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 theway of those who, with wonder and imagination, are on the watch forthem; but the majority of people go past the doors that are half ajar, thinking them closed, and fail to notice the faint stirrings of thegreat curtain that hangs ever in the form of appearances between themand the world of causes behind. 

For only to the few whose inner senses have been quickened, perchanceby some strange suffering in the depths, or by a natural temperamentbequeathed from a remote past, comes the knowledge, not too welcome, that this greater world lies ever at their elbow, and that any moment achance combination of moods and forces may invite them to cross theshifting frontier. 

Some, however, are born with this awful certainty in their hearts, andare called to no apprenticeship, and to this select company Jonesundoubtedly belonged. 

All his life he had realised that his senses brought to him merely amore or less interesting set of sham appearances; that space, as menmeasure it, was utterly misleading; that time, as the clock ticked itin a succession of minutes, was arbitrary nonsense; and, in fact, thatall his sensory perceptions were but a clumsy representation of _real_things behind the curtain--things he was for ever trying to get at, andthat sometimes he actually did get at. 

He had always been tremblingly aware that he stood on the borderlandof another region, a region where time and space were merely forms ofthought, where ancient memories lay open to the sight, and where theforces behind each human life stood plainly revealed and he could seethe hidden springs at the very heart of the world. Moreover, the factthat he was a clerk in a fire insurance office, and did his work withstrict attention, never allowed him to forget for one moment that, justbeyond the dingy brick walls where the hundred men scribbled withpointed pens beneath the electric lamps, there existed this gloriousregion where the important part of himself dwelt and moved and had itsbeing. For in this region he pictured himself playing the part of aspectator to his ordinary workaday life, watching, like a king, thestream 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 withidealism to amuse himself. It was a living, working belief. So convincedwas he that the external world was the result of a vast deceptionpractised upon him by the gross senses, that when he stared at a greatbuilding like St. Paul's he felt it would not very much surprise him tosee 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 thegreat intricate vibrations, or the splendid sound--the spiritualidea--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 forthe wave of modern psychism. He hardly knew the meaning of such words as"clairvoyance" and "clairaudience. " He had never felt the least desireto join the Theosophical Society and to speculate in theories ofastral-plane life, or elementals. He attended no meetings of thePsychical 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 inwith the revival of cheap occultism which proves so attractive to weakminds 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 contentsof this other region, knowing well that such names could only limit anddefine things that, according to any standards in use in the ordinaryworld, were simply undefinable and illusive. 

So that, although this was the way his mind worked, there was clearly avery strong leaven of common sense in Jones. In a word, the man theworld and the office knew as Jones _was_ Jones. The name summed him upand labelled him correctly--John Enderby Jones. 

Among the things that he _knew_, and therefore never cared to speak orspeculate about, one was that he plainly saw himself as the inheritorof a long series of past lives, the net result of painful evolution, always as himself, of course, but in numerous different bodies eachdetermined by the behaviour of the preceding one. The present John Joneswas the last result to date of all the previous thinking, feeling, and doing of John Jones in earlier bodies and in other centuries. Hepretended to no details, nor claimed distinguished ancestry, for herealised his past must have been utterly commonplace and insignificantto have produced his present; but he was just as sure he had been atthis weary game for ages as that he breathed, and it never occurred tohim to argue, to doubt, or to ask questions. And one result of thisbelief was that his thoughts dwelt upon the past rather than upon thefuture; that he read much history, and felt specially drawn to certainperiods whose spirit he understood instinctively as though he had livedin them; and that he found all religions uninteresting because, almostwithout exception, they start from the present and speculate ahead as towhat men shall become, instead of looking back and speculating why menhave got here as they are. 

In the insurance office he did his work exceedingly well, but withoutmuch personal ambition. Men and women he regarded as the impersonalinstruments for inflicting upon him the pain or pleasure he had earnedby his past workings, for chance had no place in his scheme of things atall; and while he recognised that the practical world could not getalong unless every man did his work thoroughly and conscientiously, hetook no interest in the accumulation of fame or money for himself, andsimply, therefore, did his plain duty, with indifference as to results. 

In common with others who lead a strictly impersonal life, he possessedthe quality of utter bravery, and was always ready to face anycombination of circumstances, no matter how terrible, because he saw inthem the just working-out of past causes he had himself set in motionwhich could not be dodged or modified. And whereas the majority ofpeople had little meaning for him, either by way of attraction orrepulsion, the moment he met some one with whom he felt his past hadbeen _vitally_ interwoven his whole inner being leapt up instantly andshouted the fact in his face, and he regulated his life with the utmostskill and caution, like a sentry on watch for an enemy whose feet couldalready be heard approaching. 

Thus, while the great majority of men and women left himuninfluenced--since he regarded them as so many souls merely passingwith him along the great stream of evolution--there were, here andthere, individuals with whom he recognised that his smallest intercoursewas of the gravest importance. These were persons with whom he knewin every fibre of his being he had accounts to settle, pleasant orotherwise, arising out of dealings in past lives; and into his relationswith these few, therefore, he concentrated as it were the efforts thatmost people spread over their intercourse with a far greater number. Bywhat means he picked out these few individuals only those conversantwith the startling processes of the subconscious memory may say, but thepoint was that Jones believed the main purpose, if not quite the entirepurpose, of his present incarnation lay in his faithful and thoroughsettling of these accounts, and that if he sought to evade the leastdetail of such settling, no matter how unpleasant, he would have livedin vain, and would return to his next incarnation with this added dutyto perform. For according to his beliefs there was no Chance, and couldbe no ultimate shirking, and to avoid a problem was merely to waste timeand lose opportunities for development. 

And there was one individual with whom Jones had long understood clearlyhe had a very large account to settle, and towards the accomplishmentof which all the main currents of his being seemed to bear him withunswerving purpose. For, when he first entered the insurance office as ajunior clerk ten years before, and through a glass door had caught sightof this man seated in an inner room, one of his sudden overwhelmingflashes of intuitive memory had burst up into him from the depths, andhe had seen, as in a flame of blinding light, a symbolical picture ofthe future rising out of a dreadful past, and he had, without any act ofdefinite volition, marked down this man for a real account to besettled. 

"With _that_ man I shall have much to do, " he said to himself, as henoted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There issomething I cannot shirk--a vital relation out of the past of both ofus. "

And he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, asthough the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy handupon his heart and touched the scar of a great horror. It was a momentof genuine terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, andhe was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized uponhim with great violence and convinced him in a single second that thesettling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he couldmanage. 

The vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping back again into thesubmerged region of his consciousness; but he never forgot it, andthe whole of his life thereafter became a sort of natural thoughundeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the great duty when thetime 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 localbranches; and soon afterwards Jones had likewise found himselftransferred to this same branch. A little later, again, the branchat Liverpool, one of the most important, had been in peril owing tomismanagement and defalcation, and the man had gone to take charge ofit, and again, by mere chance apparently, Jones had been promoted to thesame place. And this pursuit of the Assistant Manager had continued forseveral years, often, too, in the most curious fashion; and though Joneshad never exchanged a single word with him, or been so much as noticedindeed by the great man, the clerk understood perfectly well that thesemoves in the game were all part of a definite purpose. Never for onemoment did he doubt that the Invisibles behind the veil were slowly andsurely arranging the details of it all so as to lead up suitably to theclimax demanded by justice, a climax in which himself and the Managerwould 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 mayface it properly and act like a man. "

Moreover, as the years passed, and nothing happened, he felt the horrorclosing in upon him with steady increase, for the fact was Jones hatedand loathed the Manager with an intensity of feeling he had never beforeexperienced towards any human being. He shrank from his presence, andfrom the glance of his eyes, as though he remembered to have sufferednameless cruelties at his hands; and he slowly began to realise, moreover, that the matter to be settled between them was one of veryancient standing, and that the nature of the settlement was a dischargeof accumulated punishment which would probably be very dreadful in themanner of its fulfilment. 

When, therefore, the chief cashier one day informed him that the manwas to be in London again--this time as General Manager of the headoffice--and said that he was charged to find a private secretary for himfrom among the best clerks, and further intimated that the selectionhad fallen upon himself, Jones accepted the promotion quietly, fatalistically, yet with a degree of inward loathing hardly to bedescribed. For he saw in this merely another move in the evolution ofthe inevitable Nemesis which he simply dared not seek to frustrate byany personal consideration; and at the same time he was conscious of acertain feeling of relief that the suspense of waiting might soon bemitigated. A secret sense of satisfaction, therefore, accompanied theunpleasant change, and Jones was able to hold himself perfectly well inhand when it was carried into effect and he was formally introduced asprivate secretary to the General Manager. 

Now the Manager was a large, fat man, with a very red face and bagsbeneath his eyes. Being short-sighted, he wore glasses that seemed tomagnify his eyes, which were always a little bloodshot. In hot weather asort of thin slime covered his cheeks, for he perspired easily. His headwas almost entirely bald, and over his turn-down collar his great neckfolded in two distinct reddish collops of flesh. His hands were big andhis 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 showinghim possible alternatives; and his integrity and ability caused him tobe held in universal respect by the world of business and finance. Inthe important regions of a man's character, however, and at heart, hewas 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 dullpurple, while the top of his bald head shone by contrast like whitemarble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it seemed they wouldpresently explode with a pop. And at these times he presented adistinctly repulsive appearance. 

But to a private secretary like Jones, who did his duty regardless ofwhether his employer was beast or angel, and whose mainspring wasprinciple and not emotion, this made little difference. Within thenarrow limits in which any one _could_ satisfy such a man, he pleasedthe General Manager; and more than once his piercing intuitive faculty, amounting almost to clairvoyance, assisted the chief in a fashion thatserved to bring the two closer together than might otherwise havebeen the case, and caused the man to respect in his assistant a powerof which he possessed not even the germ himself. It was a curiousrelationship that grew up between the two, and the cashier, who enjoyedthe credit of having made the selection, profited by it indirectly asmuch as any one else. 

So for some time the work of the office continued normally and veryprosperously. John Enderby Jones received a good salary, and in theoutward appearance of the two chief characters in this history therewas little change noticeable, except that the Manager grew fatter andredder, and the secretary observed that his own hair was beginning toshow rather greyish at the temples. 

There were, however, two changes in progress, and they both had to dowith 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, hewas tormented more and more with vivid scenes and pictures in which atall thin man, dark and sinister of countenance, and with bad eyes, wasclosely associated with himself. Only the setting was that of a pastage, with costumes of centuries gone by, and the scenes had to do withdreadful 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 depthsof his consciousness. This new part of himself amounted almost toanother personality, and he never observed its least manifestationwithout 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 amongconditions that were utterly distasteful, to withdraw his mind whollyfrom business once the day was over. During office hours he kept thestrictest possible watch upon himself, and turned the key on all innerdreams, lest any sudden uprush from the deeps should interfere with hisduty. But, once the working day was over, the gates flew open, and hebegan to enjoy himself. 

He read no modern books on the subjects that interested him, and, asalready said, he followed no course of training, nor belonged to anysociety that dabbled with half-told mysteries; but, once released fromthe office desk in the Manager's room, he simply and naturally enteredthe other region, because he was an old inhabitant, a rightful denizen, and because he belonged there. It was, in fact, really a case ofdual personality; and a carefully drawn agreement existed betweenJones-of-the-fire-insurance-office and Jones-of-the-mysteries, by theterms of which, under heavy penalties, neither region claimed him out ofhours. 

For the moment he reached his rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury, andhad changed his city coat to another, the iron doors of the officeclanged far behind him, and in front, before his very eyes, rolled upthe beautiful gates of ivory, and he entered into the places of flowersand singing and wonderful veiled forms. Sometimes he quite lost touchwith the outer world, forgetting to eat his dinner or go to bed, and layin a state of trance, his consciousness working far out of the body. Andon other occasions he walked the streets on air, half-way between thetwo regions, unable to distinguish between incarnate and discarnateforms, and not very far, probably, beyond the strata where poets, saints, and the greatest artists have moved and thought and found theirinspiration. But this was only when some insistent bodily claimprevented his full release, and more often than not he was entirelyindependent of his physical portion and free of the real region, withoutlet or hindrance. 

One evening he reached home utterly exhausted after the burden of theday's work. The Manager had been more than usually brutal, unjust, ill-tempered, and Jones had been almost persuaded out of his settledpolicy of contempt into answering back. Everything seemed to have goneamiss, and the man's coarse, underbred nature had been in the ascendantall day long: he had thumped the desk with his great fists, abused, found fault unreasonably, uttered outrageous things, and behavedgenerally as he actually was--beneath the thin veneer of acquiredbusiness varnish. He had done and said everything to wound all that waswoundable in an ordinary secretary, and though Jones fortunately dweltin a region from which he looked down upon such a man as he might lookdown on the blundering of a savage animal, the strain had neverthelesstold severely upon him, and he reached home wondering for the first timein his life whether there was perhaps a point beyond which he would beunable to restrain himself any longer. 

For something out of the usual had happened. At the close of a passageof great stress between the two, every nerve in the secretary's bodytingling from undeserved abuse, the Manager had suddenly turned fullupon him, in the corner of the private room where the safes stood, insuch a way that the glare of his red eyes, magnified by the glasses, looked straight into his own. And at this very second that otherpersonality in Jones--the one that was ever _watching_--rose up swiftlyfrom the deeps within and held a mirror to his face. 

A moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one singlesecond--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the Manager as thetall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had sufferedat his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind likethe 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 certainconviction in his heart that the time for his final settlement with theman, the time for the inevitable retribution, was at last drawing verynear. 

According to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in puttingthe memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changingof his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chairbefore the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the Soho Frenchrestaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowersand singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that were the verysources of his real life and being. 

For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years hadcrystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary andinevitable for him to act. 

At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-rememberedappointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, butwhere, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it wasfor dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it cameback to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whateverit was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocketengagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omittedto enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall eitherthe time, place, or person, he went in and sat down. 

But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemedto know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart, accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt thatbeneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. Theemotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently causethe actual details of the appointment to reappear. 

Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: someone was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitelyarranged to meet. He was expected by a person that very night and justabout that very time. But by whom? Where? A curious inner trembling cameover him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to beready for anything that might come. 

And then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment wasthis very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised tomeet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him. 

He looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. Themajority of the diners were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with muchgesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerkslike himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, butthere was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell uponthe 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 thecorner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skinwas very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. Atfirst the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up andtheir eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for asecond or two Jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known yearsbefore. For, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk whohad occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the serviceof the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstakingkindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. But amoment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that Thorpe had beendead at least five years. The similarity of the eyes was obviously amere suggestive trick of memory. 

The two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then Jonesbegan to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. He crossed over andtook the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt itwas somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he hadalmost forgotten the engagement altogether. 

No honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind hadbegun to work furiously. 

"Yes, you _are_ late, " said the man quietly, before he could find asingle word to utter. "But it doesn't matter. Also, you had forgottenthe appointment, but that makes no difference either. "

"I knew--that there was an engagement, " Jones stammered, passing hishand 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 obliteratedit. "

A faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of treeswith moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, whilefor an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion andto 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 haveno cause to feel afraid. "

There was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like thewhispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sata little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked muchor ate anything. He only recalled afterwards that the head waiter cameup and whispered something in his ear, and that he glanced round and sawthe other people were looking at him curiously, some of them laughing, and that his companion then got up and led the way out of therestaurant. 

They walked hurriedly through the streets, neither of them speaking; andJones was so intent upon getting back the whole history of the affairfrom 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 hiscompanion, for he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving downalleys without hesitation, and the other followed always withoutcorrection. 

The pavements were very full, and the usual night crowds of London weresurging to and fro in the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no oneimpeded their rapid movements, and they seemed to pass through thepeople as if they were smoke. And, as they went, the pedestrians andtraffic grew less and less, and they soon passed the Mansion House andthe deserted space in front of the Royal Exchange, and so on downFenchurch Street and within sight of the Tower of London, rising dim andshadowy in the smoky air. 

Jones remembered all this perfectly well, and thought it was his intensepreoccupation that made the distance seem so short. But it was when theTower was left behind and they turned northwards that he began to noticehow altered everything was, and saw that they were in a neighbourhoodwhere houses were suddenly scarce, and lanes and fields beginning, and that their only light was the stars overhead. And, as the deeperconsciousness more and more asserted itself to the exclusion of thesurface happenings of his mere body during the day, the sense ofexhaustion vanished, and he realised that he was moving somewhere in theregion of causes behind the veil, beyond the gross deceptions of thesenses, and released from the clumsy spell of space and time. 

Without great surprise, therefore, he turned and saw that his companionhad altered, had shed his overcoat and black hat, and was moving besidehim absolutely _without sound_. For a brief second he saw him, tall as atree, extending through space like a great shadow, misty and wavering ofoutline, followed by a sound like wings in the darkness; but, when hestopped, fear clutching at his heart, the other resumed his formerproportions, and Jones could plainly see his normal outline against thegreen field behind. 

Then the secretary saw him fumbling at his neck, and at the same momentthe black beard came away from the face in his hand. 

"Then you _are_ Thorpe!" he gasped, yet somehow without overwhelmingsurprise. 

They stood facing one another in the lonely lane, trees meeting overheadand hiding the stars, and a sound of mournful sighing among thebranches. 

"I am Thorpe, " was the answer in a voice that almost seemed part of thewind. "And I have come out of our far past to help you, for my debt toyou 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 agreat wave of feeling surged through him as he began to remember dimlythe friend by whose side he had already climbed, perhaps through vastages of his soul's evolution. 

"To help me _now_?" he whispered. 

"You will understand me when you enter into your real memory and recallhow 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 heardhimself saying, and remembered the reply that floated to him on the airand 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, triedby 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'shead 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 tohelp you then instinctively, not fully recognising you. But now I canaccomplish far more. "

With an awful sense of foreboding and dread in his heart, the secretarywas beginning to understand. 

"It has to do with--with--?"

"Your past dealings with the Manager, " came the answer, as the wind roselouder among the branches overhead and carried off the remainder of thesentence into the air. 

Jones's memory, which was just beginning to stir among the deepestlayers of all, shut down suddenly with a snap, and he followed hiscompanion over fields and down sweet-smelling lanes where the air wasfragrant and cool, till they came to a large house, standing gaunt andlonely in the shadows at the edge of a wood. It was wrapped in utterstillness, with windows heavily draped in black, and the clerk, as helooked, felt such an overpowering wave of sadness invade him that hiseyes began to burn and smart, and he was conscious of a desire to shedtears. 

The key made a harsh noise as it turned in the lock, and when the doorswung open into a lofty hall they heard a confused sound of rustling andwhispering, as of a great throng of people pressing forward to meetthem. The air seemed full of swaying movement, and Jones was certain hesaw hands held aloft and dim faces claiming recognition, while in hisheart, already oppressed by the approaching burden of vast accumulatedmemories, he was aware of the _uncoiling of something_ that had beenasleep for ages. 

As they advanced he heard the doors close with a muffled thunder behindthem, and saw that the shadows seemed to retreat and shrink away towardsthe interior of the house, carrying the hands and faces with them. Heheard the wind singing round the walls and over the roof, and itswailing voice mingled with the sound of deep, collective breathing thatfilled the house like the murmur of a sea; and as they walked up thebroad staircase and through the vaulted rooms, where pillars rose likethe 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 theymoved silently from room to room; "the house of _your_ past. It is fullfrom 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 theheart of the wood you saw outside, but the remoter halls are filled withthe ghosts of ages ago too many to count, and even if we were able towaken them you could not remember them now. Some day, though, they willcome and claim you, and you must know them, and answer their questions, for they can never rest till they have exhausted themselves againthrough you, and justice has been perfectly worked out. 

"But now follow me closely, and you shall see the particular memoryfor which I am permitted to be your guide, so that you may know andunderstand a great force in your present life, and may use the sword ofjustice, or rise to the level of a great forgiveness, according to yourdegree of power. "

Icy thrills ran through the trembling clerk, and as he walked slowlybeside his companion he heard from the vaults below, as well as frommore distant regions of the vast building, the stirring and sighing ofthe serried ranks of sleepers, sounding in the still air like a chordswept from unseen strings stretched somewhere among the very foundationsof the house. 

Stealthily, picking their way among the great pillars, they moved up thesweeping staircase and through several dark corridors and halls, andpresently stopped outside a small door in an archway where the shadowswere very deep. 

"Remain close by my side, and remember to utter no cry, " whispered thevoice of his guide, and as the clerk turned to reply he saw his face wasstern to whiteness and even shone a little in the darkness. 

The room they entered seemed at first to be pitchy black, but graduallythe 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 nearthe door and waited. "But remember to keep absolute silence. It is atorture scene. "

Jones felt utterly afraid, and would have turned to fly if he dared, foran indescribable terror seized him and his knees shook; but some powerthat made escape impossible held him remorselessly there, and with eyesglued 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 thatshed no radiance beyond itself, and he heard a soft clanking of chainsand the voice of a man groaning in pain. Then came the sound of a doorclosing, and thereafter Jones saw but one figure, the figure of an oldman, naked entirely, and fastened with chains to an iron framework onthe floor. His memory gave a sudden leap of fear as he looked, for thefeatures and white beard were familiar, and he recalled them as thoughof yesterday. 

The other figures had disappeared, and the old man became the centre ofthe terrible picture. Slowly, with ghastly groans; as the heat below himincreased 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 anklesfast. Cries and gasps filled the air, and Jones felt exactly as thoughthey came from his own throat, and as if the chains were burning intohis own wrists and ankles, and the heat scorching the skin and fleshupon 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 quitewell what the answer must be. 

"To extort the name of a friend, to his death and betrayal, " came thereply through the darkness. 

A sliding panel opened with a little rattle in the wall immediatelyabove the rack, and a face, framed in the same red glow, appeared andlooked down upon the dying victim. Jones was only just able to chokea scream, for he recognised the tall dark man of his dreams. Withhorrible, gloating eyes he gazed down upon the writhing form of the oldman, and his lips moved as in speaking, though no words were actuallyaudible. 

"He asks again for the name, " explained the other, as the clerkstruggled with the intense hatred and loathing that threatened everymoment to result in screams and action. His ankles and wrists pained himso that he could scarcely keep still, but a merciless power held him tothe scene. 

He saw the old man, with a fierce cry, raise his tortured head and spitup into the face at the panel, and then the shutter slid back again, anda moment later the increased glow beneath the body, accompanied by awfulwrithing, told of the application of further heat. There came the odourof burning flesh; the white beard curled and burned to a crisp; the bodyfell back limp upon the red-hot iron, and then shot up again in freshagony; cry after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out withdeadened sound between the four walls; and again the panel slid backcreaking, 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 manwith the evil face came slowly into the chamber. His features weresavage with rage and disappointment, and in the dull red glow that fellupon them he looked like a very prince of devils. In his hand he held apointed iron at white heat. 

"Now the murder!" came from Thorpe in a whisper that sounded as if itwas outside the building and far away. 

Jones knew quite well what was coming, but was unable even to close hiseyes. He felt all the fearful pains himself just as though he wereactually the sufferer; but now, as he stared, he felt something morebesides; and when the tall man deliberately approached the rack andplunged the heated iron first into one eye and then into the other, heheard the faint fizzing of it, and felt his own eyes burst in frightfulpain from his head. At the same moment, unable longer to controlhimself, he uttered a wild shriek and dashed forward to seize thetorturer and tear him to a thousand pieces. Instantly, in a flash, theentire scene vanished; darkness rushed in to fill the room, and he felthimself lifted off his feet by some force like a great wind and borneswiftly away into space. 

When he recovered his senses he was standing just outside the house andthe figure of Thorpe was beside him in the gloom. The great doors werein the act of closing behind him, but before they shut he fancied hecaught a glimpse of an immense veiled figure standing upon thethreshold, with flaming eyes, and in his hand a bright weapon like ashining sword of fire. 

"Come quickly now--all is over!" Thorpe whispered. 

"And the dark man--?" gasped the clerk, as he moved swiftly by theother'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 momentsounding more and more like the cry of the wind. "You gave your life inagony 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 notsatisfied till all have reaped what they sowed. "

Jones had an odd feeling that he was slipping away into some other stateof consciousness. Thorpe began to seem unreal. Presently he would beunable to ask more questions. He felt utterly sick and faint with itall, and his strength was ebbing. 

"Oh, quick!" he cried, "now tell me more. Why did I see this? What mustI do?"

The wind swept across the field on their right and entered the woodbeyond with a great roar, and the air round him seemed filled withvoices and the rushing of hurried movement. 

"To the ends of justice, " answered the other, as though speaking outof the centre of the wind and from a distance, "which sometimes isentrusted to the hands of those who suffered and were strong. One wrongcannot be put right by another wrong, but your life has been so worthythat the opportunity is given to--"

The voice grew fainter and fainter, already it was far overhead with therushing wind. 

"You may punish or--" Here Jones lost sight of Thorpe's figurealtogether, for he seemed to have vanished and melted away into thewood behind him. His voice sounded far across the trees, very weak, andever rising. 

"Or if you can rise to the level of a great forgiveness--"

The voice became inaudible. .. . The wind came crying out of the woodagain. 

 * * * * *

Jones shivered and stared about him. He shook himself violently andrubbed his eyes. The room was dark, the fire was out; he felt cold andstiff. 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 sawthat it was very late and he must go to bed. 

He had not even changed his office coat; he must have fallen asleep inthe 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 officewent on as usual, and Jones did his work well and behaved outwardly withperfect propriety. No more visions troubled him, and his relations withthe Manager became, if anything, somewhat smoother and easier. 

