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diff --git a/16726.txt b/16726.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebee41d --- /dev/null +++ b/16726.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6217 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Four Weird Tales, by Algernon Blackwood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Four Weird Tales + +Author: Algernon Blackwood + +Release Date: September 20, 2005 [EBook #16726] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR WEIRD TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Geetu Melwani and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +FOUR WEIRD TALES + +BY + +ALGERNON BLACKWOOD + + +INCLUDING: + +"The Insanity of Jones" +"The Man Who Found Out" +"The Glamour of the Snow" and +"Sand" + + + + +A NOTE ON THE TEXT + +These stories first appeared in Blackwood's story collections: +"The Insanity of Jones" in _The Listener and Other Stories_ (1907); +"The Man Who Found Out" in _The Wolves of God and Other Fey Stories_ + (1921); +"The Glamour of the Snow," and "Sand" in _Pan's Garden_ (1912). + + * * * * * + + + + +_The Insanity of Jones_ + +(A Study in Reincarnation) + + +Adventures come to the adventurous, and mysterious things fall in the +way of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch for +them; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, +thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of the +great curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between them +and the world of causes behind. + +For only to the few whose inner senses have been quickened, perchance +by some strange suffering in the depths, or by a natural temperament +bequeathed from a remote past, comes the knowledge, not too welcome, +that this greater world lies ever at their elbow, and that any moment a +chance combination of moods and forces may invite them to cross the +shifting frontier. + +Some, however, are born with this awful certainty in their hearts, and +are called to no apprenticeship, and to this select company Jones +undoubtedly belonged. + +All his life he had realised that his senses brought to him merely a +more or less interesting set of sham appearances; that space, as men +measure it, was utterly misleading; that time, as the clock ticked it +in a succession of minutes, was arbitrary nonsense; and, in fact, that +all his sensory perceptions were but a clumsy representation of _real_ +things behind the curtain--things he was for ever trying to get at, and +that sometimes he actually did get at. + +He had always been tremblingly aware that he stood on the borderland +of another region, a region where time and space were merely forms of +thought, where ancient memories lay open to the sight, and where the +forces behind each human life stood plainly revealed and he could see +the hidden springs at the very heart of the world. Moreover, the fact +that he was a clerk in a fire insurance office, and did his work with +strict attention, never allowed him to forget for one moment that, just +beyond the dingy brick walls where the hundred men scribbled with +pointed pens beneath the electric lamps, there existed this glorious +region where the important part of himself dwelt and moved and had its +being. For in this region he pictured himself playing the part of a +spectator to his ordinary workaday life, watching, like a king, the +stream of events, but untouched in his own soul by the dirt, the noise, +and the vulgar commotion of the outer world. + +And this was no poetic dream merely. Jones was not playing prettily with +idealism to amuse himself. It was a living, working belief. So convinced +was he that the external world was the result of a vast deception +practised upon him by the gross senses, that when he stared at a great +building like St. Paul's he felt it would not very much surprise him to +see it suddenly quiver like a shape of jelly and then melt utterly away, +while in its place stood all at once revealed the mass of colour, or the +great intricate vibrations, or the splendid sound--the spiritual +idea--which it represented in stone. + +For something in this way it was that his mind worked. + +Yet, to all appearances, and in the satisfaction of all business claims, +Jones was normal and unenterprising. He felt nothing but contempt for +the wave of modern psychism. He hardly knew the meaning of such words as +"clairvoyance" and "clairaudience." He had never felt the least desire +to join the Theosophical Society and to speculate in theories of +astral-plane life, or elementals. He attended no meetings of the +Psychical Research Society, and knew no anxiety as to whether his "aura" +was black or blue; nor was he conscious of the slightest wish to mix in +with the revival of cheap occultism which proves so attractive to weak +minds of mystical tendencies and unleashed imaginations. + +There were certain things he _knew_, but none he cared to argue about; +and he shrank instinctively from attempting to put names to the contents +of this other region, knowing well that such names could only limit and +define things that, according to any standards in use in the ordinary +world, were simply undefinable and illusive. + +So that, although this was the way his mind worked, there was clearly a +very strong leaven of common sense in Jones. In a word, the man the +world and the office knew as Jones _was_ Jones. The name summed him up +and labelled him correctly--John Enderby Jones. + +Among the things that he _knew_, and therefore never cared to speak or +speculate about, one was that he plainly saw himself as the inheritor +of a long series of past lives, the net result of painful evolution, +always as himself, of course, but in numerous different bodies each +determined by the behaviour of the preceding one. The present John Jones +was the last result to date of all the previous thinking, feeling, +and doing of John Jones in earlier bodies and in other centuries. He +pretended to no details, nor claimed distinguished ancestry, for he +realised his past must have been utterly commonplace and insignificant +to have produced his present; but he was just as sure he had been at +this weary game for ages as that he breathed, and it never occurred to +him to argue, to doubt, or to ask questions. And one result of this +belief was that his thoughts dwelt upon the past rather than upon the +future; that he read much history, and felt specially drawn to certain +periods whose spirit he understood instinctively as though he had lived +in them; and that he found all religions uninteresting because, almost +without exception, they start from the present and speculate ahead as to +what men shall become, instead of looking back and speculating why men +have got here as they are. + +In the insurance office he did his work exceedingly well, but without +much personal ambition. Men and women he regarded as the impersonal +instruments for inflicting upon him the pain or pleasure he had earned +by his past workings, for chance had no place in his scheme of things at +all; and while he recognised that the practical world could not get +along unless every man did his work thoroughly and conscientiously, he +took no interest in the accumulation of fame or money for himself, and +simply, therefore, did his plain duty, with indifference as to results. + +In common with others who lead a strictly impersonal life, he possessed +the quality of utter bravery, and was always ready to face any +combination of circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he saw in +them the just working-out of past causes he had himself set in motion +which could not be dodged or modified. And whereas the majority of +people had little meaning for him, either by way of attraction or +repulsion, the moment he met some one with whom he felt his past had +been _vitally_ interwoven his whole inner being leapt up instantly and +shouted the fact in his face, and he regulated his life with the utmost +skill and caution, like a sentry on watch for an enemy whose feet could +already be heard approaching. + +Thus, while the great majority of men and women left him +uninfluenced--since he regarded them as so many souls merely passing +with him along the great stream of evolution--there were, here and +there, individuals with whom he recognised that his smallest intercourse +was of the gravest importance. These were persons with whom he knew +in every fibre of his being he had accounts to settle, pleasant or +otherwise, arising out of dealings in past lives; and into his relations +with these few, therefore, he concentrated as it were the efforts that +most people spread over their intercourse with a far greater number. By +what means he picked out these few individuals only those conversant +with the startling processes of the subconscious memory may say, but the +point was that Jones believed the main purpose, if not quite the entire +purpose, of his present incarnation lay in his faithful and thorough +settling of these accounts, and that if he sought to evade the least +detail of such settling, no matter how unpleasant, he would have lived +in vain, and would return to his next incarnation with this added duty +to perform. For according to his beliefs there was no Chance, and could +be no ultimate shirking, and to avoid a problem was merely to waste time +and lose opportunities for development. + +And there was one individual with whom Jones had long understood clearly +he had a very large account to settle, and towards the accomplishment +of which all the main currents of his being seemed to bear him with +unswerving purpose. For, when he first entered the insurance office as a +junior clerk ten years before, and through a glass door had caught sight +of this man seated in an inner room, one of his sudden overwhelming +flashes of intuitive memory had burst up into him from the depths, and +he had seen, as in a flame of blinding light, a symbolical picture of +the future rising out of a dreadful past, and he had, without any act of +definite volition, marked down this man for a real account to be +settled. + +"With _that_ man I shall have much to do," he said to himself, as he +noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is +something I cannot shirk--a vital relation out of the past of both of +us." + +And he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, as +though the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand +upon his heart and touched the scar of a great horror. It was a moment +of genuine terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, and +he was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized upon +him with great violence and convinced him in a single second that the +settling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he could +manage. + +The vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping back again into the +submerged region of his consciousness; but he never forgot it, and +the whole of his life thereafter became a sort of natural though +undeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the great duty when the +time should be ripe. + +In those days--ten years ago--this man was the Assistant Manager, +but had since been promoted as Manager to one of the company's local +branches; and soon afterwards Jones had likewise found himself +transferred to this same branch. A little later, again, the branch +at Liverpool, one of the most important, had been in peril owing to +mismanagement and defalcation, and the man had gone to take charge of +it, and again, by mere chance apparently, Jones had been promoted to the +same place. And this pursuit of the Assistant Manager had continued for +several years, often, too, in the most curious fashion; and though Jones +had never exchanged a single word with him, or been so much as noticed +indeed by the great man, the clerk understood perfectly well that these +moves in the game were all part of a definite purpose. Never for one +moment did he doubt that the Invisibles behind the veil were slowly and +surely arranging the details of it all so as to lead up suitably to the +climax demanded by justice, a climax in which himself and the Manager +would play the leading _roles_. + +"It is inevitable," he said to himself, "and I feel it may be terrible; +but when the moment comes I shall be ready, and I pray God that I may +face it properly and act like a man." + +Moreover, as the years passed, and nothing happened, he felt the horror +closing in upon him with steady increase, for the fact was Jones hated +and loathed the Manager with an intensity of feeling he had never before +experienced towards any human being. He shrank from his presence, and +from the glance of his eyes, as though he remembered to have suffered +nameless cruelties at his hands; and he slowly began to realise, +moreover, that the matter to be settled between them was one of very +ancient standing, and that the nature of the settlement was a discharge +of accumulated punishment which would probably be very dreadful in the +manner of its fulfilment. + +When, therefore, the chief cashier one day informed him that the man +was to be in London again--this time as General Manager of the head +office--and said that he was charged to find a private secretary for him +from among the best clerks, and further intimated that the selection +had fallen upon himself, Jones accepted the promotion quietly, +fatalistically, yet with a degree of inward loathing hardly to be +described. For he saw in this merely another move in the evolution of +the inevitable Nemesis which he simply dared not seek to frustrate by +any personal consideration; and at the same time he was conscious of a +certain feeling of relief that the suspense of waiting might soon be +mitigated. A secret sense of satisfaction, therefore, accompanied the +unpleasant change, and Jones was able to hold himself perfectly well in +hand when it was carried into effect and he was formally introduced as +private secretary to the General Manager. + +Now the Manager was a large, fat man, with a very red face and bags +beneath his eyes. Being short-sighted, he wore glasses that seemed to +magnify his eyes, which were always a little bloodshot. In hot weather a +sort of thin slime covered his cheeks, for he perspired easily. His head +was almost entirely bald, and over his turn-down collar his great neck +folded in two distinct reddish collops of flesh. His hands were big and +his fingers almost massive in thickness. + +He was an excellent business man, of sane judgment and firm will, +without enough imagination to confuse his course of action by showing +him possible alternatives; and his integrity and ability caused him to +be held in universal respect by the world of business and finance. In +the important regions of a man's character, however, and at heart, he +was coarse, brutal almost to savagery, without consideration for others, +and as a result often cruelly unjust to his helpless subordinates. + +In moments of temper, which were not infrequent, his face turned a dull +purple, while the top of his bald head shone by contrast like white +marble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it seemed they would +presently explode with a pop. And at these times he presented a +distinctly repulsive appearance. + +But to a private secretary like Jones, who did his duty regardless of +whether his employer was beast or angel, and whose mainspring was +principle and not emotion, this made little difference. Within the +narrow limits in which any one _could_ satisfy such a man, he pleased +the General Manager; and more than once his piercing intuitive faculty, +amounting almost to clairvoyance, assisted the chief in a fashion that +served to bring the two closer together than might otherwise have +been the case, and caused the man to respect in his assistant a power +of which he possessed not even the germ himself. It was a curious +relationship that grew up between the two, and the cashier, who enjoyed +the credit of having made the selection, profited by it indirectly as +much as any one else. + +So for some time the work of the office continued normally and very +prosperously. John Enderby Jones received a good salary, and in the +outward appearance of the two chief characters in this history there +was little change noticeable, except that the Manager grew fatter and +redder, and the secretary observed that his own hair was beginning to +show rather greyish at the temples. + +There were, however, two changes in progress, and they both had to do +with Jones, and are important to mention. + +One was that he began to dream evilly. In the region of deep sleep, +where the possibility of significant dreaming first develops itself, he +was tormented more and more with vivid scenes and pictures in which a +tall thin man, dark and sinister of countenance, and with bad eyes, was +closely associated with himself. Only the setting was that of a past +age, with costumes of centuries gone by, and the scenes had to do with +dreadful cruelties that could not belong to modern life as he knew it. + +The other change was also significant, but is not so easy to describe, +for he had in fact become aware that some new portion of himself, +hitherto unawakened, had stirred slowly into life out of the very depths +of his consciousness. This new part of himself amounted almost to +another personality, and he never observed its least manifestation +without a strange thrill at his heart. + +For he understood that it had begun to _watch_ the Manager! + + + + +II + + +It was the habit of Jones, since he was compelled to work among +conditions that were utterly distasteful, to withdraw his mind wholly +from business once the day was over. During office hours he kept the +strictest possible watch upon himself, and turned the key on all inner +dreams, lest any sudden uprush from the deeps should interfere with his +duty. But, once the working day was over, the gates flew open, and he +began to enjoy himself. + +He read no modern books on the subjects that interested him, and, as +already said, he followed no course of training, nor belonged to any +society that dabbled with half-told mysteries; but, once released from +the office desk in the Manager's room, he simply and naturally entered +the other region, because he was an old inhabitant, a rightful denizen, +and because he belonged there. It was, in fact, really a case of +dual personality; and a carefully drawn agreement existed between +Jones-of-the-fire-insurance-office and Jones-of-the-mysteries, by the +terms of which, under heavy penalties, neither region claimed him out of +hours. + +For the moment he reached his rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury, and +had changed his city coat to another, the iron doors of the office +clanged far behind him, and in front, before his very eyes, rolled up +the beautiful gates of ivory, and he entered into the places of flowers +and singing and wonderful veiled forms. Sometimes he quite lost touch +with the outer world, forgetting to eat his dinner or go to bed, and lay +in a state of trance, his consciousness working far out of the body. And +on other occasions he walked the streets on air, half-way between the +two regions, unable to distinguish between incarnate and discarnate +forms, and not very far, probably, beyond the strata where poets, +saints, and the greatest artists have moved and thought and found their +inspiration. But this was only when some insistent bodily claim +prevented his full release, and more often than not he was entirely +independent of his physical portion and free of the real region, without +let or hindrance. + +One evening he reached home utterly exhausted after the burden of the +day's work. The Manager had been more than usually brutal, unjust, +ill-tempered, and Jones had been almost persuaded out of his settled +policy of contempt into answering back. Everything seemed to have gone +amiss, and the man's coarse, underbred nature had been in the ascendant +all day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused, +found fault unreasonably, uttered outrageous things, and behaved +generally as he actually was--beneath the thin veneer of acquired +business varnish. He had done and said everything to wound all that was +woundable in an ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately dwelt +in a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might look +down on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had nevertheless +told severely upon him, and he reached home wondering for the first time +in his life whether there was perhaps a point beyond which he would be +unable to restrain himself any longer. + +For something out of the usual had happened. At the close of a passage +of great stress between the two, every nerve in the secretary's body +tingling from undeserved abuse, the Manager had suddenly turned full +upon him, in the corner of the private room where the safes stood, in +such a way that the glare of his red eyes, magnified by the glasses, +looked straight into his own. And at this very second that other +personality in Jones--the one that was ever _watching_--rose up swiftly +from the deeps within and held a mirror to his face. + +A moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one single +second--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the Manager as the +tall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had suffered +at his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind like +the report of a cannon. + +It all flashed upon him and was gone, changing him from fire to ice, +and then back again to fire; and he left the office with the certain +conviction in his heart that the time for his final settlement with the +man, the time for the inevitable retribution, was at last drawing very +near. + +According to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in putting +the memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changing +of his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chair +before the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the Soho French +restaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowers +and singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that were the very +sources of his real life and being. + +For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had +crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and +inevitable for him to act. + +At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered +appointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, but +where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it was +for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came +back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever +it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket +engagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omitted +to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either +the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down. + +But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed +to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart, +accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that +beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. The +emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause +the actual details of the appointment to reappear. + +Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some +one was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitely +arranged to meet. He was expected by a person that very night and just +about that very time. But by whom? Where? A curious inner trembling came +over him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to be +ready for anything that might come. + +And then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment was +this very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised to +meet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him. + +He looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. The +majority of the diners were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with much +gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerks +like himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, but +there was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell upon +the occupant of the corner seat opposite, generally filled by himself. + +"There's the man who's waiting for me!" thought Jones instantly. + +He knew it at once. The man, he saw, was sitting well back into the +corner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skin +was very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. At +first the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up and +their eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for a +second or two Jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known years +before. For, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who +had occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the service +of the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstaking +kindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. But a +moment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that Thorpe had been +dead at least five years. The similarity of the eyes was obviously a +mere suggestive trick of memory. + +The two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then Jones +began to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. He crossed over and +took the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt it +was somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he had +almost forgotten the engagement altogether. + +No honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind had +begun to work furiously. + +"Yes, you _are_ late," said the man quietly, before he could find a +single word to utter. "But it doesn't matter. Also, you had forgotten +the appointment, but that makes no difference either." + +"I knew--that there was an engagement," Jones stammered, passing his +hand over his forehead; "but somehow--" + +"You will recall it presently," continued the other in a gentle voice, +and smiling a little. "It was in deep sleep last night we arranged this, +and the unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the moment obliterated +it." + +A faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of trees +with moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, while +for an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion and +to have assumed vast proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes. + +"Oh!" he gasped. "It was there--in the other region?" + +"Of course," said the other, with a smile that illumined his whole face. +"You will remember presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have +no cause to feel afraid." + +There was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like the +whispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sat +a little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked much +or ate anything. He only recalled afterwards that the head waiter came +up and whispered something in his ear, and that he glanced round and saw +the other people were looking at him curiously, some of them laughing, +and that his companion then got up and led the way out of the +restaurant. + +They walked hurriedly through the streets, neither of them speaking; and +Jones was so intent upon getting back the whole history of the affair +from the region of deep sleep, that he barely noticed the way they took. +Yet it was clear he knew where they were bound for just as well as his +companion, for he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving down +alleys without hesitation, and the other followed always without +correction. + +The pavements were very full, and the usual night crowds of London were +surging to and fro in the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no one +impeded their rapid movements, and they seemed to pass through the +people as if they were smoke. And, as they went, the pedestrians and +traffic grew less and less, and they soon passed the Mansion House and +the deserted space in front of the Royal Exchange, and so on down +Fenchurch Street and within sight of the Tower of London, rising dim and +shadowy in the smoky air. + +Jones remembered all this perfectly well, and thought it was his intense +preoccupation that made the distance seem so short. But it was when the +Tower was left behind and they turned northwards that he began to notice +how altered everything was, and saw that they were in a neighbourhood +where houses were suddenly scarce, and lanes and fields beginning, +and that their only light was the stars overhead. And, as the deeper +consciousness more and more asserted itself to the exclusion of the +surface happenings of his mere body during the day, the sense of +exhaustion vanished, and he realised that he was moving somewhere in the +region of causes behind the veil, beyond the gross deceptions of the +senses, and released from the clumsy spell of space and time. + +Without great surprise, therefore, he turned and saw that his companion +had altered, had shed his overcoat and black hat, and was moving beside +him absolutely _without sound_. For a brief second he saw him, tall as a +tree, extending through space like a great shadow, misty and wavering of +outline, followed by a sound like wings in the darkness; but, when he +stopped, fear clutching at his heart, the other resumed his former +proportions, and Jones could plainly see his normal outline against the +green field behind. + +Then the secretary saw him fumbling at his neck, and at the same moment +the black beard came away from the face in his hand. + +"Then you _are_ Thorpe!" he gasped, yet somehow without overwhelming +surprise. + +They stood facing one another in the lonely lane, trees meeting overhead +and hiding the stars, and a sound of mournful sighing among the +branches. + +"I am Thorpe," was the answer in a voice that almost seemed part of the +wind. "And I have come out of our far past to help you, for my debt to +you is large, and in this life I had but small opportunity to repay." + +Jones thought quickly of the man's kindness to him in the office, and a +great wave of feeling surged through him as he began to remember dimly +the friend by whose side he had already climbed, perhaps through vast +ages of his soul's evolution. + +"To help me _now_?" he whispered. + +"You will understand me when you enter into your real memory and recall +how great a debt I have to pay for old faithful kindnesses of long ago," +sighed the other in a voice like falling wind. + +"Between us, though, there can be no question of _debt_," Jones heard +himself saying, and remembered the reply that floated to him on the air +and the smile that lightened for a moment the stern eyes facing him. + +"Not of debt, indeed, but of privilege." + +Jones felt his heart leap out towards this man, this old friend, tried +by centuries and still faithful. He made a movement to seize his hand. +But the other shifted like a thing of mist, and for a moment the clerk's +head swam and his eyes seemed to fail. + +"Then you are _dead_?" he said under his breath with a slight shiver. + +"Five years ago I left the body you knew," replied Thorpe. "I tried to +help you then instinctively, not fully recognising you. But now I can +accomplish far more." + +With an awful sense of foreboding and dread in his heart, the secretary +was beginning to understand. + +"It has to do with--with--?" + +"Your past dealings with the Manager," came the answer, as the wind rose +louder among the branches overhead and carried off the remainder of the +sentence into the air. + +Jones's memory, which was just beginning to stir among the deepest +layers of all, shut down suddenly with a snap, and he followed his +companion over fields and down sweet-smelling lanes where the air was +fragrant and cool, till they came to a large house, standing gaunt and +lonely in the shadows at the edge of a wood. It was wrapped in utter +stillness, with windows heavily draped in black, and the clerk, as he +looked, felt such an overpowering wave of sadness invade him that his +eyes began to burn and smart, and he was conscious of a desire to shed +tears. + +The key made a harsh noise as it turned in the lock, and when the door +swung open into a lofty hall they heard a confused sound of rustling and +whispering, as of a great throng of people pressing forward to meet +them. The air seemed full of swaying movement, and Jones was certain he +saw hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition, while in his +heart, already oppressed by the approaching burden of vast accumulated +memories, he was aware of the _uncoiling of something_ that had been +asleep for ages. + +As they advanced he heard the doors close with a muffled thunder behind +them, and saw that the shadows seemed to retreat and shrink away towards +the interior of the house, carrying the hands and faces with them. He +heard the wind singing round the walls and over the roof, and its +wailing voice mingled with the sound of deep, collective breathing that +filled the house like the murmur of a sea; and as they walked up the +broad staircase and through the vaulted rooms, where pillars rose like +the stems of trees, he knew that the building was crowded, row upon row, +with the thronging memories of his own long past. + +"This is the _House of the Past_," whispered Thorpe beside him, as they +moved silently from room to room; "the house of _your_ past. It is full +from cellar to roof with the memories of what you have done, thought, +and felt from the earliest stages of your evolution until now. + +"The house climbs up almost to the clouds, and stretches back into the +heart of the wood you saw outside, but the remoter halls are filled with +the ghosts of ages ago too many to count, and even if we were able to +waken them you could not remember them now. Some day, though, they will +come and claim you, and you must know them, and answer their questions, +for they can never rest till they have exhausted themselves again +through you, and justice has been perfectly worked out. + +"But now follow me closely, and you shall see the particular memory +for which I am permitted to be your guide, so that you may know and +understand a great force in your present life, and may use the sword of +justice, or rise to the level of a great forgiveness, according to your +degree of power." + +Icy thrills ran through the trembling clerk, and as he walked slowly +beside his companion he heard from the vaults below, as well as from +more distant regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing of +the serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still air like a chord +swept from unseen strings stretched somewhere among the very foundations +of the house. + +Stealthily, picking their