his long reflections. He ached with tiredness. He dropped
off at last. Then came a nightmare dream, in which the firm's works were
sold for nearly nothing to an old Arab sheikh who wished to pay for
them--in goats. He woke up in a cold perspiration. He had uneasy
thoughts. His fancy was travelling. He could not rest.
To distract his mind, he turned on the light and tried to read, and,
eventually, towards morning, fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. And
his final thought--he knew not exactly why--was a sentence Morris had
made use of long ago: "I feel I owe you a good turn; I'd like to do
something for you...."
This was the memory in his mind as he slipped off into unconsciousness.
But what happens when the mind is unconscious and the tired body lies
submerged in deep sleep, no man, they say, can really tell.
2
The next thing he knew he was walking along a sun-baked street in some
foreign town that was familiar, although, at first, its name escaped
him. Colour, softness, and warmth pervaded it; there was sparkle and
lightness in the exhilarating air; it was an Eastern town.
Though early morning, a number of people were already stirring; strings
of camels passed him, loaded with clover, bales of merchandise, and
firewood. Gracefully-draped women went by silently, carrying water jars
of burnt clay upon their heads. Rude wooden shutters were being taken
down in the bazaars; the smoke of cooking-fires rose in the blue spirals
through the quiet air. He felt strangely at home and happy. The light,
the radiance stirred him. He passed a mosque from which the worshippers
came pouring in a stream of colour.
Yet, though an Eastern town, it was not wholly Oriental, for he saw that
many of the buildings were of semi-European design, and that the natives
sometimes wore European dress, except for the fez upon the head. Among
them were Europeans, too. Staring into the faces of the passers-by he
found, to his vexation, that he could not focus sight as usual, and that
the nearer he approached, the less clearly he discerned the features.
The faces, upon close attention, at once grew shadowy, merged into each
other, or, in some odd fashion, melted into the dazzling sunshine that
was their background. All his attempts in this direction failed;
impatience seized him; of surprise, however, he was not conscious. Yet
this mingled vagueness and intensity seemed perfectly natural.
Filled with a stirring curiosity, he made a strong effort to concentrate
his attention, only to discover that this vagueness, this difficulty of
focus, lay in his own being, too. He wandered on, unaware exactly where
he was going, yet not much perturbed, since there was an objective in
view, he knew, and this objective _must_ eventually be reached. Its
nature, however, for the moment entirely eluded him.
The sense of familiarity, meanwhile, increased; he had been in this town
before, although not quite within recoverable memory. It seemed,
perhaps, the general atmosphere, rather than the actual streets, he
knew; a certain perfume in the air, a tang of indefinable sweetness, a
vitality in the radiant sunshine. The dark faces that he could not
focus, he yet knew; the flowing garments of blue and red and yellow, the
softly-slippered feet, the slouching camels, the burning human eyes that
faded ere he fully caught them--the entire picture in this blazing
sunlight lay half-hidden, half-revealed. And an extraordinary sense of
happiness and well-being flooded him as he walked; he felt at home;
comfort and bliss stole over him. Almost he knew his way about. This was
a place he loved and knew.
The complete silence, moreover, did not strike him as peculiar until,
suddenly, it was broken in a startling fashion. He heard his own name
spoken. It sounded close beside his ear.
"George Sanfield!" The voice was familiar. Morris called him. He
realized then the truth. He was, of course, in Cairo.
Yet, instead of turning to discover the speaker at his side, he hurried
forward, as though he knew that the voice had come through distance. His
consciousness cleared and lightened; he felt more alive; his eyes now
focused the passers-by without difficulty. He was there to find Morris,
and Morris was directing him. All was explained and natural again. He
hastened. But, even while he hastened, he knew that his personal desire
to speak with his friend about Egyptian shares and Delta Lands was not
his single object. Behind it, further in among as yet unstirring
shadows, lay another deeper purpose. Yet he did not trouble about it,
nor make a conscious effort at discovery. Morris was doing him that
"good turn I feel I owe you." This conviction filled him overwhelmingly.
The question of how and why did not once occur to him. A strange, great
happiness rose in him.
Upon the outskirts of the town now, he found himself approaching a large
building in the European style, with wide verandas and a cultivated
garden filled with palm trees. A well-kept drive of yellow sand led to
its chief entrance, and the man in khaki drill and riding-breeches
walking along this drive, not ten yards in front of him, was--Morris.
He overtook him, but his cry of welcome recognition was not answered.
Morris, walking with bowed head and stooping shoulders, seemed intensely
preoccupied; he had not heard the call.
"Here I am, old fellow!" exclaimed his friend, holding out a hand. "I've
come, you see...!" then paused aghast before the altered face. Morris
paid no attention. He walked straight on as though he had not heard. It
was the distraught and anguished expression on the drawn and haggard
features that impressed the other most. The silence he took without
surprise.
It was the pain and suffering in his friend that occupied him. The dark
rims beneath heavy eyes, the evidence of sleepless nights, of long
anxiety and ceaseless dread, afflicted him with their too-plain story.
The man was overwhelmed with some great sorrow. Sanfield forgot his
personal trouble; this larger, deeper grief usurped its place entirely.
"Morris! Morris!" he cried yet more eagerly than before. "I've come, you
see. Tell me what's the matter. I believe--that I can--help you...!"
The other turned, looking past him through the air. He made no answer.
The eyes went through him. He walked straight on, and Sanfield walked at
his side in silence. Through the large door they passed together, Morris
paying as little attention to him as though he were not there, and in
the small chamber they now entered, evidently a waiting-room, an
Egyptian servant approached, uttered some inaudible words, and then
withdrew, leaving them alone together.