True, the man _looked_ a little different, because the clerk kept seeinghim with his inner and outer eye promiscuously, so that one moment hewas 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 sawthe two faces mingled in a composite countenance that was very horribleindeed to contemplate. But, beyond this occasional change in the outwardappearance of the Manager, there was nothing that the secretary noticedas the result of his vision, and business went on more or less asbefore, and perhaps even with a little less friction. 

But in the rooms under the roof in Bloomsbury it was different, forthere it was perfectly clear to Jones that Thorpe had come to take uphis abode with him. He never saw him, but he knew all the time he wasthere. Every night on returning from his work he was greeted by thewell-known whisper, "Be ready when I give the sign!" and often in thenight he woke up suddenly out of deep sleep and was aware that Thorpehad that minute moved away from his bed and was standing waiting andwatching somewhere in the darkness of the room. Often he followed himdown the stairs, though the dim gas jet on the landings never revealedhis outline; and sometimes he did not come into the room at all, buthovered outside the window, peering through the dirty panes, or sendinghis 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 ofhim until he had fulfilled the ends of justice and accomplished thepurpose for which he was waiting. 

Meanwhile, as the days passed, he went through a tremendous strugglewith himself, and came to the perfectly honest decision that the "levelof a great forgiveness" was impossible for him, and that he musttherefore accept the alternative and use the secret knowledge placedin his hands--and execute justice. And once this decision was arrivedat, he noticed that Thorpe no longer left him alone during the day asbefore, but now accompanied him to the office and stayed more or less athis side all through business hours as well. His whisper made itselfheard in the streets and in the train, and even in the Manager's roomwhere he worked; sometimes warning, sometimes urging, but never for amoment suggesting the abandonment of the main purpose, and more thanonce so plainly audible that the clerk felt certain others must haveheard it as well as himself. 

The obsession was complete. He felt he was always under Thorpe's eye dayand night, and he knew he must acquit himself like a man when the momentcame, or prove a failure in his own sight as well in the sight of theother. 

And now that his mind was made up, nothing could prevent the carryingout of the sentence. He bought a pistol, and spent his Saturdayafternoons practising at a target in lonely places along the Essexshore, marking out in the sand the exact measurements of the Manager'sroom. Sundays he occupied in like fashion, putting up at an innovernight for the purpose, spending the money that usually went into thesavings bank on travelling expenses and cartridges. Everything was donevery thoroughly, for there must be no possibility of failure; and at theend of several weeks he had become so expert with his six-shooter thatat a distance of 25 feet, which was the greatest length of the Manager'sroom, he could pick the inside out of a halfpenny nine times out of adozen, and leave a clean, unbroken rim. 

There was not the slightest desire to delay. He had thought the matterover from every point of view his mind could reach, and his purpose wasinflexible. Indeed, he felt proud to think that he had been chosen asthe instrument of justice in the infliction of so well-deserved and soterrible 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 chainsburning his wrists and ankles with fierce agony through to the bone. He remembered the hideous pain of his slowly roasting back, and thepoint when he thought death _must_ intervene to end his suffering, butinstead new powers of endurance had surged up in him, and awful furtherstretches of pain had opened up, and unconsciousness seemed farther offthan ever. Then at last the hot irons in his eyes. .. . It all came backto him, and caused him to break out in icy perspiration at the merethought of it . .. The vile face at the panel . .. The expression of thedark face. .. . His fingers worked. His blood boiled. It was utterlyimpossible to keep the idea of vengeance altogether out of his mind. 

Several times he was temporarily baulked of his prey. Odd thingshappened 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 hehad decided to do the deed, the Manager did not come down to the officeat 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, andturning, he saw that the head cashier had entered the room noiselesslywithout his noticing it. Thorpe evidently knew what he was about, anddid not intend to let the clerk bungle the matter. 

He fancied, moreover, that the head cashier was watching him. He wasalways meeting him in unexpected corners and places, and the cashiernever seemed to have an adequate excuse for being there. His movementsseemed 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 ofsurveillance, so that he was never much alone with the Manager in theprivate room where they worked. And once the cashier had even gone sofar as to suggest that he could take his holiday earlier than usual ifhe liked, as the work had been very arduous of late and the heatexceedingly trying. 

He noticed, too, that he was sometimes followed by a certain individualin the streets, a careless-looking sort of man, who never came face toface with him, or actually ran into him, but who was always in his trainor omnibus, and whose eye he often caught observing him over the top ofhis newspaper, and who on one occasion was even waiting at the door ofhis lodgings when he came out to dine. 

There were other indications too, of various sorts, that led him tothink something was at work to defeat his purpose, and that he must actat 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 hadever known, for the City was like an oven, and the particles of dustseemed to burn the throats of the unfortunate toilers in street andoffice. The portly Manager, who suffered cruelly owing to his size, camedown perspiring and gasping with the heat. He carried a light-colouredumbrella to protect his head. 

"He'll want something more than that, though!" Jones laughed quietly tohimself when he saw him enter. 

The pistol was safely in his hip pocket, every one of its six chambersloaded. 

The Manager saw the smile on his face, and gave him a long steady lookas he sat down to his desk in the corner. A few minutes later he touchedthe bell for the head cashier--a single ring--and then asked Jones tofetch some papers from another safe in the room upstairs. 

A deep inner trembling seized the secretary as he noticed theseprecautions, for he saw that the hostile forces were at work againsthim, and yet he felt he could delay no longer and must act that verymorning, interference or no interference. However, he went obediently upin the lift to the next floor, and while fumbling with the combinationof the safe, known only to himself, the cashier, and the Manager, heagain 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. Theroom was like a furnace, and a wave of dead heated air met him in theface as he went in. The moment he passed the doorway he realised that hehad been the subject of conversation between the head cashier and hisenemy. They had been discussing him. Perhaps an inkling of his secrethad somehow got into their minds. They had been watching him for dayspast. They had become suspicious. 

Clearly, he must act now, or let the opportunity slip by perhaps forever. He heard Thorpe's voice in his ear, but this time it was no merewhisper, 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 thedoor leading into the main office. He saw the army of clerks scribblingin their shirt-sleeves, for the upper half of the door was of glass. Hehad 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 evenvoice. 

"Why? Who told you to--?"

"The voice of Justice, sir, " replied Jones, looking steadily into thehated face. 

The Manager looked black for a moment, and stared angrily across theroom at him. Then suddenly his expression changed as he stared, and hetried to smile. It was meant to be a kind smile evidently, but it onlysucceeded in being frightened. 

"That _is_ a good idea in this weather, " he said lightly, "but it wouldbe 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 thebarrel he saw the features of the tall dark man, evil and sinister. Thenthe outline trembled a little and the face of the Manager slipped backinto its place. It was white as death, and shining with perspiration. 

"You tortured me to death four hundred years ago, " said the clerk in thesame steady voice, "and now the dispensers of justice have chosen me topunish you. "

The Manager's face turned to flame, and then back to chalk again. Hemade a quick movement towards the telephone bell, stretching out a handto reach it, but at the same moment Jones pulled the trigger and thewrist 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 himselfwith his right hand on the desk in front of him, but Jones pressed thetrigger again, and a bullet flew into the other wrist, so that the bigman, 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 aimfor another shot. 

The big man, screaming and blundering, scrambled beneath the desk, making frantic efforts to hide, but the secretary took a step forwardand 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 littlenearer. 

The Manager, still shrieking, tried desperately to squeeze his bulkbehind the shelter of the opening beneath the desk, but he was far toolarge, and his bald head protruded through on the other side. Jonescaught him by the scruff of his great neck and dragged him yelping outon to the carpet. He was covered with blood, and flopped helplessly uponhis broken wrists. 

"Be quick now!" cried the voice of Thorpe. 

There was a tremendous commotion and banging at the door, and Jonesgripped his pistol tightly. Something seemed to crash through his brain, clearing it for a second, so that he thought he saw beside him a greatveiled figure, with drawn sword and flaming eyes, and sternly approvingattitude. 

"Remember the eyes! Remember the eyes!" hissed Thorpe in the air abovehim. 

Jones felt like a god, with a god's power. Vengeance disappeared fromhis mind. He was acting impersonally as an instrument in the hands ofthe Invisibles who dispense justice and balance accounts. He bent downand put the barrel close into the other's face, smiling a little as hesaw the childish efforts of the arms to cover his head. Then he pulledthe trigger, and a bullet went straight into the right eye, blackeningthe skin. Moving the pistol two inches the other way, he sent anotherbullet crashing into the left eye. Then he stood upright over his victimwith a deep sigh of satisfaction. 

The Manager wriggled convulsively for the space of a single second, andthen lay still in death. 

There was not a moment to lose, for the door was already broken in andviolent hands were at his neck. Jones put the pistol to his temple andonce more pressed the trigger with his finger. 

But this time there was no report. Only a little dead click answered thepressure, for the secretary had forgotten that the pistol had only sixchambers, and that he had used them all. He threw the useless weaponon to the floor, laughing a little out loud, and turned, without astruggle, to give himself up. 

"I _had_ to do it, " he said quietly, while they tied him. "It was simplymy duty! And now I am ready to face the consequences, and Thorpe will beproud of me. For justice has been done and the gods are satisfied. "

He made not the slightest resistance, and when the two policemen marchedhim off through the crowd of shuddering little clerks in the office, heagain saw the veiled figure moving majestically in front of him, makingslow sweeping circles with the flaming sword, to keep back the host offaces 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 onlypersons 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 andthe gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of thisparticular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced wouldcertainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably containsuch strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personalitycombined. 

For Mark Ebor, F. R. S. , etc. , etc. , was that unique combination hardlyever 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 thesecond--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 ofthe weather reports in a daily newspaper. Thousands read the sanguine, optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the penof "Pilgrim, " and thousands bore their daily burdens better for havingread; while the Press generally agreed that the author, besides being anincorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one eversucceeded 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; butMark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyesand ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" andthe future of the human race, was quite another. 

"I have always held, as you know, " he was saying one evening as hesat in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant andintimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of theawakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to beobserved and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities--"

"I am aware of your peculiar views, sir, " the young doctor put indeferentially, yet with a certain impatience. 

"For Visions come from a region of the consciousness where observationand experiment are out of the question, " pursued the other withenthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should bechecked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored. All inspiration, I hold, is of the nature of interior Vision, and allour best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a suddenrevelation to the brain prepared to receive it--"

"Prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possiblestudy of ordinary phenomena, " Dr. Laidlaw allowed himself to observe. 

"Perhaps, " sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, ofspiritual illumination. The best match in the world will not light acandle unless the wick be first suitably prepared. "

It was Laidlaw's turn to sigh. He knew so well the impossibility ofarguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but atthe same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was sosincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wonderinghow far the great man would go and to what end this curious combinationof logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him. 

"Only last night, " continued the elder man, a sort of light coming intohis rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that hashaunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not bedenied. "

Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair. 

"About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean--and that they lie somewherehidden in the sands, " he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest cameinto 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 givethe great knowledge to the world--"

"Who will not believe, " laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spiteof his thinly-veiled contempt. 

"Because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, arehopelessly--unscientific, " replied the other gently, his face positivelyaglow with the memory of his vision. "Yet what is more likely, " hecontinued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes thatsaw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than thatthere should have been given to man in the first ages of the world somerecord of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? In aword, " he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexedassistant, "that God's messengers in the far-off ages should have givento His creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of thesecret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation ofour being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimatefullness of things?"

Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These outbursts of mystical enthusiasm hehad witnessed before. With any other man he would not have listened toa single sentence, but to Professor Ebor, man of knowledge and profoundinvestigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded thiscondition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reactionfrom the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of manydays. 

He smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met theother's rapt gaze. 

"But you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimatesecrets to be screened from all possible--"

"The _ultimate_ secrets, yes, " came the unperturbed reply; "but thatthere lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secretmeaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristineinnocence, I am convinced. And, by this strange vision so oftenvouchsafed to me, I am equally sure that one day it shall be given to meto announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message. "

And he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe thespecies of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliestchildhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of theGods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature wasalways, however, withheld from him in the vision--to a patient andsuffering humanity. 

"The _Scrutator_, sir, well described 'Pilgrim' as the Apostle ofHope, " said the young doctor gently, when he had finished; "and now, ifthat reviewer could hear you speak and realize from what strange depthscomes your simple faith--"

The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child brokeover 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, " headded significantly; "wait till I find these Tablets of the Gods! Waittill I hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my hands! Waittill the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused humanity, andit wakes to find its bravest hopes justified! Ah, then, my dearLaidlaw--"

He broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought inhis mind, caught him up immediately. 

"Perhaps this very summer, " he said, trying hard to make the suggestionkeep pace with honesty; "in your explorations in Assyria--your diggingin the remote civilization of what was once Chaldea, you may find--whatyou 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'saberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in thecertitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to referhis visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether inhis old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations ofthe 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 andself-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with asigh that was half of wonder, half of regret. 

2

It was in February, nine months later, when Dr. Laidlaw made his way toCharing Cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel andexploration. The vision about the so-called Tablets of the Gods hadmeanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory. 

There were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was nowrunning the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man hehad come to meet. The shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felthat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily. 

"Here I am at last!" exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, claspinghis friend's hand as he listened to the young doctor's warm greetingsand questions. "Here I am--a little older, and _much_ dirtier than whenyou last saw me!" He glanced down laughingly at his travel-stainedgarments. 

"And _much_ wiser, " said Laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about theplatform 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 whatyou 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 noother luggage. "

"You have no other luggage?" repeated Laidlaw, turning sharply to see ifhe 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 knewwhich--suddenly struck him as strange. There was a change in him, achange so profound--so little on the surface, that is--that at first hehad not become aware of it. For a moment it was as though an utterlyalien personality stood before him in that noisy, bustling throng. Here, in all the homely, friendly turmoil of a Charing Cross crowd, a curiousfeeling of cold passed over his heart, touching his life with icyfinger, so that he actually trembled and felt afraid. 

He looked up quickly at his friend, his mind working with startled andunwelcome thoughts. 

"Only this?" he repeated, indicating the bag. "But where's all the stuffyou went away with? And--have you brought nothing home--no treasures?"

"This is all I have, " the other said briefly. The pale smile that wentwith the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation ofuneasiness. Something was very wrong, something was very queer; hewondered now that he had not noticed it sooner. 

"The rest follows, of course, by slow freight, " he added tactfully, andas naturally as possible. "But come, sir, you must be tired and in wantof food after your long journey. I'll get a taxi at once, and we can seeabout the other luggage afterwards. "

It seemed to him he hardly knew quite what he was saying; the change inhis friend had come upon him so suddenly and now grew upon him more andmore distressingly. Yet he could not make out exactly in what itconsisted. 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 professorsaid quietly. "And this is all I have. There is no luggage to follow. Ihave 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 thescientist, and were conveyed slowly and noisily to the house in thenorth of London where the laboratory was, the scene of their labours ofyears. 

And the whole way Professor Ebor uttered no word, nor did Dr. Laidlawfind the courage to ask a single question. 

It was only late that night, before he took his departure, as the twomen were standing before the fire in the study--that study where theyhad discussed so many problems of vital and absorbing interest--thatDr. Laidlaw at last found strength to come to the point with directquestions. The professor had been giving him a superficial and desultoryaccount of his travels, of his journeys by camel, of his encampmentsamong the mountains and in the desert, and of his explorations among theburied temples, and, deeper, into the waste of the pre-historic sands, when suddenly the doctor came to the desired point with a kind ofnervous rush, almost like a frightened boy. 

"And you found--" he began stammering, looking hard at the other'sdreadfully altered face, from which every line of hope and cheerfulnessseemed to have been obliterated as a sponge wipes markings from aslate--"you found--"

"I found, " replied the other, in a solemn voice, and it was the voice ofthe 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 astar in the heavens. I found--the Tablets of the Gods. "

Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of achair. The words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. For thefirst time the professor had uttered the well-known phrase without theglow 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 likeiron; "and I have--deciphered them. "

Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of ahopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space seemed to fill in thepauses between the brief sentences. A silence followed, during which Dr. Laidlaw saw nothing but the white face before him alternately fade andreturn. And it was like the face of a dead man. 

"They are, alas, indestructible, " he heard the voice continue, with itseven, metallic ring. 

"Indestructible, " Laidlaw repeated mechanically, hardly knowing what hewas saying. 

Again a silence of several minutes passed, during which, with a creepingcold about his heart, he stood and stared into the eyes of the man hehad known and loved so long--aye, and worshipped, too; the man who hadfirst opened his own eyes when they were blind, and had led him to thegates of knowledge, and no little distance along the difficult pathbeyond; the man who, in another direction, had passed on the strength ofhis faith into the hearts of thousands by his books. 

"I may see them?" he asked at last, in a low voice he hardly recognizedas his own. "You will let me know--their message?"

Professor Ebor kept his eyes fixedly upon his assistant's face as heanswered, with a smile that was more like the grin of death than aliving human smile. 

"When I am gone, " he whispered; "when I have passed away. Then youshall find them and read the translation I have made. And then, too, inyour turn, you must try, with the latest resources of science at yourdisposal to aid you, to compass their utter destruction. " He pauseda moment, and his face grew pale as the face of a corpse. "Untilthat time, " he added presently, without looking up, "I must askyou not to refer to the subject again--and to keep my confidencemeanwhile--_ab--so--lute--ly_. "

3

A year passed slowly by, and at the end of it Dr. Laidlaw had found itnecessary to sever his working connexion with his friend and one-timeleader. Professor Ebor was no longer the same man. The light had goneout of his life; the laboratory was closed; he no longer put pen topaper or applied his mind to a single problem. In the short space ofa few months he had passed from a hale and hearty man of late middlelife to the condition of old age--a man collapsed and on the edge ofdissolution. Death, it was plain, lay waiting for him in the shadows ofany day--and he knew it. 

To describe faithfully the nature of this profound alteration in hischaracter and temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw summed it up tohimself in three words: _Loss of Hope_. The splendid mental powersremained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them--to use them forthe help of others--had gone. The character still held to its fine andunselfish habits of years, but the far goal to which they had been theleading strings had faded away. The desire for knowledge--knowledge forits own sake--had died, and the passionate hope which hitherto hadanimated with tireless energy the heart and brain of this splendidlyequipped intellect had suffered total eclipse. The central fires hadgone 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 aspossible; his second to close his laboratory and stop all research. Hegave no explanation, he invited no questions. His whole personalitycrumbled away, so to speak, till his daily life became a mere mechanicalprocess of clothing the body, feeding the body, keeping it in goodhealth so as to avoid physical discomfort, and, above all, doing nothingthat could interfere with sleep. The professor did everything he couldto lengthen the hours of sleep, and therefore of forgetfulness. 

It was all clear enough to Dr. Laidlaw. A weaker man, he knew, wouldhave sought to lose himself in one form or another of sensualindulgence--sleeping-draughts, drink, the first pleasures that came tohand. Self-destruction would have been the method of a little boldertype; and deliberate evil-doing, poisoning with his awful knowledge allhe could, the means of still another kind of man. Mark Ebor was none ofthese. He held himself under fine control, facing silently and withoutcomplaint the terrible facts he honestly believed himself to have beenunfortunate enough to discover. Even to his intimate friend andassistant, Dr. Laidlaw, he vouchsafed no word of true explanation orlament. He went straight forward to the end, knowing well that the endwas not very far away. 

And death came very quietly one day to him, as he was sitting in thearm-chair of the study, directly facing the doors of the laboratory--thedoors that no longer opened. Dr. Laidlaw, by happy chance, was with himat the time, and just able to reach his side in response to the suddenpainful efforts for breath; just in time, too, to catch the murmuredwords that fell from the pallid lips like a message from the other sideof the grave. 

"Read them, if you must; and, if you can--destroy. But"--hisvoice sank so low that Dr. Laidlaw only just caught the dyingsyllables--"but--never, never--give them to the world. "

And like a grey bundle of dust loosely gathered up in an old garment theprofessor sank back into his chair and expired. 

But this was only the death of the body. His spirit had died two yearsbefore. 

4

The estate of the dead man was small and uncomplicated, and Dr. Laidlaw, as sole executor and residuary legatee, had no difficulty in settlingit up. A month after the funeral he was sitting alone in his upstairslibrary, the last sad duties completed, and his mind full of poignantmemories 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 thegreatest combination of heart and brain he had ever known, and torealize he was powerless to help, was a source of profound grief to himthat would remain to the end of his days. 

At the same time an insatiable curiosity possessed him. The study ofdementia was, of course, outside his special province as a specialist, but he knew enough of it to understand how small a matter might be theactual cause of how great an illusion, and he had been devoured from thevery beginning by a ceaseless and increasing anxiety to know what theprofessor had found in the sands of "Chaldea, " what these preciousTablets of the Gods might be, and particularly--for this was the realcause that had sapped the man's sanity and hope--what the inscriptionwas that he had believed to have deciphered thereon. 

The curious feature of it all to his own mind was, that whereas hisfriend had dreamed of finding a message of glorious hope and comfort, hehad apparently found (so far as he had found anything intelligible atall, and not invented the whole thing in his dementia) that the secretof the world, and the meaning of life and death, was of so terrible anature 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 hadbequeathed to him with his pregnant dying sentences?

Actually his hand was trembling as he turned to the writing-table andbegan slowly to unfasten a small old-fashioned desk on which the smallgilt initials "M. E. " stood forth as a melancholy memento. He put the keyinto the lock and half turned it. Then, suddenly, he stopped and lookedabout him. Was that a sound at the back of the room? It was just asthough someone had laughed and then tried to smother the laugh with acough. A slight shiver ran over him as he stood listening. 

"This is absurd, " he said aloud; "too absurd for belief--that I shouldbe so nervous! It's the effect of curiosity unduly prolonged. " He smileda little sadly and his eyes wandered to the blue summer sky and theplane trees swaying in the wind below his window. "It's the reaction, "he continued. "The curiosity of two years to be quenched in a singlemoment! 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 insidewithout a tremor. It was heavy. A moment later there lay on the tablebefore him a couple of weather-worn plaques of grey stone--they lookedlike stone, although they felt like metal--on which he saw markings ofa curious character that might have been the mere tracings of naturalforces through the ages, or, equally well, the half-obliteratedhieroglyphics cut upon their surface in past centuries by the more orless untutored hand of a common scribe. 

He lifted each stone in turn and examined it carefully. It seemed to himthat a faint glow of heat passed from the substance into his skin, andhe put them down again suddenly, as with a gesture of uneasiness. 

"A very clever, or a very imaginative man, " he said to himself, "whocould squeeze the secrets of life and death from such broken lines asthose!"

Then he turned to a yellow envelope lying beside them in the desk, withthe 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 hisnervousness, "now for the great solution. Now to learn the meaning ofthe 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 himshivered at the same time. He held the envelope as though weighing it inhis 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 opena 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 laybefore 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 toshake all over as with ague. His breath came heavily in gasps. He stillgripped the sheet of paper, however, and deliberately, as by an intenseeffort of will, read it through a second time from beginning to end. Andthis time, as the last syllable dropped from his lips, the whole face ofthe man flamed with a sudden and terrible anger. His skin became deep, deep red, and he clenched his teeth. With all the strength of hisvigorous soul he was struggling to keep control of himself. 

For perhaps five minutes he stood there beside the table withoutstirring a muscle. He might have been carved out of stone. His eyes wereshut, and only the heaving of the chest betrayed the fact that he was aliving being. Then, with a strange quietness, he lit a match and appliedit to the sheet of paper he held in his hand. The ashes fell slowlyabout him, piece by piece, and he blew them from the window-sill intothe air, his eyes following them as they floated away on the summer windthat breathed so warmly over the world. 

He turned back slowly into the room. Although his actions and movementswere absolutely steady and controlled, it was clear that he was on theedge of violent action. A hurricane might burst upon the still room anymoment. His muscles were tense and rigid. Then, suddenly, he whitened, collapsed, and sank backwards into a chair, like a tumbled bundle ofinert matter. He had fainted. 

In less than half an hour he recovered consciousness and sat up. Asbefore, he made no sound. Not a syllable passed his lips. He rosequietly and looked about the room. 

Then he did a curious thing. 

Taking a heavy stick from the rack in the corner he approached themantlepiece, and with a heavy shattering blow he smashed the clock topieces. The glass fell in shivering atoms. 

"Cease your lying voice for ever, " he said, in a curiously still, eventone. "There is no such thing as _time_!"

He took the watch from his pocket, swung it round several times by thelong gold chain, smashed it into smithereens against the wall with asingle blow, and then walked into his laboratory next door, and hung itsbroken 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 bookcasewhere stood in a row the "Scriptures of the World, " choicely bound andexquisitely printed, the late professor's most treasured possession, andnext to them several books signed "Pilgrim. "

One by one he took them from the shelf and hurled them through the openwindow. 

"A devil's dreams! A devil's foolish dreams!" he cried, with a viciouslaugh. 

Presently he stopped from sheer exhaustion. He turned his eyes slowly tothe wall opposite, where hung a weird array of Eastern swords anddaggers, scimitars and spears, the collections of many journeys. Hecrossed the room and ran his finger along the edge. His mind seemed towaver. 

"No, " he muttered presently; "not that way. There are easier and betterways 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 feltthe metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand. 