way among the great pillars, they moved up the +sweeping staircase and through several dark corridors and halls, and +presently stopped outside a small door in an archway where the shadows +were very deep. + +"Remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry," whispered the +voice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face was +stern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness. + +The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but gradually +the secretary perceived a faint reddish glow against the farther end, +and thought he saw figures moving silently to and fro. + +"Now watch!" whispered Thorpe, as they pressed close to the wall near +the door and waited. "But remember to keep absolute silence. It is a +torture scene." + +Jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned to fly if he dared, for +an indescribable terror seized him and his knees shook; but some power +that made escape impossible held him remorselessly there, and with eyes +glued on the spots of light he crouched against the wall and waited. + +The figures began to move more swiftly, each in its own dim light that +shed no radiance beyond itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chains +and the voice of a man groaning in pain. Then came the sound of a door +closing, and thereafter Jones saw but one figure, the figure of an old +man, naked entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron framework on +the floor. His memory gave a sudden leap of fear as he looked, for the +features and white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as though +of yesterday. + +The other figures had disappeared, and the old man became the centre of +the terrible picture. Slowly, with ghastly groans; as the heat below him +increased into a steady glow, the aged body rose in a curve of agony, +resting on the iron frame only where the chains held wrists and ankles +fast. Cries and gasps filled the air, and Jones felt exactly as though +they came from his own throat, and as if the chains were burning into +his own wrists and ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and flesh +upon his own back. He began to writhe and twist himself. + +"Spain!" whispered the voice at his side, "and four hundred years ago." + +"And the purpose?" gasped the perspiring clerk, though he knew quite +well what the answer must be. + +"To extort the name of a friend, to his death and betrayal," came the +reply through the darkness. + +A sliding panel opened with a little rattle in the wall immediately +above the rack, and a face, framed in the same red glow, appeared and +looked down upon the dying victim. Jones was only just able to choke +a scream, for he recognised the tall dark man of his dreams. With +horrible, gloating eyes he gazed down upon the writhing form of the old +man, and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words were actually +audible. + +"He asks again for the name," explained the other, as the clerk +struggled with the intense hatred and loathing that threatened every +moment to result in screams and action. His ankles and wrists pained him +so that he could scarcely keep still, but a merciless power held him to +the scene. + +He saw the old man, with a fierce cry, raise his tortured head and spit +up into the face at the panel, and then the shutter slid back again, and +a moment later the increased glow beneath the body, accompanied by awful +writhing, told of the application of further heat. There came the odour +of burning flesh; the white beard curled and burned to a crisp; the body +fell back limp upon the red-hot iron, and then shot up again in fresh +agony; cry after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out with +deadened sound between the four walls; and again the panel slid back +creaking, and revealed the dreadful face of the torturer. + +Again the name was asked for, and again it was refused; and this time, +after the closing of the panel, a door opened, and the tall thin man +with the evil face came slowly into the chamber. His features were +savage with rage and disappointment, and in the dull red glow that fell +upon them he looked like a very prince of devils. In his hand he held a +pointed iron at white heat. + +"Now the murder!" came from Thorpe in a whisper that sounded as if it +was outside the building and far away. + +Jones knew quite well what was coming, but was unable even to close his +eyes. He felt all the fearful pains himself just as though he were +actually the sufferer; but now, as he stared, he felt something more +besides; and when the tall man deliberately approached the rack and +plunged the heated iron first into one eye and then into the other, he +heard the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in frightful +pain from his head. At the same moment, unable longer to control +himself, he uttered a wild shriek and dashed forward to seize the +torturer and tear him to a thousand pieces. Instantly, in a flash, the +entire scene vanished; darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felt +himself lifted off his feet by some force like a great wind and borne +swiftly away into space. + +When he recovered his senses he was standing just outside the house and +the figure of Thorpe was beside him in the gloom. The great doors were +in the act of closing behind him, but before they shut he fancied he +caught a glimpse of an immense veiled figure standing upon the +threshold, with flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon like a +shining sword of fire. + +"Come quickly now--all is over!" Thorpe whispered. + +"And the dark man--?" gasped the clerk, as he moved swiftly by the +other's side. + +"In this present life is the Manager of the company." + +"And the victim?" + +"Was yourself!" + +"And the friend he--_I_ refused to betray?" + +"I was that friend," answered Thorpe, his voice with every moment +sounding more and more like the cry of the wind. "You gave your life in +agony to save mine." + +"And again, in this life, we have all three been together?" + +"Yes. Such forces are not soon or easily exhausted, and justice is not +satisfied till all have reaped what they sowed." + +Jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping away into some other state +of consciousness. Thorpe began to seem unreal. Presently he would be +unable to ask more questions. He felt utterly sick and faint with it +all, and his strength was ebbing. + +"Oh, quick!" he cried, "now tell me more. Why did I see this? What must +I do?" + +The wind swept across the field on their right and entered the wood +beyond with a great roar, and the air round him seemed filled with +voices and the rushing of hurried movement. + +"To the ends of justice," answered the other, as though speaking out +of the centre of the wind and from a distance, "which sometimes is +entrusted to the hands of those who suffered and were strong. One wrong +cannot be put right by another wrong, but your life has been so worthy +that the opportunity is given to--" + +The voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was far overhead with the +rushing wind. + +"You may punish or--" Here Jones lost sight of Thorpe's figure +altogether, for he seemed to have vanished and melted away into the +wood behind him. His voice sounded far across the trees, very weak, and +ever rising. + +"Or if you can rise to the level of a great forgiveness--" + +The voice became inaudible.... The wind came crying out of the wood +again. + + * * * * * + +Jones shivered and stared about him. He shook himself violently and +rubbed his eyes. The room was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold and +stiff. He got up out of his armchair, still trembling, and lit the gas. +Outside the wind was howling, and when he looked at his watch he saw +that it was very late and he must go to bed. + +He had not even changed his office coat; he must have fallen asleep in +the chair as soon as he came in, and he had slept for several hours. +Certainly he had eaten no dinner, for he felt ravenous. + + + + +III + + +Next day, and for several weeks thereafter, the business of the office +went on as usual, and Jones did his work well and behaved outwardly with +perfect propriety. No more visions troubled him, and his relations with +the Manager became, if anything, somewhat smoother and easier. + +True, the man _looked_ a little different, because the clerk kept seeing +him with his inner and outer eye promiscuously, so that one moment he +was broad and red-faced, and the next he was tall, thin, and dark, +enveloped, as it were, in a sort of black atmosphere tinged with red. +While at times a confusion of the two sights took place, and Jones saw +the two faces mingled in a composite countenance that was very horrible +indeed to contemplate. But, beyond this occasional change in the outward +appearance of the Manager, there was nothing that the secretary noticed +as the result of his vision, and business went on more or less as +before, and perhaps even with a little less friction. + +But in the rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury it was different, for +there it was perfectly clear to Jones that Thorpe had come to take up +his abode with him. He never saw him, but he knew all the time he was +there. Every night on returning from his work he was greeted by the +well-known whisper, "Be ready when I give the sign!" and often in the +night he woke up suddenly out of deep sleep and was aware that Thorpe +had that minute moved away from his bed and was standing waiting and +watching somewhere in the darkness of the room. Often he followed him +down the stairs, though the dim gas jet on the landings never revealed +his outline; and sometimes he did not come into the room at all, but +hovered outside the window, peering through the dirty panes, or sending +his whisper into the chamber in the whistling of the wind. + +For Thorpe had come to stay, and Jones knew that he would not get rid of +him until he had fulfilled the ends of justice and accomplished the +purpose for which he was waiting. + +Meanwhile, as the days passed, he went through a tremendous struggle +with himself, and came to the perfectly honest decision that the "level +of a great forgiveness" was impossible for him, and that he must +therefore accept the alternative and use the secret knowledge placed +in his hands--and execute justice. And once this decision was arrived +at, he noticed that Thorpe no longer left him alone during the day as +before, but now accompanied him to the office and stayed more or less at +his side all through business hours as well. His whisper made itself +heard in the streets and in the train, and even in the Manager's room +where he worked; sometimes warning, sometimes urging, but never for a +moment suggesting the abandonment of the main purpose, and more than +once so plainly audible that the clerk felt certain others must have +heard it as well as himself. + +The obsession was complete. He felt he was always under Thorpe's eye day +and night, and he knew he must acquit himself like a man when the moment +came, or prove a failure in his own sight as well in the sight of the +other. + +And now that his mind was made up, nothing could prevent the carrying +out of the sentence. He bought a pistol, and spent his Saturday +afternoons practising at a target in lonely places along the Essex +shore, marking out in the sand the exact measurements of the Manager's +room. Sundays he occupied in like fashion, putting up at an inn +overnight for the purpose, spending the money that usually went into the +savings bank on travelling expenses and cartridges. Everything was done +very thoroughly, for there must be no possibility of failure; and at the +end of several weeks he had become so expert with his six-shooter that +at a distance of 25 feet, which was the greatest length of the Manager's +room, he could pick the inside out of a halfpenny nine times out of a +dozen, and leave a clean, unbroken rim. + +There was not the slightest desire to delay. He had thought the matter +over from every point of view his mind could reach, and his purpose was +inflexible. Indeed, he felt proud to think that he had been chosen as +the instrument of justice in the infliction of so well-deserved and so +terrible a punishment. Vengeance may have had some part in his decision, +but he could not help that, for he still felt at times the hot chains +burning his wrists and ankles with fierce agony through to the bone. +He remembered the hideous pain of his slowly roasting back, and the +point when he thought death _must_ intervene to end his suffering, but +instead new powers of endurance had surged up in him, and awful further +stretches of pain had opened up, and unconsciousness seemed farther off +than ever. Then at last the hot irons in his eyes.... It all came back +to him, and caused him to break out in icy perspiration at the mere +thought of it ... the vile face at the panel ... the expression of the +dark face.... His fingers worked. His blood boiled. It was utterly +impossible to keep the idea of vengeance altogether out of his mind. + +Several times he was temporarily baulked of his prey. Odd things +happened to stop him when he was on the point of action. The first day, +for instance, the Manager fainted from the heat. Another time when he +had decided to do the deed, the Manager did not come down to the office +at all. And a third time, when his hand was actually in his hip pocket, +he suddenly heard Thorpe's horrid whisper telling him to wait, and +turning, he saw that the head cashier had entered the room noiselessly +without his noticing it. Thorpe evidently knew what he was about, and +did not intend to let the clerk bungle the matter. + +He fancied, moreover, that the head cashier was watching him. He was +always meeting him in unexpected corners and places, and the cashier +never seemed to have an adequate excuse for being there. His movements +seemed suddenly of particular interest to others in the office as well, +for clerks were always being sent to ask him unnecessary questions, +and there was apparently a general design to keep him under a sort of +surveillance, so that he was never much alone with the Manager in the +private room where they worked. And once the cashier had even gone so +far as to suggest that he could take his holiday earlier than usual if +he liked, as the work had been very arduous of late and the heat +exceedingly trying. + +He noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed by a certain individual +in the streets, a careless-looking sort of man, who never came face to +face with him, or actually ran into him, but who was always in his train +or omnibus, and whose eye he often caught observing him over the top of +his newspaper, and who on one occasion was even waiting at the door of +his lodgings when he came out to dine. + +There were other indications too, of various sorts, that led him to +think something was at work to defeat his purpose, and that he must act +at once before these hostile forces could prevent. + +And so the end came very swiftly, and was thoroughly approved by Thorpe. + +It was towards the close of July, and one of the hottest days London had +ever known, for the City was like an oven, and the particles of dust +seemed to burn the throats of the unfortunate toilers in street and +office. The portly Manager, who suffered cruelly owing to his size, came +down perspiring and gasping with the heat. He carried a light-coloured +umbrella to protect his head. + +"He'll want something more than that, though!" Jones laughed quietly to +himself when he saw him enter. + +The pistol was safely in his hip pocket, every one of its six chambers +loaded. + +The Manager saw the smile on his face, and gave him a long steady look +as he sat down to his desk in the corner. A few minutes later he touched +the bell for the head cashier--a single ring--and then asked Jones to +fetch some papers from another safe in the room upstairs. + +A deep inner trembling seized the secretary as he noticed these +precautions, for he saw that the hostile forces were at work against +him, and yet he felt he could delay no longer and must act that very +morning, interference or no interference. However, he went obediently up +in the lift to the next floor, and while fumbling with the combination +of the safe, known only to himself, the cashier, and the Manager, he +again heard Thorpe's horrid whisper just behind him: + +"You must do it to-day! You must do it to-day!" + +He came down again with the papers, and found the Manager alone. The +room was like a furnace, and a wave of dead heated air met him in the +face as he went in. The moment he passed the doorway he realised that he +had been the subject of conversation between the head cashier and his +enemy. They had been discussing him. Perhaps an inkling of his secret +had somehow got into their minds. They had been watching him for days +past. They had become suspicious. + +Clearly, he must act now, or let the opportunity slip by perhaps for +ever. He heard Thorpe's voice in his ear, but this time it was no mere +whisper, but a plain human voice, speaking out loud. + +"Now!" it said. "Do it now!" + +The room was empty. Only the Manager and himself were in it. + +Jones turned from his desk where he had been standing, and locked the +door leading into the main office. He saw the army of clerks scribbling +in their shirt-sleeves, for the upper half of the door was of glass. He +had perfect control of himself, and his heart was beating steadily. + +The Manager, hearing the key turn in the lock, looked up sharply. + +"What's that you're doing?" he asked quickly. + +"Only locking the door, sir," replied the secretary in a quite even +voice. + +"Why? Who told you to--?" + +"The voice of Justice, sir," replied Jones, looking steadily into the +hated face. + +The Manager looked black for a moment, and stared angrily across the +room at him. Then suddenly his expression changed as he stared, and he +tried to smile. It was meant to be a kind smile evidently, but it only +succeeded in being frightened. + +"That _is_ a good idea in this weather," he said lightly, "but it would +be much better to lock it on the _outside_, wouldn't it, Mr. Jones?" + +"I think not, sir. You might escape me then. Now you can't." + +Jones took his pistol out and pointed it at the other's face. Down the +barrel he saw the features of the tall dark man, evil and sinister. Then +the outline trembled a little and the face of the Manager slipped back +into its place. It was white as death, and shining with perspiration. + +"You tortured me to death four hundred years ago," said the clerk in the +same steady voice, "and now the dispensers of justice have chosen me to +punish you." + +The Manager's face turned to flame, and then back to chalk again. He +made a quick movement towards the telephone bell, stretching out a hand +to reach it, but at the same moment Jones pulled the trigger and the +wrist was shattered, splashing the wall behind with blood. + +"That's _one_ place where the chains burnt," he said quietly to himself. +His hand was absolutely steady, and he felt that he was a hero. + +The Manager was on his feet, with a scream of pain, supporting himself +with his right hand on the desk in front of him, but Jones pressed the +trigger again, and a bullet flew into the other wrist, so that the big +man, deprived of support, fell forward with a crash on to the desk. + +"You damned madman!" shrieked the Manager. "Drop that pistol!" + +"That's _another_ place," was all Jones said, still taking careful aim +for another shot. + +The big man, screaming and blundering, scrambled beneath the desk, +making frantic efforts to hide, but the secretary took a step forward +and fired two shots in quick succession into his projecting legs, +hitting first one ankle and then the other, and smashing them horribly. + +"Two more places where the chains burnt," he said, going a little +nearer. + +The Manager, still shrieking, tried desperately to squeeze his bulk +behind the shelter of the opening beneath the desk, but he was far too +large, and his bald head protruded through on the other side. Jones +caught him by the scruff of his great neck and dragged him yelping out +on to the carpet. He was covered with blood, and flopped helplessly upon +his broken wrists. + +"Be quick now!" cried the voice of Thorpe. + +There was a tremendous commotion and banging at the door, and Jones +gripped his pistol tightly. Something seemed to crash through his brain, +clearing it for a second, so that he thought he saw beside him a great +veiled figure, with drawn sword and flaming eyes, and sternly approving +attitude. + +"Remember the eyes! Remember the eyes!" hissed Thorpe in the air above +him. + +Jones felt like a god, with a god's power. Vengeance disappeared from +his mind. He was acting impersonally as an instrument in the hands of +the Invisibles who dispense justice and balance accounts. He bent down +and put the barrel close into the other's face, smiling a little as he +saw the childish efforts of the arms to cover his head. Then he pulled +the trigger, and a bullet went straight into the right eye, blackening +the skin. Moving the pistol two inches the other way, he sent another +bullet crashing into the left eye. Then he stood upright over his victim +with a deep sigh of satisfaction. + +The Manager wriggled convulsively for the space of a single second, and +then lay still in death. + +There was not a moment to lose, for the door was already broken in and +violent hands were at his neck. Jones put the pistol to his temple and +once more pressed the trigger with his finger. + +But this time there was no report. Only a little dead click answered the +pressure, for the secretary had forgotten that the pistol had only six +chambers, and that he had used them all. He threw the useless weapon +on to the floor, laughing a little out loud, and turned, without a +struggle, to give himself up. + +"I _had_ to do it," he said quietly, while they tied him. "It was simply +my duty! And now I am ready to face the consequences, and Thorpe will be +proud of me. For justice has been done and the gods are satisfied." + +He made not the slightest resistance, and when the two policemen marched +him off through the crowd of shuddering little clerks in the office, he +again saw the veiled figure moving majestically in front of him, making +slow sweeping circles with the flaming sword, to keep back the host of +faces that were thronging in upon him from the Other Region. + + + * * * * * + + + + +_The Man Who Found Out_ + +(A Nightmare) + +1 + + +Professor Mark Ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the only +persons who knew it were his assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers. +But a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw and +the gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of this +particular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced would +certainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably contain +such strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personality +combined. + +For Mark Ebor, F.R.S., etc., etc., was that unique combination hardly +ever met with in actual life, a man of science and a mystic. + +As the first, his name stood in the gallery of the great, and as the +second--but there came the mystery! For under the pseudonym of "Pilgrim" +(the author of that brilliant series of books that appealed to so many), +his identity was as well concealed as that of the anonymous writer of +the weather reports in a daily newspaper. Thousands read the sanguine, +optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the pen +of "Pilgrim," and thousands bore their daily burdens better for having +read; while the Press generally agreed that the author, besides being an +incorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one ever +succeeded in penetrating the veil of anonymity and discovering that +"Pilgrim" and the biologist were one and the same person. + +Mark Ebor, as Dr. Laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; but +Mark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyes +and ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" and +the future of the human race, was quite another. + +"I have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as he +sat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant and +intimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of the +awakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to be +observed and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities--" + +"I am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put in +deferentially, yet with a certain impatience. + +"For Visions come from a region of the consciousness where observation +and experiment are out of the question," pursued the other with +enthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should be +checked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored. +All inspiration, I hold, is of the nature of interior Vision, and all +our best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a sudden +revelation to the brain prepared to receive it--" + +"Prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possible +study of ordinary phenomena," Dr. Laidlaw allowed himself to observe. + +"Perhaps," sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, of +spiritual illumination. The best match in the world will not light a +candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared." + +It was Laidlaw's turn to sigh. He knew so well the impossibility of +arguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but at +the same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was so +sincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wondering +how far the great man would go and to what end this curious combination +of logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him. + +"Only last night," continued the elder man, a sort of light coming into +his rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that has +haunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not be +denied." + +Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair. + +"About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean--and that they lie somewhere +hidden in the sands," he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest came +into his face as he turned to catch the professor's reply. + +"And that I am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to give +the great knowledge to the world--" + +"Who will not believe," laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite +of his thinly-veiled contempt. + +"Because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, are +hopelessly--unscientific," replied the other gently, his face positively +aglow with the memory of his vision. "Yet what is more likely," he +continued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes that +saw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than that +there should have been given to man in the first ages of the world some +record of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? In a +word," he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexed +assistant, "that God's messengers in the far-off ages should have given +to His creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of the +secret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation of +our being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimate +fullness of things?" + +Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These outbursts of mystical enthusiasm he +had witnessed before. With any other man he would not have listened to +a single sentence, but to Professor Ebor, man of knowledge and profound +investigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded this +condition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reaction +from the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of many +days. + +He smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met the +other's rapt gaze. + +"But you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimate +secrets to be screened from all possible--" + +"The _ultimate_ secrets, yes," came the unperturbed reply; "but that +there lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secret +meaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristine +innocence, I am convinced. And, by this strange vision so often +vouchsafed to me, I am equally sure that one day it shall be given to me +to announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message." + +And he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe the +species of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliest +childhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of the +Gods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature was +always, however, withheld from him in the vision--to a patient and +suffering humanity. + +"The _Scrutator_, sir, well described 'Pilgrim' as the Apostle of +Hope," said the young doctor gently, when he had finished; "and now, if +that reviewer could hear you speak and realize from what strange depths +comes your simple faith--" + +The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child broke +over his face like sunshine in the morning. + +"Half the good my books do would be instantly destroyed," he said sadly; +"they would say that I wrote with my tongue in my cheek. But wait," he +added significantly; "wait till I find these Tablets of the Gods! Wait +till I hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my hands! Wait +till the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused humanity, and +it wakes to find its bravest hopes justified! Ah, then, my dear +Laidlaw--" + +He broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought in +his mind, caught him up immediately. + +"Perhaps this very summer," he said, trying hard to make the suggestion +keep pace with honesty; "in your explorations in Assyria--your digging +in the remote civilization of what was once Chaldea, you may find--what +you dream of--" + +The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a fine old face. + +"Perhaps," he murmured softly, "perhaps!" + +And the young doctor, thanking the gods of science that his leader's +aberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in the +certitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to refer +his visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether in +his old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations of +the very kind that afflicted his respected chief. + +And as he got into bed and thought again of his master's rugged face, +and finely shaped head, and the deep lines traced by years of work and +self-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with a +sigh that was half of wonder, half of regret. + + + + +2 + + +It was in February, nine months later, when Dr. Laidlaw made his way to +Charing Cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel and +exploration. The vision about the so-called Tablets of the Gods had +meanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory. + +There were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was now +running the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man he +had come to meet. The shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felt +hat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily. + +"Here I am at last!" exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, clasping +his friend's hand as he listened to the young doctor's warm greetings +and questions. "Here I am--a little older, and _much_ dirtier than when +you last saw me!" He glanced down laughingly at his travel-stained +garments. + +"And _much_ wiser," said Laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about the +platform for porters and gave his chief the latest scientific news. + +At last they came down to practical considerations. + +"And your luggage--where is that? You must have tons of it, I suppose?" +said Laidlaw. + +"Hardly anything," Professor Ebor answered. "Nothing, in fact, but what +you see." + +"Nothing but this hand-bag?" laughed the other, thinking he was joking. + +"And a small portmanteau in the van," was the quiet reply. "I have no +other luggage." + +"You have no other luggage?" repeated Laidlaw, turning sharply to see if +he were in earnest. + +"Why should I need more?" the professor added simply. + +Something in the man's face, or voice, or manner--the doctor hardly knew +which--suddenly struck him as strange. There was a change in him, a +change so profound--so little on the surface, that is--that at first he +had not become aware of it. For a moment it was as though an utterly +alien personality stood before him in that noisy, bustling throng. Here, +in all the homely, friendly turmoil of a Charing Cross crowd, a curious +feeling of cold passed over his heart, touching his life with icy +finger, so that he actually trembled and felt afraid. + +He looked up quickly at his friend, his mind working with startled and +unwelcome thoughts. + +"Only this?" he repeated, indicating the bag. "But where's all the stuff +you went away with? And--have you brought nothing home--no treasures?" + +"This is all I have," the other said briefly. The pale smile that went +with the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation of +uneasiness. Something was very wrong, something was very queer; he +wondered now that he had not noticed it sooner. + +"The rest follows, of course, by slow freight," he added tactfully, and +as naturally as possible. "But come, sir, you must be tired and in want +of food after your long journey. I'll get a taxi at once, and we can see +about the other luggage afterwards." + +It seemed to him he hardly knew quite what he was saying; the change in +his friend had come upon him so suddenly and now grew upon him more and +more distressingly. Yet he could not make out exactly in what it +consisted. A terrible suspicion began to take shape in his mind, +troubling him dreadfully. + +"I am neither very tired, nor in need of food, thank you," the professor +said quietly. "And this is all I have. There is no luggage to follow. I +have brought home nothing--nothing but what you see." + +His words conveyed finality. They got into a taxi, tipped the porter, +who had been staring in amazement at the venerable figure of the +scientist, and were conveyed slowly and noisily to the house in the +north of London where the laboratory was, the scene of their labours of +years. + +And the whole way Professor Ebor uttered no word, nor did Dr. Laidlaw +find the courage to ask a single question. + +It was only late that night, before he took his departure, as the two +men were standing before the fire in the study--that study where they +had discussed so many problems of vital and absorbing interest--that +Dr. Laidlaw at last found strength to come to the point with direct +questions. The professor had been giving him a superficial and desultory +account of his travels, of his journeys by camel, of his encampments +among the mountains and in the desert, and of his explorations among the +buried temples, and, deeper, into the waste of the pre-historic sands, +when suddenly the doctor came to the desired point with a kind of +nervous rush, almost like a frightened boy. + +"And you found--" he began stammering, looking hard at the other's +dreadfully altered face, from which every line of hope and cheerfulness +seemed to have been obliterated as a sponge wipes markings from a +slate--"you found--" + +"I found," replied the other, in a solemn voice, and it was the voice of +the mystic rather than the man of science--"I found what I went to seek. +The vision never once failed me. It led me straight to the place like a +star in the heavens. I found--the Tablets of the Gods." + +Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of a +chair. The words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. For the +first time the professor had uttered the well-known phrase without the +glow of light and wonder in his face that always accompanied it. + +"You have--brought them?" he faltered. + +"I have brought them home," said the other, in a voice with a ring like +iron; "and I have--deciphered them." + +Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of a +hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space seemed to fill in the +pauses between the brief sentences. A silence followed, during which Dr. +Laidlaw saw nothing but the white face before him alternately fade and +return. And it was like the face of a dead man. + +"They are, alas, indestructible," he heard the voice continue, with its +even, metallic ring. + +"Indestructible," Laidlaw repeated mechanically, hardly knowing what he +was saying. + +Again a silence of several minutes passed, during which, with a creeping +cold about his heart, he stood and stared into the eyes of the man he +had known and loved so long--aye, and worshipped, too; the man who had +first opened his own eyes when they were blind, and had led him to the +gates of knowledge, and no little distance along the difficult path +beyond; the man who, in another direction, had passed on the strength of +his faith into the hearts of thousands by his books. + +"I may see them?" he asked at last, in a low voice he hardly recognized +as his own. "You will let me know--their message?" + +Professor Ebor kept his eyes fixedly upon his assistant's face as he +answered, with a smile that was more like the grin of death than a +living human smile. + +"When I am gone," he whispered; "when I have passed away. Then you +shall find them and read the translation I have made. And then, too, in +your turn, you must try, with the latest resources of science at your +disposal to aid you, to compass their utter destruction." He paused +a moment, and his face grew pale as the face of a corpse. "Until +that time," he added presently, without looking up, "I must ask +you not to refer to the subject again--and to keep my confidence +meanwhile--_ab--so--lute--ly_." + + + + +3 + + +A year passed slowly by, and at the end of it Dr. Laidlaw had found it +necessary to sever his working connexion with his friend and one-time +leader. Professor Ebor was no longer the same man. The light had gone +out of his life; the laboratory was closed; he no longer put pen to +paper or applied his mind to a single problem. In the short space of +a few months he had passed from a hale and hearty man of late middle +life to the condition of old age--a man collapsed and on the edge of +dissolution. Death, it was plain, lay waiting for him in the shadows of +any day--and he knew it. + +To describe faithfully the nature of this profound alteration in his +character and temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw summed it up to +himself in three words: _Loss of Hope_. The splendid mental powers +remained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them--to use them for +the help of others--had gone. The character still held to its fine and +unselfish habits of years, but the far goal to which they had been the +leading strings had faded away. The desire for knowledge--knowledge for +its own sake--had died, and the passionate hope which hitherto had +animated with tireless energy the heart and brain of this splendidly +equipped intellect had suffered total eclipse. The central fires had +gone out. Nothing was worth doing, thinking, working for. There _was_ +nothing to work for any longer! + +The professor's first step was to recall as many of his books as +possible; his second to close his laboratory and stop all research. He +gave no explanation, he invited no questions. His whole personality +crumbled away, so to speak, till his daily life became a mere mechanical +process of clothing the body, feeding the body, keeping it in good +health so as to avoid physical discomfort, and, above all, doing nothing +that could interfere with sleep. The professor did everything he could +to lengthen the hours of sleep, and therefore of forgetfulness. + +It was all clear enough to Dr. Laidlaw. A weaker man, he knew, would +have sought to lose himself in one form or another of sensual +indulgence--sleeping-draughts, drink, the first pleasures that came to +hand. Self-destruction would have been the method of a little bolder +type; and deliberate evil-doing, poisoning with his awful knowledge all +he could, the means of still another kind of man. Mark Ebor was none of +these. He held himself under fine control, facing silently and without +complaint the terrible facts he honestly believed himself to have been +unfortunate enough to discover. Even to his intimate friend and +assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, he vouchsafed no word of true explanation or +lament. He went straight forward to the end, knowing well that the end +was not very far away. + +And death came very quietly one day to him, as he was sitting in the +arm-chair of the study, directly facing the doors of the laboratory--the +doors that no longer opened. Dr. Laidlaw, by happy chance, was with him +at the time, and just able to reach his side in response to the sudden +painful efforts for breath; just in time, too, to catch the murmured +words that fell from the pallid lips like a message from the other side +of the grave. + +"Read them, if you must; and, if you can--destroy. But"--his +voice sank so low that Dr. Laidlaw only just caught the dying +syllables--"but--never, never--give them to the world." + +And like a grey bundle of dust loosely gathered up in an old garment the +professor sank back into his chair and expired. + +But this was only the death of the body. His spirit had died two years +before. + + + + +4 + + +The estate of the dead man was small and uncomplicated, and Dr. Laidlaw, +as sole executor and residuary legatee, had no difficulty in settling +it up. A month after the funeral he was sitting alone in his upstairs +library, the last sad duties completed, and his mind full of poignant +memories and regrets for the loss of a friend he had revered and loved, +and to whom his debt was so incalculably great. The last two years, +indeed, had been for him terrible. To watch the swift decay of the +greatest combination of heart and brain he had ever known, and to +realize he was powerless to help, was a source of profound grief to him +that would remain to the end of his days. + +At the same time an insatiable curiosity possessed him. The study of +dementia was, of course, outside his special province as a specialist, +but he knew enough of it to understand how small a matter might be the +actual cause of how great an illusion, and he had been devoured from the +very beginning by a ceaseless and increasing anxiety to know what the +professor had found in the sands of "Chaldea," what these precious +Tablets of the Gods might be, and particularly--for this was the real +cause that had sapped the man's sanity and hope--what the inscription +was that he had believed to have deciphered thereon. + +The curious feature of it all to his own mind was, that whereas his +friend had dreamed of finding a message of glorious hope and comfort, he +had apparently found (so far as he had found anything intelligible at +all, and not invented the whole thing in his dementia) that the secret +of the world, and the meaning of life and death, was of so terrible a +nature that it robbed the heart of courage and the soul of hope. What, +then, could be the contents of the little brown parcel the professor had +bequeathed to him with his pregnant dying sentences? + +Actually his hand was trembling as he turned to the writing-table and +began slowly to unfasten a small old-fashioned desk on which the small +gilt initials "M.E." stood forth as a melancholy memento. He put the key +into the lock and half turned it. Then, suddenly, he stopped and looked +about him. Was that a sound at the back of the room? It was just as +though someone had laughed and then tried to smother the laugh with a +cough. A slight shiver ran over him as he stood listening. + +"This is absurd," he said aloud; "too absurd for belief--that I should +be so nervous! It's the effect of curiosity unduly prolonged." He smiled +a little sadly and his eyes wandered to the blue summer sky and the +plane trees swaying in the wind below his window. "It's the reaction," +he continued. "The curiosity of two years to be quenched in a single +moment! The nervous tension, of course, must be considerable." + +He turned back to the brown desk and opened it without further delay. +His hand was firm now, and he took out the paper parcel that lay inside +without a tremor. It was heavy. A moment later there lay on the table +before him a couple of weather-worn plaques of grey stone--they looked +like stone, although they felt like metal--on which he saw markings of +a curious character that might have been the mere tracings of natural +forces through the ages, or, equally well, the half-obliterated +hieroglyphics cut upon their surface in past centuries by the more or +less untutored hand of a common scribe. + +He lifted each stone in turn and examined it carefully. It seemed to him +that a faint glow of heat passed from the substance into his skin, and +he put them down again suddenly, as with a gesture of uneasiness. + +"A very clever, or a very imaginative man," he said to himself, "who +could squeeze the secrets of life and death from such broken lines as +those!" + +Then he turned to a yellow envelope lying beside them in the desk, with +the single word on the outside in the writing of the professor--the word +_Translation_. + +"Now," he thought, taking it up with a sudden violence to conceal his +nervousness, "now for the great solution. Now to learn the meaning of +the worlds, and why mankind was made, and why discipline is worth while, +and sacrifice and pain the true law of advancement." + +There was the shadow of a sneer in his voice, and yet something in him +shivered at the same time. He held the envelope as though weighing it in +his hand, his mind pondering many things. Then curiosity won the day, +and he suddenly tore it open with the gesture of an actor who tears open +a letter on the stage, knowing there is no real writing inside at all. + +A page of finely written script in the late scientist's handwriting lay +before him. He read it through from beginning to end, missing no word, +uttering each syllable distinctly under his breath as he read. + +The pallor of his face grew ghastly as he neared the end. He began to +shake all over as with ague. His breath came heavily in gasps. He still +gripped the sheet of paper, however, and deliberately, as by an intense +effort of will, read it through a second time from beginning to end. And +this time, as the last syllable dropped from his lips, the whole face of +the man flamed with a sudden and terrible anger. His skin became deep, +deep red, and he clenched his teeth. With all the strength of his +vigorous soul he was struggling to keep control of himself. + +For perhaps five minutes he stood there beside the table without +stirring a muscle. He might have been carved out of stone. His eyes were +shut, and only the heaving of the chest betrayed the fact that he was a +living being. Then, with a strange quietness, he lit a match and applied +it to the sheet of paper he held in his hand. The ashes fell slowly +about him, piece by piece, and he blew them from the window-sill into +the air, his eyes following them as they floated away on the summer wind +that breathed so warmly over the world. + +He turned back slowly into the room. Although his actions and movements +were absolutely steady and controlled, it was clear that he was on the +edge of violent action. A hurricane might burst upon the still room any +moment. His muscles were tense and rigid. Then, suddenly, he whitened, +collapsed, and sank backwards into a chair, like a tumbled bundle of +inert matter. He had fainted. + +In less than half an hour he recovered consciousness and sat up. As +before, he made no sound. Not a syllable passed his lips. He rose +quietly and looked about the room. + +Then he did a curious thing. + +Taking a heavy stick from the rack in the corner he approached the +mantlepiece, and with a heavy shattering blow he smashed the clock to +pieces. The glass fell in shivering atoms. + +"Cease your lying voice for ever," he said, in a curiously still, even +tone. "There is no such thing as _time_!" + +He took the watch from his pocket, swung it round several times by the +long gold chain, smashed it into smithereens against the wall with a +single blow, and then walked into his laboratory next door, and hung its +broken body on the bones of the skeleton in the corner of the room. + +"Let one damned mockery hang upon another," he said smiling oddly. +"Delusions, both of you, and cruel as false!" + +He slowly moved back to the front room. He stopped opposite the bookcase +where stood in a row the "Scriptures of the World," choicely bound and +exquisitely printed, the late professor's most treasured possession, and +next to them several books signed "Pilgrim." + +One by one he took them from the shelf and hurled them through the open +window. + +"A devil's dreams! A devil's foolish dreams!" he cried, with a vicious +laugh. + +Presently he stopped from sheer exhaustion. He turned his eyes slowly to +the wall opposite, where hung a weird array of Eastern swords and +daggers, scimitars and spears, the collections of many journeys. He +crossed the room and ran his finger along the edge. His mind seemed to +waver. + +"No," he muttered presently; "not that way. There are easier and better +ways than that." + +He took his hat and passed downstairs into the street. + + + + +5 + + +It was five o'clock, and the June sun lay hot upon the pavement. He felt +the metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand. + +"Ah, Laidlaw, this is well met," cried a voice at his elbow; "I was in +the act of coming to see you. I've a case that will interest you, and +besides, I remembered that you flavoured your tea with orange +leaves!--and I admit--" + +It was Alexis Stephen, the great hypnotic doctor. + +"I've had no tea to-day," Laidlaw said, in a dazed manner, after staring +for a moment as though the other had struck him in the face. A new idea +had entered his mind. + +"What's the matter?" asked Dr. Stephen quickly. "Something's wrong with +you. It's this sudden heat, or overwork. Come, man, let's go inside." + +A sudden light broke upon the face of the younger man, the light of a +heaven-sent inspiration. He looked into his friend's face, and told a +direct lie. + +"Odd," he said, "I myself was just coming to see you. I have something +of great importance to test your confidence with. But in _your_ house, +please," as Stephen urged him towards his own door--"in your house. It's +only round the corner, and I--I cannot go back there--to my rooms--till +I have told you. + +"I'm your patient--for the moment," he added stammeringly as soon as +they were seated in the privacy of the hypnotist's sanctum, "and I +want--er--" + +"My dear Laidlaw," interrupted the other, in that soothing voice of +command which had suggested to many a suffering soul that the cure for +its pain lay in the powers of its own reawakened will, "I am always at +your service, as you know. You have only to tell me what I can do for +you, and I will do it." He showed every desire to help him out. His +manner was indescribably tactful and direct. + +Dr. Laidlaw looked up into his face. + +"I surrender my will to you," he said, already calmed by the other's +healing presence, "and I want you to treat me hypnotically--and at once. +I want you to suggest to me"--his voice became very tense--"that I shall +forget--forget till I die--everything that has occurred to me during the +last two hours; till I die, mind," he added, with solemn emphasis, "till +I die." + +He floundered and stammered like a frightened boy. Alexis Stephen +looked at him fixedly without speaking. + +"And further," Laidlaw continued, "I want you to ask me no questions. I +wish to forget for ever something I have recently discovered--something +so terrible and yet so obvious that I can hardly understand why it +is not patent to every mind in the world--for I have had a moment of +absolute _clear vision_--of merciless clairvoyance. But I want no one +else in the whole world to know what it is--least of all, old friend, +yourself." + +He talked in utter confusion, and hardly knew what he was saying. But +the pain on his face and the anguish in his voice were an instant +passport to the other's heart. + +"Nothing is easier," replied Dr. Stephen, after a hesitation so slight +that the other probably did not even notice it. "Come into my other room +where we shall not be disturbed. I can heal you. Your memory of the last +two hours shall be wiped out as though it had never been. You can trust +me absolutely." + +"I know I can," Laidlaw said simply, as he followed him in. + + + + +6 + + +An hour later they passed back into the front room again. The sun was +already behind the houses opposite, and the shadows began to gather. + +"I went off easily?" Laidlaw asked. + +"You were a little obstinate at first. But though you came in like a +lion, you went out like a lamb. I let you sleep a bit afterwards." + +Dr. Stephen kept his eyes rather steadily upon his friend's face. + +"What were you doing by the fire before you came here?" he asked, +pausing, in a casual tone, as he lit a cigarette and handed the case to +his patient. + +"I? Let me see. Oh, I know; I was worrying my way through poor old +Ebor's papers and things. I'm his executor, you know. Then I got weary +and came out for a whiff of air." He spoke lightly and with perfect +naturalness. Obviously he was telling the truth. "I prefer specimens to +papers," he laughed cheerily. + +"I know, I know," said Dr. Stephen, holding a lighted match for the +cigarette. His face wore an expression of content. The experiment had +been a complete success. The memory of the last two hours was wiped out +utterly. Laidlaw was already chatting gaily and easily about a dozen +other things that interested him. Together they went out into the +street, and at his door Dr. Stephen left him with a joke and a wry face +that made his friend laugh heartily. + +"Don't dine on the professor's old papers by mistake," he cried, as he +vanished down the street. + +Dr. Laidlaw went up to his study at the top of the house. Half way down +he met his housekeeper, Mrs. Fewings. She was flustered and excited, and +her face was very red and perspiring. + +"There've been burglars here," she cried excitedly, "or something funny! +All your things is just any'ow, sir. I found everything all about +everywhere!" She was very confused. In this orderly and very precise +establishment it was unusual to find a thing out of place. + +"Oh, my specimens!" cried the doctor, dashing up the rest of the stairs +at top speed. "Have they been touched or--" + +He flew to the door of the laboratory. Mrs. Fewings panted up heavily +behind him. + +"The labatry ain't been touched," she explained, breathlessly, "but they +smashed the libry clock and they've 'ung your gold watch, sir, on the +skelinton's hands. And the books that weren't no value they flung out er +the window just like so much rubbish. They must have been wild drunk, +Dr. Laidlaw, sir!" + +The young scientist made a hurried examination of the rooms. Nothing of +value was missing. He began to wonder what kind of burglars they were. +He looked up sharply at Mrs. Fewings standing in the doorway. For a +moment he seemed to cast about in his mind for something. + +"Odd," he said at length. "I only left here an hour ago and everything +was all right then." + +"Was it, sir? Yes, sir." She glanced sharply at him. Her room looked out +upon the courtyard, and she must have seen the books come crashing down, +and also have heard her master leave the house a few minutes later. + +"And what's this rubbish the brutes have left?" he cried, taking up +two slabs of worn gray stone, on the writing-table. "Bath brick, or +something, I do declare." + +He looked very sharply again at the confused and troubled housekeeper. + +"Throw them on the dust heap, Mrs. Fewings, and--and let me know if +anything is missing in the house, and I will notify the police this +evening." + +When she left the room he went into the laboratory and took his watch +off the skeleton's fingers. His face wore a troubled expression, but +after a moment's thought it cleared again. His memory was a complete +blank. + +"I suppose I left it on the writing-table when I went out to take the +air," he said. And there was no one present to contradict him. + +He crossed to the window and blew carelessly some ashes of burned paper +from the sill, and stood watching them as they floated away lazily over +the tops of the trees. + + + * * * * * + + + + +_The Glamour of the Snow_ + +I + + +Hibbert, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain village +conscious of three. It lay on the slopes of the Valais Alps, and he had +taken a room in the little post office, where he could be at peace to +write his book, yet at the same time enjoy the winter sports and find +companionship in the hotels when he wanted it. + +The three worlds that met and mingled here seemed to his imaginative +temperament very obvious, though it is doubtful if another mind less +intuitively equipped would have seen them so well-defined. There was +the world of tourist English, civilised, quasi-educated, to which he +belonged by birth, at any rate; there was the world of peasants to which +he felt himself drawn by sympathy--for he loved and admired their +toiling, simple life; and there was this other--which he could only call +the world of Nature. To this last, however, in virtue of a vehement +poetic imagination, and a tumultuous pagan instinct fed by his very +blood, he felt that most of him belonged. The others borrowed from it, +as it were, for visits. Here, with the soul of Nature, hid his central +life. + +Between all three was conflict--potential conflict. On the skating-rink +each Sunday the tourists regarded the natives as intruders; in the +church the peasants plainly questioned: "Why do you come? We are here +to worship; you to stare and whisper!" For neither of these two worlds +accepted the other. And neither did Nature accept the tourists, for it +took advantage of their least mistakes, and indeed, even of the +peasant-world "accepted" only those who were strong and bold enough to +invade her savage domain with sufficient skill to protect themselves +from several forms of--death. + +Now Hibbert was keenly aware of this potential conflict and want of +harmony; he felt outside, yet caught by it--torn in the three directions +because he was partly of each world, but wholly in only one. There +grew in him a constant, subtle effort--or, at least, desire--to unify +them and decide positively to which he should belong and live in. +The attempt, of course, was largely subconscious. It was the natural +instinct of a richly imaginative nature seeking the point of +equilibrium, so that the mind could feel at peace and his brain be free +to do good work. + +Among the guests no one especially claimed his interest. The men were +nice but undistinguished--athletic schoolmasters, doctors snatching a +holiday, good fellows all; the women, equally various--the clever, the +would-be-fast, the dare-to-be-dull, the women "who understood," and the +usual pack of jolly dancing girls and "flappers." And Hibbert, with his +forty odd years of thick experience behind him, got on well with the +lot; he understood them all; they belonged to definite, predigested +types that are the same the world over, and that he had met the world +over long ago. + +But to none of them did he belong. His nature was too "multiple" to +subscribe to the set of shibboleths of any one class. And, since all +liked him, and felt that somehow he seemed outside of them--spectator, +looker-on--all sought to claim him. + +In a sense, therefore, the three worlds fought for him: natives, +tourists, Nature.... + +It was thus began the singular conflict for the soul of Hibbert. _In_ +his own soul, however, it took place. Neither the peasants nor the +tourists were conscious that they fought for anything. And Nature, they +say, is merely blind and automatic. + +The assault upon him of the peasants may be left out of account, for it +is obvious that they stood no chance of success. The tourist world, +however, made a gallant effort to subdue him to themselves. But the +evenings in the hotel, when dancing was not in order, were--English. The +provincial imagination was set upon a throne and worshipped heavily +through incense of the stupidest conventions possible. Hibbert used to +go back early to his room in the post office to work. + +"It is a mistake on my part to have _realised_ that there is any +conflict at all," he thought, as he crunched home over the snow at +midnight after one of the dances. "It would have been better to have +kept outside it all and done my work. Better," he added, looking back +down the silent village street to the church tower, "and--safer." + +The adjective slipped from his mind before he was aware of it. He +turned with an involuntary start and looked about him. He knew perfectly +well what it meant--this thought that had thrust its head up from the +instinctive region. He understood, without being able to express it +fully, the meaning that betrayed itself in the choice of the adjective. +For if he had ignored the existence of this conflict he would at the +same time, have remained outside the arena. Whereas now he had entered +the lists. Now this battle for his soul must have issue. And he knew +that the spell of Nature was greater for him than all other spells in +the world combined--greater than love, revelry, pleasure, greater even +than study. He had always been afraid to let himself go. His pagan soul +dreaded her terrific powers of witchery even while he worshipped. + +The little village already slept. The world lay smothered in snow. The +chalet roofs shone white beneath the moon, and pitch-black shadows +gathered against the walls of the church. His eye rested a moment on the +square stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky: then +travelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountains +that brushed the brilliant stars. Like a forest rose the huge peaks +above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. They +beckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the +midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of +the night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the +vast wintry spaces down into his heart--and called him. Very softly, +unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid its +spell upon him. Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. The +power and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him.... + +Fumbling a moment with the big unwieldy key, he let himself in and went +upstairs to bed. Two thoughts went with him--apparently quite ordinary +and sensible ones: + +"What fools these peasants are to sleep through such a night!" And the +other: + +"Those dances tire me. I'll never go again. My work only suffers in the +morning." The claims of peasants and tourists upon him seemed thus in a +single instant weakened. + +The clash of battle troubled half his dreams. Nature had sent her Beauty +of the Night and won the first assault. The others, routed and dismayed, +fled far away. + + + + +II + + +"Don't go back to your dreary old post office. We're going to have +supper in my room--something hot. Come and join us. Hurry up!" + +There had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up the +snow-slope to the hotel, called him. The Chinese lanterns smoked and +sputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. The cold was +bitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds. +From the shed where the people changed from skates to snow-boots he +shouted something to the effect that he was "following"; but no answer +came; the moving shadows of those who had called were already merged +high up against the village darkness. The voices died away. Doors +slammed. Hibbert found himself alone on the deserted rink. + +And it was then, quite suddenly, the impulse came to--stay and skate +alone. The thought of the stuffy hotel room, and of those noisy people +with their obvious jokes and laughter, oppressed him. He felt a longing +to be alone with the night; to taste her wonder all by himself there +beneath the stars, gliding over the ice. It was not yet midnight, and he +could skate for half an hour. That supper party, if they noticed his +absence at all, would merely think he had changed his mind and gone to +bed. + +It was an impulse, yes, and not an unnatural one; yet even at the time +it struck him that something more than impulse lay concealed behind it. +More than invitation, yet certainly less than command, there was a vague +queer feeling that he stayed because he had to, almost as though there +was something he had forgotten, overlooked, left undone. Imaginative +temperaments are often thus; and impulse is ever weakness. For with such +ill-considered opening of the doors to hasty action may come an invasion +of other forces at the same time--forces merely waiting their +opportunity perhaps! + +He caught the fugitive warning even while he dismissed it as absurd, and +the next minute he was whirling over the smooth ice in delightful curves +and loops beneath the moon. There was no fear of collision. He could +take his own speed and space as he willed. The shadows of the towering +mountains fell across the rink, and a wind of ice came from the forests, +where the snow lay ten feet deep. The hotel lights winked and went out. +The village slept. The high wire netting could not keep out the wonder +of the winter night that grew about him like a presence. He skated on +and on, keen exhilarating pleasure in his tingling blood, and weariness +all forgotten. + +And then, midway in the delight of rushing movement, he saw a figure +gliding behind the wire netting, watching him. With a start that almost +made him lose his balance--for the abruptness of the new arrival was so +unlooked for--he paused and stared. Although the light was dim he made +out that it was the figure of a woman and that she was feeling her way +along the netting, trying to get in. Against the white background of the +snow-field he watched her rather stealthy efforts as she passed with a +silent step over the banked-up snow. She was tall and slim and graceful; +he could see that even in the dark. And then, of course, he understood. +It was another adventurous skater like himself, stolen down unawares +from hotel or chalet, and searching for the opening. At once, making a +sign and pointing with one hand, he turned swiftly and skated over to +the little entrance on the other side. + +But, even before he got there, there was a sound on the ice behind him +and, with an exclamation of amazement he could not suppress, he turned +to see her swerving up to his side across the width of the rink. She had +somehow found another way in. + +Hibbert, as a rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places, +perhaps, especially so. If only for his own protection he did not seek +to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But for +these two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, often +of necessity brushing shoulders almost, was too absurd to think of. +Accordingly he raised his cap and spoke. His actual words he seems +unable to recall, nor what the girl said in reply, except that she +answered him in accented English with some commonplace about doing +figures at midnight on an empty rink. Quite natural it was, and right. +She wore grey clothes of some kind, though not the customary long gloves +or sweater, for indeed her hands were bare, and presently when he skated +with her, he wondered with something like astonishment at their dry and +icy coldness. + +And she was delicious to skate with--supple, sure, and light, fast as a +man yet with the freedom of a child, sinuous and steady at the same +time. Her flexibility made him wonder, and when he asked where she had +learned she murmured--he caught the breath against his ear and recalled +later that it was singularly cold--that she could hardly tell, for she +had been accustomed to the ice ever since she could remember. + +But her face he never properly saw. A muffler of white fur buried her +neck to the ears, and her cap came over the eyes. He only saw that she +was young. Nor could he gather her hotel or chalet, for she pointed +vaguely, when he asked her, up the slopes. "Just over there--" she said, +quickly taking his hand again. He did not press her; no doubt she wished +to hide her escapade. And the touch of her hand thrilled him more than +anything he could remember; even through his thick glove he felt the +softness of that cold and delicate softness. + +The clouds thickened over the mountains. It grew darker. They talked +very little, and did not always skate together. Often they separated, +curving about in corners by themselves, but always coming together again +in the centre of the rink; and when she left him thus Hibbert was +conscious of--yes, of missing her. He found a peculiar satisfaction, +almost a fascination, in skating by her side. It was quite an +adventure--these two strangers with the ice and snow and night! + +Midnight had long since sounded from the old church tower before they +parted. She gave the sign, and he skated quickly to the shed, meaning to +find a seat and help her take her skates off. Yet when he turned--she +had already