"Ah, Laidlaw, this is well met, " cried a voice at his elbow; "I was inthe act of coming to see you. I've a case that will interest you, andbesides, I remembered that you flavoured your tea with orangeleaves!--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 staringfor a moment as though the other had struck him in the face. A new ideahad entered his mind. 

"What's the matter?" asked Dr. Stephen quickly. "Something's wrong withyou. 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 aheaven-sent inspiration. He looked into his friend's face, and told adirect lie. 

"Odd, " he said, "I myself was just coming to see you. I have somethingof great importance to test your confidence with. But in _your_ house, please, " as Stephen urged him towards his own door--"in your house. It'sonly round the corner, and I--I cannot go back there--to my rooms--tillI have told you. 

"I'm your patient--for the moment, " he added stammeringly as soon asthey were seated in the privacy of the hypnotist's sanctum, "and Iwant--er--"

"My dear Laidlaw, " interrupted the other, in that soothing voice ofcommand which had suggested to many a suffering soul that the cure forits pain lay in the powers of its own reawakened will, "I am always atyour service, as you know. You have only to tell me what I can do foryou, and I will do it. " He showed every desire to help him out. Hismanner 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'shealing 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 shallforget--forget till I die--everything that has occurred to me during thelast two hours; till I die, mind, " he added, with solemn emphasis, "tillI die. "

He floundered and stammered like a frightened boy. Alexis Stephenlooked at him fixedly without speaking. 

"And further, " Laidlaw continued, "I want you to ask me no questions. Iwish to forget for ever something I have recently discovered--somethingso terrible and yet so obvious that I can hardly understand why itis not patent to every mind in the world--for I have had a moment ofabsolute _clear vision_--of merciless clairvoyance. But I want no oneelse 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. Butthe pain on his face and the anguish in his voice were an instantpassport to the other's heart. 

"Nothing is easier, " replied Dr. Stephen, after a hesitation so slightthat the other probably did not even notice it. "Come into my other roomwhere we shall not be disturbed. I can heal you. Your memory of the lasttwo hours shall be wiped out as though it had never been. You can trustme 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 wasalready 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 alion, 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 tohis patient. 

"I? Let me see. Oh, I know; I was worrying my way through poor oldEbor's papers and things. I'm his executor, you know. Then I got wearyand came out for a whiff of air. " He spoke lightly and with perfectnaturalness. Obviously he was telling the truth. "I prefer specimens topapers, " he laughed cheerily. 

"I know, I know, " said Dr. Stephen, holding a lighted match for thecigarette. His face wore an expression of content. The experiment hadbeen a complete success. The memory of the last two hours was wiped oututterly. Laidlaw was already chatting gaily and easily about a dozenother things that interested him. Together they went out into thestreet, and at his door Dr. Stephen left him with a joke and a wry facethat made his friend laugh heartily. 

"Don't dine on the professor's old papers by mistake, " he cried, as hevanished down the street. 

Dr. Laidlaw went up to his study at the top of the house. Half way downhe met his housekeeper, Mrs. Fewings. She was flustered and excited, andher 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 abouteverywhere!" She was very confused. In this orderly and very preciseestablishment it was unusual to find a thing out of place. 

"Oh, my specimens!" cried the doctor, dashing up the rest of the stairsat top speed. "Have they been touched or--"

He flew to the door of the laboratory. Mrs. Fewings panted up heavilybehind him. 

"The labatry ain't been touched, " she explained, breathlessly, "but theysmashed the libry clock and they've 'ung your gold watch, sir, on theskelinton's hands. And the books that weren't no value they flung out erthe 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 ofvalue was missing. He began to wonder what kind of burglars they were. He looked up sharply at Mrs. Fewings standing in the doorway. For amoment he seemed to cast about in his mind for something. 

"Odd, " he said at length. "I only left here an hour ago and everythingwas all right then. "

"Was it, sir? Yes, sir. " She glanced sharply at him. Her room looked outupon 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 uptwo slabs of worn gray stone, on the writing-table. "Bath brick, orsomething, 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 ifanything is missing in the house, and I will notify the police thisevening. "

When she left the room he went into the laboratory and took his watchoff the skeleton's fingers. His face wore a troubled expression, butafter a moment's thought it cleared again. His memory was a completeblank. 

"I suppose I left it on the writing-table when I went out to take theair, " he said. And there was no one present to contradict him. 

He crossed to the window and blew carelessly some ashes of burned paperfrom the sill, and stood watching them as they floated away lazily overthe tops of the trees. 

 * * * * *

_The Glamour of the Snow_

I

Hibbert, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain villageconscious of three. It lay on the slopes of the Valais Alps, and he hadtaken a room in the little post office, where he could be at peace towrite his book, yet at the same time enjoy the winter sports and findcompanionship in the hotels when he wanted it. 

The three worlds that met and mingled here seemed to his imaginativetemperament very obvious, though it is doubtful if another mind lessintuitively equipped would have seen them so well-defined. There wasthe world of tourist English, civilised, quasi-educated, to which hebelonged by birth, at any rate; there was the world of peasants to whichhe felt himself drawn by sympathy--for he loved and admired theirtoiling, simple life; and there was this other--which he could only callthe world of Nature. To this last, however, in virtue of a vehementpoetic imagination, and a tumultuous pagan instinct fed by his veryblood, 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 centrallife. 

Between all three was conflict--potential conflict. On the skating-rinkeach Sunday the tourists regarded the natives as intruders; in thechurch the peasants plainly questioned: "Why do you come? We are hereto worship; you to stare and whisper!" For neither of these two worldsaccepted the other. And neither did Nature accept the tourists, for ittook advantage of their least mistakes, and indeed, even of thepeasant-world "accepted" only those who were strong and bold enough toinvade her savage domain with sufficient skill to protect themselvesfrom several forms of--death. 

Now Hibbert was keenly aware of this potential conflict and want ofharmony; he felt outside, yet caught by it--torn in the three directionsbecause he was partly of each world, but wholly in only one. Theregrew in him a constant, subtle effort--or, at least, desire--to unifythem and decide positively to which he should belong and live in. The attempt, of course, was largely subconscious. It was the naturalinstinct of a richly imaginative nature seeking the point ofequilibrium, so that the mind could feel at peace and his brain be freeto do good work. 

Among the guests no one especially claimed his interest. The men werenice but undistinguished--athletic schoolmasters, doctors snatching aholiday, good fellows all; the women, equally various--the clever, thewould-be-fast, the dare-to-be-dull, the women "who understood, " and theusual pack of jolly dancing girls and "flappers. " And Hibbert, with hisforty odd years of thick experience behind him, got on well with thelot; he understood them all; they belonged to definite, predigestedtypes that are the same the world over, and that he had met the worldover long ago. 

But to none of them did he belong. His nature was too "multiple" tosubscribe to the set of shibboleths of any one class. And, since allliked 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 thetourists were conscious that they fought for anything. And Nature, theysay, is merely blind and automatic. 

The assault upon him of the peasants may be left out of account, for itis obvious that they stood no chance of success. The tourist world, however, made a gallant effort to subdue him to themselves. But theevenings in the hotel, when dancing was not in order, were--English. Theprovincial imagination was set upon a throne and worshipped heavilythrough incense of the stupidest conventions possible. Hibbert used togo back early to his room in the post office to work. 

"It is a mistake on my part to have _realised_ that there is anyconflict at all, " he thought, as he crunched home over the snow atmidnight after one of the dances. "It would have been better to havekept outside it all and done my work. Better, " he added, looking backdown the silent village street to the church tower, "and--safer. "

The adjective slipped from his mind before he was aware of it. Heturned with an involuntary start and looked about him. He knew perfectlywell what it meant--this thought that had thrust its head up from theinstinctive region. He understood, without being able to express itfully, the meaning that betrayed itself in the choice of the adjective. For if he had ignored the existence of this conflict he would at thesame time, have remained outside the arena. Whereas now he had enteredthe lists. Now this battle for his soul must have issue. And he knewthat the spell of Nature was greater for him than all other spells inthe world combined--greater than love, revelry, pleasure, greater eventhan study. He had always been afraid to let himself go. His pagan souldreaded her terrific powers of witchery even while he worshipped. 

The little village already slept. The world lay smothered in snow. Thechalet roofs shone white beneath the moon, and pitch-black shadowsgathered against the walls of the church. His eye rested a moment on thesquare stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky: thentravelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountainsthat brushed the brilliant stars. Like a forest rose the huge peaksabove the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. Theybeckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of themidnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows ofthe night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from thevast wintry spaces down into his heart--and called him. Very softly, unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid itsspell upon him. Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. Thepower and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him. .. . 

Fumbling a moment with the big unwieldy key, he let himself in and wentupstairs to bed. Two thoughts went with him--apparently quite ordinaryand sensible ones:

"What fools these peasants are to sleep through such a night!" And theother:

"Those dances tire me. I'll never go again. My work only suffers in themorning. " The claims of peasants and tourists upon him seemed thus in asingle instant weakened. 

The clash of battle troubled half his dreams. Nature had sent her Beautyof 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 havesupper in my room--something hot. Come and join us. Hurry up!"

There had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up thesnow-slope to the hotel, called him. The Chinese lanterns smoked andsputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. The cold wasbitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds. From the shed where the people changed from skates to snow-boots heshouted something to the effect that he was "following"; but no answercame; the moving shadows of those who had called were already mergedhigh up against the village darkness. The voices died away. Doorsslammed. Hibbert found himself alone on the deserted rink. 

And it was then, quite suddenly, the impulse came to--stay and skatealone. The thought of the stuffy hotel room, and of those noisy peoplewith their obvious jokes and laughter, oppressed him. He felt a longingto be alone with the night; to taste her wonder all by himself therebeneath the stars, gliding over the ice. It was not yet midnight, and hecould skate for half an hour. That supper party, if they noticed hisabsence at all, would merely think he had changed his mind and gone tobed. 

It was an impulse, yes, and not an unnatural one; yet even at the timeit struck him that something more than impulse lay concealed behind it. More than invitation, yet certainly less than command, there was a vaguequeer feeling that he stayed because he had to, almost as though therewas something he had forgotten, overlooked, left undone. Imaginativetemperaments are often thus; and impulse is ever weakness. For with suchill-considered opening of the doors to hasty action may come an invasionof other forces at the same time--forces merely waiting theiropportunity perhaps!

He caught the fugitive warning even while he dismissed it as absurd, andthe next minute he was whirling over the smooth ice in delightful curvesand loops beneath the moon. There was no fear of collision. He couldtake his own speed and space as he willed. The shadows of the toweringmountains 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 wonderof the winter night that grew about him like a presence. He skated onand on, keen exhilarating pleasure in his tingling blood, and wearinessall forgotten. 

And then, midway in the delight of rushing movement, he saw a figuregliding behind the wire netting, watching him. With a start that almostmade him lose his balance--for the abruptness of the new arrival was sounlooked for--he paused and stared. Although the light was dim he madeout that it was the figure of a woman and that she was feeling her wayalong the netting, trying to get in. Against the white background of thesnow-field he watched her rather stealthy efforts as she passed with asilent 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 unawaresfrom hotel or chalet, and searching for the opening. At once, making asign and pointing with one hand, he turned swiftly and skated over tothe little entrance on the other side. 

But, even before he got there, there was a sound on the ice behind himand, with an exclamation of amazement he could not suppress, he turnedto see her swerving up to his side across the width of the rink. She hadsomehow 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 seekto make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But forthese two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, oftenof necessity brushing shoulders almost, was too absurd to think of. Accordingly he raised his cap and spoke. His actual words he seemsunable to recall, nor what the girl said in reply, except that sheanswered him in accented English with some commonplace about doingfigures at midnight on an empty rink. Quite natural it was, and right. She wore grey clothes of some kind, though not the customary long glovesor sweater, for indeed her hands were bare, and presently when he skatedwith her, he wondered with something like astonishment at their dry andicy coldness. 

And she was delicious to skate with--supple, sure, and light, fast as aman yet with the freedom of a child, sinuous and steady at the sametime. Her flexibility made him wonder, and when he asked where she hadlearned she murmured--he caught the breath against his ear and recalledlater that it was singularly cold--that she could hardly tell, for shehad been accustomed to the ice ever since she could remember. 

But her face he never properly saw. A muffler of white fur buried herneck to the ears, and her cap came over the eyes. He only saw that shewas young. Nor could he gather her hotel or chalet, for she pointedvaguely, 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 wishedto hide her escapade. And the touch of her hand thrilled him more thananything he could remember; even through his thick glove he felt thesoftness of that cold and delicate softness. 

The clouds thickened over the mountains. It grew darker. They talkedvery little, and did not always skate together. Often they separated, curving about in corners by themselves, but always coming together againin the centre of the rink; and when she left him thus Hibbert wasconscious of--yes, of missing her. He found a peculiar satisfaction, almost a fascination, in skating by her side. It was quite anadventure--these two strangers with the ice and snow and night!

Midnight had long since sounded from the old church tower before theyparted. She gave the sign, and he skated quickly to the shed, meaning tofind a seat and help her take her skates off. Yet when he turned--shehad already gone. He saw her slim figure gliding away across the snow. .. And hurrying for the last time round the rink alone he searched invain for the opening she had twice used in this curious way. 

"How very queer!" he thought, referring to the wire netting. "She musthave lifted it and wriggled under . .. !"

Wondering how in the world she managed it, what in the world hadpossessed him to be so free with her, and who in the world she was, hewent up the steep slope to the post office and so to bed, her promise tocome again another night still ringing delightfully in his ears. Andcurious were the thoughts and sensations that accompanied him. Most ofall, perhaps, was the half suggestion of some dim memory that he hadknown 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 andsoothing for all its quiet coldness--there lay some faint reminder oftwo others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman hehad loved, and--the voice of his mother. 

But this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. He wasconscious, rather, of something cold and clinging that made him think ofsifting snowflakes climbing slowly with entangling touch and thicknessround his feet. The snow, coming without noise, each flake so lightand tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles, yet the mass of itable to smother whole villages, wove through the very texture of hismind--cold, bewildering, deadening effort with its clinging network often 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, andthe sight of his work-table with its typewriter, books, papers, and therest, brought additional conviction. To have skated with a girl aloneat midnight, no matter how innocently the thing had come about, wasunwise--unfair, especially to her. Gossip in these little winter resortswas 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 ofskates. 

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 haunthim. When he "ski-d, " "luged, " or danced in the evenings, and especiallywhen he skated on the little rink, he was aware that the eyes of hismind forever sought this strange companion of the night. A hundred timeshe fancied that he saw her, but always sight deceived him. Her face hemight not know, but he could hardly fail to recognise her figure. Yetnowhere among the others did he catch a glimpse of that slim youngcreature he had skated with alone beneath the clouded stars. He searchedin vain. Even his inquiries as to the occupants of the private chaletsbrought no results. He had lost her. But the queer thing was that hefelt as though she were somewhere close; he _knew_ she had not reallygone. While people came and left with every day, it never once occurredto him that she had left. On the contrary, he felt assured that theywould meet again. 

This thought he never quite acknowledged. Perhaps it was the wish thatfathered it only. And, even when he did meet her, it was a question howhe would speak and claim acquaintance, or whether _she_ would recognisehimself. It might be awkward. He almost came to dread a meeting, though"dread, " of course, was far too strong a word to describe an emotionthat 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--inspite of his decision. This dancing was, however, an act of subconscioussurrender; it really meant he hoped to find her among the whirlingcouples. He was searching for her without quite acknowledging it tohimself; and the hotel-world, meanwhile, thinking it had won him over, teased and chaffed him. He made excuses in a similar vein; but all thetime he watched and searched and--waited. 

For several days the sky held clear and bright and frosty, bitterlycold, everything crisp and sparkling in the sun; but there was no signof fresh snow, and the ski-ers began to grumble. On the mountains was anicy crust that made "running" dangerous; they wanted the frozen, dry, and powdery snow that makes for speed, renders steering easier andfalling less severe. But the keen east wind showed no signs of changingfor a whole ten days. Then, suddenly, there came a touch of softer airand the weather-wise began to prophesy. 

Hibbert, who was delicately sensitive to the least change in earth orsky, was perhaps the first to feel it. Only he did not prophesy. He knewthrough every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the air, was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. For he respondedto the moods of Nature like a fine barometer. 

And the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange littlewayward emotion that was hard to account for--a feeling of unexplaineduneasiness and disquieting joy. For behind it, woven through it rather, ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely somewhere with thattouch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating "dread, " that sopuzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with his skatingcompanion of the night. It lay beyond all words, all telling, this queerrelationship between the two; but somehow the girl and snow ran in apair across his mind. 

Perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers, thesmallest change of mood betrays itself at once. His work at any raterevealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. Not thathis writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes ofsky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon intoevening--imperceptibly. A subconscious excitement sought to pushoutwards and express itself . .. And, knowing the uneven effect suchmoods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead toreading that he had to do. 

Meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew slowlyovercast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and sharp; thedistant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. The moistureincreased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must fall insnow. Hibbert watched and waited. 

And in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh whitecarpet. It snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, afoot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, thewind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountainswith its keenest and most biting tooth. The drop in the temperature wastremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. Next day the "running" wouldbe fast and perfect. Already the mass was settling, and the surfacefreezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski runalmost of their own accord with the faint "sishing" as of a bird's wingsthrough the air. 

IV

That night there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first becausethere 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 hewanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the other men, and atthe same time. .. . 

Ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. For thesingular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayeditself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent. Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul--heaven knows how he phrased iteven to himself, if he phrased it at all--whispered that with the snowthe 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 thelittle glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sitstraight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie uponthe shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright. "Ilook younger than I usually do, " he thought. It was unusual, evensignificant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance andcertainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he was. Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no fuelfor lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces of hissoul and mind not called upon for "work" and obvious duties, all went toNature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he loved;night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he felttheir claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught hisblood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But chieflysnow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white, seductivedreams. .. . For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had somehow comewith it--into his mind. 

And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coataskew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "What in the world is upwith me?" he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leavingthe room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk thatheld them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. Tied tothe lid was the visiting card with his brother's London address "in caseof accident. " On the way down to the hotel he wondered why he had donethis, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who dealt inpresentiments. Moods with him were strong, but ever held in leash. 

"It's almost like a warning, " he thought, smiling. He drew his thickcoat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. "Thosewarnings one reads of in stories sometimes . .. !"

A delicious happiness was in his blood. Over the edge of the hillsacross the valley rose the moon. He saw her silver sheet the world ofsnow. Snow covered all. It smothered sound and distance. It smotheredhouses, streets, and human beings. It smothered--life. 

V

In the hall there was light and bustle; people were already arrivingfrom the other hotels and chalets, their costumes hidden beneath manywraps. Groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking"snow" and "ski-ing. " The band was tuning up. The claims of thehotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. At the big glasswindows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way homefrom the _cafe_ to peer. Hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict heused to imagine. He laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal. Hebelonged so utterly to Nature and the mountains, and especially to thosedesolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and sweet, thatthere was no question of a conflict at all. The power of the newlyfallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. Out there, uponthose lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay ready--massesand masses of it--cool, soft, inviting. He longed for it. It awaitedhim. He thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in themoonlight. .. . 

Thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he stoodthere smoking with the other men and talking all the "shop" of ski-ing. 

And, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured alsothrough his inner being the power of the girl. He could not disabuse hismind of the insinuating presence of the two together. He remembered thatqueer 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 ofsuch a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of thedisorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinatecentre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. Witha kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered. 

And snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. The dancing couplestalked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meantgood sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips andexpeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed anddistance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm pulsedin the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currentsof creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowdedball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all thisdischarge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the--Snow. 

But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his paganyearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleamingin white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which hetransferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into thepersonality of the girl--the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was waitingfor him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues ofmoonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; thesoft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of herpresence in the way she came and the way she had gone again--like aflurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. She, like himself, belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her little windy voice comesifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name. .. That haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of hislife as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do. .. . 

But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. Hedanced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as eachgirl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows, hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come . .. And atlength, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned; groups leftone by one, going home to their hotels and chalets; the band tiredobviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, themen mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed. 

It was close on midnight. As Hibbert passed through the hall to get hisovercoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the "sport-room, "greasing their ski against an early start. Knapsack luncheons were beingordered by the kitchen swing doors. He sighed. Lighting a cigarette afriend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some question as towhether he could join their party in the morning. It seemed he did nothear it properly. He passed through the outer vestibule between thedouble glass doors, and went into the night. 

The man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxietymomentarily in his eyes. 

"Don't think he heard you, " said another, laughing. "You've got to shoutto Hibbert, his mind's so full of his work. "

"He works too hard, " suggested the first, "full of queer ideas anddreams. "

But Hibbert's silence was not rudeness. He had not caught theinvitation, that was all. The call of the hotel-world had faded. He nolonger heard it. Another wilder call was sounding in his ears. 

For up the street he had seen a little figure moving. Close against theshadows 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--yetwith it a searching, crying wildness for the heights. He knew by someincalculable, swift instinct she would not meet him in the villagestreet. It was not there, amid crowding houses, she would speak to him. Indeed, already she had disappeared, melted from view up the white vistaof the moonlit road. Yonder, he divined, she waited where the highwaynarrowed abruptly into the mountain path beyond the chalets. 

It did not even occur to him to hesitate; mad though it seemed, andwas--this sudden craving for the heights with her, at least for openspaces where the snow lay thick and fresh--it was too imperious to bedenied. He does not remember going up to his room, putting the sweaterover his evening clothes, and getting into the fur gauntlet gloves andthe helmet cap of wool. Most certainly he has no recollection offastening on his ski; he must have done it automatically. Some facultyof normal observation was in abeyance, as it were. His mind was outbeyond the village--out with the snowy mountains and the moon. 

Henri Defago, putting up the shutters over his _cafe_ windows, saw himpass, and wondered mildly: "Un monsieur qui fait du ski a cette heure!Il est Anglais, done . .. !" He shrugged his shoulders, as though a man hadthe right to choose his own way of death. And Marthe Perotti, thehunchback 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 andsnow-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 incidentuntil he found himself beyond the houses, searching for her along thefringe of forest where the moonlight met the snow in a bewilderingfrieze of fantastic shadows. And the incident was simply this--that heremembered passing the church. Catching the outline of its tower againstthe stars, he was aware of a faint sense of hesitation. A vagueuneasiness came and went--jarred unpleasantly across the flow of hisexcited feelings, chilling exhilaration. He caught the instant'sdiscord, dismissed it, and--passed on. The seduction of the snowsmothered the hint before he realised that it had brushed the skirts ofwarning. 

And then he saw her. She stood there waiting in a little clear space ofshining snow, dressed all in white, part of the moonlight and theglistening background, her slender figure just discernible. 

"I waited, for I knew you would come, " the silvery little voice of windybeauty 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--thewonder and the glory of the night and snow. Life leaped within him. Thepassion of his pagan soul exulted, rose in joy, flowed out to her. Heneither reflected nor considered, but let himself go like the veriestschoolboy 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. "Hereit is too near the village--and the church. "

And the words seemed wholly right and natural; he did not dream ofquestioning them; he understood that, with this little touch ofcivilisation in sight, the familiarity he suggested was impossible. Onceout upon the open mountains, 'mid the freedom of huge slopes andtowering peaks, the stars and moon to witness and the wilderness of snowto watch, they could taste an innocence of happy intercourse free fromthe dead conventions that imprison literal minds. 

He urged his pace, yet did not quite overtake her. The girl kept alwaysjust a little bit ahead of his best efforts. .. . And soon they left thetrees behind and passed on to the enormous slopes of the sea of snowthat rolled in mountainous terror and beauty to the stars. The wonder ofthe white world caught him away. Under the steady moonlight it was morethan haunting. It was a living, white, bewildering power thatdeliciously confused the senses and laid a spell of wild perplexity uponthe heart. It was a personality that cloaked, and yet revealed, itselfthrough all this sheeted whiteness of snow. It rose, went with him, fledbefore, and followed after. Slowly it dropped lithe, gleaming arms abouthis neck, gathering him in. .. . 

Certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him everforwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes. Judgment andreason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness ofintoxication. The girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, sothat he never quite came up with her. He saw the white enchantment ofher face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying likea wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of herwhispering voice that called from time to time: "A little farther on, alittle 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 armwithdrawn. They took a gentle angle of ascent. The toil seemed nothing. In this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished. The sishing of the skithrough the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that brokethe stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, was all he heard. Cold moonshine, snow, and silence held the world. Thesky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges ofiron and steel. Far below the valley slept, the village long sincehidden out of sight. He felt that he could never tire. .. . The sound ofthe church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air--moreand 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'llmake for home. " And her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring oftheir ski. His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison. 

"But I have never come so high before. It's glorious! This world ofsilent snow and moonlight--and _you_. You're a child of the snow, Iswear. Let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your littlehand. "

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'velooked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated--" he was goingto say "ten days ago, " but the accurate memory of time had gone fromhim; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. Histhoughts of earth were scattered and confused. 

"You looked for me in the wrong places, " he heard her murmur just abovehim. "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 icepassed through his very soul. She had touched him. 

"But this awful cold!" he cried out, sharply, "this freezing cold thattakes 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 girlwas gone again. And something in the way she stood there a few feetbeyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, madehim shiver. The moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he couldnot focus sight upon her face, although so close. The gleam of eyes hecaught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he lookedbeyond 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 himas he listened. Deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hardto resist. He felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there. .. . They had been climbing for five hours. .. . It was, of course, the warningof complete exhaustion. 