gone. He saw her slim figure gliding away across the snow +... and hurrying for the last time round the rink alone he searched in +vain for the opening she had twice used in this curious way. + +"How very queer!" he thought, referring to the wire netting. "She must +have lifted it and wriggled under ...!" + +Wondering how in the world she managed it, what in the world had +possessed him to be so free with her, and who in the world she was, he +went up the steep slope to the post office and so to bed, her promise to +come again another night still ringing delightfully in his ears. And +curious were the thoughts and sensations that accompanied him. Most of +all, perhaps, was the half suggestion of some dim memory that he had +known this girl before, had met her somewhere, more--that she knew him. +For in her voice--a low, soft, windy little voice it was, tender and +soothing for all its quiet coldness--there lay some faint reminder of +two others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman he +had loved, and--the voice of his mother. + +But this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. He was +conscious, rather, of something cold and clinging that made him think of +sifting snowflakes climbing slowly with entangling touch and thickness +round his feet. The snow, coming without noise, each flake so light +and tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles, yet the mass of it +able to smother whole villages, wove through the very texture of his +mind--cold, bewildering, deadening effort with its clinging network of +ten million feathery touches. + + + + +III + + +In the morning Hibbert realised he had done, perhaps, a foolish thing. +The brilliant sunshine that drenched the valley made him see this, and +the sight of his work-table with its typewriter, books, papers, and the +rest, brought additional conviction. To have skated with a girl alone +at midnight, no matter how innocently the thing had come about, was +unwise--unfair, especially to her. Gossip in these little winter resorts +was worse than in a provincial town. He hoped no one had seen them. +Luckily the night had been dark. Most likely none had heard the ring of +skates. + +Deciding that in future he would be more careful, he plunged into work, +and sought to dismiss the matter from his mind. + +But in his times of leisure the memory returned persistently to haunt +him. When he "ski-d," "luged," or danced in the evenings, and especially +when he skated on the little rink, he was aware that the eyes of his +mind forever sought this strange companion of the night. A hundred times +he fancied that he saw her, but always sight deceived him. Her face he +might not know, but he could hardly fail to recognise her figure. Yet +nowhere among the others did he catch a glimpse of that slim young +creature he had skated with alone beneath the clouded stars. He searched +in vain. Even his inquiries as to the occupants of the private chalets +brought no results. He had lost her. But the queer thing was that he +felt as though she were somewhere close; he _knew_ she had not really +gone. While people came and left with every day, it never once occurred +to him that she had left. On the contrary, he felt assured that they +would meet again. + +This thought he never quite acknowledged. Perhaps it was the wish that +fathered it only. And, even when he did meet her, it was a question how +he would speak and claim acquaintance, or whether _she_ would recognise +himself. It might be awkward. He almost came to dread a meeting, though +"dread," of course, was far too strong a word to describe an emotion +that was half delight, half wondering anticipation. + +Meanwhile the season was in full swing. Hibbert felt in perfect health, +worked hard, ski-d, skated, luged, and at night danced fairly often--in +spite of his decision. This dancing was, however, an act of subconscious +surrender; it really meant he hoped to find her among the whirling +couples. He was searching for her without quite acknowledging it to +himself; and the hotel-world, meanwhile, thinking it had won him over, +teased and chaffed him. He made excuses in a similar vein; but all the +time he watched and searched and--waited. + +For several days the sky held clear and bright and frosty, bitterly +cold, everything crisp and sparkling in the sun; but there was no sign +of fresh snow, and the ski-ers began to grumble. On the mountains was an +icy crust that made "running" dangerous; they wanted the frozen, dry, +and powdery snow that makes for speed, renders steering easier and +falling less severe. But the keen east wind showed no signs of changing +for a whole ten days. Then, suddenly, there came a touch of softer air +and the weather-wise began to prophesy. + +Hibbert, who was delicately sensitive to the least change in earth or +sky, was perhaps the first to feel it. Only he did not prophesy. He knew +through every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the air, +was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. For he responded +to the moods of Nature like a fine barometer. + +And the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange little +wayward emotion that was hard to account for--a feeling of unexplained +uneasiness and disquieting joy. For behind it, woven through it rather, +ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely somewhere with that +touch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating "dread," that so +puzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with his skating +companion of the night. It lay beyond all words, all telling, this queer +relationship between the two; but somehow the girl and snow ran in a +pair across his mind. + +Perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers, the +smallest change of mood betrays itself at once. His work at any rate +revealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. Not that +his writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes of +sky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon into +evening--imperceptibly. A subconscious excitement sought to push +outwards and express itself ... and, knowing the uneven effect such +moods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead to +reading that he had to do. + +Meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew slowly +overcast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and sharp; the +distant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. The moisture +increased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must fall in +snow. Hibbert watched and waited. + +And in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh white +carpet. It snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, a +foot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, the +wind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountains +with its keenest and most biting tooth. The drop in the temperature was +tremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. Next day the "running" would +be fast and perfect. Already the mass was settling, and the surface +freezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski run +almost of their own accord with the faint "sishing" as of a bird's wings +through the air. + + + + +IV + + +That night there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first because +there was a _bal costume_, but chiefly because the new snow had come. +And Hibbert went--felt drawn to go; he did not go in costume, but he +wanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the other men, and at +the same time.... + +Ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. For the +singular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayed +itself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent. +Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased it +even to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snow +the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place, +would even look for him. + +Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the +little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sit +straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie upon +the shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright. "I +look younger than I usually do," he thought. It was unusual, even +significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and +certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he was. +Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no fuel +for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces of his +soul and mind not called upon for "work" and obvious duties, all went to +Nature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he loved; +night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he felt +their claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught his +blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But chiefly +snow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white, seductive +dreams.... For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had somehow come +with it--into his mind. + +And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat +askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "What in the world is up +with me?" he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving +the room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk that +held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. Tied to +the lid was the visiting card with his brother's London address "in case +of accident." On the way down to the hotel he wondered why he had done +this, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who dealt in +presentiments. Moods with him were strong, but ever held in leash. + +"It's almost like a warning," he thought, smiling. He drew his thick +coat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. "Those +warnings one reads of in stories sometimes ...!" + +A delicious happiness was in his blood. Over the edge of the hills +across the valley rose the moon. He saw her silver sheet the world of +snow. Snow covered all. It smothered sound and distance. It smothered +houses, streets, and human beings. It smothered--life. + + + + +V + + +In the hall there was light and bustle; people were already arriving +from the other hotels and chalets, their costumes hidden beneath many +wraps. Groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking +"snow" and "ski-ing." The band was tuning up. The claims of the +hotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. At the big glass +windows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way home +from the _cafe_ to peer. Hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict he +used to imagine. He laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal. He +belonged so utterly to Nature and the mountains, and especially to those +desolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and sweet, that +there was no question of a conflict at all. The power of the newly +fallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. Out there, upon +those lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay ready--masses +and masses of it--cool, soft, inviting. He longed for it. It awaited +him. He thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in the +moonlight.... + +Thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he stood +there smoking with the other men and talking all the "shop" of ski-ing. + +And, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured also +through his inner being the power of the girl. He could not disabuse his +mind of the insinuating presence of the two together. He remembered that +queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let her in. +That any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath the sway of +such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of the +disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinate +centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. With +a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered. + +And snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. The dancing couples +talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant +good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips and +expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed and +distance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm pulsed +in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currents +of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowded +ball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all this +discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the--Snow. + +But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan +yearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleaming +in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he +transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the +personality of the girl--the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was waiting +for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues of +moonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; the +soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of her +presence in the way she came and the way she had gone again--like a +flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. She, like himself, +belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her little windy voice come +sifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name +... that haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of his +life as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do.... + +But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. He +danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as each +girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows, +hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come ... and at +length, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned; groups left +one by one, going home to their hotels and chalets; the band tired +obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, the +men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed. + +It was close on midnight. As Hibbert passed through the hall to get his +overcoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the "sport-room," +greasing their ski against an early start. Knapsack luncheons were being +ordered by the kitchen swing doors. He sighed. Lighting a cigarette a +friend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some question as to +whether he could join their party in the morning. It seemed he did not +hear it properly. He passed through the outer vestibule between the +double glass doors, and went into the night. + +The man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxiety +momentarily in his eyes. + +"Don't think he heard you," said another, laughing. "You've got to shout +to Hibbert, his mind's so full of his work." + +"He works too hard," suggested the first, "full of queer ideas and +dreams." + +But Hibbert's silence was not rudeness. He had not caught the +invitation, that was all. The call of the hotel-world had faded. He no +longer heard it. Another wilder call was sounding in his ears. + +For up the street he had seen a little figure moving. Close against the +shadows of the baker's shop it glided--white, slim, enticing. + + + + +VI + + +And at once into his mind passed the hush and softness of the snow--yet +with it a searching, crying wildness for the heights. He knew by some +incalculable, swift instinct she would not meet him in the village +street. It was not there, amid crowding houses, she would speak to him. +Indeed, already she had disappeared, melted from view up the white vista +of the moonlit road. Yonder, he divined, she waited where the highway +narrowed abruptly into the mountain path beyond the chalets. + +It did not even occur to him to hesitate; mad though it seemed, and +was--this sudden craving for the heights with her, at least for open +spaces where the snow lay thick and fresh--it was too imperious to be +denied. He does not remember going up to his room, putting the sweater +over his evening clothes, and getting into the fur gauntlet gloves and +the helmet cap of wool. Most certainly he has no recollection of +fastening on his ski; he must have done it automatically. Some faculty +of normal observation was in abeyance, as it were. His mind was out +beyond the village--out with the snowy mountains and the moon. + +Henri Defago, putting up the shutters over his _cafe_ windows, saw him +pass, and wondered mildly: "Un monsieur qui fait du ski a cette heure! +Il est Anglais, done ...!" He shrugged his shoulders, as though a man had +the right to choose his own way of death. And Marthe Perotti, the +hunchback wife of the shoemaker, looking by chance from her window, +caught his figure moving swiftly up the road. She had other thoughts, +for she knew and believed the old traditions of the witches and +snow-beings that steal the souls of men. She had even heard, 'twas said, +the dreaded "synagogue" pass roaring down the street at night, and now, +as then, she hid her eyes. "They've called to him ... and he must go," +she murmured, making the sign of the cross. + +But no one sought to stop him. Hibbert recalls only a single incident +until he found himself beyond the houses, searching for her along the +fringe of forest where the moonlight met the snow in a bewildering +frieze of fantastic shadows. And the incident was simply this--that he +remembered passing the church. Catching the outline of its tower against +the stars, he was aware of a faint sense of hesitation. A vague +uneasiness came and went--jarred unpleasantly across the flow of his +excited feelings, chilling exhilaration. He caught the instant's +discord, dismissed it, and--passed on. The seduction of the snow +smothered the hint before he realised that it had brushed the skirts of +warning. + +And then he saw her. She stood there waiting in a little clear space of +shining snow, dressed all in white, part of the moonlight and the +glistening background, her slender figure just discernible. + +"I waited, for I knew you would come," the silvery little voice of windy +beauty floated down to him. "You _had_ to come." + +"I'm ready," he answered, "I knew it too." + +The world of Nature caught him to its heart in those few words--the +wonder and the glory of the night and snow. Life leaped within him. The +passion of his pagan soul exulted, rose in joy, flowed out to her. He +neither reflected nor considered, but let himself go like the veriest +schoolboy in the wildness of first love. + +"Give me your hand," he cried, "I'm coming ...!" + +"A little farther on, a little higher," came her delicious answer. "Here +it is too near the village--and the church." + +And the words seemed wholly right and natural; he did not dream of +questioning them; he understood that, with this little touch of +civilisation in sight, the familiarity he suggested was impossible. Once +out upon the open mountains, 'mid the freedom of huge slopes and +towering peaks, the stars and moon to witness and the wilderness of snow +to watch, they could taste an innocence of happy intercourse free from +the dead conventions that imprison literal minds. + +He urged his pace, yet did not quite overtake her. The girl kept always +just a little bit ahead of his best efforts.... And soon they left the +trees behind and passed on to the enormous slopes of the sea of snow +that rolled in mountainous terror and beauty to the stars. The wonder of +the white world caught him away. Under the steady moonlight it was more +than haunting. It was a living, white, bewildering power that +deliciously confused the senses and laid a spell of wild perplexity upon +the heart. It was a personality that cloaked, and yet revealed, itself +through all this sheeted whiteness of snow. It rose, went with him, fled +before, and followed after. Slowly it dropped lithe, gleaming arms about +his neck, gathering him in.... + +Certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him ever +forwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes. Judgment and +reason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness of +intoxication. The girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, so +that he never quite came up with her. He saw the white enchantment of +her face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying like +a wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of her +whispering voice that called from time to time: "A little farther on, a +little higher.... Then we'll run home together!" + +Sometimes he saw her hand stretched out to find his own, but each time, +just as he came up with her, he saw her still in front, the hand and arm +withdrawn. They took a gentle angle of ascent. The toil seemed nothing. +In this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished. The sishing of the ski +through the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that broke +the stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, +was all he heard. Cold moonshine, snow, and silence held the world. The +sky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges of +iron and steel. Far below the valley slept, the village long since +hidden out of sight. He felt that he could never tire.... The sound of +the church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air--more +and more distant. + +"Give me your hand. It's time now to turn back." + +"Just one more slope," she laughed. "That ridge above us. Then we'll +make for home." And her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring of +their ski. His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison. + +"But I have never come so high before. It's glorious! This world of +silent snow and moonlight--and _you_. You're a child of the snow, I +swear. Let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your little +hand." + +Her laughter answered him. + +"Come on! A little higher. Here we're quite alone together." + +"It's magnificent," he cried. "But why did you hide away so long? I've +looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated--" he was going +to say "ten days ago," but the accurate memory of time had gone from +him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. His +thoughts of earth were scattered and confused. + +"You looked for me in the wrong places," he heard her murmur just above +him. "You looked in places where I never go. Hotels and houses kill me. +I avoid them." She laughed--a fine, shrill, windy little laugh. + +"I loathe them too--" + +He stopped. The girl had suddenly come quite close. A breath of ice +passed through his very soul. She had touched him. + +"But this awful cold!" he cried out, sharply, "this freezing cold that +takes me. The wind is rising; it's a wind of ice. Come, let us turn ...!" + +But when he plunged forward to hold her, or at least to look, the girl +was gone again. And something in the way she stood there a few feet +beyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, made +him shiver. The moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he could +not focus sight upon her face, although so close. The gleam of eyes he +caught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he looked +beyond her--out into space.... + +The sound of the church bell came up faintly from the valley far below, +and he counted the strokes--five. A sudden, curious weakness seized him +as he listened. Deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hard +to resist. He felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there.... +They had been climbing for five hours.... It was, of course, the warning +of complete exhaustion. + +With a great effort he fought and overcame it. It passed away as +suddenly as it came. + +"We'll turn," he said with a decision he hardly felt. "It will be dawn +before we reach the village again. Come at once. It's time for home." + +The sense of exhilaration had utterly left him. An emotion that was akin +to fear swept coldly through him. But her whispering answer turned it +instantly to terror--a terror that gripped him horribly and turned him +weak and unresisting. + +"Our home is--_here_!" A burst of wild, high laughter, loud and shrill, +accompanied the words. It was like a whistling wind. The wind _had_ +risen, and clouds obscured the moon. "A little higher--where we cannot +hear the wicked bells," she cried, and for the first time seized him +deliberately by the hand. She moved, was suddenly close against his +face. Again she touched him. + +And Hibbert tried to turn away in escape, and so trying, found for the +first time that the power of the snow--that other power which does not +exhilarate but deadens effort--was upon him. The suffocating weakness +that it brings to exhausted men, luring them to the sleep of death in +her clinging soft embrace, lulling the will and conquering all desire +for life--this was awfully upon him. His feet were heavy and entangled. +He could not turn or move. + +The girl stood in front of him, very near; he felt her chilly breath +upon his cheeks; her hair passed blindingly across his eyes; and that +icy wind came with her. He saw her whiteness close; again, it seemed, +his sight passed through her into space as though she had no face. Her +arms were round his neck. She drew him softly downwards to his knees. He +sank; he yielded utterly; he obeyed. Her weight was upon him, +smothering, delicious. The snow was to his waist.... She kissed him +softly on the lips, the eyes, all over his face. And then she spoke his +name in that voice of love and wonder, the voice that held the accent of +two others--both taken over long ago by Death--the voice of his mother, +and of the woman he had loved. + +He made one more feeble effort to resist. Then, realising even while he +struggled that this soft weight about his heart was sweeter than +anything life could ever bring, he let his muscles relax, and sank back +into the soft oblivion of the covering snow. Her wintry kisses bore him +into sleep. + + + + +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. + + + + +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. + + + + +III + + +For some days Henriot saw little of the man who came from Birmingham and +pushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle of +the night. For one thing, he was a good deal with his friends upon the +other side of Helouan, and for another, he slept several nights in the +Desert. + +He loved the gigantic peace the Desert gave him. The world was forgotten +there; and not the world merely, but all memory of it. Everything faded +out. The soul turned inwards upon itself. + +An Arab boy and donkey took out sleeping-bag, food and water to the Wadi +Hof, a desolate gorge about an hour eastwards. It winds between cliffs +whose summits rise some thousand feet above the sea. It opens suddenly, +cut deep into the swaying world of level plateaux and undulating hills. +It moves about too; he never found it in the same place twice--like an +arm of the Desert that shifted with the changing lights. Here he watched +dawns and sunsets, slept through the mid-day heat, and enjoyed the +unearthly colouring that swept Day and Night across the huge horizons. +In solitude the Desert soaked down into him. At night the jackals cried +in the darkness round his cautiously-fed camp fire--small, because wood +had to be carried--and in the day-time kites circled overhead to inspect +him, and an occasional white vulture flapped across the blue. The weird +desolation of this rocky valley, he thought, was like the scenery of the +moon. He took no watch with him, and the arrival of the donkey boy an +hour after sunrise came almost from another planet, bringing things of +time and common life out of some distant gulf where they had lain +forgotten among lost ages. + +The short hour of twilight brought, too, a bewitchment into the silence +that was a little less than comfortable. Full light or darkness he could +manage, but this time of half things made him want to shut his eyes and +hide. Its effect stepped over imagination. The mind got lost. He could +not understand it. For the cliffs and boulders of discoloured limestone +shone then with an inward glow that signalled to the Desert with veiled +lanterns. The misshappen hills, carved by wind and rain into ominous +outlines, stirred and nodded. In the morning light they retired into +themselves, asleep. But at dusk the tide retreated. They rose from the +sea, emerging naked, threatening. They ran together and joined +shoulders, the entire army of them. And the glow of their sandy bodies, +self-luminous, continued even beneath the stars. Only the moonlight +drowned it. For the moonrise over the Mokattam Hills brought a white, +grand loveliness that drenched the entire Desert. It drew a marvellous +sweetness from the sand. It shone across a world as yet unfinished, +whereon no life might show itself for ages yet to come. He was alone +then upon an empty star, before the creation of things that breathed and +moved. + +What impressed him, however, more than everything else was the enormous +vitality that rose out of all this apparent death. There was no hint of +the melancholy that belongs commonly to flatness; the sadness of wide, +monotonous landscape was not here. The endless repetition of sweeping +vale and plateau brought infinity within measurable comprehension. He +grasped a definite meaning in the phrase "world without end": the +Desert had no end and no beginning. It gave him a sense of eternal +peace, the silent peace that star-fields know. Instead of subduing the +soul with bewilderment, it inspired with courage, confidence, hope. +Through this sand which was the wreck of countless geological ages, +rushed life that was terrific and uplifting, too huge to include +melancholy, too deep to betray itself in movement. Here was the +stillness of eternity. Behind the spread grey masque of apparent death +lay stores of accumulated life, ready to break forth at any point. In +the Desert he felt himself absolutely royal. + +And this contrast of Life, veiling itself in Death, was a contradiction +that somehow intoxicated. The Desert exhilaration never left him. He was +never alone. A companionship of millions went with him, and he _felt_ +the Desert close, as stars are close to one another, or grains of sand. + +It was the Khamasin, the hot wind bringing sand, that drove him in--with +the feeling that these few days and nights had been immeasurable, and +that he had been away a thousand years. He came back with the magic of +the Desert in his blood, hotel-life tasteless and insipid by comparison. +To human impressions thus he was fresh and vividly sensitive. His being, +cleaned and sensitized by pure grandeur, "felt" people--for a time at +any rate--with an uncommon sharpness of receptive judgment. He returned +to a life somehow mean and meagre, resuming insignificance with his +dinner jacket. Out with the sand he had been regal; now, like a slave, +he strutted self-conscious and reduced. + +But this imperial standard of the Desert stayed a little time beside +him, its purity focussing judgment like a lens. The specks of smaller +emotions left it clear at first, and as his eye wandered vaguely over +the people assembled in the dining-room, it was arrested with a vivid +shock upon two figures at the little table facing him. + +He had forgotten Vance, the Birmingham man who sought the North at +midnight with a pocket compass. He now saw him again, with an intuitive +discernment entirely fresh. Before memory brought up her clouding +associations, some brilliance flashed a light upon him. "That man," +Henriot thought, "might have come with me. He would have understood and +loved it!" But the thought was really this--a moment's reflection spread +it, rather: "He belongs somewhere to the Desert; the Desert brought him +out here." And, again, hidden swiftly behind it like a movement running +below water--"What does he want with it? What is the deeper motive he +conceals? For there is a deeper motive; and it _is_ concealed." + +But it was the woman seated next him who absorbed his attention really, +even while this thought flashed and went its way. The empty chair was +occupied at last. Unlike his first encounter with the man, she looked +straight at him. Their eyes met fully. For several seconds there was +steady mutual inspection, while her penetrating stare, intent without +being rude, passed searchingly all over his face. It was disconcerting. +Crumbling his bread, he looked equally hard at her, unable to turn away, +determined not to be the first to shift his gaze. And when at length she +lowered her eyes he felt that many things had happened, as in a long +period of intimate conversation. Her mind had judged him through and +through. Questions and answer flashed. They were no longer strangers. +For the rest of dinner, though he was careful to avoid direct +inspection, he was aware that she felt his presence and was secretly +speaking with him. She asked questions beneath her breath. The answers +rose with the quickened pulses in his blood. Moreover, she explained +Richard Vance. It was this woman's power that shone reflected in the +man. She was the one who knew the big, unusual things. Vance merely +echoed the rush of her vital personality. + +This was the first impression that he got--from the most striking, +curious face he had ever seen in a woman. It remained very near him all +through the meal: she had moved to his table, it seemed she sat beside +him. Their minds certainly knew contact from that moment. + +It is never difficult to credit strangers with the qualities and +knowledge that oneself craves for, and no doubt Henriot's active fancy +went busily to work. But, none the less, this thing remained and grew: +that this woman was aware of the hidden things of Egypt he had always +longed to know. There was knowledge and guidance she could impart. Her +soul was searching among ancient things. Her face brought the Desert +back into his thoughts. And with it came--the sand. + +Here was the flash. The sight of her restored the peace and splendour he +had left behind him in his Desert camps. The rest, of course, was what +his imagination constructed upon this slender basis. Only,--not all of +it was imagination. + +Now, Henriot knew little enough of women, and had no pose of +"understanding" them. His experience was of the slightest; the love and +veneration felt for his own mother had set the entire sex upon the +heights. His affairs with women, if so they may be called, had been +transient--all but those of early youth, which having never known the +devastating test of fulfilment, still remained ideal and superb. There +was unconscious humour in his attitude--from a distance; for he regarded +women with wonder and respect, as puzzles that sweetened but complicated +life, might even endanger it. He certainly was not a marrying man! But +now, as he felt the presence of this woman so deliberately possess him, +there came over him two clear, strong messages, each vivid with +certainty. One was that banal suggestion of familiarity claimed by +lovers and the like--he had often heard of it--"I have known that woman +before; I have met her ages ago somewhere; she is strangely familiar to +me"; and the other, growing out of it almost: "Have nothing to do with +her; she will bring you trouble and confusion; avoid her, and be +warned";--in fact, a distinct presentiment. + +Yet, although Henriot dismissed both impressions as having no shred of +evidence to justify them, the original clear judgment, as he studied her +extraordinary countenance, persisted through all denials The +familiarity, and the presentiment, remained. There also remained this +other--an enormous imaginative leap!--that she could teach him "Egypt." + +He watched her carefully, in a sense fascinated. He could only describe +the face as black, so dark it was with the darkness of great age. +Elderly was the obvious, natural word; but elderly described the +features only. The expression of the face wore centuries. Nor was it +merely the coal-black eyes that betrayed an ancient, age-travelled soul +behind them. The entire presentment mysteriously conveyed it. This +woman's heart knew long-forgotten things--the thought kept beating up +against him. There were cheek-bones, oddly high, that made him think +involuntarily of the well-advertised Pharaoh, Ramases; a square, deep +jaw; and an aquiline nose that gave the final touch of power. For the +power undeniably was there, and while the general effect had grimness in +it, there was neither harshness nor any forbidding touch about it. There +was an implacable sternness in the set of lips and jaw, and, most +curious of all, the eyelids over the steady eyes of black were level as +a ruler. This level framing made the woman's stare remarkable beyond +description. Henriot thought of an idol carved in stone, stone hard and +black, with eyes that stared across the sand into a world of things +non-human, very far away, forgotten of men. The face was finely ugly. +This strange dark beauty flashed flame about it. + +And, as the way ever was with him, Henriot next fell to constructing the +possible lives of herself and her companion, though without much +success. Imagination soon stopped dead. She was not old enough to be +Vance's mother, and assuredly she was not his wife. His interest was +more than merely piqued--it was puzzled uncommonly. What was the +contrast that made the man seem beside her--vile? Whence came, too, the +impression that she exercised some strong authority, though never +directly exercised, that held him at her mercy? How did he guess that +the man resented it, yet did not dare oppose, and that, apparently +acquiescing good-humouredly, his will was deliberately held in abeyance, +and that he waited sulkily, biding his time? There was furtiveness in +every gesture and expression. A hidden motive lurked in him; +unworthiness somewhere; he was determined yet ashamed. He watched her +ceaselessly and with such uncanny closeness. + +Henriot imagined he divined all this. He leaped to the guess that his +expenses were being paid. A good deal more was being paid besides. She +was a rich relation, from whom he had expectations; he was serving his +seven years, ashamed of his servitude, ever calculating escape--but, +perhaps, no ordinary escape. A faint shudder ran over him. He drew in +the reins of imagination. + +Of course, the probabilities were that he was hopelessly astray--one +usually is on such occasions--but this time, it so happened, he was +singularly right. Before one thing only his ready invention stopped +every time. This vileness, this notion of unworthiness in Vance, could +not be negative merely. A man with that face was no inactive weakling. +The motive he was at such pains to conceal, betraying its existence by +that very fact, moved, surely, towards aggressive action. Disguised, it +never slept. Vance was sharply on the alert. He had a plan deep out of +sight. And Henriot remembered how the man's soft approach along the +carpeted corridor had made him start. He recalled the quasi shock it +gave him. He thought again of the feeling of discomfort he had +experienced. + +Next, his eager fancy sought to plumb the business these two had +together in Egypt--in the Desert. For the Desert, he felt convinced, had +brought them out. But here, though he constructed numerous explanations, +another barrier stopped him. Because he _knew_. This woman was in touch +with that aspect of ancient Egypt he himself had ever sought in vain; +and not merely with stones the sand had buried so deep, but with the +meanings they once represented, buried so utterly by the sands of later +thought. + +And here, being ignorant, he found no clue that could lead to any +satisfactory result, for he possessed no knowledge that might guide him. +He floundered--until Fate helped him. And the instant Fate helped him, +the warning and presentiment he had dismissed as fanciful, became real +again. He hesitated. Caution acted. He would think twice before taking +steps to form acquaintance. "Better not," thought whispered. "Better +leave them alone, this queer couple. They're after things that won't do +you any good." This idea of mischief, almost of danger, in their +purposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? But, +while he hesitated, Fate, who sent the warning, pushed him at the same +time into the circle of their lives: at first tentatively--he might +still have escaped; but soon urgently--curiosity led him inexorably +towards the end. + + + + +IV + + +It was so simple a manoeuvre by which Fate began the innocent game. The +woman left a couple of books behind her on the table one night, and +Henriot, after a moment's hesitation, took them out after her. He knew +the titles--_The House of the Master_, and _The House of the Hidden +Places_, both singular interpretations of the Pyramids that once had +held his own mind spellbound. Their ideas had been since disproved, if +he remembered rightly, yet the titles were a clue--a clue to that +imaginative part of his mind that was so busy constructing theories and +had found its stride. Loose sheets of paper, covered with notes in a +minute handwriting, lay between the pages; but these, of course, he did +not read, noticing only that they were written round designs of various +kinds--intricate designs. + +He discovered Vance in a corner of the smoking-lounge. The woman had +disappeared. + +Vance thanked him politely. "My aunt is so forgetful sometimes," he +said, and took them with a covert eagerness that did not escape the +other's observation. He folded up the sheets and put them carefully in +his pocket. On one there was an ink-sketched map, crammed with detail, +that might well have referred to some portion of the Desert. The points +of the compass stood out boldly at the bottom. There were involved +geometrical designs again. Henriot saw them. They exchanged, then, the +commonplaces of conversation, but these led to nothing further. Vance +was nervous and betrayed impatience. He presently excused himself and +left the lounge. Ten minutes later he passed through the outer hall, the +woman beside him, and the pair of them, wrapped up in cloak and ulster, +went out into the night. At the door, Vance turned and threw a quick, +investigating glance in his direction. There seemed a hint of +questioning in that glance; it might almost have been a tentative +invitation. But, also, he wanted to see if their exit had been +particularly noticed--and by whom. + +This, briefly told, was the first manoeuvre by which Fate introduced +them. There was nothing in it. The details were so insignificant, so +slight the conversation, so meagre the pieces thus added to Henriot's +imaginative structure. Yet they somehow built it up and made it solid; +the outline in his mind began to stand foursquare. That writing, those +designs, the manner of the man, their going out together, the final +curious look--each and all betrayed points of a hidden thing. +Subconsciously he was excavating their buried purposes. The sand was +shifting. The concentration of his mind incessantly upon them removed it +grain by grain and speck by speck. Tips of the smothered thing emerged. +Presently a subsidence would follow with a rush and light would blaze +upon its skeleton. He felt it stirring underneath his feet--this flowing +movement of light, dry, heaped-up sand. It was always--sand. + +Then other incidents of a similar kind came about, clearing the way to a +natural acquaintanceship. Henriot watched the process with amusement, +yet with another feeling too that was only a little less than anxiety. A +keen observer, no detail escaped him; he saw the forces of their lives +draw closer. It made him think of the devices of young people who desire +to know one another, yet cannot get a proper introduction. Fate +condescended to such little tricks. They wanted a third person, he began +to feel. A third was necessary to some plan they had on hand, and--they +waited to see if he could fill the place. This woman, with whom he had +yet exchanged no single word, seemed so familiar to him, well known for +years. They weighed and watched him, wondering if he would do. + +None of the devices were too obviously used, but at length Henriot +picked up so many forgotten articles, and heard so many significant +phrases, casually let fall, that he began to feel like the villain in a +machine-made play, where the hero for ever drops clues his enemy is +intended to discover. + +Introduction followed inevitably. "My aunt can tell you; she knows +Arabic perfectly." He had been discussing the meaning of some local name +or other with a neighbour after dinner, and Vance had joined them. The +neighbour moved away; these two were left standing alone, and he +accepted a cigarette from the other's case. There was a rustle of skirts +behind them. "Here she comes," said Vance; "you will let me introduce +you." He did not ask for Henriot's name; he had already taken the +trouble to find it out--another little betrayal, and another clue. + +It was in a secluded corner of the great hall, and Henriot turned to see +the woman's stately figure coming towards them across the thick carpet +that deadened her footsteps. She came sailing up, her black eyes fixed +upon his face. Very erect, head upright, shoulders almost squared, she +moved wonderfully well; there was dignity and power in her walk. She was +dressed in black, and her face was like the night. He found it +impossible to say what lent her this air of impressiveness and solemnity +that was almost majestic. But there _was_ this touch of darkness and of +power in the way she came that made him think of some sphinx-like figure +of stone, some idol motionless in all its parts but moving as a whole, +and gliding across--sand. Beneath those level lids her eyes stared hard +at him. And a faint sensation of distress stirred in him deep, deep +down. Where had he seen those eyes before? + +He bowed, as she joined them, and Vance led the way to the armchairs in +a corner of the lounge. The meeting, as the talk that followed, he felt, +were all part of a preconceived plan. It had happened before. The woman, +that is, was familiar to him--to some part of his being that had dropped +stitches of old, old memory. + +Lady Statham! At first the name had disappointed him. So many folk wear +titles, as syllables in certain tongues wear accents--without them being +mute, unnoticed, unpronounced. Nonentities, born to names, so often +claim attention for their insignificance in this way. But this woman, +had she been Jemima Jones, would have made the name distinguished and +select. She was a big and sombre personality. Why was it, he wondered +afterwards, that for a moment something in him shrank, and that his +mind, metaphorically speaking, flung up an arm in self-protection? The +instinct flashed and passed. But it seemed to him born of an automatic +feeling that he must protect--not himself, but the woman from the man. +There was confusion in it all; links were missing. He studied her +intently. She was a woman who had none of the external feminine signals +in either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations and +alarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. Her +charm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he was +talking to a--woman; and the thing she inspired in him included, with +respect and wonder, somewhere also this curious hint of dread. This +instinct to protect her fled as soon as it was born, for the interest of +the conversation in which she so quickly plunged him obliterated all +minor emotions whatsoever. Here, for the first time, he drew close to +Egypt, the Egypt he had sought so long. It was not to be explained. He +_felt_ it. + +Beginning with commonplaces, such as "You like Egypt? You find here what +you expected?" she led him into better regions with "One finds here what +one brings." He knew the delightful experience of talking fluently on +subjects he was at home in, and to some one who understood. The feeling +at first that to this woman he could not say mere anythings, slipped +into its opposite--that he could say everything. Strangers ten minutes +ago, they were at once in deep and intimate talk together. He found his +ideas readily followed, agreed with up to a point--the point which +permits discussion to start from a basis of general accord towards +speculation. In the excitement of ideas he neglected the uncomfortable +note that had stirred his caution, forgot the warning too. Her mind, +moreover, seemed known to him; he was often aware of what she was going +to say before he actually heard it; the current of her thoughts struck a +familiar gait, and more than once he experienced vividly again the odd +sensation that it all had happened before. The very sentences and +phrases with which she pointed the turns of her unusual ideas were never +wholly unexpected. + +For her ideas were decidedly unusual, in the sense that she accepted +without question speculations not commonly deemed worth consideration at +all, indeed not ordinarily even known. Henriot knew them, because he had +read in many fields. It was the strength of her belief that fascinated +him. She offered no apologies. She knew. And while he talked, she +listening with folded arms and her black eyes fixed upon his own, +Richard Vance watched with vigilant eyes and listened too, ceaselessly +alert. Vance joined in little enough, however, gave no opinions, his +attitude one of general acquiescence. Twice, when pauses of slackening +interest made it possible, Henriot fancied he surprised another quality +in this negative attitude. Interpreting it each time differently, he yet +dismissed both interpretations with a smile. His imagination leaped so +absurdly to violent conclusions. They were not tenable: Vance was +neither her keeper, nor was he in some fashion a detective. Yet in his +manner was sometimes this suggestion of the detective order. He watched +with such deep attention, and he concealed it so clumsily with an +affectation of careless indifference. + +There is nothing more dangerous than that impulsive intimacy strangers +sometimes adopt when an atmosphere of mutual sympathy takes them by +surprise, for it is akin to the false frankness friends affect when +telling "candidly" one another's faults. The mood is invariably +regretted later. Henriot, however, yielded to it now with something like +abandon. The pleasure of talking with this woman was so unexpected, and +so keen. + +For Lady Statham believed apparently in some Egypt of her dreams. Her +interest was neither historical, archaeological, nor political. It was +religious--yet hardly of this earth at all. The conversation turned upon +the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians from an unearthly point of view, +and even while he talked he was vaguely aware that it was _her_ mind +talking through his own. She drew out his ideas and made him say them. +But this he was properly aware of only afterwards--that she had +cleverly, mercilessly pumped him of all he had ever known or read upon +the subject. Moreover, what Vance watched so intently was himself, and +the reactions in himself this remarkable woman produced. That also he +realised later. + +His first impression that these two belonged to what may be called the +"crank" order was justified by the conversation. But, at least, it was +interesting crankiness, and the belief behind it made it even +fascinating. Long before the end he surprised in her a more vital form +of his own attitude that anything _may_ be true, since knowledge has +never yet found final answers to any of the biggest questions. + +He understood, from sentences dropped early in the talk, that she was +among those few "superstitious" folk who think that the old Egyptians +came closer to reading the eternal riddles of the world than any +others, and that their knowledge was a remnant of that ancient Wisdom +Religion which existed in the superb, dark civilization of the sunken +Atlantis, lost continent that once joined Africa to Mexico. Eighty +thousand years ago the dim sands of Poseidonis, great island adjoining +the main continent which itself had vanished a vast period before, sank +down beneath the waves, and the entire known world to-day was descended +from its survivors. + +Hence the significant fact that all religions and "mythological" systems +begin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyed +the world. Egypt itself was colonised by a group of Atlantean priests +who brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. They had foreseen +the cataclysm. + +Lady Statham talked well, bringing into her great dream this strong, +insistent quality of belief and fact. She knew, from Plato to Donelly, +all that the minds of men have ever speculated upon the gorgeous legend. +The evidence for such a sunken continent--Henriot had skimmed it too in +years gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. He had heard Baconians +demolish Shakespeare with an array of evidence equally overwhelming. It +catches the imagination though not the mind. Yet out of her facts, as +she presented them, grew a strange likelihood. The force of this woman's +personality, and her calm and quiet way of believing all she talked +about, took her listener to some extent--further than ever before, +certainly--into the great dream after her. And the dream, to say the +least, was a picturesque one, laden with wonderful possibilities. For as +she talked the spirit of old Egypt moved up, staring down upon him out +of eyes lidded so curiously level. Hitherto all had prated to him of the +Arabs, their ancient faith and customs, and the splendour of the +Bedouins, those Princes of the Desert. But what he sought, barely +confessed in words even to himself, was something older far than this. +And this strange, dark woman brought it close. Deeps in his soul, long +slumbering, awoke. He heard forgotten questions. + +Only in this brief way could he attempt to sum up the storm she roused +in him. + +She carried him far beyond mere outline, however, though afterwards he +recalled the details with difficulty. So much more was suggested than +actually expressed. She contrived to make the general modern scepticism +an evidence of cheap mentality. It was so easy; the depth it affects to +conceal, mere emptiness. "We have tried all things, and found all +wanting"--the mind, as measuring instrument, merely confessed +inadequate. Various shrewd judgments of this kind increased his respect, +although her acceptance went so far beyond his own. And, while the label +of credulity refused to stick to her, her sense of imaginative wonder +enabled her to escape that dreadful compromise, a man's mind in a +woman's temperament. She fascinated him. + +The spiritual worship of the ancient Egyptians, she held, was a +symbolical explanation of things generally alluded to as the secrets of +life and death; their knowledge was a remnant of the wisdom of Atlantis. +Material relics, equally misunderstood, still stood to-day at Karnac, +Stonehenge, and in the mysterious writings on buried Mexican temples and +cities, so significantly akin to the hieroglyphics upon the Egyptian +tombs. + +"The one misinterpreted as literally as the other," she suggested, "yet +both fragments of an advanced knowledge that found its grave in the sea. +The Wisdom of that old spiritual system has vanished from the world, +only a degraded literalism left of its undecipherable language. The +jewel has been lost, and the casket is filled with sand, sand, sand." + +How keenly her black eyes searched his own as she said it, and how oddly +she made the little word resound. The syllable drew out almost into +chanting. Echoes answered from the depths within him, carrying it on and +on across some desert of forgotten belief. Veils of sand flew everywhere +about his mind. Curtains lifted. Whole hills of sand went shifting into +level surfaces whence gardens of dim outline emerged to meet the +sunlight. + +"But the sand may be removed." It was her nephew, speaking almost for +the first time, and the interruption had an odd effect, introducing a +sharply practical element. For the tone expressed, so far as he dared +express it, disapproval. It was a baited observation, an invitation to +opinion. + +"We are not sand-diggers, Mr. Henriot," put in Lady Statham, before he +decided to respond. "Our object is quite another one; and I believe--I +have a feeling," she added almost questioningly, "that you might be +interested enough to help us perhaps." + +He only wondered the direct attack had not come sooner. Its bluntness +hardly surprised him. He felt himself leap forward to accept it. A +sudden subsidence had freed his feet. + +Then the warning operated suddenly--for an instant. Henriot _was_ +interested; more, he was half seduced; but, as yet, he did not mean to +be included in their purposes, whatever these might be. That shrinking +dread came back a moment, and was gone again before he could question +it. His eyes looked full at Lady Statham. "What is it that you know?" +they asked her. "Tell me the things we once knew together, you and I. +These words are merely trifling. And why does another man now stand in +my place? For the sands heaped upon my memory are shifting, and it is +_you_ who are moving them away." + +His soul whispered it; his voice said quite another thing, although the +words he used seemed oddly chosen: + +"There is much in the ideas of ancient Egypt that has attracted me ever +since I can remember, though I have never caught up with anything +definite enough to follow. There was majesty somewhere in their +conceptions--a large, calm majesty of spiritual dominion, one might call +it perhaps. I _am_ interested." + +Her face remained expressionless as she listened, but there was grave +conviction in the eyes that held him like a spell. He saw through them +into dim, faint pictures whose background was always sand. He forgot +that he was speaking with a woman, a woman who half an hour ago had been +a stranger to him. He followed these faded mental pictures, though he +never caught them up.... It was like his dream in London. + +Lady Statham was talking--he had not noticed the means by which she +effected the abrupt transition--of familiar beliefs of old Egypt; of the +Ka, or Double, by whose existence the survival of the soul was possible, +even its return into manifested, physical life; of the astrology, or +influence of the heavenly bodies upon all sublunar activities; of +terrific forms of other life, known to the ancient worship of Atlantis, +great Potencies that might be invoked by ritual and ceremonial, and of +their lesser influence as recognised in certain lower forms, hence +treated with veneration as the "Sacred Animal" branch of this dim +religion. And she spoke lightly of the modern learning which so glibly +imagined it was the animals themselves that were looked upon as +"gods"--the bull, the bird, the crocodile, the cat. "It's there they all +go so absurdly wrong," she said, "taking the symbol for the power +symbolised. Yet natural enough. The mind to-day wears blinkers, studies +only the details seen directly before it. Had none of us experienced +love, we should think the first lover mad. Few to-day know the Powers +_they_ knew, hence deny them. If the world were deaf it would stand with +mockery before a hearing group swayed by an orchestra, pitying both +listeners and performers. It would deem our admiration of a great +swinging bell mere foolish worship of form and movement. Similarly, with +high Powers that once expressed themselves in common forms--where best +they could--being themselves bodiless. The learned men classify the +forms with painstaking detail. But deity has gone out of life. The +Powers symbolised are no longer experienced." + +"These Powers, you suggest, then--their Kas, as it were--may still--" + +But she waved aside the interruption. "They are satisfied, as the common +people were, with a degraded literalism," she went on. "Nut was the +Heavens, who spread herself across the earth in the form of a woman; +Shu, the vastness of space; the ibis typified Thoth, and Hathor was the +Patron of the Western Hills; Khonsu, the moon, was personified, as was +the deity of the Nile. But the high priest of Ra, the sun, you notice, +remained ever the Great One of Visions." + +The High Priest, the Great One of Visions!--How wonderfully again she +made the sentence sing. She put splendour into it. The pictures shifted +suddenly closer in his mind. He saw the grandeur of Memphis and +Heliopolis rise against the stars and shake the sand of ages from their +stern old temples. + +"You think it possible, then, to get into touch with these High Powers +you speak of, Powers once manifested in common forms?" + +Henriot asked the question with a degree of conviction and solemnity +that surprised himself. The scenery changed about him as he listened. +The spacious halls of this former khedivial Palace melted into Desert +spaces. He smelt the open wilderness, the sand that haunted Helouan. The +soft-footed Arab servants moved across the hall in their white sheets +like eddies of dust the wind stirred from the Libyan dunes. And over +these two strangers close beside him stole a queer, indefinite +alteration. Moods and emotions, nameless as unknown stars, rose through +his soul, trailing dark mists of memory from unfathomable distances. + +Lady Statham answered him indirectly. He found himself wishing that +those steady eyes would sometimes close. + +"Love is known only by feeling it," she said, her voice deepening a +little. "Behind the form you feel the person loved. The process is an +evocation, pure and simple. An arduous ceremonial, involving worship and +devotional preparation, is the means. It is a difficult ritual--the +only one acknowledged by the world as still effectual. Ritual is the +passage way of the soul into the Infinite." + +He might have said the words himself. The thought lay in him while she +uttered it. Evocation everywhere in life was as true as assimilation. +Nevertheless, he stared his companion full in the eyes with a touch of +almost rude amazement. But no further questions prompted themselves; or, +rather, he declined to ask them. He recalled, somehow uneasily, that in +ceremonial the points of the compass have significance, standing for +forces and activities that sleep there until invoked, and a passing +light fell upon that curious midnight request in the corridor upstairs. +These two were on the track of undesirable experiments, he thought.... +They wished to include him too. + +"You go at night sometimes into the Desert?" he heard himself saying. It +was impulsive and miscalculated. His feeling that it would be wise to +change the conversation resulted in giving it fresh impetus instead. + +"We saw you there--in the Wadi Hof," put in Vance, suddenly breaking his +long silence; "you too sleep out, then? It means, you know, the Valley +of Fear." + +"We wondered--" It was Lady Statham's voice, and she leaned forward +eagerly as she said it, then abruptly left the sentence incomplete. +Henriot started; a sense of momentary acute discomfort again ran over +him. The same second she continued, though obviously changing the +phrase--"we wondered how you spent your day there, during the heat. But +you paint, don't you? You draw, I mean?" + +The commonplace question, he realised in every fibre of his being, meant +something _they_ deemed significant. Was it his talent for drawing that +they sought to use him for? Even as he answered with a simple +affirmative, he had a flash of intuition that might be fanciful, yet +that might be true: that this extraordinary pair were intent upon some +ceremony of evocation that should summon into actual physical expression +some Power--some type of life--known long ago to ancient worship, and +that they even sought to fix its bodily outline with the pencil--his +pencil. + +A gateway of incredible adventure opened at his feet. He balanced on the +edge of knowing unutterable things. Here was a clue that might lead him +towards the hidden Egypt he had ever craved to know. An awful hand was +beckoning. The sands were shifting. He saw the million eyes of the +Desert watching him from beneath the level lids of centuries. Speck by +speck, and grain by grain, the sand that smothered memory lifted the +countless wrappings that embalmed it. + +And he was willing, yet afraid. Why in the world did he hesitate and +shrink? Why was it that the presence of this silent, watching +personality in the chair beside him kept caution still alive, with +warning close behind? The pictures in his mind were gorgeously coloured. +It was Richard Vance who somehow streaked them through with black. A +thing of darkness, born of this man's unassertive presence, flitted ever +across the scenery, marring its grandeur with something evil, petty, +dreadful. He held a horrible thought alive. His mind was thinking venal +purposes. + +In Henriot himself imagination had grown curiously heated, fed by what +had been suggested rather than actually said. Ideas of immensity crowded +his brain, yet never assumed definite shape. They were familiar, even as +this strange woman was familiar. Once, long ago, he had known them well; +had even practised them beneath these bright Egyptian stars. Whence came +this prodigious glad excitement in his heart, this sense of mighty +Powers coaxed down to influence the very details of daily life? Behind +them, for all their vagueness, lay an archetypal splendour, fraught with +forgotten meanings. He had always been aware of it in this mysterious +land, but it had ever hitherto eluded him. It hovered everywhere. He had +felt it brooding behind the towering Colossi at Thebes, in the skeletons +of wasted temples, in the uncouth comeliness of the Sphinx, and in the +crude terror of the Pyramids even. Over the whole of Egypt hung its +invisible wings. These were but isolated fragments of the Body that +might express it. And the Desert remained its cleanest, truest symbol. +Sand knew it closest. Sand might even give it bodily form and outline. + +But, while it escaped description in his mind, as equally it eluded +visualisation in his soul, he felt that it combined with its vastness +something infinitely small as well. Of such wee particles is the giant +Desert born.... + +Henriot started nervously in his chair, convicted once more of +unconscionable staring; and at the same moment a group of hotel people, +returning from a dance, passed through the hall and nodded him +good-night. The scent of the women reached him; and with it the sound of +their voices discussing personalities just left behind. A London +atmosphere came with them. He caught trivial phrases, uttered in a +drawling tone, and followed by the shrill laughter of a girl. They +passed upstairs, discussing their little things, like marionettes upon a +tiny stage. + +But their passage brought him back to things of modern life, and to some +standard of familiar measurement. The pictures that his soul had gazed +at so deep within, he realised, were a pictorial transfer caught +incompletely from this woman's vivid mind. He had seen the Desert as the +grey, enormous Tomb where hovered still the Ka of ancient Egypt. Sand +screened her visage with the veil of centuries. But She was there, and +She was living. Egypt herself had pitched a temporary camp in him, and +then moved on. + +There was a momentary break, a sense of abruptness and dislocation. And +then he became aware that Lady Statham had been speaking for some time +before he caught her actual words, and that a certain change had come +into her voice as also into her manner. + + + + +V + + +She was leaning closer to him, her face suddenly glowing and alive. +Through the stone figure coursed the fires of a passion that deepened +the coal-black eyes and communicated a hint of light--of exaltation--to +her whole person. It was incredibly moving. To this deep passion was due +the power he had felt. It was her entire life; she lived for it, she +would die for it. Her calmness of manner enhanced its effect. Hence the +strength of those first impressions that had stormed him. The woman had +belief; however wild and strange, it was sacred to her. The secret of +her influence was--conviction. + +His attitude shifted several points then. The wonder in him passed over +into awe. The things she knew were real. They were not merely +imaginative speculations. + +"I knew I was not wrong in thinking you in sympathy with this line of +thought," she was saying in lower voice, steady with earnestness, and as +though she had read his mind. "You, too, know, though perhaps you hardly +realise that you know. It lies so deep in you that you only get vague +feelings of it--intimations of memory. Isn't that the case?" + +Henriot gave assent with his eyes; it was the truth. + +"What we know instinctively," she continued, "is simply what we are +trying to remember. Knowledge is memory." She paused a moment watching +his face closely. "At least, you are free from that cheap scepticism +which labels these old beliefs as superstition." It was not even a +question. + +"I--worship real belief--of any kind," he stammered, for her words and +the close proximity of her atmosphere caused a strange upheaval in his +heart that he could not account for. He faltered in his speech. "It is +the most vital quality in life--rarer than deity." He was using her own +phrases even. "It is creative. It constructs the world anew--" + +"And may reconstruct the old." + +She said it, lifting her face above him a little, so that her eyes +looked down into his own. It grew big and somehow masculine. It was the +face of a priest, spiritual power in it. Where, oh where in