With a great effort he fought and overcame it. It passed away assuddenly as it came. 

"We'll turn, " he said with a decision he hardly felt. "It will be dawnbefore 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 akinto fear swept coldly through him. But her whispering answer turned itinstantly to terror--a terror that gripped him horribly and turned himweak 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 cannothear the wicked bells, " she cried, and for the first time seized himdeliberately by the hand. She moved, was suddenly close against hisface. Again she touched him. 

And Hibbert tried to turn away in escape, and so trying, found for thefirst time that the power of the snow--that other power which does notexhilarate but deadens effort--was upon him. The suffocating weaknessthat it brings to exhausted men, luring them to the sleep of death inher clinging soft embrace, lulling the will and conquering all desirefor 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 breathupon his cheeks; her hair passed blindingly across his eyes; and thaticy 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. Herarms were round his neck. She drew him softly downwards to his knees. Hesank; he yielded utterly; he obeyed. Her weight was upon him, smothering, delicious. The snow was to his waist. .. . She kissed himsoftly on the lips, the eyes, all over his face. And then she spoke hisname in that voice of love and wonder, the voice that held the accent oftwo 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 hestruggled that this soft weight about his heart was sweeter thananything life could ever bring, he let his muscles relax, and sank backinto the soft oblivion of the covering snow. Her wintry kisses bore himinto sleep. 

VII

They say that men who know the sleep of exhaustion in the snow find noawakening on the hither side of death. .. . The hours passed and the moonsank down below the white world's rim. Then, suddenly, there came alittle 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 notact; a numbing, aching pain possessed him. He uttered a long, thin cryfor help, and heard its faintness swallowed by the wind. And then heunderstood vaguely why he was only warm--not dead. For this very windthat took his cry had built up a sheltering mound of driven snow againsthis body while he slept. Like a curving wave it ran beside him. It wasthe breaking of its over-toppling edge that caused the crash, and thecoldness of the mass against his neck that woke him. 

Dawn kissed the eastern sky; pale gleams of gold shot every peak withsplendour; but ice was in the air, and the dry and frozen snow blew likepowder from the surface of the slopes. He saw the points of his skiprojecting just below him. Then he--remembered. It seems he had juststrength enough to realise that, could he but rise and stand, he mightfly with terrific impetus towards the woods and village far beneath. Theski would carry him. But if he failed and fell . .. !

How he contrived it Hibbert never knew; this fear of death somehowcalled out his whole available reserve force. He rose slowly, balanced amoment, then, taking the angle of an immense zigzag, started down theawful slopes like an arrow from a bow. And automatically the splendidmuscles of the practised ski-er and athlete saved and guided him, for hewas hardly conscious of controlling either speed or direction. The snowstung face and eyes like fine steel shot; ridge after ridge flew past;the summits raced across the sky; the valley leaped up with bounds tomeet him. He scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet as the hugeslopes and distance melted before the lightning speed of that descentfrom death to life. 

He took it in four mile-long zigzags, and it was the turning at eachcorner that nearly finished him, for then the strain of balancing taxedto the verge of collapse the remnants of his strength. 

Slopes that have taken hours to climb can be descended in a shorthalf-hour on ski, but Hibbert had lost all count of time. Quite otherthoughts and feelings mastered him in that wild, swift dropping throughthe air that was like the flight of a bird. For ever close upon hisheels came following forms and voices with the whirling snow-dust. Heheard that little silvery voice of death and laughter at his back. Shrill and wild, with the whistling of the wind past his ears, he caughtits pursuing tones; but in anger now, no longer soft and coaxing. And itwas accompanied; she did not follow alone. It seemed a host of theseflying figures of the snow chased madly just behind him. He felt themfuriously smite his neck and cheeks, snatch at his hands and try toentangle his feet and ski in drifts. His eyes they blinded, and theycaught his breath away. 

The terror of the heights and snow and winter desolation urged himforward in the maddest race with death a human being ever knew; and soterrific was the speed that before the gold and crimson had left thesummits to touch the ice-lips of the lower glaciers, he saw the friendlyforest far beneath swing up and welcome him. 

And it was then, moving slowly along the edge of the woods, he saw alight. A man was carrying it. A procession of human figures was passingin a dark line laboriously through the snow. And--he heard the sound ofchanting. 

Instinctively, without a second's hesitation, he changed his course. Nolonger flying at an angle as before, he pointed his ski straight downthe mountain-side. The dreadful steepness did not frighten him. He knewfull well it meant a crashing tumble at the bottom, but he also knew itmeant a doubling of his speed--with safety at the end. For, though nodefinite thought passed through his mind, he understood that it was thevillage _cure_ who carried that little gleaming lantern in the dawn, andthat he was taking the Host to a chalet on the lower slopes--to somepeasant _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 thewind before his face, and a rush of stinging snow against closedeyelids--and then he dropped through empty space. Speed took sight fromhim. It seemed he flew off the surface of the world. 

 * * * * *

Indistinctly he recalls the murmur of men's voices, the touch of strongarms that lifted him, and the shooting pains as the ski were unfastenedfrom the twisted ankle . .. For when he opened his eyes again to normallife he found himself lying in his bed at the post office with thedoctor 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, itseems, up slopes, and to a height that no man in his senses ever triedbefore. The tourists were agog about it for the rest of the season, andthe very same day two of the bolder men went over the actual ground andphotographed the slopes. Later Hibbert saw these photographs. He noticedone 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 wasstifling, but when he reached his little flat upon the top floor therecame a sound of wind. Wind was stirring about the world. It blew againsthis 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 claimattention, it called him. He peered through the window into the blurreddarkness, listening. 

There is no cry in the world like that of the homeless wind. A vagueexcitement, scarcely to be analysed, ran through his blood. The curtainof fog waved momentarily aside. Henriot fancied a star peeped down athim. 

"It will change things a bit--at last, " he sighed, settling back intohis chair. "It will bring movement!"

Already something in himself had changed. A restlessness, as of thatwandering wind, woke in his heart--the desire to be off and away. Otherthings could rouse this wildness too: falling water, the singing of abird, an odour of wood-fire, a glimpse of winding road. But the cry ofwind, always searching, questioning, travelling the world's greatroutes, remained ever the master-touch. High longing took his mood inhand. Mid seven millions he felt suddenly--lonely. 

"I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI 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 producedInnisfree passed strongly through him. He too would be over the hillsand far away. He craved movement, change, adventure--somewhere far fromshops and crowds and motor-'busses. For a week the fog had stifledLondon. 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 colourthrough the little room, flying on one another's heels. Henriot enjoyedthis 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 thehuge Caucasus beckoned in the sky beyond; a rustling in the umbrellapines and cactus at Marseilles, whence magic steamers start about theworld like flying dreams. He heard the plash of fountains upon MountIda's slopes, and the whisper of the tamarisk on Marathon. It was dawnonce 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 ofTempe, moistened by the spray of many waterfalls, he saw--Great Heavensabove!--the dancing of white forms . .. Or was it only mist the sunshinepainted against Pelion?. .. "Methought, among the lawns together, wewandered underneath the young grey dawn. And multitudes of dense whitefleecy clouds shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind. .. . "

And then, into his stuffy room, slipped the singing perfume of awall-flower on a ruined tower, and with it the sweetness of hot ivy. Heheard the "yellow bees in the ivy bloom. " Wind whipped over the openhills--this very wind that laboured drearily through the London fog. 

And--he was caught. The darkness melted from the city. The fog whiskedoff into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into booming of thesea. There was a whistling among cordage, and the floor swayed to andfro. He saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. Thesyren hooted--ominous sound that had started him on many a journey ofadventure--and the roar of London became mere insignificant clatter of achild'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 knownworld behind you, and come with me for better or for worse! The anchoris up; it is too late to change. Only--beware! You shall know curiousthings--and alone!"

Henriot stirred uneasily in his chair. He turned with sudden energy tothe shelf of guide-books, maps and time-tables--possessions he mostvalued in the whole room. He was a happy-go-lucky, adventure-lovingsoul, careless of common standards, athirst ever for the new andstrange. 

"That's the best of having a cheap flat, " he laughed, "and no ties inthe world. I can turn the key and disappear. No one cares or knows--noone but the thieving caretaker. And he's long ago found out that there'snothing here worth taking!"

There followed then no lengthy indecision. Preparation was even shorterstill. He was always ready for a move, and his sojourn in cities was butbreathing-space while he gathered pennies for further wanderings. Anenormous kit-bag--sack-shaped, very worn and dirty--emerged speedilyfrom the bottom of a cupboard in the wall. It was of limitless capacity. The key and padlock rattled in its depths. Cigarette ashes coveredeverything while he stuffed it full of ancient, indescribable garments. And his voice, singing of those "yellow bees in the ivy bloom, " mingledwith the crying of the rising wind about his windows. His restlessnesshad disappeared by magic. 

This time, however, there could be no haunted Pelion, nor shady grovesof Tempe, for he lived in sophisticated times when money marketsregulated movement sternly. Travelling was only for the rich; merewanderers must pig it. He remembered instead an opportune invitation tothe Desert. "Objective" invitation, his genial hosts had called it, knowing his hatred of convention. And Helouan danced into letters ofbrilliance upon the inner map of his mind. For Egypt had ever held hisspirit in thrall, though as yet he had tried in vain to touch the greatburied soul of her. The excavators, the Egyptologists, thearchaeologists most of all, plastered her grey ancient face with labelslike hotel advertisements on travellers' portmanteaux. They told whereshe had come from last, but nothing of what she dreamed and thought andloved. The heart of Egypt lay beneath the sand, and the trifling robberyof little details that poked forth from tombs and temples brought notrue revelation of her stupendous spiritual splendour. Henriot, in hisyouth, had searched and dived among what material he could find, believing once--or half believing--that the ceremonial of that ancientsystem veiled a weight of symbol that was reflected from genuinesupersensual knowledge. The rituals, now taken literally, and sopityingly 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 hisidea. "Curious, " they said, then turned away--to go on digging in thesand. Sand smothered her world to-day. Excavators discovered skeletons. Museums everywhere stored them--grinning, literal relics that toldnothing. 

But now, while he packed and sang, these hopes of enthusiastic youngerdays stirred again--because the emotion that gave them birth was realand true in him. Through the morning mists upon the Nile an old pyramidbowed hugely at him across London roofs: "Come, " he heard its awfulwhisper 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 shipsthat make no earthly port. And he imagined them as one: multipleexpressions of some single unearthly portent they adumbrated in mightyform--dead symbols of some spiritual conception long vanished from theworld. 

"I mustn't dream like this, " he laughed, "or I shall get absent-mindedand pack fire-tongs instead of boots. It looks like a jumble salealready!" And he stood on a heap of things to wedge them down stilltighter. 

But the pictures would not cease. He saw the kites circling high in theblue air. A couple of white vultures flapped lazily away over shiningmiles. Felucca sails, like giant wings emerging from the ground, curvedtowards him from the Nile. The palm-trees dropped long shadows overMemphis. He felt the delicious, drenching heat, and the Khamasin, thatover-wind from Nubia, brushed his very cheeks. In the little gardens themish-mish was in bloom. .. . He smelt the Desert . .. Grey sepulchre ofcancelled cycles. .. . The stillness of her interminable reaches droppeddown 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 ofclothing ran into shapes of gleaming Bedouin faces; London garmentssettled down with the mournful sound of camels' feet, half droppingwind, half water flowing underground--sound that old Time has broughtover into modern life and left a moment for our wonder and perhaps ourtears. 

He rose at length with the excitement of some deep enchantment in hiseyes. The thought of Egypt plunged ever so deeply into him, carryinghim into depths where he found it difficult to breathe, so strangely faraway it seemed, yet indefinably familiar. He lost his way. A touch offear came with it. 

"A sack like that is the wonder of the world, " he laughed again, kickingthe unwieldy, sausage-shaped monster into a corner of the room, andsitting down to write the thrilling labels: "Felix Henriot, Alexandria_via_ Marseilles. " But his pen blotted the letters; there was sand init. He rewrote the words. Then he remembered a dozen things he had leftout. Impatiently, yet with confusion somewhere, he stuffed them in. Theyran away into shifting heaps; they disappeared; they emerged suddenlyagain. It was like packing hot, dry, flowing sand. From the pockets of acoat--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 ofEgypt, and of moving, sifting sand. Arabs and Afreets danced amazinglytogether across dunes he could never reach. For he could not follow fastenough. Something infinitely older than these ever caught his feet andheld him back. A million tiny fingers stung and pricked him. Somethingflung a veil before his eyes. Once it touched him--his face and handsand neck. "Stay here with us, " he heard a host of muffled voices crying, but their sound was smothered, buried, rising through the ground. Amyriad throats were choked. Till, at last, with a violent effort heturned and seized it. And then the thing he grasped at slipped betweenhis fingers and ran easily away. It had a grey and yellow face, and itmoved through all its parts. It flowed as water flows, and yet wassolid. 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 ofnameless colouring. He caught a voice. It rolled and boomed andwhispered like the wind. And then he woke, with a curious shaking in hisheart, 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 asteamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparklingsea towards Alexandria. Gladly he saw the Riviera fade below thehorizon, with its hard bright sunshine, treacherous winds, and its smearof rich, conventional English. All restlessness now had left him. Truevagabond still at forty, he only felt the unrest and discomfort of lifewhen caught in the network of routine and rigid streets, no chance ofbreaking 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 Americanwoman who walked out of her Long Island house one summer's day to lookat a passing sail--and was gone eight years before she walked in again. Eight years of roving travel! He had always felt respect and admirationfor that woman. 

For Felix Henriot, with his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopheras well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimesbreaking out through fissures in his complex nature. He had seen muchlife; had read many books. The passionate desire of youth to solve theworld's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brimwith wonder. Anything _might_ be true. Nothing surprised him. The mostoutlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. Hehad escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe theirvanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of theuniverse 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 shapedfor themselves somehow a dramatic form. "It's like a story, " his friendssaid when he told his travels. It always was a story. 

But the adventure that lay waiting for him where the silent streets oflittle Helouan kiss the great Desert's lips, was of a different kind toany Henriot had yet encountered. Looking back, he has often askedhimself, "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 ofthe Desert; he settled down into the peace of soft and silent littleHelouan. The hotel in which he had a room on the top floor had beenformerly a Khedivial Palace. It had the air of a palace still. He felthimself in a country-house, with lofty ceilings, cool and airycorridors, spacious halls. Soft-footed Arabs attended to his wants;white walls let in light and air without a sign of heat; there was afeeling of a large, spread tent pitched on the very sand; and the windthat stirred the oleanders in the shady gardens also crept in to rustlethe palm leaves of his favourite corner seat. Through the large windowswhere once the Khedive held high court, the sunshine blazed upon vistaedleagues of Desert. 

And from his bedroom windows he watched the sun dip into gold andcrimson behind the swelling Libyan sands. This side of the pyramids hesaw the Nile meander among palm groves and tilled fields. Across hisbalcony railings the Egyptian stars trooped down beside his very bed, shaping old constellations for his dreams; while, to the south, helooked out upon the vast untamable Body of the sands that carpeted theworld for thousands of miles towards Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the dreadSahara itself. He wondered again why people thought it necessary to goso far afield to know the Desert. Here, within half an hour of Cairo, itlay breathing solemnly at his very doors. 

For little Helouan, caught thus between the shoulders of the Libyan andArabian Deserts, is utterly sand-haunted. The Desert lies all round itlike a sea. Henriot felt he never could escape from it, as he movedabout the island whose coasts are washed with sand. Down each broad andshining street the two end houses framed a vista of its dimimmensity--glimpses of shimmering blue, or flame-touched purple. Therewere stretches of deep sea-green as well, far off upon its bosom. Thestreets were open channels of approach, and the eye ran down them asalong the tube of a telescope laid to catch incredible distance out ofspace. Through them the Desert reached in with long, thin feelerstowards the village. Its Being flooded into Helouan, and over it. Pastwalls and houses, churches and hotels, the sea of Desert pressed insilently with its myriad soft feet of sand. It poured in everywhere, through crack and slit and crannie. These were reminders of possessionand ownership. And every passing wind that lifted eddies of dust at thestreet corners were messages from the quiet, powerful Thing thatpermitted Helouan to lie and dream so peacefully in the sunshine. Mereartificial oasis, its existence was temporary, held on lease, just forninety-nine centuries or so. 

This sea idea became insistent. For, in certain lights, and especiallyin the brief, bewildering dusk, the Desert rose--swaying towards thesmall 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 oftides. And underneath flowed resolute currents, linking distance to thecentre. These many deserts were really one. A storm, just retreated, hadtossed Helouan upon the shore and left it there to dry; but any morninghe would wake to find it had been carried off again into the depths. Some fragment, at least, would disappear. The grim Mokattam Hills wererollers that ever threatened to topple down and submerge the sandy barthat men called Helouan. 

Being soundless, and devoid of perfume, the Desert's message reached himthrough two senses only--sight and touch; chiefly, of course, theformer. Its invasion was concentrated through the eyes. And vision, thusuncorrected, went what pace it pleased. The Desert played with him. Sandstole into his being--through the eyes. 

And so obsessing was this majesty of its close presence, that Henriotsometimes wondered how people dared their little social activitieswithin its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and tennis uponreclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard upon itsfrontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable Thing laybreathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out. The challengeof their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost provocative. Their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference. They ranfool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their vulgarhearts. With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap touristhorde 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 dwarfedhumanity. These people had been wiser to choose another place for theflaunting 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 whoemphasised the protest in him to the point of definite contempt. Overdressed, the latest worldly novel under their arms, they struttedthe narrow pavements of their tiny world, immensely pleased withthemselves. Their vacuous minds expressed themselves in the slang oftheir exclusive circle--value being the element excluded. The pettinessof their outlook hardly distressed him--he was too familiar with it athome--but their essential vulgarity, their innate ugliness, seemed morethan usually offensive in the grandeur of its present setting. Into themighty sands they took the latest London scandal, gabbling it over evenamong the Tombs and Temples. And "it was to laugh, " the pains they spentwondering whom they might condescend to know, never dreaming that theythemselves were not worth knowing. Against the background of the nobleDesert their titles seemed the cap and bells of clowns. 

And Henriot, knowing some of them personally, could not always escapetheir insipid company. Yet he was the gainer. They little guessed howtheir commonness heightened contrast, set mercilessly thus beside thestrange, eternal beauty of the sand. 

Occasionally the protest in his soul betrayed itself in words, whichof course they did not understand. "He is so clever, isn't he?"And then, having relieved his feelings, he would comfort himselfcharacteristically:

"The Desert has not noticed them. The Sand is not aware of theirexistence. How should the sea take note of rubbish that lies above itstide-line?"

For Henriot drew near to its great shifting altars in an attitude ofworship. The wilderness made him kneel in heart. Its shining reaches ledto the oldest Temple in the world, and every journey that he made waslike a sacrament. For him the Desert was a consecrated place. It wassacred. 

And his tactful hosts, knowing his peculiarities, left their house opento him when he cared to come--they lived upon the northern edge of theoasis--and he was as free as though he were absolutely alone. He blessedthem; he rejoiced that he had come. Little Helouan accepted him. TheDesert 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 whosat at an adjoining table, and whose personality stirred his interest. While affecting to look elsewhere, he studied him as closely as mightbe. There was something about the stranger that touched hiscuriosity--a certain air of expectation that he wore. But it was morethan that: it was anticipation, apprehension in it somewhere. The manwas nervous, uneasy. His restless way of suddenly looking about himproved it. Henriot tried every one else in the room as well; but, thoughhis thought settled on others too, he always came back to the figure ofthis solitary being opposite, who ate his dinner as if afraid of beingseen, and glanced up sometimes as if fearful of being watched. Henriot'scuriosity, 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, orjust--a crank?" was the thought that first occurred to him. And thequestion suggested itself without amusement. The impression ofsubterfuge and caution he conveyed left his observer unsatisfied. 

The face was clean shaven, dark, and strong; thick hair, straight yetbushy, was slightly unkempt; it was streaked with grey; and anunexpected mobility when he smiled ran over the features that he seemedto hold rigid by deliberate effort. The man was cut to no quite commonmeasure. Henriot jumped to an intuitive conclusion: "He's not here forpleasure or merely sight-seeing. Something serious has brought him outto Egypt. " For the face combined too ill-assorted qualities: anobstinate tenacity that might even mean brutality, and was certainlyrepulsive, yet, with it, an undecipherable dreaminess betrayed by linesof the mouth, but above all in the very light blue eyes, so rarelyraised. Those eyes, he felt, had looked upon unusual things;"dreaminess" was not an adequate description; "searching" conveyed itbetter. The true source of the queer impression remained elusive. Andhence, perhaps, the incongruous marriage in the face--mobility laid upona matter-of-fact foundation underneath. The face showed conflict. 

And Henriot, watching him, felt decidedly intrigued. "I'd like to knowthat man, and all about him. " His name, he learned later, was RichardVance; from Birmingham; a business man. But it was not the Birmingham hewished to know; it was the--other: cause of the elusive, dreamysearching. Though facing one another at so short a distance, their eyes, however, did not meet. And this, Henriot well knew, was a sure sign thathe 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. Anopportunity would certainly present itself. The first links in a curiouschain had already caught; soon the chain would tighten, pull as thoughby chance, and bring their lives into one and the same circle. Wonderingin 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 notuncommonly it proved correct. 

Following instinct, therefore, he took no steps towards acquaintance, and for several days, owing to the fact that he dined frequently withhis hosts, he saw nothing more of Richard Vance, the business man fromBirmingham. Then, one night, coming home late from his friend's house, he had passed along the great corridor, and was actually a step or sointo his bedroom, when a drawling voice sounded close behind him. It wasan unpleasant sound. It was very near him too--

"I beg your pardon, but have you, by any chance, such a thing as acompass you could lend me?"

The voice was so close that he started. Vance stood within touchingdistance of his body. He had stolen up like a ghostly Arab, must havefollowed him, too, some little distance, for further down the passagethe light of an open door--he had passed it on his way--showed where hecame from. 

"Eh? I beg your pardon? A--compass, did you say?" He felt disconcertedfor a moment. How short the man was, now that he saw him standing. Broadand powerful too. Henriot looked down upon his thick head of hair. Thepersonality and voice repelled him. Possibly his face, caught unawares, betrayed this. 

"Forgive my startling you, " said the other apologetically, while thesofter expression danced in for a moment and disorganised the rigid setof the face. "The soft carpet, you know. I'm afraid you didn't hear mytread. I wondered"--he smiled again slightly at the nature of therequest--"if--by any chance--you had a pocket compass you could lendme?"

"Ah, a compass, yes! Please don't apologise. I believe I have one--ifyou'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 sohappened, 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. Youwill forgive my disturbing you at such an hour. My own is broken, and Iwanted--er--to find the true north. "

Henriot stammered some reply, and the man was gone. It was all over in aminute. He locked his door and sat down in his chair to think. Thelittle incident had upset him, though for the life of him he could notimagine why. It ought by rights to have been almost ludicrous, yetinstead it was the exact reverse--half threatening. Why should not a manwant a compass? But, again, why should he? And at midnight? The voice, the eyes, the near presence--what did they bring that set his nervesthus asking unusual questions? This strange impression that somethinggrave was happening, something unearthly--how was it born exactly? Theman's proximity came like a shock. It had made him start. Hebrought--thus the idea came unbidden to his mind--something with himthat galvanised him quite absurdly, as fear does, or delight, or greatwonder. There was a music in his voice too--a certain--well, he couldonly 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, butreal. And then, for the first time, he discovered that the man hadbrought a faint, elusive suggestion of perfume with him, an aromaticodour, that made him think of priests and churches. The ghost of itstill lingered in the air. Ah, here then was the origin of the notionthat his voice had chanted: it was surely the suggestion of incense. Butincense, intoning, a compass to find the true north--at midnight in aDesert hotel!

A touch of uneasiness ran through the curiosity and excitement that hefelt. 

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 findexplanation 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 ofsorts; possibly an astrologer into the bargain! Why not? The stars werewonderful above Helouan. Was there not an observatory on the MokattamHills, 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 thestranger perhaps was looking through some wonderful apparatus at theheavens. Their rooms were on the same side. But the shuttered windowsrevealed no stooping figure with eyes glued to a telescope. The starsblinked in their many thousands down upon the silent desert. The nightheld neither sound nor movement. There was a cool breeze blowing acrossthe Nile from the Lybian Sands. It nipped; and he stepped back quicklyinto the room again. Drawing the mosquito curtains carefully about thebed, he put the light out and turned over to sleep. 

And sleep came quickly, contrary to his expectations, though it was alight and surface sleep. That last glimpse of the darkened Desert lyingbeneath the Egyptian stars had touched him with some hand of awful powerthat ousted the first, lesser excitement. It calmed and soothed him inone sense, yet in another, a sense he could not understand, it caughthim in a net of deep, deep feelings whose mesh, while infinitelydelicate, was utterly stupendous. His nerves this deeper emotion leftalone: it reached instead to something infinite in him that mere nervescould neither deal with nor interpret. The soul awoke and whispered inhim while his body slept. 

And the little, foolish dreams that ran to and fro across this veil ofsurface sleep brought oddly tangled pictures of things quite tiny and atthe same time of others that were mighty beyond words. With these twocounters Nightmare played. They interwove. There was the figure of thisdark-faced man with the compass, measuring the sky to find the truenorth, and there were hints of giant Presences that hovered just outsidesome curious outline that he traced upon the ground, copied in somenightmare fashion from the heavens. The excitement caused by hisvisitor's singular request mingled with the profounder sensations hisfinal look at the stars and Desert stirred. The two were somehowinter-related. 