the echoing +Past had he known this woman's soul? He saw her in another setting, a +forest of columns dim about her, towering above giant aisles. Again he +felt the Desert had come close. Into this tent-like hall of the hotel +came the sifting of tiny sand. It heaped softly about the very furniture +against his feet, blocking the exits of door and window. It shrouded the +little present. The wind that brought it stirred a veil that had hung +for ages motionless.... + +She had been saying many things that he had missed while his mind went +searching. "There were types of life the Atlantean system knew it might +revive--life unmanifested to-day in any bodily form," was the sentence +he caught with his return to the actual present. + +"A type of life?" he whispered, looking about him, as though to see who +it was had joined them; "you mean a--soul? Some kind of soul, alien to +humanity, or to--to any forms of living thing in the world to-day?" What +she had been saying reached him somehow, it seemed, though he had not +heard the words themselves. Still hesitating, he was yet so eager to +hear. Already he felt she meant to include him in her purposes, and that +in the end he must go willingly. So strong was her persuasion on his +mind. + +And he felt as if he knew vaguely what was coming. Before she answered +his curious question--prompting it indeed--rose in his mind that strange +idea of the Group-Soul: the theory that big souls cannot express +themselves in a single individual, but need an entire group for their +full manifestation. + +He listened intently. The reflection that this sudden intimacy was +unnatural, he rejected, for many conversations were really gathered +into one. Long watching and preparation on both sides had cleared the +way for the ripening of acquaintance into confidence--how long he dimly +wondered? But if this conception of the Group-Soul was not new, the +suggestion Lady Statham developed out of it was both new and +startling--and yet always so curiously familiar. Its value for him lay, +not in far-fetched evidence that supported it, but in the deep belief +which made it a vital asset in an honest inner life. + +"An individual," she said quietly, "one soul expressed completely in a +single person, I mean, is exceedingly rare. Not often is a physical +instrument found perfect enough to provide it with adequate expression. +In the lower ranges of humanity--certainly in animal and insect +life--one soul is shared by many. Behind a tribe of savages stands one +Savage. A flock of birds is a single Bird, scattered through the +consciousness of all. They wheel in mid-air, they migrate, they obey the +deep intelligence called instinct--all as one. The life of any one lion +is the life of all--the lion group-soul that manifests itself in the +entire genus. An ant-heap is a single Ant; through the bees spreads the +consciousness of a single Bee." + +Henriot knew what she was working up to. In his eagerness to hasten +disclosure he interrupted-- + +"And there may be types of life that have no corresponding bodily +expression at all, then?" he asked as though the question were forced +out of him. "They exist as Powers--unmanifested on the earth to-day?" + +"Powers," she answered, watching him closely with unswerving stare, +"that need a group to provide their body--their physical expression--if +they came back." + +"Came back!" he repeated below his breath. + +But she heard him. "They once had expression. Egypt, Atlantis knew +them--spiritual Powers that never visit the world to-day." + +"Bodies," he whispered softly, "actual bodies?" + +"Their sphere of action, you see, would be their body. And it might be +physical outline. So potent a descent of spiritual life would select +materials for its body where it could find them. Our conventional notion +of a body--what is it? A single outline moving altogether in one +direction. For little human souls, or fragments, this is sufficient. But +for vaster types of soul an entire host would be required." + +"A church?" he ventured. "Some Body of belief, you surely mean?" + +She bowed her head a moment in assent. She was determined he should +seize her meaning fully. + +"A wave of spiritual awakening--a descent of spiritual life upon a +nation," she answered slowly, "forms itself a church, and the body of +true believers are its sphere of action. They are literally its bodily +expression. Each individual believer is a corpuscle in that Body. The +Power has provided itself with a vehicle of manifestation. Otherwise we +could not know it. And the more real the belief of each individual, the +more perfect the expression of the spiritual life behind them all. A +Group-soul walks the earth. Moreover, a nation naturally devout could +attract a type of soul unknown to a nation that denies all faith. Faith +brings back the gods.... But to-day belief is dead, and Deity has left +the world." + +She talked on and on, developing this main idea that in days of older +faiths there were deific types of life upon the earth, evoked by worship +and beneficial to humanity. They had long ago withdrawn because the +worship which brought them down had died the death. The world had grown +pettier. These vast centres of Spiritual Power found no "Body" in which +they now could express themselves or manifest.... Her thoughts and +phrases poured over him like sand. It was always sand he felt--burying +the Present and uncovering the Past.... + +He tried to steady his mind upon familiar objects, but wherever he +looked Sand stared him in the face. Outside these trivial walls the +Desert lay listening. It lay waiting too. Vance himself had dropped out +of recognition. He belonged to the world of things to-day. But this +woman and himself stood thousands of years away, beneath the columns of +a Temple in the sands. And the sands were moving. His feet went shifting +with them ... running down vistas of ageless memory that woke terror by +their sheer immensity of distance.... + +Like a muffled voice that called to him through many veils and +wrappings, he heard her describe the stupendous Powers that evocation +might coax down again among the world of men. + +"To what useful end?" he asked at length, amazed at his own temerity, +and because he knew instinctively the answer in advance. It rose through +these layers of coiling memory in his soul. + +"The extension of spiritual knowledge and the widening of life," she +answered. "The link with the 'unearthly kingdom' wherein this ancient +system went forever searching, would be re-established. Complete +rehabilitation might follow. Portions--little portions of these +Powers--expressed themselves naturally once in certain animal types, +instinctive life that did not deny or reject them. The worship of sacred +animals was the relic of a once gigantic system of evocation--not of +monsters," and she smiled sadly, "but of Powers that were willing and +ready to descend when worship summoned them." + +Again, beneath his breath, Henriot heard himself murmur--his own voice +startled him as he whispered it: "Actual bodily shape and outline?" + +"Material for bodies is everywhere," she answered, equally low; "dust to +which we all return; sand, if you prefer it, fine, fine sand. Life +moulds it easily enough, when that life is potent." + +A certain confusion spread slowly through his mind as he heard her. He +lit a cigarette and smoked some minutes in silence. Lady Statham and her +nephew waited for him to speak. At length, after some inner battling and +hesitation, he put the question that he knew they waited for. It was +impossible to resist any longer. + +"It would be interesting to know the method," he said, "and to revive, +perhaps, by experiment--" + +Before he could complete his thought, she took him up: + +"There are some who claim to know it," she said gravely--her eyes a +moment masterful. "A clue, thus followed, might lead to the entire +reconstruction I spoke of." + +"And the method?" he repeated faintly. + +"Evoke the Power by ceremonial evocation--the ritual is obtainable--and +note the form it assumes. Then establish it. This shape or outline once +secured, could then be made permanent--a mould for its return at +will--its natural physical expression here on earth." + +"Idol!" he exclaimed. + +"Image," she replied at once. "Life, before we can know it, must have a +body. Our souls, in order to manifest here, need a material vehicle." + +"And--to obtain this form or outline?" he began; "to fix it, rather?" + +"Would be required the clever pencil of a fearless looker-on--some one +not engaged in the actual evocation. This form, accurately made +permanent in solid matter, say in stone, would provide a channel always +open. Experiment, properly speaking, might then begin. The cisterns of +Power behind would be accessible." + +"An amazing proposition!" Henriot exclaimed. What surprised him was that +he felt no desire to laugh, and little even to doubt. + +"Yet known to every religion that ever deserved the name," put in Vance +like a voice from a distance. Blackness came somehow with his +interruption--a touch of darkness. He spoke eagerly. + +To all the talk that followed, and there was much of it, Henriot +listened with but half an ear. This one idea stormed through him with an +uproar that killed attention. Judgment was held utterly in abeyance. He +carried away from it some vague suggestion that this woman had hinted at +previous lives she half remembered, and that every year she came to +Egypt, haunting the sands and temples in the effort to recover lost +clues. And he recalled afterwards that she said, "This all came to me as +a child, just as though it was something half remembered." There was the +further suggestion that he himself was not unknown to her; that they, +too, had met before. But this, compared to the grave certainty of the +rest, was merest fantasy that did not hold his attention. He answered, +hardly knowing what he said. His preoccupation with other thoughts deep +down was so intense, that he was probably barely polite, uttering empty +phrases, with his mind elsewhere. His one desire was to escape and be +alone, and it was with genuine relief that he presently excused himself +and went upstairs to bed. The halls, he noticed, were empty; an Arab +servant waited to put the lights out. He walked up, for the lift had +long ceased running. + +And the magic of old Egypt stalked beside him. The studies that had +fascinated his mind in earlier youth returned with the power that had +subdued his mind in boyhood. The cult of Osiris woke in his blood again; +Horus and Nephthys stirred in their long-forgotten centres. There +revived in him, too long buried, the awful glamour of those liturgal +rites and vast body of observances, those spells and formulae of +incantation of the oldest known recension that years ago had captured +his imagination and belief--the Book of the Dead. Trumpet voices called +to his heart again across the desert of some dim past. There were forms +of life--impulses from the Creative Power which is the Universe--other +than the soul of man. They could be known. A spiritual exaltation, +roused by the words and presence of this singular woman, shouted to him +as he went. + +Then, as he closed his bedroom door, carefully locking it, there stood +beside him--Vance. The forgotten figure of Vance came up close--the +watching eyes, the simulated interest, the feigned belief, the detective +mental attitude, these broke through the grandiose panorama, bringing +darkness. Vance, strong personality that hid behind assumed nonentity +for some purpose of his own, intruded with sudden violence, demanding an +explanation of his presence. + +And, with an equal suddenness, explanation offered itself then and +there. It came unsought, its horror of certainty utterly unjustified; +and it came in this unexpected fashion: + +Behind the interest and acquiescence of the man ran--fear: but behind +the vivid fear ran another thing that Henriot now perceived was vile. +For the first time in his life, Henriot knew it at close quarters, +actual, ready to operate. Though familiar enough in daily life to be of +common occurrence, Henriot had never realised it as he did now, so close +and terrible. In the same way he had never _realised_ that he would +die--vanish from the busy world of men and women, forgotten as though he +had never existed, an eddy of wind-blown dust. And in the man named +Richard Vance this thing was close upon blossom. Henriot could not name +it to himself. Even in thought it appalled him. + + * * * * * + +He undressed hurriedly, almost with the child's idea of finding safety +between the sheets. His mind undressed itself as well. The business of +the day laid itself automatically aside; the will sank down; desire grew +inactive. Henriot was exhausted. But, in that stage towards slumber when +thinking stops, and only fugitive pictures pass across the mind in +shadowy dance, his brain ceased shouting its mechanical explanations, +and his soul unveiled a peering eye. Great limbs of memory, smothered by +the activities of the Present, stirred their stiffened lengths through +the sands of long ago--sands this woman had begun to excavate from some +far-off pre-existence they had surely known together. Vagueness and +certainty ran hand in hand. Details were unrecoverable, but the emotions +in which they were embedded moved. + +He turned restlessly in his bed, striving to seize the amazing clues and +follow them. But deliberate effort hid them instantly again; they +retired instantly into the subconsciousness. With the brain of this body +he now occupied they had nothing to do. The brain stored memories of +each life only. This ancient script was graven in his soul. +Subconsciousness alone could interpret and reveal. And it was his +subconscious memory that Lady Statham had been so busily excavating. + +Dimly it stirred and moved about the depths within him, never clearly +seen, indefinite, felt as a yearning after unrecoverable knowledge. +Against the darker background of Vance's fear and sinister purpose--both +of this present life, and recent--he saw the grandeur of this woman's +impossible dream, and _knew_, beyond argument or reason, that it was +true. Judgment and will asleep, he left the impossibility aside, and +took the grandeur. The Belief of Lady Statham was not credulity and +superstition; it was Memory. Still to this day, over the sands of Egypt, +hovered immense spiritual potencies, so vast that they could only know +physical expression in a group--in many. Their sphere of bodily +manifestation must be a host, each individual unit in that host a +corpuscle in the whole. + +The wind, rising from the Lybian wastes across the Nile, swept up +against the exposed side of the hotel, and made his windows rattle--the +old, sad winds of Egypt. Henriot got out of bed to fasten the outside +shutters. He stood a moment and watched the moon floating down behind +the Sakkara Pyramids. The Pleiades and Orion's Belt hung brilliantly; +the Great Bear was close to the horizon. In the sky above the Desert +swung ten thousand stars. No sounds rose from the streets of Helouan. +The tide of sand was coming slowly in. + +And a flock of enormous thoughts swooped past him from fields of this +unbelievable, lost memory. The Desert, pale in the moon, was coextensive +with the night, too huge for comfort or understanding, yet charged to +the brim with infinite peace. Behind its majesty of silence lay whispers +of a vanished language that once could call with power upon mighty +spiritual Agencies. Its skirts were folded now, but, slowly across the +leagues of sand, they began to stir and rearrange themselves. He grew +suddenly aware of this enveloping shroud of sand--as the raw material of +bodily expression: Form. + +The sand was in his imagination and his mind. Shaking loosely the folds +of its gigantic skirts, it rose; it moved a little towards him. He saw +the eternal countenance of the Desert watching him--immobile and +unchanging behind these shifting veils the winds laid so carefully over +it. Egypt, the ancient Egypt, turned in her vast sarcophagus of Desert, +wakening from her sleep of ages at the Belief of approaching +worshippers. + +Only in this insignificant manner could he express a letter of the +terrific language that crowded to seek expression through his soul.... +He closed the shutters and carefully fastened them. He turned to go back +to bed, curiously trembling. Then, as he did so, the whole singular +delusion caught him with a shock that held him motionless. Up rose the +stupendous apparition of the entire Desert and stood behind him on that +balcony. Swift as thought, in silence, the Desert stood on end against +his very face. It towered across the sky, hiding Orion and the moon; it +dipped below the horizons. The whole grey sheet of it rose up before his +eyes and stood. Through its unfolding skirts ran ten thousand eddies of +swirling sand as the creases of its grave-clothes smoothed themselves +out in moonlight. And a bleak, scarred countenance, huge as a planet, +gazed down into his own.... + +Through his dreamless sleep that night two things lay active and awake +... in the subconscious part that knows no slumber. They were +incongruous. One was evil, small and human; the other unearthly and +sublime. For the memory of the fear that haunted Vance, and the sinister +cause of it, pricked at him all night long. But behind, beyond this +common, intelligible emotion, lay the crowding wonder that caught his +soul with glory: + +The Sand was stirring, the Desert was awake. Ready to mate with them in +material form, brooded close the Ka of that colossal Entity that once +expressed itself through the myriad life of ancient Egypt. + + + + +VI + + +Next day, and for several days following, Henriot kept out of the path +of Lady Statham and her nephew. The acquaintanceship had grown too +rapidly to be quite comfortable. It was easy to pretend that he took +people at their face value, but it was a pose; one liked to know +something of antecedents. It was otherwise difficult to "place" them. +And Henriot, for the life of him, could not "place" these two. His +Subconsciousness brought explanation when it came--but the +Subconsciousness is only temporarily active. When it retired he +floundered without a rudder, in confusion. + +With the flood of morning sunshine the value of much she had said +evaporated. Her presence alone had supplied the key to the cipher. But +while the indigestible portions he rejected, there remained a good deal +he had already assimilated. The discomfort remained; and with it the +grave, unholy reality of it all. It was something more than theory. +Results would follow--if he joined them. He would witness curious +things. + +The force with which it drew him brought hesitation. It operated in him +like a shock that numbs at first by its abrupt arrival, and needs time +to realise in the right proportions to the rest of life. These right +proportions, however, did not come readily, and his emotions ranged +between sceptical laughter and complete acceptance. The one detail he +felt certain of was this dreadful thing he had divined in Vance. Trying +hard to disbelieve it, he found he could not. It was true. Though +without a shred of real evidence to support it, the horror of it +remained. He knew it in his very bones. + +And this, perhaps, was what drove him to seek the comforting +companionship of folk he understood and felt at home with. He told his +host and hostess about the strangers, though omitting the actual +conversation because they would merely smile in blank miscomprehension. +But the moment he described the strong black eyes beneath the level +eyelids, his hostess turned with a start, her interest deeply roused: +"Why, it's that awful Statham woman," she exclaimed, "that must be Lady +Statham, and the man she calls her nephew." + +"Sounds like it, certainly," her husband added. "Felix, you'd better +clear out. They'll bewitch you too." + +And Henriot bridled, yet wondering why he did so. He drew into his shell +a little, giving the merest sketch of what had happened. But he listened +closely while these two practical old friends supplied him with +information in the gossiping way that human nature loves. No doubt there +was much embroidery, and more perversion, exaggeration too, but the +account evidently rested upon some basis of solid foundation for all +that. Smoke and fire go together always. + +"He _is_ her nephew right enough," Mansfield corrected his wife, before +proceeding to his own man's form of elaboration; "no question about +that, I believe. He's her favourite nephew, and she's as rich as a pig. +He follows her out here every year, waiting for her empty shoes. But +they _are_ an unsavoury couple. I've met 'em in various parts, all over +Egypt, but they always come back to Helouan in the end. And the stories +about them are simply legion. You remember--" he turned hesitatingly to +his wife--"some people, I heard," he changed his sentence, "were made +quite ill by her." + +"I'm sure Felix ought to know, yes," his wife boldly took him up, "my +niece, Fanny, had the most extraordinary experience." She turned to +Henriot. "Her room was next to Lady Statham in some hotel or other at +Assouan or Edfu, and one night she woke and heard a kind of mysterious +chanting or intoning next her. Hotel doors are so dreadfully thin. There +was a funny smell too, like incense of something sickly, and a man's +voice kept chiming in. It went on for hours, while she lay terrified in +bed--" + +"Frightened, you say?" asked Henriot. + +"Out of her skin, yes; she said it was so uncanny--made her feel icy. +She wanted to ring the bell, but was afraid to leave her bed. The room +was full of--of things, yet she could see nothing. She _felt_ them, you +see. And after a bit the sound of this sing-song voice so got on her +nerves, it half dazed her--a kind of enchantment--she felt choked and +suffocated. And then--" It was her turn to hesitate. + +"Tell it all," her husband said, quite gravely too. + +"Well--something came in. At least, she describes it oddly, rather; she +said it made the door bulge inwards from the next room, but not the door +alone; the walls bulged or swayed as if a huge thing pressed against +them from the other side. And at the same moment her windows--she had +two big balconies, and the venetian shutters were fastened--both her +windows _darkened_--though it was two in the morning and pitch dark +outside. She said it was all _one_ thing--trying to get in; just as +water, you see, would rush in through every hole and opening it could +find, and all at once. And in spite of her terror--that's the odd part +of it--she says she felt a kind of splendour in her--a sort of elation." + +"She saw nothing?" + +"She says she doesn't remember. Her senses left her, I believe--though +she won't admit it." + +"Fainted for a minute, probably," said Mansfield. + +"So there it is," his wife concluded, after a silence. "And that's true. +It happened to my niece, didn't it, John?" + +Stories and legendary accounts of strange things that the presence of +these two brought poured out then. They were obviously somewhat mixed, +one account borrowing picturesque details from another, and all in +disproportion, as when people tell stories in a language they are +little familiar with. But, listening with avidity, yet also with +uneasiness, somehow, Henriot put two and two together. Truth stood +behind them somewhere. These two held traffic with the powers that +ancient Egypt knew. + +"Tell Felix, dear, about the time you met the nephew--horrid +creature--in the Valley of the Kings," he heard his wife say presently. +And Mansfield told it plainly enough, evidently glad to get it done, +though. + +"It was some years ago now, and I didn't know who he was then, or +anything about him. I don't know much more now--except that he's a +dangerous sort of charlatan-devil, _I_ think. But I came across him one +night up there by Thebes in the Valley of the Kings--you know, where +they buried all their Johnnies with so much magnificence and processions +and masses, and all the rest. It's the most astounding, the most haunted +place you ever saw, gloomy, silent, full of gorgeous lights and shadows +that seem alive--terribly impressive; it makes you creep and shudder. +You feel old Egypt watching you." + +"Get on, dear," said his wife. + +"Well, I was coming home late on a blasted lazy donkey, dog-tired into +the bargain, when my donkey boy suddenly ran for his life and left me +alone. It was after sunset. The sand was red and shining, and the big +cliffs sort of fiery. And my donkey stuck its four feet in the ground +and wouldn't budge. Then, about fifty yards away, I saw a +fellow--European apparently--doing something--Heaven knows what, for I +can't describe it--among the boulders that lie all over the ground +there. Ceremony, I suppose you'd call it. I was so interested that at +first I watched. Then I saw he wasn't alone. There were a lot of moving +things round him, towering big things, that came and went like shadows. +That twilight is fearfully bewildering; perspective changes, and +distance gets all confused. It's fearfully hard to see properly. I only +remember that I got off my donkey and went up closer, and when I was +within a dozen yards of him--well, it sounds such rot, you know, but I +swear the things suddenly rushed off and left him there alone. They went +with a roaring noise like wind; shadowy but tremendously big, they were, +and they vanished up against the fiery precipices as though they slipped +bang into the stone itself. The only thing I can think of to describe +'em is--well, those sand-storms the Khamasin raises--the hot winds, you +know." + +"They probably _were_ sand," his wife suggested, burning to tell +another story of her own. + +"Possibly, only there wasn't a breath of wind, and it was hot as +blazes--and--I had such extraordinary sensations--never felt anything +like it before--wild and exhilarated--drunk, I tell you, drunk." + +"You saw them?" asked Henriot. "You made out their shape at all, or +outline?" + +"Sphinx," he replied at once, "for all the world like sphinxes. You know +the kind of face and head these limestone strata in the Desert +take--great visages with square Egyptian head-dresses where the driven +sand has eaten away the softer stuff beneath? You see it +everywhere--enormous idols they seem, with faces and eyes and lips +awfully like the sphinx--well, that's the nearest I can get to it." He +puffed his pipe hard. But there was no sign of levity in him. He told +the actual truth as far as in him lay, yet half ashamed of what he told. +And a good deal he left out, too. + +"She's got a face of the same sort, that Statham horror," his wife said +with a shiver. "Reduce the size, and paint in awful black eyes, and +you've got her exactly--a living idol." And all three laughed, yet a +laughter without merriment in it. + +"And you spoke to the man?" + +"I did," the Englishman answered, "though I confess I'm a bit ashamed of +the way I spoke. Fact is, I was excited, thunderingly excited, and felt +a kind of anger. I wanted to kick the beggar for practising such bally +rubbish, and in such a place too. Yet all the time--well, well, I +believe it was sheer funk now," he laughed; "for I felt uncommonly queer +out there in the dusk, alone with--with that kind of business; and I was +angry with myself for feeling it. Anyhow, I went up--I'd lost my donkey +boy as well, remember--and slated him like a dog. I can't remember what +I said exactly--only that he stood and stared at me in silence. That +made it worse--seemed twice as real then. The beggar said no single word +the whole time. He signed to me with one hand to clear out. And then, +suddenly out of nothing--she--that woman--appeared and stood beside him. +I never saw her come. She must have been behind some boulder or other, +for she simply rose out of the ground. She stood there and stared at me +too--bang in the face. She was turned towards the sunset--what was left +of it in the west--and her black eyes shone like--ugh! I can't describe +it--it was shocking." + +"She spoke?" + +"She said five words--and her voice--it'll make you laugh--it was +metallic like a gong: 'You are in danger here.' That's all she said. I +simply turned and cleared out as fast as ever I could. But I had to go +on foot. My donkey had followed its boy long before. I tell you--smile +as you may--my blood was all curdled for an hour afterwards." + +Then he explained that he felt some kind of explanation or apology was +due, since the couple lodged in his own hotel, and how he approached the +man in the smoking-room after dinner. A conversation resulted--the man +was quite intelligent after all--of which only one sentence had remained +in his mind. + +"Perhaps you can explain it, Felix. I wrote it down, as well as I could +remember. The rest confused me beyond words or memory; though I must +confess it did not seem--well, not utter rot exactly. It was about +astrology and rituals and the worship of the old Egyptians, and I don't +know what else besides. Only, he made it intelligible and almost +sensible, if only I could have got the hang of the thing enough to +remember it. You know," he added, as though believing in spite of +himself, "there _is_ a lot of that wonderful old Egyptian religious +business still hanging about in the atmosphere of this place, say what +you like." + +"But this sentence?" Henriot asked. And the other went off to get a +note-book where he had written it down. + +"He was jawing, you see," he continued when he came back, Henriot and +his wife having kept silence meanwhile, "about direction being of +importance in religious ceremonies, West and North symbolising certain +powers, or something of the kind, why people turn to the East and all +that sort of thing, and speaking of the whole Universe as if it had +living forces tucked away in it that expressed themselves somehow when +roused up. That's how I remember it anyhow. And then he said this +thing--in answer to some fool question probably that I put." And he read +out of the note-book: + +"'You were in danger because you came through the Gateway of the West, +and the Powers from the Gateway of the East were at that moment rising, +and therefore in direct opposition to you.'" + +Then came the following, apparently a simile offered by way of +explanation. Mansfield read it in a shamefaced tone, evidently prepared +for laughter: + +"'Whether I strike you on the back or in the face determines what kind +of answering force I rouse in you. Direction is significant.' And he +said it was the period called the Night of Power--time when the Desert +encroaches and spirits are close." + +And tossing the book aside, he lit his pipe again and waited a moment to +hear what might be said. "Can you explain such gibberish?" he asked at +length, as neither of his listeners spoke. But Henriot said he couldn't. +And the wife then took up her own tale of stories that had grown about +this singular couple. + +These were less detailed, and therefore less impressive, but all +contributed something towards the atmosphere of reality that framed the +entire picture. They belonged to the type one hears at every dinner +party in Egypt--stories of the vengeance mummies seem to take on those +who robbed them, desecrating their peace of centuries; of a woman +wearing a necklace of scarabs taken from a princess's tomb, who felt +hands about her throat to strangle her; of little Ka figures, Pasht +goddesses, amulets and the rest, that brought curious disaster to those +who kept them. They are many and various, astonishingly circumstantial +often, and vouched for by persons the reverse of credulous. The modern +superstition that haunts the desert gullies with Afreets has nothing in +common with them. They rest upon a basis of indubitable experience; and +they remain--inexplicable. And about the personalities of Lady Statham +and her nephew they crowded like flies attracted by a dish of fruit. The +Arabs, too, were afraid of her. She had difficulty in getting guides and +dragomen. + +"My dear chap," concluded Mansfield, "take my advice and have nothing to +do with 'em. There _is_ a lot of queer business knocking about in this +old country, and people like that know ways of reviving it somehow. It's +upset you already; you looked scared, I thought, the moment you came +in." They laughed, but the Englishman was in earnest. "I tell you what," +he added, "we'll go off for a bit of shooting together. The fields along +the Delta are packed with birds now: they're home early this year on +their way to the North. What d'ye say, eh?" + +But Henriot did not care about the quail shooting. He felt more inclined +to be alone and think things out by himself. He had come to his friends +for comfort, and instead they had made him uneasy and excited. His +interest had suddenly doubled. Though half afraid, he longed to know +what these two were up to--to follow the adventure to the bitter end. He +disregarded the warning of his host as well as the premonition in his +own heart. The sand had caught his feet. + +There were moments when he laughed in utter disbelief, but these were +optimistic moods that did not last. He always returned to the feeling +that truth lurked somewhere in the whole strange business, and that if +he joined forces with them, as they seemed to wish, he would +witness--well, he hardly knew what--but it enticed him as danger does +the reckless man, or death the suicide. The sand had caught his mind. + +He decided to offer himself to all they wanted--his pencil too. He would +see--a shiver ran through him at the thought--what they saw, and know +some eddy of that vanished tide of power and splendour the ancient +Egyptian priesthood knew, and that perhaps was even common experience in +the far-off days of dim Atlantis. The sand had caught his imagination +too. He was utterly sand-haunted. + + + + +VII + + +And so he took pains, though without making definite suggestion, to +place himself in the way of this woman and her nephew--only to find that +his hints were disregarded. They left him alone, if they did not +actually avoid him. Moreover, he rarely came across them now. Only at +night, or in the queer dusk hours, he caught glimpses of them moving +hurriedly off from the hotel, and always desertwards. And their +disregard, well calculated, enflamed his desire to the point when he +almost decided to propose himself. Quite suddenly, then, the idea +flashed through him--how do they come, these odd revelations, when the +mind lies receptive like a plate sensitised by anticipation?