Some hours later, before this surface sleep passed into genuine slumber, Henriot woke--with an appalling feeling that the Desert had comecreeping 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, sharptapping came against the window panes. 

He sprang instantly out of bed, not yet awake enough to feel actualalarm, yet with the nightmare touch still close enough to cause a sortof feverish, loose bewilderment. He switched the lights on. A momentlater he knew the meaning of that curious tapping, for the rising windwas flinging tiny specks of sand against the glass. The idea that theyhad summoned him belonged, of course, to dream. 

He opened the window, and stepped out on to the balcony. The stone wasvery cold under his bare feet. There was a wash of wind all over him. Hesaw the sheet of glimmering, pale desert near and far; and somethingstung his skin below the eyes. 

"The sand, " he whispered, "again the sand; always the sand. Waking orsleeping, the sand is everywhere--nothing but sand, sand, Sand. .. . "

He rubbed his eyes. It was like talking in his sleep, talking to Someonewho had questioned him just before he woke. But was he really properlyawake? 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 winddied down. 

And Henriot went back to sleep, caught instantly away intounconsciousness; covered, blinded, swept over by this spreading thing ofreddish brown with the great, grey face, whose Being was colossal yetquite tiny, and whose fingers, wings and eyes were countless as thestars. 

But all night long it watched and waited, rising to peer above thelittle balcony, and sometimes entering the room and piling up beside hisvery pillow. He dreamed of Sand. 

III

For some days Henriot saw little of the man who came from Birmingham andpushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle ofthe night. For one thing, he was a good deal with his friends upon theother side of Helouan, and for another, he slept several nights in theDesert. 

He loved the gigantic peace the Desert gave him. The world was forgottenthere; and not the world merely, but all memory of it. Everything fadedout. The soul turned inwards upon itself. 

An Arab boy and donkey took out sleeping-bag, food and water to the WadiHof, a desolate gorge about an hour eastwards. It winds between cliffswhose 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 anarm of the Desert that shifted with the changing lights. Here he watcheddawns and sunsets, slept through the mid-day heat, and enjoyed theunearthly colouring that swept Day and Night across the huge horizons. In solitude the Desert soaked down into him. At night the jackals criedin the darkness round his cautiously-fed camp fire--small, because woodhad to be carried--and in the day-time kites circled overhead to inspecthim, and an occasional white vulture flapped across the blue. The weirddesolation of this rocky valley, he thought, was like the scenery of themoon. He took no watch with him, and the arrival of the donkey boy anhour after sunrise came almost from another planet, bringing things oftime and common life out of some distant gulf where they had lainforgotten among lost ages. 

The short hour of twilight brought, too, a bewitchment into the silencethat was a little less than comfortable. Full light or darkness he couldmanage, but this time of half things made him want to shut his eyes andhide. Its effect stepped over imagination. The mind got lost. He couldnot understand it. For the cliffs and boulders of discoloured limestoneshone then with an inward glow that signalled to the Desert with veiledlanterns. The misshappen hills, carved by wind and rain into ominousoutlines, stirred and nodded. In the morning light they retired intothemselves, asleep. But at dusk the tide retreated. They rose from thesea, emerging naked, threatening. They ran together and joinedshoulders, the entire army of them. And the glow of their sandy bodies, self-luminous, continued even beneath the stars. Only the moonlightdrowned it. For the moonrise over the Mokattam Hills brought a white, grand loveliness that drenched the entire Desert. It drew a marvelloussweetness from the sand. It shone across a world as yet unfinished, whereon no life might show itself for ages yet to come. He was alonethen upon an empty star, before the creation of things that breathed andmoved. 

What impressed him, however, more than everything else was the enormousvitality that rose out of all this apparent death. There was no hint ofthe melancholy that belongs commonly to flatness; the sadness of wide, monotonous landscape was not here. The endless repetition of sweepingvale and plateau brought infinity within measurable comprehension. Hegrasped a definite meaning in the phrase "world without end": theDesert had no end and no beginning. It gave him a sense of eternalpeace, the silent peace that star-fields know. Instead of subduing thesoul 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 includemelancholy, too deep to betray itself in movement. Here was thestillness of eternity. Behind the spread grey masque of apparent deathlay stores of accumulated life, ready to break forth at any point. Inthe Desert he felt himself absolutely royal. 

And this contrast of Life, veiling itself in Death, was a contradictionthat somehow intoxicated. The Desert exhilaration never left him. He wasnever 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--withthe feeling that these few days and nights had been immeasurable, andthat he had been away a thousand years. He came back with the magic ofthe 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 atany rate--with an uncommon sharpness of receptive judgment. He returnedto a life somehow mean and meagre, resuming insignificance with hisdinner 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 besidehim, its purity focussing judgment like a lens. The specks of smalleremotions left it clear at first, and as his eye wandered vaguely overthe people assembled in the dining-room, it was arrested with a vividshock upon two figures at the little table facing him. 

He had forgotten Vance, the Birmingham man who sought the North atmidnight with a pocket compass. He now saw him again, with an intuitivediscernment entirely fresh. Before memory brought up her cloudingassociations, some brilliance flashed a light upon him. "That man, "Henriot thought, "might have come with me. He would have understood andloved it!" But the thought was really this--a moment's reflection spreadit, rather: "He belongs somewhere to the Desert; the Desert brought himout here. " And, again, hidden swiftly behind it like a movement runningbelow water--"What does he want with it? What is the deeper motive heconceals? 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 wasoccupied at last. Unlike his first encounter with the man, she lookedstraight at him. Their eyes met fully. For several seconds there wassteady mutual inspection, while her penetrating stare, intent withoutbeing 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 shelowered her eyes he felt that many things had happened, as in a longperiod of intimate conversation. Her mind had judged him through andthrough. Questions and answer flashed. They were no longer strangers. For the rest of dinner, though he was careful to avoid directinspection, he was aware that she felt his presence and was secretlyspeaking with him. She asked questions beneath her breath. The answersrose with the quickened pulses in his blood. Moreover, she explainedRichard Vance. It was this woman's power that shone reflected in theman. She was the one who knew the big, unusual things. Vance merelyechoed 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 allthrough the meal: she had moved to his table, it seemed she sat besidehim. Their minds certainly knew contact from that moment. 

It is never difficult to credit strangers with the qualities andknowledge that oneself craves for, and no doubt Henriot's active fancywent 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 alwayslonged to know. There was knowledge and guidance she could impart. Hersoul was searching among ancient things. Her face brought the Desertback into his thoughts. And with it came--the sand. 

Here was the flash. The sight of her restored the peace and splendour hehad left behind him in his Desert camps. The rest, of course, was whathis imagination constructed upon this slender basis. Only, --not all ofit was imagination. 

Now, Henriot knew little enough of women, and had no pose of"understanding" them. His experience was of the slightest; the love andveneration felt for his own mother had set the entire sex upon theheights. His affairs with women, if so they may be called, had beentransient--all but those of early youth, which having never known thedevastating test of fulfilment, still remained ideal and superb. Therewas unconscious humour in his attitude--from a distance; for he regardedwomen with wonder and respect, as puzzles that sweetened but complicatedlife, might even endanger it. He certainly was not a marrying man! Butnow, as he felt the presence of this woman so deliberately possess him, there came over him two clear, strong messages, each vivid withcertainty. One was that banal suggestion of familiarity claimed bylovers and the like--he had often heard of it--"I have known that womanbefore; I have met her ages ago somewhere; she is strangely familiar tome"; and the other, growing out of it almost: "Have nothing to do withher; she will bring you trouble and confusion; avoid her, and bewarned";--in fact, a distinct presentiment. 

Yet, although Henriot dismissed both impressions as having no shred ofevidence to justify them, the original clear judgment, as he studied herextraordinary countenance, persisted through all denials Thefamiliarity, and the presentiment, remained. There also remained thisother--an enormous imaginative leap!--that she could teach him "Egypt. "

He watched her carefully, in a sense fascinated. He could only describethe face as black, so dark it was with the darkness of great age. Elderly was the obvious, natural word; but elderly described thefeatures only. The expression of the face wore centuries. Nor was itmerely the coal-black eyes that betrayed an ancient, age-travelled soulbehind them. The entire presentment mysteriously conveyed it. Thiswoman's heart knew long-forgotten things--the thought kept beating upagainst him. There were cheek-bones, oddly high, that made him thinkinvoluntarily of the well-advertised Pharaoh, Ramases; a square, deepjaw; and an aquiline nose that gave the final touch of power. For thepower undeniably was there, and while the general effect had grimness init, there was neither harshness nor any forbidding touch about it. Therewas an implacable sternness in the set of lips and jaw, and, mostcurious of all, the eyelids over the steady eyes of black were level asa ruler. This level framing made the woman's stare remarkable beyonddescription. Henriot thought of an idol carved in stone, stone hard andblack, with eyes that stared across the sand into a world of thingsnon-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 thepossible lives of herself and her companion, though without muchsuccess. Imagination soon stopped dead. She was not old enough to beVance's mother, and assuredly she was not his wife. His interest wasmore than merely piqued--it was puzzled uncommonly. What was thecontrast that made the man seem beside her--vile? Whence came, too, theimpression that she exercised some strong authority, though neverdirectly exercised, that held him at her mercy? How did he guess thatthe man resented it, yet did not dare oppose, and that, apparentlyacquiescing good-humouredly, his will was deliberately held in abeyance, and that he waited sulkily, biding his time? There was furtiveness inevery gesture and expression. A hidden motive lurked in him;unworthiness somewhere; he was determined yet ashamed. He watched herceaselessly and with such uncanny closeness. 

Henriot imagined he divined all this. He leaped to the guess that hisexpenses were being paid. A good deal more was being paid besides. Shewas a rich relation, from whom he had expectations; he was serving hisseven years, ashamed of his servitude, ever calculating escape--but, perhaps, no ordinary escape. A faint shudder ran over him. He drew inthe reins of imagination. 

Of course, the probabilities were that he was hopelessly astray--oneusually is on such occasions--but this time, it so happened, he wassingularly right. Before one thing only his ready invention stoppedevery time. This vileness, this notion of unworthiness in Vance, couldnot be negative merely. A man with that face was no inactive weakling. The motive he was at such pains to conceal, betraying its existence bythat very fact, moved, surely, towards aggressive action. Disguised, itnever slept. Vance was sharply on the alert. He had a plan deep out ofsight. And Henriot remembered how the man's soft approach along thecarpeted corridor had made him start. He recalled the quasi shock itgave him. He thought again of the feeling of discomfort he hadexperienced. 

Next, his eager fancy sought to plumb the business these two hadtogether in Egypt--in the Desert. For the Desert, he felt convinced, hadbrought them out. But here, though he constructed numerous explanations, another barrier stopped him. Because he _knew_. This woman was in touchwith 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 themeanings they once represented, buried so utterly by the sands of laterthought. 

And here, being ignorant, he found no clue that could lead to anysatisfactory 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 realagain. He hesitated. Caution acted. He would think twice before takingsteps to form acquaintance. "Better not, " thought whispered. "Betterleave them alone, this queer couple. They're after things that won't doyou any good. " This idea of mischief, almost of danger, in theirpurposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? But, while he hesitated, Fate, who sent the warning, pushed him at the sametime into the circle of their lives: at first tentatively--he mightstill have escaped; but soon urgently--curiosity led him inexorablytowards the end. 

IV

It was so simple a manoeuvre by which Fate began the innocent game. Thewoman left a couple of books behind her on the table one night, andHenriot, after a moment's hesitation, took them out after her. He knewthe titles--_The House of the Master_, and _The House of the HiddenPlaces_, both singular interpretations of the Pyramids that once hadheld his own mind spellbound. Their ideas had been since disproved, ifhe remembered rightly, yet the titles were a clue--a clue to thatimaginative part of his mind that was so busy constructing theories andhad found its stride. Loose sheets of paper, covered with notes in aminute handwriting, lay between the pages; but these, of course, he didnot read, noticing only that they were written round designs of variouskinds--intricate designs. 

He discovered Vance in a corner of the smoking-lounge. The woman haddisappeared. 

Vance thanked him politely. "My aunt is so forgetful sometimes, " hesaid, and took them with a covert eagerness that did not escape theother's observation. He folded up the sheets and put them carefully inhis pocket. On one there was an ink-sketched map, crammed with detail, that might well have referred to some portion of the Desert. The pointsof the compass stood out boldly at the bottom. There were involvedgeometrical designs again. Henriot saw them. They exchanged, then, thecommonplaces of conversation, but these led to nothing further. Vancewas nervous and betrayed impatience. He presently excused himself andleft the lounge. Ten minutes later he passed through the outer hall, thewoman 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 ofquestioning in that glance; it might almost have been a tentativeinvitation. But, also, he wanted to see if their exit had beenparticularly noticed--and by whom. 

This, briefly told, was the first manoeuvre by which Fate introducedthem. There was nothing in it. The details were so insignificant, soslight the conversation, so meagre the pieces thus added to Henriot'simaginative structure. Yet they somehow built it up and made it solid;the outline in his mind began to stand foursquare. That writing, thosedesigns, the manner of the man, their going out together, the finalcurious look--each and all betrayed points of a hidden thing. Subconsciously he was excavating their buried purposes. The sand wasshifting. The concentration of his mind incessantly upon them removed itgrain by grain and speck by speck. Tips of the smothered thing emerged. Presently a subsidence would follow with a rush and light would blazeupon its skeleton. He felt it stirring underneath his feet--this flowingmovement of light, dry, heaped-up sand. It was always--sand. 

Then other incidents of a similar kind came about, clearing the way to anatural acquaintanceship. Henriot watched the process with amusement, yet with another feeling too that was only a little less than anxiety. Akeen observer, no detail escaped him; he saw the forces of their livesdraw closer. It made him think of the devices of young people who desireto know one another, yet cannot get a proper introduction. Fatecondescended to such little tricks. They wanted a third person, he beganto feel. A third was necessary to some plan they had on hand, and--theywaited to see if he could fill the place. This woman, with whom he hadyet exchanged no single word, seemed so familiar to him, well known foryears. They weighed and watched him, wondering if he would do. 

None of the devices were too obviously used, but at length Henriotpicked up so many forgotten articles, and heard so many significantphrases, casually let fall, that he began to feel like the villain in amachine-made play, where the hero for ever drops clues his enemy isintended to discover. 

Introduction followed inevitably. "My aunt can tell you; she knowsArabic perfectly. " He had been discussing the meaning of some local nameor other with a neighbour after dinner, and Vance had joined them. Theneighbour moved away; these two were left standing alone, and heaccepted a cigarette from the other's case. There was a rustle of skirtsbehind them. "Here she comes, " said Vance; "you will let me introduceyou. " He did not ask for Henriot's name; he had already taken thetrouble to find it out--another little betrayal, and another clue. 

It was in a secluded corner of the great hall, and Henriot turned to seethe woman's stately figure coming towards them across the thick carpetthat deadened her footsteps. She came sailing up, her black eyes fixedupon his face. Very erect, head upright, shoulders almost squared, shemoved wonderfully well; there was dignity and power in her walk. She wasdressed in black, and her face was like the night. He found itimpossible to say what lent her this air of impressiveness and solemnitythat was almost majestic. But there _was_ this touch of darkness and ofpower in the way she came that made him think of some sphinx-like figureof stone, some idol motionless in all its parts but moving as a whole, and gliding across--sand. Beneath those level lids her eyes stared hardat him. And a faint sensation of distress stirred in him deep, deepdown. Where had he seen those eyes before?

He bowed, as she joined them, and Vance led the way to the armchairs ina 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 droppedstitches of old, old memory. 

Lady Statham! At first the name had disappointed him. So many folk weartitles, as syllables in certain tongues wear accents--without them beingmute, unnoticed, unpronounced. Nonentities, born to names, so oftenclaim attention for their insignificance in this way. But this woman, had she been Jemima Jones, would have made the name distinguished andselect. She was a big and sombre personality. Why was it, he wonderedafterwards, that for a moment something in him shrank, and that hismind, metaphorically speaking, flung up an arm in self-protection? Theinstinct flashed and passed. But it seemed to him born of an automaticfeeling that he must protect--not himself, but the woman from the man. There was confusion in it all; links were missing. He studied herintently. She was a woman who had none of the external feminine signalsin either dress or manner, no graces, no little womanly hesitations andalarms, no daintiness, yet neither anything distinctly masculine. Hercharm was strong, possessing; only he kept forgetting that he wastalking to a--woman; and the thing she inspired in him included, withrespect and wonder, somewhere also this curious hint of dread. Thisinstinct to protect her fled as soon as it was born, for the interest ofthe conversation in which she so quickly plunged him obliterated allminor emotions whatsoever. Here, for the first time, he drew close toEgypt, 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 whatyou expected?" she led him into better regions with "One finds here whatone brings. " He knew the delightful experience of talking fluently onsubjects he was at home in, and to some one who understood. The feelingat first that to this woman he could not say mere anythings, slippedinto its opposite--that he could say everything. Strangers ten minutesago, they were at once in deep and intimate talk together. He found hisideas readily followed, agreed with up to a point--the point whichpermits discussion to start from a basis of general accord towardsspeculation. In the excitement of ideas he neglected the uncomfortablenote that had stirred his caution, forgot the warning too. Her mind, moreover, seemed known to him; he was often aware of what she was goingto say before he actually heard it; the current of her thoughts struck afamiliar gait, and more than once he experienced vividly again the oddsensation that it all had happened before. The very sentences andphrases with which she pointed the turns of her unusual ideas were neverwholly unexpected. 

For her ideas were decidedly unusual, in the sense that she acceptedwithout question speculations not commonly deemed worth consideration atall, indeed not ordinarily even known. Henriot knew them, because he hadread in many fields. It was the strength of her belief that fascinatedhim. She offered no apologies. She knew. And while he talked, shelistening with folded arms and her black eyes fixed upon his own, Richard Vance watched with vigilant eyes and listened too, ceaselesslyalert. Vance joined in little enough, however, gave no opinions, hisattitude one of general acquiescence. Twice, when pauses of slackeninginterest made it possible, Henriot fancied he surprised another qualityin this negative attitude. Interpreting it each time differently, he yetdismissed both interpretations with a smile. His imagination leaped soabsurdly to violent conclusions. They were not tenable: Vance wasneither her keeper, nor was he in some fashion a detective. Yet in hismanner was sometimes this suggestion of the detective order. He watchedwith such deep attention, and he concealed it so clumsily with anaffectation of careless indifference. 

There is nothing more dangerous than that impulsive intimacy strangerssometimes adopt when an atmosphere of mutual sympathy takes them bysurprise, for it is akin to the false frankness friends affect whentelling "candidly" one another's faults. The mood is invariablyregretted later. Henriot, however, yielded to it now with something likeabandon. The pleasure of talking with this woman was so unexpected, andso keen. 

For Lady Statham believed apparently in some Egypt of her dreams. Herinterest was neither historical, archaeological, nor political. It wasreligious--yet hardly of this earth at all. The conversation turned uponthe knowledge of the ancient Egyptians from an unearthly point of view, and even while he talked he was vaguely aware that it was _her_ mindtalking through his own. She drew out his ideas and made him say them. But this he was properly aware of only afterwards--that she hadcleverly, mercilessly pumped him of all he had ever known or read uponthe subject. Moreover, what Vance watched so intently was himself, andthe reactions in himself this remarkable woman produced. That also herealised 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 wasinteresting crankiness, and the belief behind it made it evenfascinating. Long before the end he surprised in her a more vital formof his own attitude that anything _may_ be true, since knowledge hasnever yet found final answers to any of the biggest questions. 

He understood, from sentences dropped early in the talk, that she wasamong those few "superstitious" folk who think that the old Egyptianscame closer to reading the eternal riddles of the world than anyothers, and that their knowledge was a remnant of that ancient WisdomReligion which existed in the superb, dark civilization of the sunkenAtlantis, lost continent that once joined Africa to Mexico. Eightythousand years ago the dim sands of Poseidonis, great island adjoiningthe main continent which itself had vanished a vast period before, sankdown beneath the waves, and the entire known world to-day was descendedfrom its survivors. 

Hence the significant fact that all religions and "mythological" systemsbegin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyedthe world. Egypt itself was colonised by a group of Atlantean priestswho brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. They had foreseenthe 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 inyears gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. He had heard Baconiansdemolish Shakespeare with an array of evidence equally overwhelming. Itcatches the imagination though not the mind. Yet out of her facts, asshe presented them, grew a strange likelihood. The force of this woman'spersonality, and her calm and quiet way of believing all she talkedabout, took her listener to some extent--further than ever before, certainly--into the great dream after her. And the dream, to say theleast, was a picturesque one, laden with wonderful possibilities. For asshe talked the spirit of old Egypt moved up, staring down upon him outof eyes lidded so curiously level. Hitherto all had prated to him of theArabs, their ancient faith and customs, and the splendour of theBedouins, those Princes of the Desert. But what he sought, barelyconfessed in words even to himself, was something older far than this. And this strange, dark woman brought it close. Deeps in his soul, longslumbering, awoke. He heard forgotten questions. 

Only in this brief way could he attempt to sum up the storm she rousedin him. 

She carried him far beyond mere outline, however, though afterwards herecalled the details with difficulty. So much more was suggested thanactually expressed. She contrived to make the general modern scepticisman evidence of cheap mentality. It was so easy; the depth it affects toconceal, mere emptiness. "We have tried all things, and found allwanting"--the mind, as measuring instrument, merely confessedinadequate. Various shrewd judgments of this kind increased his respect, although her acceptance went so far beyond his own. And, while the labelof credulity refused to stick to her, her sense of imaginative wonderenabled her to escape that dreadful compromise, a man's mind in awoman's temperament. She fascinated him. 

The spiritual worship of the ancient Egyptians, she held, was asymbolical explanation of things generally alluded to as the secrets oflife 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 andcities, so significantly akin to the hieroglyphics upon the Egyptiantombs. 

"The one misinterpreted as literally as the other, " she suggested, "yetboth 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. Thejewel 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 oddlyshe made the little word resound. The syllable drew out almost intochanting. Echoes answered from the depths within him, carrying it on andon across some desert of forgotten belief. Veils of sand flew everywhereabout his mind. Curtains lifted. Whole hills of sand went shifting intolevel surfaces whence gardens of dim outline emerged to meet thesunlight. 

"But the sand may be removed. " It was her nephew, speaking almost forthe first time, and the interruption had an odd effect, introducing asharply practical element. For the tone expressed, so far as he daredexpress it, disapproval. It was a baited observation, an invitation toopinion. 

"We are not sand-diggers, Mr. Henriot, " put in Lady Statham, before hedecided to respond. "Our object is quite another one; and I believe--Ihave a feeling, " she added almost questioningly, "that you might beinterested enough to help us perhaps. "

He only wondered the direct attack had not come sooner. Its bluntnesshardly surprised him. He felt himself leap forward to accept it. Asudden 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 tobe included in their purposes, whatever these might be. That shrinkingdread came back a moment, and was gone again before he could questionit. 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 inmy 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 thewords he used seemed oddly chosen:

"There is much in the ideas of ancient Egypt that has attracted me eversince I can remember, though I have never caught up with anythingdefinite enough to follow. There was majesty somewhere in theirconceptions--a large, calm majesty of spiritual dominion, one might callit perhaps. I _am_ interested. "

Her face remained expressionless as she listened, but there was graveconviction in the eyes that held him like a spell. He saw through theminto dim, faint pictures whose background was always sand. He forgotthat he was speaking with a woman, a woman who half an hour ago had beena stranger to him. He followed these faded mental pictures, though henever caught them up. .. . It was like his dream in London. 

Lady Statham was talking--he had not noticed the means by which sheeffected the abrupt transition--of familiar beliefs of old Egypt; of theKa, or Double, by whose existence the survival of the soul was possible, even its return into manifested, physical life; of the astrology, orinfluence of the heavenly bodies upon all sublunar activities; ofterrific forms of other life, known to the ancient worship of Atlantis, great Potencies that might be invoked by ritual and ceremonial, and oftheir lesser influence as recognised in certain lower forms, hencetreated with veneration as the "Sacred Animal" branch of this dimreligion. And she spoke lightly of the modern learning which so gliblyimagined it was the animals themselves that were looked upon as"gods"--the bull, the bird, the crocodile, the cat. "It's there they allgo so absurdly wrong, " she said, "taking the symbol for the powersymbolised. Yet natural enough. The mind to-day wears blinkers, studiesonly the details seen directly before it. Had none of us experiencedlove, 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 withmockery before a hearing group swayed by an orchestra, pitying bothlisteners and performers. It would deem our admiration of a greatswinging bell mere foolish worship of form and movement. Similarly, withhigh Powers that once expressed themselves in common forms--where bestthey could--being themselves bodiless. The learned men classify theforms with painstaking detail. But deity has gone out of life. ThePowers 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 commonpeople were, with a degraded literalism, " she went on. "Nut was theHeavens, who spread herself across the earth in the form of a woman;Shu, the vastness of space; the ibis typified Thoth, and Hathor was thePatron of the Western Hills; Khonsu, the moon, was personified, as wasthe 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 shemade the sentence sing. She put splendour into it. The pictures shiftedsuddenly closer in his mind. He saw the grandeur of Memphis andHeliopolis rise against the stars and shake the sand of ages from theirstern old temples. 