--that they +were waiting for a certain date, and, with the notion, came Mansfield's +remark about "the Night of Power," believed in by the old Egyptian +Calendar as a time when the supersensuous world moves close against the +minds of men with all its troop of possibilities. And the thought, once +lodged in its corner of imagination, grew strong. He looked it up. Ten +days from now, he found, Leyel-el-Sud would be upon him, with a moon, +too, at the full. And this strange hint of guidance he accepted. In his +present mood, as he admitted, smiling to himself, he could accept +anything. It was part of it, it belonged to the adventure. But, even +while he persuaded himself that it was play, the solemn reality, of +what lay ahead increased amazingly, sketched darkly in his very soul. + +These intervening days he spent as best he could--impatiently, a prey to +quite opposite emotions. In the blazing sunshine he thought of it and +laughed; but at night he lay often sleepless, calculating chances of +escape. He never did escape, however. The Desert that watched little +Helouan with great, unwinking eyes watched also every turn and twist he +made. Like this oasis, he basked in the sun of older time, and dreamed +beneath forgotten moons. The sand at last had crept into his inmost +heart. It sifted over him. + +Seeking a reaction from normal, everyday things, he made tourist trips; +yet, while recognising the comedy in his attitude, he never could lose +sight of the grandeur that banked it up so hauntingly. These two +contrary emotions grafted themselves on all he did and saw. He crossed +the Nile at Bedrashein, and went again to the Tomb-World of Sakkara; but +through all the chatter of veiled and helmeted tourists, the +_bandar-log_ of our modern Jungle, ran this dark under-stream of awe +their monkey methods could not turn aside. One world lay upon another, +but this modern layer was a shallow crust that, like the phenomenon of +the "desert-film," a mere angle of falling light could instantly +obliterate. Beneath the sand, deep down, he passed along the Street of +Tombs, as he had often passed before, moved then merely by historical +curiosity and admiration, but now by emotions for which he found no +name. He saw the enormous sarcophagi of granite in their gloomy chambers +where the sacred bulls once lay, swathed and embalmed like human beings, +and, in the flickering candle light, the mood of ancient rites surged +round him, menacing his doubts and laughter. The least human whisper in +these subterraneans, dug out first four thousand years ago, revived +ominous Powers that stalked beside him, forbidding and premonitive. He +gazed at the spots where Mariette, unearthing them forty years ago, +found fresh as of yesterday the marks of fingers and naked feet--of +those who set the sixty-five ton slabs in position. And when he came up +again into the sunshine he met the eternal questions of the pyramids, +overtopping all his mental horizons. Sand blocked all the avenues of +younger emotion, leaving the channels of something in him incalculably +older, open and clean swept. + +He slipped homewards, uncomfortable and followed, glad to be with a +crowd--because he was otherwise alone with more than he could dare to +think about. Keeping just ahead of his companions, he crossed the desert +edge where the ghost of Memphis walks under rustling palm trees that +screen no stone left upon another of all its mile-long populous +splendours. For here was a vista his imagination could realise; here he +could know the comfort of solid ground his feet could touch. Gigantic +Ramases, lying on his back beneath their shade and staring at the sky, +similarly helped to steady his swaying thoughts. Imagination could deal +with these. + +And daily thus he watched the busy world go to and fro to its scale of +tips and bargaining, and gladly mingled with it, trying to laugh and +study guidebooks, and listen to half-fledged explanations, but always +seeing the comedy of his poor attempts. Not all those little donkeys, +bells tinkling, beads shining, trotting beneath their comical burdens to +the tune of shouting and belabouring, could stem this tide of deeper +things the woman had let loose in the subconscious part of him. +Everywhere he saw the mysterious camels go slouching through the sand, +gurgling the water in their skinny, extended throats. Centuries passed +between the enormous knee-stroke of their stride. And, every night, the +sunsets restored the forbidding, graver mood, with their crimson, golden +splendour, their strange green shafts of light, then--sudden twilight +that brought the Past upon him with an awful leap. Upon the stage then +stepped the figures of this pair of human beings, chanting their ancient +plainsong of incantation in the moonlit desert, and working their rites +of unholy evocation as the priests had worked them centuries before in +the sands that now buried Sakkara fathoms deep. + +Then one morning he woke with a question in his mind, as though it had +been asked of him in sleep and he had waked just before the answer came. +"Why do I spend my time sight-seeing, instead of going alone into the +Desert as before? What has made me change?" + +This latest mood now asked for explanation. And the answer, coming up +automatically, startled him. It was so clear and sure--had been lying in +the background all along. One word contained it: + +Vance. + +The sinister intentions of this man, forgotten in the rush of other +emotions, asserted themselves again convincingly. The human horror, so +easily comprehensible, had been smothered for the time by the hint of +unearthly revelations. But it had operated all the time. Now it took +the lead. He dreaded to be alone in the Desert with this dark picture in +his mind of what Vance meant to bring there to completion. This +abomination of a selfish human will returned to fix its terror in him. +To be alone in the Desert meant to be alone with the imaginative picture +of what Vance--he knew it with such strange certainty--hoped to bring +about there. + +There was absolutely no evidence to justify the grim suspicion. It +seemed indeed far-fetched enough, this connection between the sand and +the purpose of an evil-minded, violent man. But Henriot saw it true. He +could argue it away in a few minutes--easily. Yet the instant thought +ceased, it returned, led up by intuition. It possessed him, filled his +mind with horrible possibilities. He feared the Desert as he might have +feared the scene of some atrocious crime. And, for the time, this dread +of a merely human thing corrected the big seduction of the other--the +suggested "super-natural." + +Side by side with it, his desire to join himself to the purposes of the +woman increased steadily. They kept out of his way apparently; the offer +seemed withdrawn; he grew restless, unable to settle to anything for +long, and once he asked the porter casually if they were leaving the +hotel. Lady Statham had been invisible for days, and Vance was somehow +never within speaking distance. He heard with relief that they had not +gone--but with dread as well. Keen excitement worked in him underground. +He slept badly. Like a schoolboy, he waited for the summons to an +important examination that involved portentous issues, and contradictory +emotions disturbed his peace of mind abominably. + + + + +VIII + + +But it was not until the end of the week, when Vance approached him with +purpose in his eyes and manner, that Henriot knew his fears unfounded, +and caught himself trembling with sudden anticipation--because the +invitation, so desired yet so dreaded, was actually at hand. Firmly +determined to keep caution uppermost, yet he went unresistingly to a +secluded corner by the palms where they could talk in privacy. For +prudence is of the mind, but desire is of the soul, and while his brain +of to-day whispered wariness, voices in his heart of long ago shouted +commands that he knew he must obey with joy. + +It was evening and the stars were out. Helouan, with her fairy +twinkling lights, lay silent against the Desert edge. The sand was at +the flood. The period of the Encroaching of the Desert was at hand, and +the deeps were all astir with movement. But in the windless air was a +great peace. A calm of infinite stillness breathed everywhere. The flow +of Time, before it rushed away backwards, stopped somewhere between the +dust of stars and Desert. The mystery of sand touched every street with +its unutterable softness. + +And Vance began without the smallest circumlocution. His voice was low, +in keeping with the scene, but the words dropped with a sharp +distinctness into the other's heart like grains of sand that pricked the +skin before they smothered him. Caution they smothered instantly; +resistance too. + +"I have a message for you from my aunt," he said, as though he brought +an invitation to a picnic. Henriot sat in shadow, but his companion's +face was in a patch of light that followed them from the windows of the +central hall. There was a shining in the light blue eyes that betrayed +the excitement his quiet manner concealed. "We are going--the day after +to-morrow--to spend the night in the Desert; she wondered if, perhaps, +you would care to join us?" + +"For your experiment?" asked Henriot bluntly. + +Vance smiled with his lips, holding his eyes steady, though unable to +suppress the gleam that flashed in them and was gone so swiftly. There +was a hint of shrugging his shoulders. + +"It is the Night of Power--in the old Egyptian Calendar, you know," he +answered with assumed lightness almost, "the final moment of +Leyel-el-Sud, the period of Black Nights when the Desert was held to +encroach with--with various possibilities of a supernatural order. She +wishes to revive a certain practice of the old Egyptians. There _may_ be +curious results. At any rate, the occasion is a picturesque one--better +than this cheap imitation of London life." And he indicated the lights, +the signs of people in the hall dressed for gaieties and dances, the +hotel orchestra that played after dinner. + +Henriot at the moment answered nothing, so great was the rush of +conflicting emotions that came he knew not whence. Vance went calmly on. +He spoke with a simple frankness that was meant to be disarming. Henriot +never took his eyes off him. The two men stared steadily at one another. + +"She wants to know if you will come and help too--in a certain way +only: not in the experiment itself precisely, but by watching merely +and--" He hesitated an instant, half lowering his eyes. + +"Drawing the picture," Henriot helped him deliberately. + +"Drawing what you see, yes," Vance replied, the voice turned graver in +spite of himself. "She wants--she hopes to catch the outlines of +anything that happens--" + +"Comes." + +"Exactly. Determine the shape of anything that comes. You may remember +your conversation of the other night with her. She is very certain of +success." + +This was direct enough at any rate. It was as formal as an invitation to +a dinner, and as guileless. The thing he thought he wanted lay within +his reach. He had merely to say yes. He did say yes; but first he looked +about him instinctively, as for guidance. He looked at the stars +twinkling high above the distant Libyan Plateau; at the long arms of the +Desert, gleaming weirdly white in the moonlight, and reaching towards +him down every opening between the houses; at the heavy mass of the +Mokattam Hills, guarding the Arabian Wilderness with strange, peaked +barriers, their sand-carved ridges dark and still above the Wadi Hof. + +These questionings attracted no response. The Desert watched him, but it +did not answer. There was only the shrill whistling cry of the lizards, +and the sing-song of a white-robed Arab gliding down the sandy street. +And through these sounds he heard his own voice answer: "I will +come--yes. But how can I help? Tell me what you propose--your plan?" + +And the face of Vance, seen plainly in the electric glare, betrayed his +satisfaction. The opposing things in the fellow's mind of darkness +fought visibly in his eyes and skin. The sordid motive, planning a +dreadful act, leaped to his face, and with it a flash of this other +yearning that sought unearthly knowledge, perhaps believed it too. No +wonder there was conflict written on his features. + +Then all expression vanished again; he leaned forward, lowering his +voice. + +"You remember our conversation about there being types of life too vast +to manifest in a single body, and my aunt's belief that these were known +to certain of the older religious systems of the world?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Her experiment, then, is to bring one of these great Powers back--we +possess the sympathetic ritual that can rouse some among them to +activity--and win it down into the sphere of our minds, our minds +heightened, you see, by ceremonial to that stage of clairvoyant vision +which can perceive them." + +"And then?" They might have been discussing the building of a house, so +naturally followed answer upon question. But the whole body of meaning +in the old Egyptian symbolism rushed over him with a force that shook +his heart. Memory came so marvellously with it. + +"If the Power floods down into our minds with sufficient strength for +actual form, to note the outline of such form, and from your drawing +model it later in permanent substance. Then we should have means of +evoking it at will, for we should have its natural Body--the form it +built itself, its signature, image, pattern. A starting-point, you see, +for more--leading, she hopes, to a complete reconstruction." + +"It might take actual shape--assume a bodily form visible to the eye?" +repeated Henriot, amazed as before that doubt and laughter did not break +through his mind. + +"We are on the earth," was the reply, spoken unnecessarily low since no +living thing was within earshot, "we are in physical conditions, are we +not? Even a human soul we do not recognise unless we see it in a +body--parents provide the outline, the signature, the sigil of the +returning soul. This," and he tapped himself upon the breast, "is the +physical signature of that type of life we call a soul. Unless there is +life of a certain strength behind it, no body forms. And, without a +body, we are helpless to control or manage it--deal with it in any way. +We could not know it, though being possibly _aware_ of it." + +"To be aware, you mean, is not sufficient?" For he noticed the italics +Vance made use of. + +"Too vague, of no value for future use," was the reply. "But once obtain +the form, and we have the natural symbol of that particular Power. And a +symbol is more than image, it is a direct and concentrated expression of +the life it typifies--possibly terrific." + +"It may be a body, then, this symbol you speak of." + +"Accurate vehicle of manifestation; but 'body' seems the simplest word." + +Vance answered very slowly and deliberately, as though weighing how much +he would tell. His language was admirably evasive. Few perhaps would +have detected the profound significance the curious words he next used +unquestionably concealed. Henriot's mind rejected them, but his heart +accepted. For the ancient soul in him was listening and aware. + +"Life, using matter to express itself in bodily shape, first traces a +geometrical pattern. From the lowest form in crystals, upwards to more +complicated patterns in the higher organisations--there is always first +this geometrical pattern as skeleton. For geometry lies at the root of +all possible phenomena; and is the mind's interpretation of a living +movement towards shape that shall express it." He brought his eyes +closer to the other, lowering his voice again. "Hence," he said softly, +"the signs in all the old magical systems--skeleton forms into which the +Powers evoked descended; outlines those Powers automatically built up +when using matter to express themselves. Such signs are material symbols +of their bodiless existence. They attract the life they represent and +interpret. Obtain the correct, true symbol, and the Power corresponding +to it can approach--once roused and made aware. It has, you see, a +ready-made mould into which it can come down." + +"Once roused and made aware?" repeated Henriot questioningly, while this +man went stammering the letters of a language that he himself had used +too long ago to recapture fully. + +"Because they have left the world. They sleep, unmanifested. Their forms +are no longer known to men. No forms exist on earth to-day that could +contain them. But they may be awakened," he added darkly. "They are +bound to answer to the summons, if such summons be accurately made." + +"Evocation?" whispered Henriot, more distressed than he cared to admit. + +Vance nodded. Leaning still closer, to his companion's face, he thrust +his lips forward, speaking eagerly, earnestly, yet somehow at the same +time, horribly: "And we want--my aunt would ask--your draughtsman's +skill, or at any rate your memory afterwards, to establish the outline +of anything that comes." + +He waited for the answer, still keeping his face uncomfortably close. + +Henriot drew back a little. But his mind was fully made up now. He had +known from the beginning that he would consent, for the desire in him +was stronger than all the caution in the world. The Past inexorably drew +him into the circle of these other lives, and the little human dread +Vance woke in him seemed just then insignificant by comparison. It was +merely of To-day. + +"You two," he said, trying to bring judgment into it, "engaged in +evocation, will be in a state of clairvoyant vision. Granted. But shall +I, as an outsider, observing with unexcited mind, see anything, know +anything, be aware of anything at all, let alone the drawing of it?" + +"Unless," the reply came instantly with decision, "the descent of Power +is strong enough to take actual material shape, the experiment is a +failure. Anybody can induce subjective vision. Such fantasies have no +value though. They are born of an overwrought imagination." And then he +added quickly, as though to clinch the matter before caution and +hesitation could take effect: "You must watch from the heights above. We +shall be in the valley--the Wadi Hof is the place. You must not be too +close--" + +"Why not too close?" asked Henriot, springing forward like a flash +before he could prevent the sudden impulse. + +With a quickness equal to his own, Vance answered. There was no faintest +sign that he was surprised. His self-control was perfect. Only the glare +passed darkly through his eyes and went back again into the sombre soul +that bore it. + +"For your own safety," he answered low. "The Power, the type of life, +she would waken is stupendous. And if roused enough to be attracted by +the patterned symbol into which she would decoy it down, it will take +actual, physical expression. But how? Where is the Body of Worshippers +through whom it can manifest? There is none. It will, therefore, press +inanimate matter into the service. The terrific impulse to form itself a +means of expression will force all loose matter at hand towards +it--sand, stones, all it can compel to yield--everything must rush into +the sphere of action in which it operates. Alone, we at the centre, and +you, upon the outer fringe, will be safe. Only--you must not come too +close." + +But Henriot was no longer listening. His soul had turned to ice. For +here, in this unguarded moment, the cloven hoof had plainly shown +itself. In that suggestion of a particular kind of danger Vance had +lifted a corner of the curtain behind which crouched his horrible +intention. Vance desired a witness of the extraordinary experiment, but +he desired this witness, not merely for the purpose of sketching +possible shapes that might present themselves to excited vision. He +desired a witness for another reason too. Why had Vance put that idea +into his mind, this idea of so peculiar danger? It might well have lost +him the very assistance he seemed so anxious to obtain. + +Henriot could not fathom it quite. Only one thing was clear to him. He, +Henriot, was not the only one in danger. + +They talked for long after that--far into the night. The lights went +out, and the armed patrol, pacing to and fro outside the iron railings +that kept the desert back, eyed them curiously. But the only other thing +he gathered of importance was the ledge upon the cliff-top where he was +to stand and watch; that he was expected to reach there before sunset +and wait till the moon concealed all glimmer in the western sky, +and--that the woman, who had been engaged for days in secret preparation +of soul and body for the awful rite, would not be visible again until he +saw her in the depths of the black valley far below, busy with this man +upon audacious, ancient purposes. + + + + +IX + + +An hour before sunset Henriot put his rugs and food upon a donkey, and +gave the boy directions where to meet him--a considerable distance from +the appointed spot. He went himself on foot. He slipped in the heat +along the sandy street, where strings of camels still go slouching, +shuffling with their loads from the quarries that built the pyramids, +and he felt that little friendly Helouan tried to keep him back. But +desire now was far too strong for caution. The desert tide was rising. +It easily swept him down the long white street towards the enormous +deeps beyond. He felt the pull of a thousand miles before him; and twice +a thousand years drove at his back. + +Everything still basked in the sunshine. He passed Al Hayat, the stately +hotel that dominates the village like a palace built against the sky; +and in its pillared colonnades and terraces he saw the throngs of people +having late afternoon tea and listening to the music of a regimental +band. Men in flannels were playing tennis, parties were climbing off +donkeys after long excursions; there was laughter, talking, a babel of +many voices. The gaiety called to him; the everyday spirit whispered to +stay and join the crowd of lively human beings. Soon there would be +merry dinner-parties, dancing, voices of pretty women, sweet white +dresses, singing, and the rest. Soft eyes would question and turn dark. +He picked out several girls he knew among the palms. But it was all +many, oh so many leagues away; centuries lay between him and this modern +world. An indescriable loneliness was in his heart. He went searching +through the sands of forgotten ages, and wandering among the ruins of a +vanished time. He hurried. Already the deeper water caught his breath. + +He climbed the steep rise towards the plateau where the Observatory +stands, and saw two of the officials whom he knew taking a siesta after +their long day's work. He felt that his mind, too, had dived and +searched among the heavenly bodies that live in silent, changeless peace +remote from the world of men. They recognised him, these two whose eyes +also knew tremendous distance close. They beckoned, waving the straws +through which they sipped their drinks from tall glasses. Their voices +floated down to him as from the star-fields. He saw the sun gleam upon +the glasses, and heard the clink of the ice against the sides. The +stillness was amazing. He waved an answer, and passed quickly on. He +could not stop this sliding current of the years. + +The tide moved faster, the draw of piled-up cycles urging it. He emerged +upon the plateau, and met the cooler Desert air. His feet went crunching +on the "desert-film" that spread its curious dark shiny carpet as far as +the eye could reach; it lay everywhere, unswept and smooth as when the +feet of vanished civilizations trod its burning surface, then dipped +behind the curtains Time pins against the stars. And here the body of +the tide set all one way. There was a greater strength of current, +draught and suction. He felt the powerful undertow. Deeper masses drew +his feet sideways, and he felt the rushing of the central body of the +sand. The sands were moving, from their foundation upwards. He went +unresistingly with them. + +Turning a moment, he looked back at shining little Helouan in the blaze +of evening light. The voices reached him very faintly, merged now in a +general murmur. Beyond lay the strip of Delta vivid green, the palms, +the roofs of Bedrashein, the blue laughter of the Nile with its flocks +of curved felucca sails. Further still, rising above the yellow Libyan +horizon, gloomed the vast triangles of a dozen Pyramids, cutting their +wedge-shaped clefts out of a sky fast crimsoning through a sea of gold. +Seen thus, their dignity imposed upon the entire landscape. They towered +darkly, symbolic signatures of the ancient Powers that now watched him +taking these little steps across their damaged territory. + +He gazed a minute, then went on. He saw the big pale face of the moon in +the east. Above the ever-silent Thing these giant symbols once +interpreted, she rose, grand, effortless, half-terrible as themselves. +And, with her, she lifted up this tide of the Desert that drew his feet +across the sand to Wadi Hof. A moment later he dipped below the ridge +that buried Helouan and Nile and Pyramids from sight. He entered the +ancient waters. Time then, in an instant, flowed back behind his +footsteps, obliterating every trace. And with it his mind went too. He +stepped across the gulf of centuries, moving into the Past. The Desert +lay before him--an open tomb wherein his soul should read presently of +things long vanished. + +The strange half-lights of sunset began to play their witchery then upon +the landscape. A purple glow came down upon the Mokattam Hills. +Perspective danced its tricks of false, incredible deception. The +soaring kites that were a mile away seemed suddenly close, passing in a +moment from the size of gnats to birds with a fabulous stretch of wing. +Ridges and cliffs rushed close without a hint of warning, and level +places sank into declivities and basins that made him trip and stumble. +That indescribable quality of the Desert, which makes timid souls avoid +the hour of dusk, emerged; it spread everywhere, undisguised. And the +bewilderment it brings is no vain, imagined thing, for it distorts +vision utterly, and the effect upon the mind when familiar sight goes +floundering is the simplest way in the world of dragging the anchor that +grips reality. At the hour of sunset this bewilderment comes upon a man +with a disconcerting swiftness. It rose now with all this weird +rapidity. Henriot found himself enveloped at a moment's notice. + +But, knowing well its effect, he tried to judge it and pass on. The +other matters, the object of his journey chief of all, he refused to +dwell upon with any imagination. Wisely, his mind, while never losing +sight of it, declined to admit the exaggeration that over-elaborate +thinking brings. "I'm going to witness an incredible experiment in which +two enthusiastic religious dreamers believe firmly," he repeated to +himself. "I have agreed to draw--anything I see. There may be truth in +it, or they may be merely self-suggested vision due to an artificial +exaltation of their minds. I'm interested--perhaps against my better +judgment. Yet I'll see the adventure out--because I _must_." + +This was the attitude he told himself to take. Whether it was the real +one, or merely adopted to warm a cooling courage, he could not tell. The +emotions were so complex and warring. His mind, automatically, kept +repeating this comforting formula. Deeper than that he could not see to +judge. For a man who knew the full content of his thought at such a time +would solve some of the oldest psychological problems in the world. Sand +had already buried judgment, and with it all attempt to explain the +adventure by the standards acceptable to his brain of to-day. He steered +subconsciously through a world of dim, huge, half-remembered wonders. + +The sun, with that abrupt Egyptian suddenness, was below the horizon +now. The pyramid field had swallowed it. Ra, in his golden boat, sailed +distant seas beyond the Libyan wilderness. Henriot walked on and on, +aware of utter loneliness. He was walking fields of dream, too remote +from modern life to recall companionship he once had surely known. How +dim it was, how deep and distant, how lost in this sea of an +incalculable Past! He walked into the places that are soundless. The +soundlessness of ocean, miles below the surface, was about him. He was +with One only--this unfathomable, silent thing where nothing breathes or +stirs--nothing but sunshine, shadow and the wind-borne sand. Slowly, in +front, the moon climbed up the eastern sky, hanging above the +silence--silence that ran unbroken across the horizons to where Suez +gleamed upon the waters of a sister sea in motion. That moon was +glinting now upon the Arabian Mountains by its desolate shores. +Southwards stretched the wastes of Upper Egypt a thousand miles to meet +the Nubian wilderness. But over all these separate Deserts stirred the +soft whisper of the moving sand--deep murmuring message that Life was on +the way to unwind Death. The Ka of Egypt, swathed in centuries of sand, +hovered beneath the moon towards her ancient tenement. + +For the transformation of the Desert now began in earnest. It grew +apace. Before he had gone the first two miles of his hour's journey, the +twilight caught the rocky hills and twisted them into those monstrous +revelations of physiognomies they barely take the trouble to conceal +even in the daytime. And, while he well understood the eroding agencies +that have produced them, there yet rose in his mind a deeper +interpretation lurking just behind their literal meanings. Here, through +the motionless surfaces, that nameless thing the Desert ill conceals +urged outwards into embryonic form and shape, akin, he almost felt, to +those immense deific symbols of Other Life the Egyptians knew and +worshipped. Hence, from the Desert, had first come, he felt, the +unearthly life they typified in their monstrous figures of granite, +evoked in their stately temples, and communed with in the ritual of +their Mystery ceremonials. + +This "watching" aspect of the Libyan Desert is really natural enough; +but it is just the natural, Henriot knew, that brings the deepest +revelations. The surface limestones, resisting the erosion, block +themselves ominously against the sky, while the softer sand beneath sets +them on altared pedestals that define their isolation splendidly. Blunt +and unconquerable, these masses now watched him pass between them. The +Desert surface formed them, gave them birth. They rose, they saw, they +sank down again--waves upon a sea that carried forgotten life up from +the depths below. Of forbidding, even menacing type, they somewhere +mated with genuine grandeur. Unformed, according to any standard of +human or of animal faces, they achieved an air of giant physiognomy +which made them terrible. The unwinking stare of eyes--lidless eyes that +yet ever succeed in hiding--looked out under well-marked, level +eyebrows, suggesting a vision that included the motives and purposes of +his very heart. They looked up grandly, understood why he was there, and +then--slowly withdrew their mysterious, penetrating gaze. + +The strata built them so marvellously up; the heavy, threatening brows; +thick lips, curved by the ages into a semblance of cold smiles; jowls +drooping into sandy heaps that climbed against the cheeks; protruding +jaws, and the suggestion of shoulders just about to lift the entire +bodies out of the sandy beds--this host of countenances conveyed a +solemnity of expression that seemed everlasting, implacable as Death. Of +human signature they bore no trace, nor was comparison possible between +their kind and any animal life. They peopled the Desert here. And their +smiles, concealed yet just discernible, went broadening with the +darkness into a Desert laughter. The silence bore it underground. But +Henriot was aware of it. The troop of faces slipped into that single, +enormous countenance which is the visage of the Sand. And he saw it +everywhere, yet nowhere. + +Thus with the darkness grew his imaginative interpretation of the +Desert. Yet there was construction in it, a construction, moreover, that +was _not_ entirely his own. Powers, he felt, were rising, stirring, +wakening from sleep. Behind the natural faces that he saw, these other +things peered gravely at him as he passed. They used, as it were, +materials that lay ready to their hand. Imagination furnished these +hints of outline, yet the Powers themselves were real. There _was_ this +amazing movement of the sand. By no other manner could his mind have +conceived of such a thing, nor dreamed of this simple, yet dreadful +method of approach. + +Approach! that was the word that first stood out and startled him. There +was approach; something was drawing nearer. The Desert rose and walked +beside him. For not alone these ribs of gleaming limestone contributed +towards the elemental visages, but the entire hills, of which they were +an outcrop, ran to assist in the formation, and were a necessary part of +them. He was watched and stared at from behind, in front, on either +side, and even from below. The sand that swept him on, kept even pace +with him. It turned luminous too, with a patchwork of glimmering effect +that was indescribably weird; lanterns glowed within its substance, and +by their light he stumbled on, glad of the Arab boy he would presently +meet at the appointed place. + +The last torch of the sunset had flickered out, melting into the +wilderness, when, suddenly opening at his feet, gaped the deep, wide +gully known as Wadi Hof. Its curve swept past him. + +This first impression came upon him with a certain violence: that the +desolate valley rushed. He saw but a section of its curve and sweep, but +through its entire length of several miles the Wadi fled away. The moon +whitened it like snow, piling black shadows very close against the +cliffs. In the flood of moonlight it went rushing past. It was emptying +itself. + +For a moment the stream of movement seemed to pause and look up into his +face, then instantly went on again upon its swift career. It was like +the procession of a river to the sea. The valley emptied itself to make +way for what was coming. The approach, moreover, had already begun. + +Conscious that he was trembling, he stood and gazed into the depths, +seeking to steady his mind by the repetition of the little formula he +had used before. He said it half aloud. But, while he did so, his heart +whispered quite other things. Thoughts the woman and the man had sown +rose up in a flock and fell upon him like a storm of sand. Their impetus +drove off all support of ordinary ideas. They shook him where he stood, +staring down into this river of strange invisible movement that was +hundreds of feet in depth and a quarter of a mile across. + +He sought to realise himself as he actually was to-day--mere visitor to +Helouan, tempted into this wild adventure with two strangers. But in +vain. That seemed a dream, unreal, a transient detail picked out from +the enormous Past that now engulfed him, heart and mind and soul. _This_ +was the