"You think it possible, then, to get into touch with these High Powersyou speak of, Powers once manifested in common forms?"

Henriot asked the question with a degree of conviction and solemnitythat surprised himself. The scenery changed about him as he listened. The spacious halls of this former khedivial Palace melted into Desertspaces. He smelt the open wilderness, the sand that haunted Helouan. Thesoft-footed Arab servants moved across the hall in their white sheetslike eddies of dust the wind stirred from the Libyan dunes. And overthese two strangers close beside him stole a queer, indefinitealteration. Moods and emotions, nameless as unknown stars, rose throughhis soul, trailing dark mists of memory from unfathomable distances. 

Lady Statham answered him indirectly. He found himself wishing thatthose steady eyes would sometimes close. 

"Love is known only by feeling it, " she said, her voice deepening alittle. "Behind the form you feel the person loved. The process is anevocation, pure and simple. An arduous ceremonial, involving worship anddevotional preparation, is the means. It is a difficult ritual--theonly one acknowledged by the world as still effectual. Ritual is thepassage way of the soul into the Infinite. "

He might have said the words himself. The thought lay in him while sheuttered it. Evocation everywhere in life was as true as assimilation. Nevertheless, he stared his companion full in the eyes with a touch ofalmost rude amazement. But no further questions prompted themselves; or, rather, he declined to ask them. He recalled, somehow uneasily, that inceremonial the points of the compass have significance, standing forforces and activities that sleep there until invoked, and a passinglight 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. Itwas impulsive and miscalculated. His feeling that it would be wise tochange the conversation resulted in giving it fresh impetus instead. 

"We saw you there--in the Wadi Hof, " put in Vance, suddenly breaking hislong silence; "you too sleep out, then? It means, you know, the Valleyof Fear. "

"We wondered--" It was Lady Statham's voice, and she leaned forwardeagerly as she said it, then abruptly left the sentence incomplete. Henriot started; a sense of momentary acute discomfort again ran overhim. The same second she continued, though obviously changing thephrase--"we wondered how you spent your day there, during the heat. Butyou paint, don't you? You draw, I mean?"

The commonplace question, he realised in every fibre of his being, meantsomething _they_ deemed significant. Was it his talent for drawing thatthey sought to use him for? Even as he answered with a simpleaffirmative, he had a flash of intuition that might be fanciful, yetthat might be true: that this extraordinary pair were intent upon someceremony of evocation that should summon into actual physical expressionsome Power--some type of life--known long ago to ancient worship, andthat they even sought to fix its bodily outline with the pencil--hispencil. 

A gateway of incredible adventure opened at his feet. He balanced on theedge of knowing unutterable things. Here was a clue that might lead himtowards the hidden Egypt he had ever craved to know. An awful hand wasbeckoning. The sands were shifting. He saw the million eyes of theDesert watching him from beneath the level lids of centuries. Speck byspeck, and grain by grain, the sand that smothered memory lifted thecountless wrappings that embalmed it. 

And he was willing, yet afraid. Why in the world did he hesitate andshrink? Why was it that the presence of this silent, watchingpersonality in the chair beside him kept caution still alive, withwarning close behind? The pictures in his mind were gorgeously coloured. It was Richard Vance who somehow streaked them through with black. Athing of darkness, born of this man's unassertive presence, flitted everacross the scenery, marring its grandeur with something evil, petty, dreadful. He held a horrible thought alive. His mind was thinking venalpurposes. 

In Henriot himself imagination had grown curiously heated, fed by whathad been suggested rather than actually said. Ideas of immensity crowdedhis brain, yet never assumed definite shape. They were familiar, even asthis strange woman was familiar. Once, long ago, he had known them well;had even practised them beneath these bright Egyptian stars. Whence camethis prodigious glad excitement in his heart, this sense of mightyPowers coaxed down to influence the very details of daily life? Behindthem, for all their vagueness, lay an archetypal splendour, fraught withforgotten meanings. He had always been aware of it in this mysteriousland, but it had ever hitherto eluded him. It hovered everywhere. He hadfelt it brooding behind the towering Colossi at Thebes, in the skeletonsof wasted temples, in the uncouth comeliness of the Sphinx, and in thecrude terror of the Pyramids even. Over the whole of Egypt hung itsinvisible wings. These were but isolated fragments of the Body thatmight 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 eludedvisualisation in his soul, he felt that it combined with its vastnesssomething infinitely small as well. Of such wee particles is the giantDesert born. .. . 

Henriot started nervously in his chair, convicted once more ofunconscionable staring; and at the same moment a group of hotel people, returning from a dance, passed through the hall and nodded himgood-night. The scent of the women reached him; and with it the sound oftheir voices discussing personalities just left behind. A Londonatmosphere came with them. He caught trivial phrases, uttered in adrawling tone, and followed by the shrill laughter of a girl. Theypassed upstairs, discussing their little things, like marionettes upon atiny stage. 

But their passage brought him back to things of modern life, and to somestandard of familiar measurement. The pictures that his soul had gazedat so deep within, he realised, were a pictorial transfer caughtincompletely from this woman's vivid mind. He had seen the Desert as thegrey, enormous Tomb where hovered still the Ka of ancient Egypt. Sandscreened her visage with the veil of centuries. But She was there, andShe was living. Egypt herself had pitched a temporary camp in him, andthen moved on. 

There was a momentary break, a sense of abruptness and dislocation. Andthen he became aware that Lady Statham had been speaking for some timebefore he caught her actual words, and that a certain change had comeinto 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 deepenedthe coal-black eyes and communicated a hint of light--of exaltation--toher whole person. It was incredibly moving. To this deep passion was duethe power he had felt. It was her entire life; she lived for it, shewould die for it. Her calmness of manner enhanced its effect. Hence thestrength of those first impressions that had stormed him. The woman hadbelief; however wild and strange, it was sacred to her. The secret ofher influence was--conviction. 

His attitude shifted several points then. The wonder in him passed overinto awe. The things she knew were real. They were not merelyimaginative speculations. 

"I knew I was not wrong in thinking you in sympathy with this line ofthought, " she was saying in lower voice, steady with earnestness, and asthough she had read his mind. "You, too, know, though perhaps you hardlyrealise that you know. It lies so deep in you that you only get vaguefeelings 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 aretrying to remember. Knowledge is memory. " She paused a moment watchinghis face closely. "At least, you are free from that cheap scepticismwhich labels these old beliefs as superstition. " It was not even aquestion. 

"I--worship real belief--of any kind, " he stammered, for her words andthe close proximity of her atmosphere caused a strange upheaval in hisheart that he could not account for. He faltered in his speech. "It isthe most vital quality in life--rarer than deity. " He was using her ownphrases 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 eyeslooked down into his own. It grew big and somehow masculine. It was theface of a priest, spiritual power in it. Where, oh where in the echoingPast had he known this woman's soul? He saw her in another setting, aforest of columns dim about her, towering above giant aisles. Again hefelt the Desert had come close. Into this tent-like hall of the hotelcame the sifting of tiny sand. It heaped softly about the very furnitureagainst his feet, blocking the exits of door and window. It shrouded thelittle present. The wind that brought it stirred a veil that had hungfor ages motionless. .. . 

She had been saying many things that he had missed while his mind wentsearching. "There were types of life the Atlantean system knew it mightrevive--life unmanifested to-day in any bodily form, " was the sentencehe caught with his return to the actual present. 

"A type of life?" he whispered, looking about him, as though to see whoit was had joined them; "you mean a--soul? Some kind of soul, alien tohumanity, or to--to any forms of living thing in the world to-day?" Whatshe had been saying reached him somehow, it seemed, though he had notheard the words themselves. Still hesitating, he was yet so eager tohear. Already he felt she meant to include him in her purposes, and thatin the end he must go willingly. So strong was her persuasion on hismind. 

And he felt as if he knew vaguely what was coming. Before she answeredhis curious question--prompting it indeed--rose in his mind that strangeidea of the Group-Soul: the theory that big souls cannot expressthemselves in a single individual, but need an entire group for theirfull manifestation. 

He listened intently. The reflection that this sudden intimacy wasunnatural, he rejected, for many conversations were really gatheredinto one. Long watching and preparation on both sides had cleared theway for the ripening of acquaintance into confidence--how long he dimlywondered? But if this conception of the Group-Soul was not new, thesuggestion Lady Statham developed out of it was both new andstartling--and yet always so curiously familiar. Its value for him lay, not in far-fetched evidence that supported it, but in the deep beliefwhich made it a vital asset in an honest inner life. 

"An individual, " she said quietly, "one soul expressed completely in asingle person, I mean, is exceedingly rare. Not often is a physicalinstrument found perfect enough to provide it with adequate expression. In the lower ranges of humanity--certainly in animal and insectlife--one soul is shared by many. Behind a tribe of savages stands oneSavage. A flock of birds is a single Bird, scattered through theconsciousness of all. They wheel in mid-air, they migrate, they obey thedeep intelligence called instinct--all as one. The life of any one lionis the life of all--the lion group-soul that manifests itself in theentire genus. An ant-heap is a single Ant; through the bees spreads theconsciousness of a single Bee. "

Henriot knew what she was working up to. In his eagerness to hastendisclosure he interrupted--

"And there may be types of life that have no corresponding bodilyexpression at all, then?" he asked as though the question were forcedout 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--ifthey came back. "

"Came back!" he repeated below his breath. 

But she heard him. "They once had expression. Egypt, Atlantis knewthem--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 bephysical outline. So potent a descent of spiritual life would selectmaterials for its body where it could find them. Our conventional notionof a body--what is it? A single outline moving altogether in onedirection. For little human souls, or fragments, this is sufficient. Butfor 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 shouldseize her meaning fully. 

"A wave of spiritual awakening--a descent of spiritual life upon anation, " she answered slowly, "forms itself a church, and the body oftrue believers are its sphere of action. They are literally its bodilyexpression. Each individual believer is a corpuscle in that Body. ThePower has provided itself with a vehicle of manifestation. Otherwise wecould not know it. And the more real the belief of each individual, themore perfect the expression of the spiritual life behind them all. AGroup-soul walks the earth. Moreover, a nation naturally devout couldattract a type of soul unknown to a nation that denies all faith. Faithbrings back the gods. .. . But to-day belief is dead, and Deity has leftthe world. "

She talked on and on, developing this main idea that in days of olderfaiths there were deific types of life upon the earth, evoked by worshipand beneficial to humanity. They had long ago withdrawn because theworship which brought them down had died the death. The world had grownpettier. These vast centres of Spiritual Power found no "Body" in whichthey now could express themselves or manifest. .. . Her thoughts andphrases poured over him like sand. It was always sand he felt--buryingthe Present and uncovering the Past. .. . 

He tried to steady his mind upon familiar objects, but wherever helooked Sand stared him in the face. Outside these trivial walls theDesert lay listening. It lay waiting too. Vance himself had dropped outof recognition. He belonged to the world of things to-day. But thiswoman and himself stood thousands of years away, beneath the columns ofa Temple in the sands. And the sands were moving. His feet went shiftingwith them . .. Running down vistas of ageless memory that woke terror bytheir sheer immensity of distance. .. . 

Like a muffled voice that called to him through many veils andwrappings, he heard her describe the stupendous Powers that evocationmight 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 throughthese layers of coiling memory in his soul. 

"The extension of spiritual knowledge and the widening of life, " sheanswered. "The link with the 'unearthly kingdom' wherein this ancientsystem went forever searching, would be re-established. Completerehabilitation might follow. Portions--little portions of thesePowers--expressed themselves naturally once in certain animal types, instinctive life that did not deny or reject them. The worship of sacredanimals was the relic of a once gigantic system of evocation--not ofmonsters, " and she smiled sadly, "but of Powers that were willing andready to descend when worship summoned them. "

Again, beneath his breath, Henriot heard himself murmur--his own voicestartled him as he whispered it: "Actual bodily shape and outline?"

"Material for bodies is everywhere, " she answered, equally low; "dust towhich we all return; sand, if you prefer it, fine, fine sand. Lifemoulds it easily enough, when that life is potent. "

A certain confusion spread slowly through his mind as he heard her. Helit a cigarette and smoked some minutes in silence. Lady Statham and hernephew waited for him to speak. At length, after some inner battling andhesitation, he put the question that he knew they waited for. It wasimpossible 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 amoment masterful. "A clue, thus followed, might lead to the entirereconstruction I spoke of. "

"And the method?" he repeated faintly. 

"Evoke the Power by ceremonial evocation--the ritual is obtainable--andnote the form it assumes. Then establish it. This shape or outline oncesecured, could then be made permanent--a mould for its return atwill--its natural physical expression here on earth. "

"Idol!" he exclaimed. 

"Image, " she replied at once. "Life, before we can know it, must have abody. 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 onenot engaged in the actual evocation. This form, accurately madepermanent in solid matter, say in stone, would provide a channel alwaysopen. Experiment, properly speaking, might then begin. The cisterns ofPower behind would be accessible. "

"An amazing proposition!" Henriot exclaimed. What surprised him was thathe felt no desire to laugh, and little even to doubt. 

"Yet known to every religion that ever deserved the name, " put in Vancelike a voice from a distance. Blackness came somehow with hisinterruption--a touch of darkness. He spoke eagerly. 

To all the talk that followed, and there was much of it, Henriotlistened with but half an ear. This one idea stormed through him with anuproar that killed attention. Judgment was held utterly in abeyance. Hecarried away from it some vague suggestion that this woman had hinted atprevious lives she half remembered, and that every year she came toEgypt, haunting the sands and temples in the effort to recover lostclues. And he recalled afterwards that she said, "This all came to me asa child, just as though it was something half remembered. " There was thefurther suggestion that he himself was not unknown to her; that they, too, had met before. But this, compared to the grave certainty of therest, was merest fantasy that did not hold his attention. He answered, hardly knowing what he said. His preoccupation with other thoughts deepdown was so intense, that he was probably barely polite, uttering emptyphrases, with his mind elsewhere. His one desire was to escape and bealone, and it was with genuine relief that he presently excused himselfand went upstairs to bed. The halls, he noticed, were empty; an Arabservant waited to put the lights out. He walked up, for the lift hadlong ceased running. 

And the magic of old Egypt stalked beside him. The studies that hadfascinated his mind in earlier youth returned with the power that hadsubdued his mind in boyhood. The cult of Osiris woke in his blood again;Horus and Nephthys stirred in their long-forgotten centres. Thererevived in him, too long buried, the awful glamour of those liturgalrites and vast body of observances, those spells and formulae ofincantation of the oldest known recension that years ago had capturedhis imagination and belief--the Book of the Dead. Trumpet voices calledto his heart again across the desert of some dim past. There were formsof life--impulses from the Creative Power which is the Universe--otherthan the soul of man. They could be known. A spiritual exaltation, roused by the words and presence of this singular woman, shouted to himas he went. 

Then, as he closed his bedroom door, carefully locking it, there stoodbeside him--Vance. The forgotten figure of Vance came up close--thewatching eyes, the simulated interest, the feigned belief, the detectivemental attitude, these broke through the grandiose panorama, bringingdarkness. Vance, strong personality that hid behind assumed nonentityfor some purpose of his own, intruded with sudden violence, demanding anexplanation of his presence. 

And, with an equal suddenness, explanation offered itself then andthere. 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 behindthe 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 ofcommon occurrence, Henriot had never realised it as he did now, so closeand terrible. In the same way he had never _realised_ that he woulddie--vanish from the busy world of men and women, forgotten as though hehad never existed, an eddy of wind-blown dust. And in the man namedRichard Vance this thing was close upon blossom. Henriot could not nameit to himself. Even in thought it appalled him. 

 * * * * *

He undressed hurriedly, almost with the child's idea of finding safetybetween the sheets. His mind undressed itself as well. The business ofthe day laid itself automatically aside; the will sank down; desire grewinactive. Henriot was exhausted. But, in that stage towards slumber whenthinking stops, and only fugitive pictures pass across the mind inshadowy dance, his brain ceased shouting its mechanical explanations, and his soul unveiled a peering eye. Great limbs of memory, smothered bythe activities of the Present, stirred their stiffened lengths throughthe sands of long ago--sands this woman had begun to excavate from somefar-off pre-existence they had surely known together. Vagueness andcertainty ran hand in hand. Details were unrecoverable, but the emotionsin which they were embedded moved. 

He turned restlessly in his bed, striving to seize the amazing clues andfollow them. But deliberate effort hid them instantly again; theyretired instantly into the subconsciousness. With the brain of this bodyhe now occupied they had nothing to do. The brain stored memories ofeach life only. This ancient script was graven in his soul. Subconsciousness alone could interpret and reveal. And it was hissubconscious memory that Lady Statham had been so busily excavating. 

Dimly it stirred and moved about the depths within him, never clearlyseen, indefinite, felt as a yearning after unrecoverable knowledge. Against the darker background of Vance's fear and sinister purpose--bothof this present life, and recent--he saw the grandeur of this woman'simpossible dream, and _knew_, beyond argument or reason, that it wastrue. Judgment and will asleep, he left the impossibility aside, andtook the grandeur. The Belief of Lady Statham was not credulity andsuperstition; it was Memory. Still to this day, over the sands of Egypt, hovered immense spiritual potencies, so vast that they could only knowphysical expression in a group--in many. Their sphere of bodilymanifestation must be a host, each individual unit in that host acorpuscle in the whole. 

The wind, rising from the Lybian wastes across the Nile, swept upagainst the exposed side of the hotel, and made his windows rattle--theold, sad winds of Egypt. Henriot got out of bed to fasten the outsideshutters. He stood a moment and watched the moon floating down behindthe Sakkara Pyramids. The Pleiades and Orion's Belt hung brilliantly;the Great Bear was close to the horizon. In the sky above the Desertswung 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 thisunbelievable, lost memory. The Desert, pale in the moon, was coextensivewith the night, too huge for comfort or understanding, yet charged tothe brim with infinite peace. Behind its majesty of silence lay whispersof a vanished language that once could call with power upon mightyspiritual Agencies. Its skirts were folded now, but, slowly across theleagues of sand, they began to stir and rearrange themselves. He grewsuddenly aware of this enveloping shroud of sand--as the raw material ofbodily expression: Form. 

The sand was in his imagination and his mind. Shaking loosely the foldsof its gigantic skirts, it rose; it moved a little towards him. He sawthe eternal countenance of the Desert watching him--immobile andunchanging behind these shifting veils the winds laid so carefully overit. Egypt, the ancient Egypt, turned in her vast sarcophagus of Desert, wakening from her sleep of ages at the Belief of approachingworshippers. 

Only in this insignificant manner could he express a letter of theterrific language that crowded to seek expression through his soul. .. . He closed the shutters and carefully fastened them. He turned to go backto bed, curiously trembling. Then, as he did so, the whole singulardelusion caught him with a shock that held him motionless. Up rose thestupendous apparition of the entire Desert and stood behind him on thatbalcony. Swift as thought, in silence, the Desert stood on end againsthis very face. It towered across the sky, hiding Orion and the moon; itdipped below the horizons. The whole grey sheet of it rose up before hiseyes and stood. Through its unfolding skirts ran ten thousand eddies ofswirling sand as the creases of its grave-clothes smoothed themselvesout 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 wereincongruous. One was evil, small and human; the other unearthly andsublime. For the memory of the fear that haunted Vance, and the sinistercause of it, pricked at him all night long. But behind, beyond thiscommon, intelligible emotion, lay the crowding wonder that caught hissoul with glory:

The Sand was stirring, the Desert was awake. Ready to mate with them inmaterial form, brooded close the Ka of that colossal Entity that onceexpressed itself through the myriad life of ancient Egypt. 

VI

Next day, and for several days following, Henriot kept out of the pathof Lady Statham and her nephew. The acquaintanceship had grown toorapidly to be quite comfortable. It was easy to pretend that he tookpeople at their face value, but it was a pose; one liked to knowsomething of antecedents. It was otherwise difficult to "place" them. And Henriot, for the life of him, could not "place" these two. HisSubconsciousness brought explanation when it came--but theSubconsciousness is only temporarily active. When it retired hefloundered without a rudder, in confusion. 

With the flood of morning sunshine the value of much she had saidevaporated. Her presence alone had supplied the key to the cipher. Butwhile the indigestible portions he rejected, there remained a good dealhe had already assimilated. The discomfort remained; and with it thegrave, unholy reality of it all. It was something more than theory. Results would follow--if he joined them. He would witness curiousthings. 

The force with which it drew him brought hesitation. It operated in himlike a shock that numbs at first by its abrupt arrival, and needs timeto realise in the right proportions to the rest of life. These rightproportions, however, did not come readily, and his emotions rangedbetween sceptical laughter and complete acceptance. The one detail hefelt certain of was this dreadful thing he had divined in Vance. Tryinghard to disbelieve it, he found he could not. It was true. Thoughwithout a shred of real evidence to support it, the horror of itremained. He knew it in his very bones. 

And this, perhaps, was what drove him to seek the comfortingcompanionship of folk he understood and felt at home with. He told hishost and hostess about the strangers, though omitting the actualconversation because they would merely smile in blank miscomprehension. But the moment he described the strong black eyes beneath the leveleyelids, his hostess turned with a start, her interest deeply roused:"Why, it's that awful Statham woman, " she exclaimed, "that must be LadyStatham, and the man she calls her nephew. "

"Sounds like it, certainly, " her husband added. "Felix, you'd betterclear out. They'll bewitch you too. "

And Henriot bridled, yet wondering why he did so. He drew into his shella little, giving the merest sketch of what had happened. But he listenedclosely while these two practical old friends supplied him withinformation in the gossiping way that human nature loves. No doubt therewas much embroidery, and more perversion, exaggeration too, but theaccount evidently rested upon some basis of solid foundation for allthat. Smoke and fire go together always. 

"He _is_ her nephew right enough, " Mansfield corrected his wife, beforeproceeding to his own man's form of elaboration; "no question aboutthat, 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. Butthey _are_ an unsavoury couple. I've met 'em in various parts, all overEgypt, but they always come back to Helouan in the end. And the storiesabout them are simply legion. You remember--" he turned hesitatingly tohis wife--"some people, I heard, " he changed his sentence, "were madequite ill by her. "

"I'm sure Felix ought to know, yes, " his wife boldly took him up, "myniece, Fanny, had the most extraordinary experience. " She turned toHenriot. "Her room was next to Lady Statham in some hotel or other atAssouan or Edfu, and one night she woke and heard a kind of mysteriouschanting or intoning next her. Hotel doors are so dreadfully thin. Therewas a funny smell too, like incense of something sickly, and a man'svoice kept chiming in. It went on for hours, while she lay terrified inbed--"

"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 roomwas full of--of things, yet she could see nothing. She _felt_ them, yousee. And after a bit the sound of this sing-song voice so got on hernerves, it half dazed her--a kind of enchantment--she felt choked andsuffocated. 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; shesaid it made the door bulge inwards from the next room, but not the dooralone; the walls bulged or swayed as if a huge thing pressed againstthem from the other side. And at the same moment her windows--she hadtwo big balconies, and the venetian shutters were fastened--both herwindows _darkened_--though it was two in the morning and pitch darkoutside. She said it was all _one_ thing--trying to get in; just aswater, you see, would rush in through every hole and opening it couldfind, and all at once. And in spite of her terror--that's the odd partof 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--thoughshe 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 ofthese two brought poured out then. They were obviously somewhat mixed, one account borrowing picturesque details from another, and all indisproportion, as when people tell stories in a language they arelittle familiar with. But, listening with avidity, yet also withuneasiness, somehow, Henriot put two and two together. Truth stoodbehind them somewhere. These two held traffic with the powers thatancient Egypt knew. 

"Tell Felix, dear, about the time you met the nephew--horridcreature--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, oranything about him. I don't know much more now--except that he's adangerous sort of charlatan-devil, _I_ think. But I came across him onenight up there by Thebes in the Valley of the Kings--you know, wherethey buried all their Johnnies with so much magnificence and processionsand masses, and all the rest. It's the most astounding, the most hauntedplace you ever saw, gloomy, silent, full of gorgeous lights and shadowsthat 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 intothe bargain, when my donkey boy suddenly ran for his life and left mealone. It was after sunset. The sand was red and shining, and the bigcliffs sort of fiery. And my donkey stuck its four feet in the groundand wouldn't budge. Then, about fifty yards away, I saw afellow--European apparently--doing something--Heaven knows what, for Ican't describe it--among the boulders that lie all over the groundthere. Ceremony, I suppose you'd call it. I was so interested that atfirst I watched. Then I saw he wasn't alone. There were a lot of movingthings round him, towering big things, that came and went like shadows. That twilight is fearfully bewildering; perspective changes, anddistance gets all confused. It's fearfully hard to see properly. I onlyremember that I got off my donkey and went up closer, and when I waswithin a dozen yards of him--well, it sounds such rot, you know, but Iswear the things suddenly rushed off and left him there alone. They wentwith a roaring noise like wind; shadowy but tremendously big, they were, and they vanished up against the fiery precipices as though they slippedbang 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, youknow. "

"They probably _were_ sand, " his wife suggested, burning to tellanother story of her own. 

"Possibly, only there wasn't a breath of wind, and it was hot asblazes--and--I had such extraordinary sensations--never felt anythinglike it before--wild and exhilarated--drunk, I tell you, drunk. "

"You saw them?" asked Henriot. "You made out their shape at all, oroutline?"

"Sphinx, " he replied at once, "for all the world like sphinxes. You knowthe kind of face and head these limestone strata in the Deserttake--great visages with square Egyptian head-dresses where the drivensand has eaten away the softer stuff beneath? You see iteverywhere--enormous idols they seem, with faces and eyes and lipsawfully like the sphinx--well, that's the nearest I can get to it. " Hepuffed his pipe hard. But there was no sign of levity in him. He toldthe 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 saidwith a shiver. "Reduce the size, and paint in awful black eyes, andyou've got her exactly--a living idol. " And all three laughed, yet alaughter without merriment in it. 

"And you spoke to the man?"

"I did, " the Englishman answered, "though I confess I'm a bit ashamed ofthe way I spoke. Fact is, I was excited, thunderingly excited, and felta kind of anger. I wanted to kick the beggar for practising such ballyrubbish, and in such a place too. Yet all the time--well, well, Ibelieve it was sheer funk now, " he laughed; "for I felt uncommonly queerout there in the dusk, alone with--with that kind of business; and I wasangry with myself for feeling it. Anyhow, I went up--I'd lost my donkeyboy as well, remember--and slated him like a dog. I can't remember whatI said exactly--only that he stood and stared at me in silence. Thatmade it worse--seemed twice as real then. The beggar said no single wordthe 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 metoo--bang in the face. She was turned towards the sunset--what was leftof it in the west--and her black eyes shone like--ugh! I can't describeit--it was shocking. "

"She spoke?"

"She said five words--and her voice--it'll make you laugh--it wasmetallic like a gong: 'You are in danger here. ' That's all she said. Isimply turned and cleared out as fast as ever I could. But I had to goon foot. My donkey had followed its boy long before. I tell you--smileas you may--my blood was all curdled for an hour afterwards. "

Then he explained that he felt some kind of explanation or apology wasdue, since the couple lodged in his own hotel, and how he approached theman in the smoking-room after dinner. A conversation resulted--the manwas quite intelligent after all--of which only one sentence had remainedin his mind. 

"Perhaps you can explain it, Felix. I wrote it down, as well as I couldremember. The rest confused me beyond words or memory; though I mustconfess it did not seem--well, not utter rot exactly. It was aboutastrology and rituals and the worship of the old Egyptians, and I don'tknow what else besides. Only, he made it intelligible and almostsensible, if only I could have got the hang of the thing enough toremember it. You know, " he added, as though believing in spite ofhimself, "there _is_ a lot of that wonderful old Egyptian religiousbusiness still hanging about in the atmosphere of this place, say whatyou like. "

"But this sentence?" Henriot asked. And the other went off to get anote-book where he had written it down. 

"He was jawing, you see, " he continued when he came back, Henriot andhis wife having kept silence meanwhile, "about direction being ofimportance in religious ceremonies, West and North symbolising certainpowers, or something of the kind, why people turn to the East and allthat sort of thing, and speaking of the whole Universe as if it hadliving forces tucked away in it that expressed themselves somehow whenroused up. That's how I remember it anyhow. And then he said thisthing--in answer to some fool question probably that I put. " And he readout 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 ofexplanation. Mansfield read it in a shamefaced tone, evidently preparedfor laughter:

"'Whether I strike you on the back or in the face determines what kindof answering force I rouse in you. Direction is significant. ' And hesaid it was the period called the Night of Power--time when the Desertencroaches and spirits are close. "

And tossing the book aside, he lit his pipe again and waited a moment tohear what might be said. "Can you explain such gibberish?" he asked atlength, 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 aboutthis singular couple. 

These were less detailed, and therefore less impressive, but allcontributed something towards the atmosphere of reality that framed theentire picture. They belonged to the type one hears at every dinnerparty in Egypt--stories of the vengeance mummies seem to take on thosewho robbed them, desecrating their peace of centuries; of a womanwearing a necklace of scarabs taken from a princess's tomb, who felthands about her throat to strangle her; of little Ka figures, Pashtgoddesses, amulets and the rest, that brought curious disaster to thosewho kept them. They are many and various, astonishingly circumstantialoften, and vouched for by persons the reverse of credulous. The modernsuperstition that haunts the desert gullies with Afreets has nothing incommon with them. They rest upon a basis of indubitable experience; andthey remain--inexplicable. And about the personalities of Lady Stathamand her nephew they crowded like flies attracted by a dish of fruit. TheArabs, too, were afraid of her. She had difficulty in getting guides anddragomen. 

"My dear chap, " concluded Mansfield, "take my advice and have nothing todo with 'em. There _is_ a lot of queer business knocking about in thisold country, and people like that know ways of reviving it somehow. It'supset you already; you looked scared, I thought, the moment you camein. " 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 alongthe Delta are packed with birds now: they're home early this year ontheir way to the North. What d'ye say, eh?"

But Henriot did not care about the quail shooting. He felt more inclinedto be alone and think things out by himself. He had come to his friendsfor comfort, and instead they had made him uneasy and excited. Hisinterest had suddenly doubled. Though half afraid, he longed to knowwhat these two were up to--to follow the adventure to the bitter end. Hedisregarded the warning of his host as well as the premonition in hisown heart. The sand had caught his feet. 

There were moments when he laughed in utter disbelief, but these wereoptimistic moods that did not last. He always returned to the feelingthat truth lurked somewhere in the whole strange business, and that ifhe joined forces with them, as they seemed to wish, he wouldwitness--well, he hardly knew what--but it enticed him as danger doesthe 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 wouldsee--a shiver ran through him at the thought--what they saw, and knowsome eddy of that vanished tide of power and splendour the ancientEgyptian priesthood knew, and that perhaps was even common experience inthe far-off days of dim Atlantis. The sand had caught his imaginationtoo. He was utterly sand-haunted. 

VII

And so he took pains, though without making definite suggestion, toplace himself in the way of this woman and her nephew--only to find thathis hints were disregarded. They left him alone, if they did notactually avoid him. Moreover, he rarely came across them now. Only atnight, or in the queer dusk hours, he caught glimpses of them movinghurriedly off from the hotel, and always desertwards. And theirdisregard, well calculated, enflamed his desire to the point when healmost decided to propose himself. Quite suddenly, then, the ideaflashed through him--how do they come, these odd revelations, when themind lies receptive like a plate sensitised by anticipation?--that theywere waiting for a certain date, and, with the notion, came Mansfield'sremark about "the Night of Power, " believed in by the old EgyptianCalendar as a time when the supersensuous world moves close against theminds of men with all its troop of possibilities. And the thought, oncelodged in its corner of imagination, grew strong. He looked it up. Tendays 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 hispresent mood, as he admitted, smiling to himself, he could acceptanything. It was part of it, it belonged to the adventure. But, evenwhile he persuaded himself that it was play, the solemn reality, ofwhat lay ahead increased amazingly, sketched darkly in his very soul. 

These intervening days he spent as best he could--impatiently, a prey toquite opposite emotions. In the blazing sunshine he thought of it andlaughed; but at night he lay often sleepless, calculating chances ofescape. He never did escape, however. The Desert that watched littleHelouan with great, unwinking eyes watched also every turn and twist hemade. Like this oasis, he basked in the sun of older time, and dreamedbeneath forgotten moons. The sand at last had crept into his inmostheart. 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 losesight of the grandeur that banked it up so hauntingly. These twocontrary emotions grafted themselves on all he did and saw. He crossedthe Nile at Bedrashein, and went again to the Tomb-World of Sakkara; butthrough all the chatter of veiled and helmeted tourists, the_bandar-log_ of our modern Jungle, ran this dark under-stream of awetheir monkey methods could not turn aside. One world lay upon another, but this modern layer was a shallow crust that, like the phenomenon ofthe "desert-film, " a mere angle of falling light could instantlyobliterate. Beneath the sand, deep down, he passed along the Street ofTombs, as he had often passed before, moved then merely by historicalcuriosity and admiration, but now by emotions for which he found noname. He saw the enormous sarcophagi of granite in their gloomy chamberswhere the sacred bulls once lay, swathed and embalmed like human beings, and, in the flickering candle light, the mood of ancient rites surgedround him, menacing his doubts and laughter. The least human whisper inthese subterraneans, dug out first four thousand years ago, revivedominous Powers that stalked beside him, forbidding and premonitive. Hegazed at the spots where Mariette, unearthing them forty years ago, found fresh as of yesterday the marks of fingers and naked feet--ofthose who set the sixty-five ton slabs in position. And when he came upagain into the sunshine he met the eternal questions of the pyramids, overtopping all his mental horizons. Sand blocked all the avenues ofyounger emotion, leaving the channels of something in him incalculablyolder, open and clean swept. 

He slipped homewards, uncomfortable and followed, glad to be with acrowd--because he was otherwise alone with more than he could dare tothink about. Keeping just ahead of his companions, he crossed the desertedge where the ghost of Memphis walks under rustling palm trees thatscreen no stone left upon another of all its mile-long populoussplendours. For here was a vista his imagination could realise; here hecould know the comfort of solid ground his feet could touch. GiganticRamases, lying on his back beneath their shade and staring at the sky, similarly helped to steady his swaying thoughts. Imagination could dealwith these. 

And daily thus he watched the busy world go to and fro to its scale oftips and bargaining, and gladly mingled with it, trying to laugh andstudy guidebooks, and listen to half-fledged explanations, but alwaysseeing the comedy of his poor attempts. Not all those little donkeys, bells tinkling, beads shining, trotting beneath their comical burdens tothe tune of shouting and belabouring, could stem this tide of deeperthings 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 passedbetween the enormous knee-stroke of their stride. And, every night, thesunsets restored the forbidding, graver mood, with their crimson, goldensplendour, their strange green shafts of light, then--sudden twilightthat brought the Past upon him with an awful leap. Upon the stage thenstepped the figures of this pair of human beings, chanting their ancientplainsong of incantation in the moonlit desert, and working their ritesof unholy evocation as the priests had worked them centuries before inthe sands that now buried Sakkara fathoms deep. 

Then one morning he woke with a question in his mind, as though it hadbeen 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 theDesert as before? What has made me change?"

This latest mood now asked for explanation. And the answer, coming upautomatically, startled him. It was so clear and sure--had been lying inthe background all along. One word contained it:

Vance. 

The sinister intentions of this man, forgotten in the rush of otheremotions, asserted themselves again convincingly. The human horror, soeasily comprehensible, had been smothered for the time by the hint ofunearthly revelations. But it had operated all the time. Now it tookthe lead. He dreaded to be alone in the Desert with this dark picture inhis mind of what Vance meant to bring there to completion. Thisabomination 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 pictureof what Vance--he knew it with such strange certainty--hoped to bringabout there. 

There was absolutely no evidence to justify the grim suspicion. Itseemed indeed far-fetched enough, this connection between the sand andthe purpose of an evil-minded, violent man. But Henriot saw it true. Hecould argue it away in a few minutes--easily. Yet the instant thoughtceased, it returned, led up by intuition. It possessed him, filled hismind with horrible possibilities. He feared the Desert as he might havefeared the scene of some atrocious crime. And, for the time, this dreadof a merely human thing corrected the big seduction of the other--thesuggested "super-natural. "

Side by side with it, his desire to join himself to the purposes of thewoman increased steadily. They kept out of his way apparently; the offerseemed withdrawn; he grew restless, unable to settle to anything forlong, and once he asked the porter casually if they were leaving thehotel. Lady Statham had been invisible for days, and Vance was somehownever within speaking distance. He heard with relief that they had notgone--but with dread as well. Keen excitement worked in him underground. He slept badly. Like a schoolboy, he waited for the summons to animportant examination that involved portentous issues, and contradictoryemotions disturbed his peace of mind abominably. 

VIII

But it was not until the end of the week, when Vance approached him withpurpose in his eyes and manner, that Henriot knew his fears unfounded, and caught himself trembling with sudden anticipation--because theinvitation, so desired yet so dreaded, was actually at hand. Firmlydetermined to keep caution uppermost, yet he went unresistingly to asecluded corner by the palms where they could talk in privacy. Forprudence is of the mind, but desire is of the soul, and while his brainof to-day whispered wariness, voices in his heart of long ago shoutedcommands that he knew he must obey with joy. 

It was evening and the stars were out. Helouan, with her fairytwinkling lights, lay silent against the Desert edge. The sand was atthe flood. The period of the Encroaching of the Desert was at hand, andthe deeps were all astir with movement. But in the windless air was agreat peace. A calm of infinite stillness breathed everywhere. The flowof Time, before it rushed away backwards, stopped somewhere between thedust of stars and Desert. The mystery of sand touched every street withits unutterable softness. 

And Vance began without the smallest circumlocution. His voice was low, in keeping with the scene, but the words dropped with a sharpdistinctness into the other's heart like grains of sand that pricked theskin before they smothered him. Caution they smothered instantly;resistance too. 

"I have a message for you from my aunt, " he said, as though he broughtan invitation to a picnic. Henriot sat in shadow, but his companion'sface was in a patch of light that followed them from the windows of thecentral hall. There was a shining in the light blue eyes that betrayedthe excitement his quiet manner concealed. "We are going--the day afterto-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 tosuppress the gleam that flashed in them and was gone so swiftly. Therewas a hint of shrugging his shoulders. 

"It is the Night of Power--in the old Egyptian Calendar, you know, " heanswered with assumed lightness almost, "the final moment ofLeyel-el-Sud, the period of Black Nights when the Desert was held toencroach with--with various possibilities of a supernatural order. Shewishes to revive a certain practice of the old Egyptians. There _may_ becurious results. At any rate, the occasion is a picturesque one--betterthan this cheap imitation of London life. " And he indicated the lights, the signs of people in the hall dressed for gaieties and dances, thehotel orchestra that played after dinner. 

Henriot at the moment answered nothing, so great was the rush ofconflicting emotions that came he knew not whence. Vance went calmly on. He spoke with a simple frankness that was meant to be disarming. Henriotnever 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 wayonly: not in the experiment itself precisely, but by watching merelyand--" 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 inspite of himself. "She wants--she hopes to catch the outlines ofanything that happens--"

"Comes. "

"Exactly. Determine the shape of anything that comes. You may rememberyour conversation of the other night with her. She is very certain ofsuccess. "

This was direct enough at any rate. It was as formal as an invitation toa dinner, and as guileless. The thing he thought he wanted lay withinhis reach. He had merely to say yes. He did say yes; but first he lookedabout him instinctively, as for guidance. He looked at the starstwinkling high above the distant Libyan Plateau; at the long arms of theDesert, gleaming weirdly white in the moonlight, and reaching towardshim down every opening between the houses; at the heavy mass of theMokattam Hills, guarding the Arabian Wilderness with strange, peakedbarriers, their sand-carved ridges dark and still above the Wadi Hof. 

These questionings attracted no response. The Desert watched him, but itdid 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 willcome--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 hissatisfaction. The opposing things in the fellow's mind of darknessfought visibly in his eyes and skin. The sordid motive, planning adreadful act, leaped to his face, and with it a flash of this otheryearning that sought unearthly knowledge, perhaps believed it too. Nowonder there was conflict written on his features. 

Then all expression vanished again; he leaned forward, lowering hisvoice. 

"You remember our conversation about there being types of life too vastto manifest in a single body, and my aunt's belief that these were knownto certain of the older religious systems of the world?"

"Perfectly. "

"Her experiment, then, is to bring one of these great Powers back--wepossess the sympathetic ritual that can rouse some among them toactivity--and win it down into the sphere of our minds, our mindsheightened, you see, by ceremonial to that stage of clairvoyant visionwhich can perceive them. "

"And then?" They might have been discussing the building of a house, sonaturally followed answer upon question. But the whole body of meaningin the old Egyptian symbolism rushed over him with a force that shookhis heart. Memory came so marvellously with it. 

"If the Power floods down into our minds with sufficient strength foractual form, to note the outline of such form, and from your drawingmodel it later in permanent substance. Then we should have means ofevoking it at will, for we should have its natural Body--the form itbuilt 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 breakthrough his mind. 

"We are on the earth, " was the reply, spoken unnecessarily low since noliving thing was within earshot, "we are in physical conditions, are wenot? Even a human soul we do not recognise unless we see it in abody--parents provide the outline, the signature, the sigil of thereturning soul. This, " and he tapped himself upon the breast, "is thephysical signature of that type of life we call a soul. Unless there islife of a certain strength behind it, no body forms. And, without abody, 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 italicsVance made use of. 

"Too vague, of no value for future use, " was the reply. "But once obtainthe form, and we have the natural symbol of that particular Power. And asymbol is more than image, it is a direct and concentrated expression ofthe 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 muchhe would tell. His language was admirably evasive. Few perhaps wouldhave detected the profound significance the curious words he next usedunquestionably concealed. Henriot's mind rejected them, but his heartaccepted. For the ancient soul in him was listening and aware. 

"Life, using matter to express itself in bodily shape, first traces ageometrical pattern. From the lowest form in crystals, upwards to morecomplicated patterns in the higher organisations--there is always firstthis geometrical pattern as skeleton. For geometry lies at the root ofall possible phenomena; and is the mind's interpretation of a livingmovement towards shape that shall express it. " He brought his eyescloser to the other, lowering his voice again. "Hence, " he said softly, "the signs in all the old magical systems--skeleton forms into which thePowers evoked descended; outlines those Powers automatically built upwhen using matter to express themselves. Such signs are material symbolsof their bodiless existence. They attract the life they represent andinterpret. Obtain the correct, true symbol, and the Power correspondingto it can approach--once roused and made aware. It has, you see, aready-made mould into which it can come down. "

"Once roused and made aware?" repeated Henriot questioningly, while thisman went stammering the letters of a language that he himself had usedtoo long ago to recapture fully. 

"Because they have left the world. They sleep, unmanifested. Their formsare no longer known to men. No forms exist on earth to-day that couldcontain them. But they may be awakened, " he added darkly. "They arebound 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 thrusthis lips forward, speaking eagerly, earnestly, yet somehow at the sametime, horribly: "And we want--my aunt would ask--your draughtsman'sskill, or at any rate your memory afterwards, to establish the outlineof 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 hadknown from the beginning that he would consent, for the desire in himwas stronger than all the caution in the world. The Past inexorably drewhim into the circle of these other lives, and the little human dreadVance woke in him seemed just then insignificant by comparison. It wasmerely of To-day. 

"You two, " he said, trying to bring judgment into it, "engaged inevocation, will be in a state of clairvoyant vision. Granted. But shallI, as an outsider, observing with unexcited mind, see anything, knowanything, be aware of anything at all, let alone the drawing of it?"

"Unless, " the reply came instantly with decision, "the descent of Poweris strong enough to take actual material shape, the experiment is afailure. Anybody can induce subjective vision. Such fantasies have novalue though. They are born of an overwrought imagination. " And then headded quickly, as though to clinch the matter before caution andhesitation could take effect: "You must watch from the heights above. Weshall be in the valley--the Wadi Hof is the place. You must not be tooclose--"

"Why not too close?" asked Henriot, springing forward like a flashbefore he could prevent the sudden impulse. 

With a quickness equal to his own, Vance answered. There was no faintestsign that he was surprised. His self-control was perfect. Only the glarepassed darkly through his eyes and went back again into the sombre soulthat 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 bythe patterned symbol into which she would decoy it down, it will takeactual, physical expression. But how? Where is the Body of Worshippersthrough whom it can manifest? There is none. It will, therefore, pressinanimate matter into the service. The terrific impulse to form itself ameans of expression will force all loose matter at hand towardsit--sand, stones, all it can compel to yield--everything must rush intothe sphere of action in which it operates. Alone, we at the centre, andyou, upon the outer fringe, will be safe. Only--you must not come tooclose. "

But Henriot was no longer listening. His soul had turned to ice. Forhere, in this unguarded moment, the cloven hoof had plainly shownitself. In that suggestion of a particular kind of danger Vance hadlifted a corner of the curtain behind which crouched his horribleintention. Vance desired a witness of the extraordinary experiment, buthe desired this witness, not merely for the purpose of sketchingpossible shapes that might present themselves to excited vision. Hedesired a witness for another reason too. Why had Vance put that ideainto his mind, this idea of so peculiar danger? It might well have losthim 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 wentout, and the armed patrol, pacing to and fro outside the iron railingsthat kept the desert back, eyed them curiously. But the only other thinghe gathered of importance was the ledge upon the cliff-top where he wasto stand and watch; that he was expected to reach there before sunsetand wait till the moon concealed all glimmer in the western sky, and--that the woman, who had been engaged for days in secret preparationof soul and body for the awful rite, would not be visible again until hesaw her in the depths of the black valley far below, busy with this manupon audacious, ancient purposes. 

IX

An hour before sunset Henriot put his rugs and food upon a donkey, andgave the boy directions where to meet him--a considerable distance fromthe appointed spot. He went himself on foot. He slipped in the heatalong 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. Butdesire now was far too strong for caution. The desert tide was rising. It easily swept him down the long white street towards the enormousdeeps beyond. He felt the pull of a thousand miles before him; and twicea thousand years drove at his back. 

Everything still basked in the sunshine. He passed Al Hayat, the statelyhotel that dominates the village like a palace built against the sky;and in its pillared colonnades and terraces he saw the throngs of peoplehaving late afternoon tea and listening to the music of a regimentalband. Men in flannels were playing tennis, parties were climbing offdonkeys after long excursions; there was laughter, talking, a babel ofmany voices. The gaiety called to him; the everyday spirit whispered tostay and join the crowd of lively human beings. Soon there would bemerry dinner-parties, dancing, voices of pretty women, sweet whitedresses, singing, and the rest. Soft eyes would question and turn dark. He picked out several girls he knew among the palms. But it was allmany, oh so many leagues away; centuries lay between him and this modernworld. An indescriable loneliness was in his heart. He went searchingthrough the sands of forgotten ages, and wandering among the ruins of avanished time. He hurried. Already the deeper water caught his breath. 

He climbed the steep rise towards the plateau where the Observatorystands, and saw two of the officials whom he knew taking a siesta aftertheir long day's work. He felt that his mind, too, had dived andsearched among the heavenly bodies that live in silent, changeless peaceremote from the world of men. They recognised him, these two whose eyesalso knew tremendous distance close. They beckoned, waving the strawsthrough which they sipped their drinks from tall glasses. Their voicesfloated down to him as from the star-fields. He saw the sun gleam uponthe glasses, and heard the clink of the ice against the sides. Thestillness was amazing. He waved an answer, and passed quickly on. Hecould not stop this sliding current of the years. 

The tide moved faster, the draw of piled-up cycles urging it. He emergedupon the plateau, and met the cooler Desert air. His feet went crunchingon the "desert-film" that spread its curious dark shiny carpet as far asthe eye could reach; it lay everywhere, unswept and smooth as when thefeet of vanished civilizations trod its burning surface, then dippedbehind the curtains Time pins against the stars. And here the body ofthe tide set all one way. There was a greater strength of current, draught and suction. He felt the powerful undertow. Deeper masses drewhis feet sideways, and he felt the rushing of the central body of thesand. The sands were moving, from their foundation upwards. He wentunresistingly with them. 

Turning a moment, he looked back at shining little Helouan in the blazeof evening light. The voices reached him very faintly, merged now in ageneral murmur. Beyond lay the strip of Delta vivid green, the palms, the roofs of Bedrashein, the blue laughter of the Nile with its flocksof curved felucca sails. Further still, rising above the yellow Libyanhorizon, gloomed the vast triangles of a dozen Pyramids, cutting theirwedge-shaped clefts out of a sky fast crimsoning through a sea of gold. Seen thus, their dignity imposed upon the entire landscape. They towereddarkly, symbolic signatures of the ancient Powers that now watched himtaking these little steps across their damaged territory. 

He gazed a minute, then went on. He saw the big pale face of the moon inthe east. Above the ever-silent Thing these giant symbols onceinterpreted, she rose, grand, effortless, half-terrible as themselves. And, with her, she lifted up this tide of the Desert that drew his feetacross the sand to Wadi Hof. A moment later he dipped below the ridgethat buried Helouan and Nile and Pyramids from sight. He entered theancient waters. Time then, in an instant, flowed back behind hisfootsteps, obliterating every trace. And with it his mind went too. Hestepped across the gulf of centuries, moving into the Past. The Desertlay before him--an open tomb wherein his soul should read presently ofthings long vanished. 

The strange half-lights of sunset began to play their witchery then uponthe landscape. A purple glow came down upon the Mokattam Hills. Perspective danced its tricks of false, incredible deception. Thesoaring kites that were a mile away seemed suddenly close, passing in amoment from the size of gnats to birds with a fabulous stretch of wing. Ridges and cliffs rushed close without a hint of warning, and levelplaces sank into declivities and basins that made him trip and stumble. That indescribable quality of the Desert, which makes timid souls avoidthe hour of dusk, emerged; it spread everywhere, undisguised. And thebewilderment it brings is no vain, imagined thing, for it distortsvision utterly, and the effect upon the mind when familiar sight goesfloundering is the simplest way in the world of dragging the anchor thatgrips reality. At the hour of sunset this bewilderment comes upon a manwith a disconcerting swiftness. It rose now with all this weirdrapidity. Henriot found himself enveloped at a moment's notice. 