reality. + +The shapes and faces that the hills of sand built round him were the +play of excited fancy only. By sheer force he pinned his thought against +this fact: but further he could not get. There _were_ Powers at work; +they were being stirred, wakened somewhere into activity. Evocation had +already begun. That sense of their approach as he had walked along from +Helouan was not imaginary. A descent of some type of life, vanished from +the world too long for recollection, was on the way,--so vast that it +would manifest itself in a group of forms, a troop, a host, an army. +These two were near him somewhere at this very moment, already long at +work, their minds driving beyond this little world. The valley was +emptying itself--for the descent of life their ritual invited. + +And the movement in the sand was likewise true. He recalled the +sentences the woman had used. "My body," he reflected, "like the bodies +life makes use of everywhere, is mere upright heap of earth and dust +and--sand. Here in the Desert is the raw material, the greatest store of +it in the world." + +And on the heels of it came sharply that other thing: that this +descending Life would press into its service all loose matter within its +reach--to form that sphere of action which would be in a literal sense +its Body. + +In the first few seconds, as he stood there, he realised all this, and +realised it with an overwhelming conviction it was futile to deny. The +fast-emptying valley would later brim with an unaccustomed and terrific +life. Yet Death hid there too--a little, ugly, insignificant death. With +the name of Vance it flashed upon his mind and vanished, too tiny to be +thought about in this torrent of grander messages that shook the depths +within his soul. He bowed his head a moment, hardly knowing what he did. +He could have waited thus a thousand years it seemed. He was conscious +of a wild desire to run away, to hide, to efface himself utterly, his +terror, his curiosity, his little wonder, and not be seen of anything. +But it was all vain and foolish. The Desert saw him. The Gigantic knew +that he was there. No escape was possible any longer. Caught by the +sand, he stood amid eternal things. The river of movement swept him too. + +These hills, now motionless as statues, would presently glide forward +into the cavalcade, sway like vessels, and go past with the procession. +At present only the contents, not the frame, of the Wadi moved. An +immense soft brush of moonlight swept it empty for what was on the +way.... But presently the entire Desert would stand up and also go. + +Then, making a sideways movement, his feet kicked against something soft +and yielding that lay heaped upon the Desert floor, and Henriot +discovered the rugs the Arab boy had carefully set down before he made +full speed for the friendly lights of Helouan. The sound of his +departing footsteps had long since died away. He was alone. + +The detail restored to him his consciousness of the immediate present, +and, stooping, he gathered up the rugs and overcoat and began to make +preparations for the night. But the appointed spot, whence he was to +watch, lay upon the summit of the opposite cliffs. He must cross the +Wadi bed and climb. Slowly and with labour he made his way down a steep +cleft into the depth of the Wadi Hof, sliding and stumbling often, till +at length he stood upon the floor of shining moonlight. It was very +smooth; windless utterly; still as space; each particle of sand lay in +its ancient place asleep. The movement, it seemed, had ceased. + +He clambered next up the eastern side, through pitch-black shadows, and +within the hour reached the ledge upon the top whence he could see below +him, like a silvered map, the sweep of the valley bed. The wind nipped +keenly here again, coming over the leagues of cooling sand. Loose +boulders of splintered rock, started by his climbing, crashed and boomed +into the depths. He banked the rugs behind him, wrapped himself in his +overcoat, and lay down to wait. Behind him was a two-foot crumbling wall +against which he leaned; in front a drop of several hundred feet through +space. He lay upon a platform, therefore, invisible from the Desert at +his back. Below, the curving Wadi formed a natural amphitheatre in which +each separate boulder fallen from the cliffs, and even the little +_silla_ shrubs the camels eat, were plainly visible. He noted all the +bigger ones among them. He counted them over half aloud. + +And the moving stream he had been unaware of when crossing the bed +itself, now began again. The Wadi went rushing past before the broom of +moonlight. Again, the enormous and the tiny combined in one single +strange impression. For, through this conception of great movement, +stirred also a roving, delicate touch that his imagination felt as +bird-like. Behind the solid mass of the Desert's immobility flashed +something swift and light and airy. Bizarre pictures interpreted it to +him, like rapid snap-shots of a huge flying panorama: he thought of +darting dragon-flies seen at Helouan, of children's little dancing feet, +of twinkling butterflies--of birds. Chiefly, yes, of a flock of birds in +flight, whose separate units formed a single entity. The idea of the +Group-Soul possessed his mind once more. But it came with a sense of +more than curiosity or wonder. Veneration lay behind it, a veneration +touched with awe. It rose in his deepest thought that here was the first +hint of a symbolical representation. A symbol, sacred and inviolable, +belonging to some ancient worship that he half remembered in his soul, +stirred towards interpretation through all his being. + +He lay there waiting, wondering vaguely where his two companions were, +yet fear all vanished because he felt attuned to a scale of things too +big to mate with definite dread. There was high anticipation in him, but +not anxiety. Of himself, as Felix Henriot, indeed, he hardly seemed +aware. He was some one else. Or, rather, he was himself at a stage he +had known once far, far away in a remote pre-existence. He watched +himself from dim summits of a Past, of which no further details were as +yet recoverable. + +Pencil and sketching-block lay ready to his hand. The moon rose higher, +tucking the shadows ever more closely against the precipices. The silver +passed into a sheet of snowy whiteness, that made every boulder clearly +visible. Solemnity deepened everywhere into awe. The Wadi fled silently +down the stream of hours. It was almost empty now. And then, abruptly, +he was aware of change. The motion altered somewhere. It moved more +quietly; pace slackened; the end of the procession that evacuated the +depth and length of it went trailing past and turned the distant bend. + +"It's slowing up," he whispered, as sure of it as though he had watched +a regiment of soldiers filing by. The wind took off his voice like a +flying feather of sound. + +And there _was_ a change. It had begun. Night and the moon stood still +to watch and listen. The wind dropped utterly away. The sand ceased its +shifting movement. The Desert everywhere stopped still, and turned. + +Some curtain, then, that for centuries had veiled the world, drew +softly up, leaving a shaded vista down which the eyes of his soul peered +towards long-forgotten pictures. Still buried by the sands too deep for +full recovery, he yet perceived dim portions of them--things once +honoured and loved passionately. For once they had surely been to him +the whole of life, not merely a fragment for cheap wonder to inspect. +And they were curiously familiar, even as the person of this woman who +now evoked them was familiar. Henriot made no pretence to more definite +remembrance; but the haunting certainty rushed over him, deeper than +doubt or denial, and with such force that he felt no effort to destroy +it. Some lost sweetness of spiritual ambitions, lived for with this +passionate devotion, and passionately worshipped as men to-day worship +fame and money, revived in him with a tempest of high glory. Centres of +memory stirred from an age-long sleep, so that he could have wept at +their so complete obliteration hitherto. That such majesty had departed +from the world as though it never had existed, was a thought for +desolation and for tears. And though the little fragment he was about to +witness might be crude in itself and incomplete, yet it was part of a +vast system that once explored the richest realms of deity. The +reverence in him contained a holiness of the night and of the stars; +great, gentle awe lay in it too; for he stood, aflame with anticipation +and humility, at the gateway of sacred things. + +And this was the mood, no thrill of cheap excitement or alarm to weaken +in, in which he first became aware that two spots of darkness he had +taken all along for boulders on the snowy valley bed, were actually +something very different. They were living figures. They moved. It was +not the shadows slowly following the moonlight, but the stir of human +beings who all these hours had been motionless as stone. He must have +passed them unnoticed within a dozen yards when he crossed the Wadi bed, +and a hundred times from this very ledge his eyes had surely rested on +them without recognition. Their minds, he knew full well, had not been +inactive as their bodies. The important part of the ancient ritual lay, +he remembered, in the powers of the evoking mind. + +Here, indeed, was no effective nor theatrical approach of the principal +figures. It had nothing in common with the cheap external ceremonial of +modern days. In forgotten powers of the soul its grandeur lay, potent, +splendid, true. Long before he came, perhaps all through the day, these +two had laboured with their arduous preparations. They were there, part +of the Desert, when hours ago he had crossed the plateau in the +twilight. To them--to this woman's potent working of old ceremonial--had +been due that singular rush of imagination he had felt. He had +interpreted the Desert as alive. Here was the explanation. It _was_ +alive. Life was on the way. Long latent, her intense desire summoned it +back to physical expression; and the effect upon him had steadily +increased as he drew nearer to the centre where she would focus its +revival and return. Those singular impressions of being watched and +accompanied were explained. A priest of this old-world worship performed +a genuine evocation; a Great One of Vision revived the cosmic Powers. + +Henriot watched the small figures far below him with a sense of dramatic +splendour that only this association of far-off Memory could account +for. It was their rising now, and the lifting of their arms to form a +slow revolving outline, that marked the abrupt cessation of the larger +river of movement; for the sweeping of the Wadi sank into sudden +stillness, and these two, with motions not unlike some dance of +deliberate solemnity, passed slowly through the moonlight to and fro. +His attention fixed upon them both. All other movement ceased. They +fastened the flow of Time against the Desert's body. + +What happened then? How could his mind interpret an experience so long +denied that the power of expression, as of comprehension, has ceased to +exist? How translate this symbolical representation, small detail though +it was, of a transcendent worship entombed for most so utterly beyond +recovery? Its splendour could never lodge in minds that conceive Deity +perched upon a cloud within telephoning distance of fashionable +churches. How should he phrase it even to himself, whose memory drew up +pictures from so dim a past that the language fit to frame them lay +unreachable and lost? + +Henriot did not know. Perhaps he never yet has known. Certainly, at the +time, he did not even try to think. His sensations remain his +own--untranslatable; and even that instinctive description the mind +gropes for automatically, floundered, halted, and stopped dead. Yet +there rose within him somewhere, from depths long drowned in slumber, a +reviving power by which he saw, divined and recollected--remembered +seemed too literal a word--these elements of a worship he once had +personally known. He, too, had worshipped thus. His soul had moved amid +similar evocations in some aeonian past, whence now the sand was being +cleared away. Symbols of stupendous meaning flashed and went their way +across the lifting mists. He hardly caught their meaning, so long it was +since, he had known them; yet they were familiar as the faces seen in +dreams, and some hint of their spiritual significance left faint traces +in his heart by means of which their grandeur reached towards +interpretation. And all were symbols of a cosmic, deific nature; of +Powers that only symbols can express--prayer-books and sacraments used +in the Wisdom Religion of an older time, but to-day known only in the +decrepit, literal shell which is their degradation. + +Grandly the figures moved across the valley bed. The powers of the +heavenly bodies once more joined them. They moved to the measure of a +cosmic dance, whose rhythm was creative. The Universe partnered them. + +There was this transfiguration of all common, external things. He +realised that appearances were visible letters of a soundless language, +a language he once had known. The powers of night and moon and desert +sand married with points in the fluid stream of his inmost spiritual +being that knew and welcomed them. He understood. + +Old Egypt herself stooped down from her uncovered throne. The stars sent +messengers. There was commotion in the secret, sandy places of the +desert. For the Desert had grown Temple. Columns reared against the sky. +There rose, from leagues away, the chanting of the sand. + +The temples, where once this came to pass, were gone, their ruin +questioned by alien hearts that knew not their spiritual meaning. But +here the entire Desert swept in to form a shrine, and the Majesty that +once was Egypt stepped grandly back across ages of denial and neglect. +The sand was altar, and the stars were altar lights. The moon lit up the +vast recesses of the ceiling, and the wind from a thousand miles brought +in the perfume of her incense. For with that faith which shifts +mountains from their sandy bed, two passionate, believing souls invoked +the Ka of Egypt. + +And the motions that they made, he saw, were definite harmonious +patterns their dark figures traced upon the shining valley floor. Like +the points of compasses, with stems invisible, and directed from the +sky, their movements marked the outlines of great signatures of +power--the sigils of the type of life they would evoke. It would come as +a Procession. No individual outline could contain it. It needed for its +visible expression--many. The descent of a group-soul, known to the +worship of this mighty system, rose from its lair of centuries and moved +hugely down upon them. The Ka, answering to the summons, would mate with +sand. The Desert was its Body. + +Yet it was not this that he had come to fix with block and pencil. Not +yet was the moment when his skill might be of use. He waited, watched, +and listened, while this river of half-remembered things went past him. +The patterns grew beneath his eyes like music. Too intricate and +prolonged to remember with accuracy later, he understood that they were +forms of that root-geometry which lies behind all manifested life. The +mould was being traced in outline. Life would presently inform it. And a +singing rose from the maze of lines whose beauty was like the beauty of +the constellations. + +This sound was very faint at first, but grew steadily in volume. +Although no echoes, properly speaking, were possible, these precipices +caught stray notes that trooped in from the further sandy reaches. The +figures certainly were chanting, but their chanting was not all he +heard. Other sounds came to his ears from far away, running past him +through the air from every side, and from incredible distances, all +flocking down into the Wadi bed to join the parent note that summoned +them. The Desert was giving voice. And memory, lifting her hood yet +higher, showed more of her grey, mysterious face that searched his soul +with questions. Had he so soon forgotten that strange union of form and +sound which once was known to the evocative rituals of olden days? + +Henriot tried patiently to disentangle this desert-music that their +intoning voices woke, from the humming of the blood in his own veins. +But he succeeded only in part. Sand was already in the air. There was +reverberation, rhythm, measure; there was almost the breaking of the +stream into great syllables. But was it due, this strange reverberation, +to the countless particles of sand meeting in mid-air about him, or--to +larger bodies, whose surfaces caught this friction of the sand and threw +it back against his ears? The wind, now rising, brought particles that +stung his face and hands, and filled his eyes with a minute fine dust +that partially veiled the moonlight. But was not something larger, +vaster these particles composed now also on the way? + +Movement and sound and flying sand thus merged themselves more and more +in a single, whirling torrent. But Henriot sought no commonplace +explanation of what he witnessed; and here was the proof that all +happened in some vestibule of inner experience where the strain of +question and answer had no business. One sitting beside him need not +have seen anything at all. His host, for instance, from Helouan, need +not have been aware. Night screened it; Helouan, as the whole of modern +experience, stood in front of the screen. This thing took place behind +it. He crouched motionless, watching in some reconstructed ante-chamber +of the soul's pre-existence, while the torrent grew into a veritable +tempest. + +Yet Night remained unshaken; the veil of moonlight did not quiver; the +stars dropped their slender golden pillars unobstructed. Calmness +reigned everywhere as before. The stupendous representation passed on +behind it all. + +But the dignity of the little human movements that he watched had become +now indescribable. The gestures of the arms and bodies invested +themselves with consummate grandeur, as these two strode into the +caverns behind manifested life and drew forth symbols that represented +vanished Powers. The sound of their chanting voices broke in cadenced +fragments against the shores of language. The words Henriot never +actually caught, if words they were; yet he understood their +purport--these Names of Power to which the type of returning life gave +answer as they approached. He remembered fumbling for his drawing +materials, with such violence, however, that the pencil snapped in two +between his fingers as he touched it. For now, even here, upon the outer +fringe of the ceremonial ground, there was a stir of forces that set the +very muscles working in him before he had become aware of it.... + +Then came the moment when his heart leaped against his ribs with a +sudden violence that was almost pain, standing a second later still as +death. The lines upon the valley floor ceased their maze-like dance. All +movement stopped. Sound died away. In the midst of this profound and +dreadful silence the sigils lay empty there below him. They waited to be +in-formed. For the moment of entrance had come at last. Life was close. + +And he understood why this return of life had all along suggested a +Procession and could be no mere momentary flash of vision. From such +appalling distance did it sweep down towards the present. + +Upon this network, then, of splendid lines, at length held rigid, the +entire Desert reared itself with walls of curtained sand, that dwarfed +the cliffs, the shouldering hills, the very sky. The Desert stood on +end. As once before he had dreamed it from his balcony windows, it rose +upright, towering, and close against his face. It built sudden ramparts +to the stars that chambered the thing he witnessed behind walls no +centuries could ever bring down crumbling into dust. + +He himself, in some curious fashion, lay just outside, viewing it apart. +As from a pinnacle, he peered within--peered down with straining eyes +into the vast picture-gallery Memory threw abruptly open. And the +picture spaced its noble outline thus against the very stars. He gazed +between columns, that supported the sky itself, like pillars of sand +that swept across the field of vanished years. Sand poured and streamed +aside, laying bare the Past. + +For down the enormous vista into which he gazed, as into an avenue +running a million miles towards a tiny point, he saw this moving Thing +that came towards him, shaking loose the countless veils of sand the +ages had swathed about it. The Ka of buried Egypt wakened out of sleep. +She had heard the potent summons of her old, time-honoured ritual. She +came. She stretched forth an arm towards the worshippers who evoked her. +Out of the Desert, out of the leagues of sand, out of the immeasurable +wilderness which was her mummied Form and Body, she rose and came. And +this fragment of her he would actually see--this little portion that was +obedient to the stammered and broken ceremonial. The partial revelation +he would witness--yet so vast, even this little bit of it, that it came +as a Procession and a host. + +For a moment there was nothing. And then the voice of the woman rose in +a resounding cry that filled the Wadi to its furthest precipices, before +it died away again to silence. That a human voice could produce such +volume, accent, depth, seemed half incredible. The walls of towering +sand swallowed it instantly. But the Procession of life, needing a +group, a host, an army for its physical expression, reached at that +moment the nearer end of the huge avenue. It touched the Present; it +entered the world of men. + + + + +X + + +The entire range of Henriot's experience, read, imagined, dreamed, then +fainted into unreality before the sheer wonder of what he saw. In the +brief interval it takes to snap the fingers the climax was thus so +hurriedly upon him. And, through it all, he was clearly aware of the +pair of little human figures, man and woman, standing erect and +commanding at the centre--knew, too, that she directed and controlled, +while he in some secondary fashion supported her--and ever watched. But +both were dim, dropped somewhere into a lesser scale. It was the +knowledge of their presence, however, that alone enabled him to keep his +powers in hand at all. But for these two _human_ beings there within +possible reach, he must have closed his eyes and swooned. + +For a tempest that seemed to toss loose stars about the sky swept round +about him, pouring up the pillared avenue in front of the procession. A +blast of giant energy, of liberty, came through. Forwards and backwards, +circling spirally about him like a whirlwind, came this revival of Life +that sought to dip itself once more in matter and in form. It came to +the accurate out-line of its form they had traced for it. He held his +mind steady enough to realise that it was akin to what men call a +"descent" of some "spiritual movement" that wakens a body of believers +into faith--a race, an entire nation; only that he experienced it in +this brief, concentrated form before it has scattered down into ten +thousand hearts. Here he knew its source and essence, behind the veil. +Crudely, unmanageable as yet, he felt it, rushing loose behind +appearances. There was this amazing impact of a twisting, swinging force +that stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs of the +old stubborn hills. It sought to warm them with the stress of its own +irresistible life-stream, to beat them into shape, and make pliable +their obstinate resistance. Through all things the impulse poured and +spread, like fire at white heat. + +Yet nothing visible came as yet, no alteration in the actual landscape, +no sign of change in things familiar to his eyes, while impetus thus +fought against inertia. He perceived nothing form-al. Calm and untouched +himself, he lay outside the circle of evocation, watching, waiting, +scarcely daring to breathe, yet well aware that any minute the scene +would transfer itself from memory that was subjective to matter that was +objective. + +And then, in a flash, the bridge was built, and the transfer was +accomplished. How or where he did not see, he could not tell. It was +there before he knew it--there before his normal, earthly sight. He saw +it, as he saw the hands he was holding stupidly up to shield his face. +For this terrific release of force long held back, long stored up, +latent for centuries, came pouring down the empty Wadi bed prepared for +its reception. Through stones and sand and boulders it came in an +impetuous hurricane of power. The liberation of its life appalled him. +All that was free, untied, responded instantly like chaff; loose objects +fled towards it; there was a yielding in the hills and precipices; and +even in the mass of Desert which provided their foundation. The hinges +of the Sand went creaking in the night. It shaped for itself a bodily +outline. + +Yet, most strangely, nothing definitely moved. How could he express the +violent contradiction? For the immobility was apparent only--a sham, a +counterfeit; while behind it the essential _being_ of these things did +rush and shift and alter. He saw the two things side by side: the outer +immobility the senses commonly agree upon, _and_ this amazing flying-out +of their inner, invisible substance towards the vortex of attracting +life that sucked them in. For stubborn matter turned docile before the +stress of this returning life, taught somewhere to be plastic. It was +being moulded into an approach to bodily outline. A mobile elasticity +invaded rigid substance. The two officiating human beings, safe at the +stationary centre, and himself, just outside the circle of operation, +alone remained untouched and unaffected. But a few feet in any +direction, for any one of them, meant--instantaneous death. They would +be absorbed into the vortex, mere corpuscles pressed into the service of +this sphere of action of a mighty Body.... + +How these perceptions reached him with such conviction, Henriot could +never say. He knew it, because he _felt_ it. Something fell about him +from the sky that already paled towards the dawn. The stars themselves, +it seemed, contributed some part of the terrific, flowing impulse that +conquered matter and shaped itself this physical expression. + +Then, before he was able to fashion any preconceived idea of what +visible form this potent life might assume, he was aware of further +change. It came at the briefest possible interval after the +beginning--this certainty that, to and fro about him, as yet however +indeterminate, passed Magnitudes that were stupendous as the desert. +There was beauty in them too, though a terrible beauty hardly of this +earth at all. A fragment of old Egypt had returned--a little portion of +that vast Body of Belief that once was Egypt. Evoked by the worship of +one human heart, passionately sincere, the Ka of Egypt stepped back to +visit the material it once informed--the Sand. + +Yet only a portion came. Henriot clearly realised that. It stretched +forth an arm. Finding no mass of worshippers through whom it might +express itself completely, it pressed inanimate matter thus into its +service. + +Here was the beginning the woman had spoken of--little opening clue. +Entire reconstruction lay perhaps beyond. + +And Henriot next realised that these Magnitudes in which this +group-energy sought to clothe itself as visible form, were curiously +familiar. It was not a new thing that he would see. Booming softly as +they dropped downwards through the sky, with a motion the size of them +rendered delusive, they trooped up the Avenue towards the central point +that summoned them. He realised the giant flock of them--descent of +fearful beauty--outlining a type of life denied to the world for ages, +countless as this sand that blew against his skin. Careering over the +waste of Desert moved the army of dark Splendours, that dwarfed any +organic structure called a body men have ever known. He recognised them, +cold in him of death, though the outlines reared higher than the +pyramids, and towered up to hide whole groups of stars. Yes, he +recognised them in their partial revelation, though he never saw the +monstrous host complete. But, one of them, he realised, posing its +eternal riddle to the sands, had of old been glimpsed sufficiently to +seize its form in stone,--yet poorly seized, as a doll may stand for the +dignity of a human being or a child's toy represent an engine that draws +trains.... + +And he knelt there on his narrow ledge, the world of men forgotten. The +power that caught him was too great a thing for wonder or for fear; he +even felt no awe. Sensation of any kind that can be named or realised +left him utterly. He forgot himself. He merely watched. The glory numbed +him. Block and pencil, as the reason of his presence there at all, no +longer existed.... + +Yet one small link remained that held him to some kind of consciousness +of earthly things: he never lost sight of this--that, being just outside +the circle of evocation, he was safe, and that the man and woman, being +stationary in its untouched centre, were also safe. But--that a movement +of six inches in any direction meant for any one of them instant death. + +What was it, then, that suddenly strengthened this solitary link so that +the chain tautened and he felt the pull of it? Henriot could not say. He +came back with the rush of a descending drop to the realisation--dimly, +vaguely, as from great distance--that he was with these two, now at this +moment, in the Wadi Hof, and that the cold of dawn was in the air about +him. The chill breath of the Desert made him shiver. + +But at first, so deeply had his soul been dipped in this fragment of +ancient worship, he could remember nothing more. Somewhere lay a little +spot of streets and houses; its name escaped him. He had once been +there; there were many people, but insignificant people. Who were they? +And what had he to do with them? All recent memories had been drowned in +the tide that flooded him from an immeasurable Past. + +And who were they--these two beings, standing on the white floor of sand +below him? For a long time he could not recover their names. Yet he +remembered them; and, thus robbed of association that names bring, he +saw them for an instant naked, and knew that one of them was evil. One +of them was vile. Blackness touched the picture there. The man, his name +still out of reach, was sinister, impure and dark at the heart. And for +this reason the evocation had been partial only. The admixture of an +evil motive was the flaw that marred complete success. + +The names then flashed upon him--Lady Statham--Richard +Vance. + +Vance! With a horrid drop from splendour into something mean +and sordid, Henriot felt the pain of it. The motive of the man was +so insignificant, his purpose so atrocious. More and more, with the +name, came back--his first repugnance, fear, suspicion. And human +terror caught him. He shrieked. But, as in nightmare, no sound escaped +his lips. He tried to move; a wild desire to interfere, to protect, +to prevent, flung him forward--close to the dizzy edge of the +gulf below. But his muscles refused obedience to the will. The +paralysis of common fear rooted him to the rocks. + +But the sudden change of focus instantly destroyed the picture; +and so vehement was the fall from glory into meanness, that it dislocated +the machinery of clairvoyant vision. The inner perception +clouded and grew dark. Outer and inner mingled in violent, inextricable +confusion. The wrench seemed almost physical. It happened +all at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. +And, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least he +was aware that it had come to pass. He knew it as positively as +though his eye were glued against a magnifying lens in the stillness +of some laboratory. He witnessed it. + +The supreme moment of evocation was close. Life, through that +awful sandy vortex, whirled and raged. Loose particles showered +and pelted, caught by the draught of vehement life that moulded the +substance of the Desert into imperial outline--when, suddenly, shot +the little evil thing across that marred and blasted it. + +Into the whirlpool flew forward a particle of material that was a +human being. And the Group-Soul caught and used it. + +The actual accomplishment Henriot did not claim to see. He was +a witness, but a witness who could give no evidence. Whether the +woman was pushed of set intention, or whether some detail of +sound and pattern was falsely used to effect the terrible result, he +was helpless to determine. He pretends no itemised account. She +went. In one second, with appalling swiftness, she disappeared, +swallowed out of space and time within that awful maw--one little +corpuscle among a million through which the Life, now stalking the +Desert wastes, moulded itself a troop-like Body. Sand took her. + +There followed emptiness--a hush of unutterable silence, stillness, +peace. Movement and sound instantly retired whence they +came. The avenues of Memory closed; the Splendours all went +down into their sandy tombs.... + + * * * * * + +The moon had sunk into the Libyan wilderness; the eastern sky was +red. The dawn drew out that wondrous sweetness of the Desert, +which is as sister to the sweetness that the moonlight brings. The +Desert settled back to sleep, huge, unfathomable, charged to the +brim with life that watches, waits, and yet conceals itself behind +the ruins of apparent desolation. And the Wadi, empty at his feet, +filled slowly with the gentle little winds that bring the sunrise. + +Then, across the pale glimmering of sand, Henriot saw a figure +moving. It came quickly towards him, yet unsteadily, and with a +hurry that was ugly. Vance was on the way to fetch him. And the +horror of the man's approach struck him like a hammer in the face. +He closed his eyes, sinking back to hide. + +But, before he swooned, there reached him the clatter of the +murderer's tread as he began to climb over the splintered rocks, and +the faint echo of his voice, calling him by name--falsely and in +pretence--for help. + + +THE END + + +[Transcriber's Note: In chapter IX of the story Sand, the +word "indescriable" was corrected to "indescribable."] + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Four Weird Tales, by Algernon Blackwood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR WEIRD TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 16726.txt or 16726.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/7/2/16726/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Geetu Melwani and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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