But, knowing well its effect, he tried to judge it and pass on. Theother matters, the object of his journey chief of all, he refused todwell upon with any imagination. Wisely, his mind, while never losingsight of it, declined to admit the exaggeration that over-elaboratethinking brings. "I'm going to witness an incredible experiment in whichtwo enthusiastic religious dreamers believe firmly, " he repeated tohimself. "I have agreed to draw--anything I see. There may be truth init, or they may be merely self-suggested vision due to an artificialexaltation of their minds. I'm interested--perhaps against my betterjudgment. Yet I'll see the adventure out--because I _must_. "

This was the attitude he told himself to take. Whether it was the realone, or merely adopted to warm a cooling courage, he could not tell. Theemotions were so complex and warring. His mind, automatically, keptrepeating this comforting formula. Deeper than that he could not see tojudge. For a man who knew the full content of his thought at such a timewould solve some of the oldest psychological problems in the world. Sandhad already buried judgment, and with it all attempt to explain theadventure by the standards acceptable to his brain of to-day. He steeredsubconsciously through a world of dim, huge, half-remembered wonders. 

The sun, with that abrupt Egyptian suddenness, was below the horizonnow. The pyramid field had swallowed it. Ra, in his golden boat, saileddistant seas beyond the Libyan wilderness. Henriot walked on and on, aware of utter loneliness. He was walking fields of dream, too remotefrom modern life to recall companionship he once had surely known. Howdim it was, how deep and distant, how lost in this sea of anincalculable Past! He walked into the places that are soundless. Thesoundlessness of ocean, miles below the surface, was about him. He waswith One only--this unfathomable, silent thing where nothing breathes orstirs--nothing but sunshine, shadow and the wind-borne sand. Slowly, infront, the moon climbed up the eastern sky, hanging above thesilence--silence that ran unbroken across the horizons to where Suezgleamed upon the waters of a sister sea in motion. That moon wasglinting now upon the Arabian Mountains by its desolate shores. Southwards stretched the wastes of Upper Egypt a thousand miles to meetthe Nubian wilderness. But over all these separate Deserts stirred thesoft whisper of the moving sand--deep murmuring message that Life was onthe 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 grewapace. Before he had gone the first two miles of his hour's journey, thetwilight caught the rocky hills and twisted them into those monstrousrevelations of physiognomies they barely take the trouble to concealeven in the daytime. And, while he well understood the eroding agenciesthat have produced them, there yet rose in his mind a deeperinterpretation lurking just behind their literal meanings. Here, throughthe motionless surfaces, that nameless thing the Desert ill concealsurged outwards into embryonic form and shape, akin, he almost felt, tothose immense deific symbols of Other Life the Egyptians knew andworshipped. Hence, from the Desert, had first come, he felt, theunearthly life they typified in their monstrous figures of granite, evoked in their stately temples, and communed with in the ritual oftheir Mystery ceremonials. 

This "watching" aspect of the Libyan Desert is really natural enough;but it is just the natural, Henriot knew, that brings the deepestrevelations. The surface limestones, resisting the erosion, blockthemselves ominously against the sky, while the softer sand beneath setsthem on altared pedestals that define their isolation splendidly. Bluntand unconquerable, these masses now watched him pass between them. TheDesert surface formed them, gave them birth. They rose, they saw, theysank down again--waves upon a sea that carried forgotten life up fromthe depths below. Of forbidding, even menacing type, they somewheremated with genuine grandeur. Unformed, according to any standard ofhuman or of animal faces, they achieved an air of giant physiognomywhich made them terrible. The unwinking stare of eyes--lidless eyes thatyet ever succeed in hiding--looked out under well-marked, leveleyebrows, suggesting a vision that included the motives and purposes ofhis very heart. They looked up grandly, understood why he was there, andthen--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; jowlsdrooping into sandy heaps that climbed against the cheeks; protrudingjaws, and the suggestion of shoulders just about to lift the entirebodies out of the sandy beds--this host of countenances conveyed asolemnity of expression that seemed everlasting, implacable as Death. Ofhuman signature they bore no trace, nor was comparison possible betweentheir kind and any animal life. They peopled the Desert here. And theirsmiles, concealed yet just discernible, went broadening with thedarkness into a Desert laughter. The silence bore it underground. ButHenriot was aware of it. The troop of faces slipped into that single, enormous countenance which is the visage of the Sand. And he saw iteverywhere, yet nowhere. 

Thus with the darkness grew his imaginative interpretation of theDesert. Yet there was construction in it, a construction, moreover, thatwas _not_ entirely his own. Powers, he felt, were rising, stirring, wakening from sleep. Behind the natural faces that he saw, these otherthings peered gravely at him as he passed. They used, as it were, materials that lay ready to their hand. Imagination furnished thesehints of outline, yet the Powers themselves were real. There _was_ thisamazing movement of the sand. By no other manner could his mind haveconceived of such a thing, nor dreamed of this simple, yet dreadfulmethod of approach. 

Approach! that was the word that first stood out and startled him. Therewas approach; something was drawing nearer. The Desert rose and walkedbeside him. For not alone these ribs of gleaming limestone contributedtowards the elemental visages, but the entire hills, of which they werean outcrop, ran to assist in the formation, and were a necessary part ofthem. He was watched and stared at from behind, in front, on eitherside, and even from below. The sand that swept him on, kept even pacewith him. It turned luminous too, with a patchwork of glimmering effectthat was indescribably weird; lanterns glowed within its substance, andby their light he stumbled on, glad of the Arab boy he would presentlymeet at the appointed place. 

The last torch of the sunset had flickered out, melting into thewilderness, when, suddenly opening at his feet, gaped the deep, widegully known as Wadi Hof. Its curve swept past him. 

This first impression came upon him with a certain violence: that thedesolate valley rushed. He saw but a section of its curve and sweep, butthrough its entire length of several miles the Wadi fled away. The moonwhitened it like snow, piling black shadows very close against thecliffs. In the flood of moonlight it went rushing past. It was emptyingitself. 

For a moment the stream of movement seemed to pause and look up into hisface, then instantly went on again upon its swift career. It was likethe procession of a river to the sea. The valley emptied itself to makeway 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 hehad used before. He said it half aloud. But, while he did so, his heartwhispered quite other things. Thoughts the woman and the man had sownrose up in a flock and fell upon him like a storm of sand. Their impetusdrove off all support of ordinary ideas. They shook him where he stood, staring down into this river of strange invisible movement that washundreds of feet in depth and a quarter of a mile across. 

He sought to realise himself as he actually was to-day--mere visitor toHelouan, tempted into this wild adventure with two strangers. But invain. That seemed a dream, unreal, a transient detail picked out fromthe 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 theplay of excited fancy only. By sheer force he pinned his thought againstthis fact: but further he could not get. There _were_ Powers at work;they were being stirred, wakened somewhere into activity. Evocation hadalready begun. That sense of their approach as he had walked along fromHelouan was not imaginary. A descent of some type of life, vanished fromthe world too long for recollection, was on the way, --so vast that itwould 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 atwork, their minds driving beyond this little world. The valley wasemptying itself--for the descent of life their ritual invited. 

And the movement in the sand was likewise true. He recalled thesentences the woman had used. "My body, " he reflected, "like the bodieslife makes use of everywhere, is mere upright heap of earth and dustand--sand. Here in the Desert is the raw material, the greatest store ofit in the world. "

And on the heels of it came sharply that other thing: that thisdescending Life would press into its service all loose matter within itsreach--to form that sphere of action which would be in a literal senseits Body. 

In the first few seconds, as he stood there, he realised all this, andrealised it with an overwhelming conviction it was futile to deny. Thefast-emptying valley would later brim with an unaccustomed and terrificlife. Yet Death hid there too--a little, ugly, insignificant death. Withthe name of Vance it flashed upon his mind and vanished, too tiny to bethought about in this torrent of grander messages that shook the depthswithin 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 consciousof a wild desire to run away, to hide, to efface himself utterly, histerror, his curiosity, his little wonder, and not be seen of anything. But it was all vain and foolish. The Desert saw him. The Gigantic knewthat he was there. No escape was possible any longer. Caught by thesand, he stood amid eternal things. The river of movement swept him too. 

These hills, now motionless as statues, would presently glide forwardinto the cavalcade, sway like vessels, and go past with the procession. At present only the contents, not the frame, of the Wadi moved. Animmense soft brush of moonlight swept it empty for what was on theway. .. . But presently the entire Desert would stand up and also go. 

Then, making a sideways movement, his feet kicked against something softand yielding that lay heaped upon the Desert floor, and Henriotdiscovered the rugs the Arab boy had carefully set down before he madefull speed for the friendly lights of Helouan. The sound of hisdeparting 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 makepreparations for the night. But the appointed spot, whence he was towatch, lay upon the summit of the opposite cliffs. He must cross theWadi bed and climb. Slowly and with labour he made his way down a steepcleft into the depth of the Wadi Hof, sliding and stumbling often, tillat length he stood upon the floor of shining moonlight. It was verysmooth; windless utterly; still as space; each particle of sand lay inits ancient place asleep. The movement, it seemed, had ceased. 

He clambered next up the eastern side, through pitch-black shadows, andwithin the hour reached the ledge upon the top whence he could see belowhim, like a silvered map, the sweep of the valley bed. The wind nippedkeenly here again, coming over the leagues of cooling sand. Looseboulders of splintered rock, started by his climbing, crashed and boomedinto the depths. He banked the rugs behind him, wrapped himself in hisovercoat, and lay down to wait. Behind him was a two-foot crumbling wallagainst which he leaned; in front a drop of several hundred feet throughspace. He lay upon a platform, therefore, invisible from the Desert athis back. Below, the curving Wadi formed a natural amphitheatre in whicheach separate boulder fallen from the cliffs, and even the little_silla_ shrubs the camels eat, were plainly visible. He noted all thebigger ones among them. He counted them over half aloud. 

And the moving stream he had been unaware of when crossing the beditself, now began again. The Wadi went rushing past before the broom ofmoonlight. Again, the enormous and the tiny combined in one singlestrange impression. For, through this conception of great movement, stirred also a roving, delicate touch that his imagination felt asbird-like. Behind the solid mass of the Desert's immobility flashedsomething swift and light and airy. Bizarre pictures interpreted it tohim, like rapid snap-shots of a huge flying panorama: he thought ofdarting dragon-flies seen at Helouan, of children's little dancing feet, of twinkling butterflies--of birds. Chiefly, yes, of a flock of birds inflight, whose separate units formed a single entity. The idea of theGroup-Soul possessed his mind once more. But it came with a sense ofmore than curiosity or wonder. Veneration lay behind it, a venerationtouched with awe. It rose in his deepest thought that here was the firsthint 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 toobig to mate with definite dread. There was high anticipation in him, butnot anxiety. Of himself, as Felix Henriot, indeed, he hardly seemedaware. He was some one else. Or, rather, he was himself at a stage hehad known once far, far away in a remote pre-existence. He watchedhimself from dim summits of a Past, of which no further details were asyet recoverable. 

Pencil and sketching-block lay ready to his hand. The moon rose higher, tucking the shadows ever more closely against the precipices. The silverpassed into a sheet of snowy whiteness, that made every boulder clearlyvisible. Solemnity deepened everywhere into awe. The Wadi fled silentlydown the stream of hours. It was almost empty now. And then, abruptly, he was aware of change. The motion altered somewhere. It moved morequietly; pace slackened; the end of the procession that evacuated thedepth 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 watcheda regiment of soldiers filing by. The wind took off his voice like aflying feather of sound. 

And there _was_ a change. It had begun. Night and the moon stood stillto watch and listen. The wind dropped utterly away. The sand ceased itsshifting movement. The Desert everywhere stopped still, and turned. 

Some curtain, then, that for centuries had veiled the world, drewsoftly up, leaving a shaded vista down which the eyes of his soul peeredtowards long-forgotten pictures. Still buried by the sands too deep forfull recovery, he yet perceived dim portions of them--things oncehonoured and loved passionately. For once they had surely been to himthe whole of life, not merely a fragment for cheap wonder to inspect. And they were curiously familiar, even as the person of this woman whonow evoked them was familiar. Henriot made no pretence to more definiteremembrance; but the haunting certainty rushed over him, deeper thandoubt or denial, and with such force that he felt no effort to destroyit. Some lost sweetness of spiritual ambitions, lived for with thispassionate devotion, and passionately worshipped as men to-day worshipfame and money, revived in him with a tempest of high glory. Centres ofmemory stirred from an age-long sleep, so that he could have wept attheir so complete obliteration hitherto. That such majesty had departedfrom the world as though it never had existed, was a thought fordesolation and for tears. And though the little fragment he was about towitness might be crude in itself and incomplete, yet it was part of avast system that once explored the richest realms of deity. Thereverence in him contained a holiness of the night and of the stars;great, gentle awe lay in it too; for he stood, aflame with anticipationand humility, at the gateway of sacred things. 

And this was the mood, no thrill of cheap excitement or alarm to weakenin, in which he first became aware that two spots of darkness he hadtaken all along for boulders on the snowy valley bed, were actuallysomething very different. They were living figures. They moved. It wasnot the shadows slowly following the moonlight, but the stir of humanbeings who all these hours had been motionless as stone. He must havepassed 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 onthem without recognition. Their minds, he knew full well, had not beeninactive 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 principalfigures. It had nothing in common with the cheap external ceremonial ofmodern days. In forgotten powers of the soul its grandeur lay, potent, splendid, true. Long before he came, perhaps all through the day, thesetwo had laboured with their arduous preparations. They were there, partof the Desert, when hours ago he had crossed the plateau in thetwilight. To them--to this woman's potent working of old ceremonial--hadbeen due that singular rush of imagination he had felt. He hadinterpreted the Desert as alive. Here was the explanation. It _was_alive. Life was on the way. Long latent, her intense desire summoned itback to physical expression; and the effect upon him had steadilyincreased as he drew nearer to the centre where she would focus itsrevival and return. Those singular impressions of being watched andaccompanied were explained. A priest of this old-world worship performeda genuine evocation; a Great One of Vision revived the cosmic Powers. 

Henriot watched the small figures far below him with a sense of dramaticsplendour that only this association of far-off Memory could accountfor. It was their rising now, and the lifting of their arms to form aslow revolving outline, that marked the abrupt cessation of the largerriver of movement; for the sweeping of the Wadi sank into suddenstillness, and these two, with motions not unlike some dance ofdeliberate solemnity, passed slowly through the moonlight to and fro. His attention fixed upon them both. All other movement ceased. Theyfastened the flow of Time against the Desert's body. 

What happened then? How could his mind interpret an experience so longdenied that the power of expression, as of comprehension, has ceased toexist? How translate this symbolical representation, small detail thoughit was, of a transcendent worship entombed for most so utterly beyondrecovery? Its splendour could never lodge in minds that conceive Deityperched upon a cloud within telephoning distance of fashionablechurches. How should he phrase it even to himself, whose memory drew uppictures from so dim a past that the language fit to frame them layunreachable and lost?

Henriot did not know. Perhaps he never yet has known. Certainly, at thetime, he did not even try to think. His sensations remain hisown--untranslatable; and even that instinctive description the mindgropes for automatically, floundered, halted, and stopped dead. Yetthere rose within him somewhere, from depths long drowned in slumber, areviving power by which he saw, divined and recollected--rememberedseemed too literal a word--these elements of a worship he once hadpersonally known. He, too, had worshipped thus. His soul had moved amidsimilar evocations in some aeonian past, whence now the sand was beingcleared away. Symbols of stupendous meaning flashed and went their wayacross the lifting mists. He hardly caught their meaning, so long it wassince, he had known them; yet they were familiar as the faces seen indreams, and some hint of their spiritual significance left faint tracesin his heart by means of which their grandeur reached towardsinterpretation. And all were symbols of a cosmic, deific nature; ofPowers that only symbols can express--prayer-books and sacraments usedin the Wisdom Religion of an older time, but to-day known only in thedecrepit, literal shell which is their degradation. 

Grandly the figures moved across the valley bed. The powers of theheavenly bodies once more joined them. They moved to the measure of acosmic dance, whose rhythm was creative. The Universe partnered them. 

There was this transfiguration of all common, external things. Herealised that appearances were visible letters of a soundless language, a language he once had known. The powers of night and moon and desertsand married with points in the fluid stream of his inmost spiritualbeing that knew and welcomed them. He understood. 

Old Egypt herself stooped down from her uncovered throne. The stars sentmessengers. There was commotion in the secret, sandy places of thedesert. 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 ruinquestioned by alien hearts that knew not their spiritual meaning. Buthere the entire Desert swept in to form a shrine, and the Majesty thatonce 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 thevast recesses of the ceiling, and the wind from a thousand miles broughtin the perfume of her incense. For with that faith which shiftsmountains from their sandy bed, two passionate, believing souls invokedthe Ka of Egypt. 

And the motions that they made, he saw, were definite harmoniouspatterns their dark figures traced upon the shining valley floor. Likethe points of compasses, with stems invisible, and directed from thesky, their movements marked the outlines of great signatures ofpower--the sigils of the type of life they would evoke. It would come asa Procession. No individual outline could contain it. It needed for itsvisible expression--many. The descent of a group-soul, known to theworship of this mighty system, rose from its lair of centuries and movedhugely down upon them. The Ka, answering to the summons, would mate withsand. The Desert was its Body. 

Yet it was not this that he had come to fix with block and pencil. Notyet 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 andprolonged to remember with accuracy later, he understood that they wereforms of that root-geometry which lies behind all manifested life. Themould was being traced in outline. Life would presently inform it. And asinging rose from the maze of lines whose beauty was like the beauty ofthe constellations. 

This sound was very faint at first, but grew steadily in volume. Although no echoes, properly speaking, were possible, these precipicescaught stray notes that trooped in from the further sandy reaches. Thefigures certainly were chanting, but their chanting was not all heheard. Other sounds came to his ears from far away, running past himthrough the air from every side, and from incredible distances, allflocking down into the Wadi bed to join the parent note that summonedthem. The Desert was giving voice. And memory, lifting her hood yethigher, showed more of her grey, mysterious face that searched his soulwith questions. Had he so soon forgotten that strange union of form andsound which once was known to the evocative rituals of olden days?

Henriot tried patiently to disentangle this desert-music that theirintoning 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 wasreverberation, rhythm, measure; there was almost the breaking of thestream into great syllables. But was it due, this strange reverberation, to the countless particles of sand meeting in mid-air about him, or--tolarger bodies, whose surfaces caught this friction of the sand and threwit back against his ears? The wind, now rising, brought particles thatstung his face and hands, and filled his eyes with a minute fine dustthat 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 morein a single, whirling torrent. But Henriot sought no commonplaceexplanation of what he witnessed; and here was the proof that allhappened in some vestibule of inner experience where the strain ofquestion and answer had no business. One sitting beside him need nothave seen anything at all. His host, for instance, from Helouan, neednot have been aware. Night screened it; Helouan, as the whole of modernexperience, stood in front of the screen. This thing took place behindit. He crouched motionless, watching in some reconstructed ante-chamberof the soul's pre-existence, while the torrent grew into a veritabletempest. 

Yet Night remained unshaken; the veil of moonlight did not quiver; thestars dropped their slender golden pillars unobstructed. Calmnessreigned everywhere as before. The stupendous representation passed onbehind it all. 

But the dignity of the little human movements that he watched had becomenow indescribable. The gestures of the arms and bodies investedthemselves with consummate grandeur, as these two strode into thecaverns behind manifested life and drew forth symbols that representedvanished Powers. The sound of their chanting voices broke in cadencedfragments against the shores of language. The words Henriot neveractually caught, if words they were; yet he understood theirpurport--these Names of Power to which the type of returning life gaveanswer as they approached. He remembered fumbling for his drawingmaterials, with such violence, however, that the pencil snapped in twobetween his fingers as he touched it. For now, even here, upon the outerfringe of the ceremonial ground, there was a stir of forces that set thevery muscles working in him before he had become aware of it. .. . 

Then came the moment when his heart leaped against his ribs with asudden violence that was almost pain, standing a second later still asdeath. The lines upon the valley floor ceased their maze-like dance. Allmovement stopped. Sound died away. In the midst of this profound anddreadful silence the sigils lay empty there below him. They waited to bein-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 aProcession and could be no mere momentary flash of vision. From suchappalling distance did it sweep down towards the present. 

Upon this network, then, of splendid lines, at length held rigid, theentire Desert reared itself with walls of curtained sand, that dwarfedthe cliffs, the shouldering hills, the very sky. The Desert stood onend. As once before he had dreamed it from his balcony windows, it roseupright, towering, and close against his face. It built sudden rampartsto the stars that chambered the thing he witnessed behind walls nocenturies 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 eyesinto the vast picture-gallery Memory threw abruptly open. And thepicture spaced its noble outline thus against the very stars. He gazedbetween columns, that supported the sky itself, like pillars of sandthat swept across the field of vanished years. Sand poured and streamedaside, laying bare the Past. 

For down the enormous vista into which he gazed, as into an avenuerunning a million miles towards a tiny point, he saw this moving Thingthat came towards him, shaking loose the countless veils of sand theages 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. Shecame. She stretched forth an arm towards the worshippers who evoked her. Out of the Desert, out of the leagues of sand, out of the immeasurablewilderness which was her mummied Form and Body, she rose and came. Andthis fragment of her he would actually see--this little portion that wasobedient to the stammered and broken ceremonial. The partial revelationhe would witness--yet so vast, even this little bit of it, that it cameas a Procession and a host. 

For a moment there was nothing. And then the voice of the woman rose ina resounding cry that filled the Wadi to its furthest precipices, beforeit died away again to silence. That a human voice could produce suchvolume, accent, depth, seemed half incredible. The walls of toweringsand swallowed it instantly. But the Procession of life, needing agroup, a host, an army for its physical expression, reached at thatmoment the nearer end of the huge avenue. It touched the Present; itentered the world of men. 

X

The entire range of Henriot's experience, read, imagined, dreamed, thenfainted into unreality before the sheer wonder of what he saw. In thebrief interval it takes to snap the fingers the climax was thus sohurriedly upon him. And, through it all, he was clearly aware of thepair of little human figures, man and woman, standing erect andcommanding at the centre--knew, too, that she directed and controlled, while he in some secondary fashion supported her--and ever watched. Butboth were dim, dropped somewhere into a lesser scale. It was theknowledge of their presence, however, that alone enabled him to keep hispowers in hand at all. But for these two _human_ beings there withinpossible reach, he must have closed his eyes and swooned. 

For a tempest that seemed to toss loose stars about the sky swept roundabout him, pouring up the pillared avenue in front of the procession. Ablast of giant energy, of liberty, came through. Forwards and backwards, circling spirally about him like a whirlwind, came this revival of Lifethat sought to dip itself once more in matter and in form. It came tothe accurate out-line of its form they had traced for it. He held hismind steady enough to realise that it was akin to what men call a"descent" of some "spiritual movement" that wakens a body of believersinto faith--a race, an entire nation; only that he experienced it inthis brief, concentrated form before it has scattered down into tenthousand hearts. Here he knew its source and essence, behind the veil. Crudely, unmanageable as yet, he felt it, rushing loose behindappearances. There was this amazing impact of a twisting, swinging forcethat stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs of theold stubborn hills. It sought to warm them with the stress of its ownirresistible life-stream, to beat them into shape, and make pliabletheir obstinate resistance. Through all things the impulse poured andspread, 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 thusfought against inertia. He perceived nothing form-al. Calm and untouchedhimself, he lay outside the circle of evocation, watching, waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, yet well aware that any minute the scenewould transfer itself from memory that was subjective to matter that wasobjective. 

And then, in a flash, the bridge was built, and the transfer wasaccomplished. How or where he did not see, he could not tell. It wasthere before he knew it--there before his normal, earthly sight. He sawit, 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 forits reception. Through stones and sand and boulders it came in animpetuous hurricane of power. The liberation of its life appalled him. All that was free, untied, responded instantly like chaff; loose objectsfled towards it; there was a yielding in the hills and precipices; andeven in the mass of Desert which provided their foundation. The hingesof the Sand went creaking in the night. It shaped for itself a bodilyoutline. 

Yet, most strangely, nothing definitely moved. How could he express theviolent contradiction? For the immobility was apparent only--a sham, acounterfeit; while behind it the essential _being_ of these things didrush and shift and alter. He saw the two things side by side: the outerimmobility the senses commonly agree upon, _and_ this amazing flying-outof their inner, invisible substance towards the vortex of attractinglife that sucked them in. For stubborn matter turned docile before thestress of this returning life, taught somewhere to be plastic. It wasbeing moulded into an approach to bodily outline. A mobile elasticityinvaded rigid substance. The two officiating human beings, safe at thestationary centre, and himself, just outside the circle of operation, alone remained untouched and unaffected. But a few feet in anydirection, for any one of them, meant--instantaneous death. They wouldbe absorbed into the vortex, mere corpuscles pressed into the service ofthis sphere of action of a mighty Body. .. . 

How these perceptions reached him with such conviction, Henriot couldnever say. He knew it, because he _felt_ it. Something fell about himfrom the sky that already paled towards the dawn. The stars themselves, it seemed, contributed some part of the terrific, flowing impulse thatconquered matter and shaped itself this physical expression. 

Then, before he was able to fashion any preconceived idea of whatvisible form this potent life might assume, he was aware of furtherchange. It came at the briefest possible interval after thebeginning--this certainty that, to and fro about him, as yet howeverindeterminate, passed Magnitudes that were stupendous as the desert. There was beauty in them too, though a terrible beauty hardly of thisearth at all. A fragment of old Egypt had returned--a little portion ofthat vast Body of Belief that once was Egypt. Evoked by the worship ofone human heart, passionately sincere, the Ka of Egypt stepped back tovisit the material it once informed--the Sand. 

Yet only a portion came. Henriot clearly realised that. It stretchedforth an arm. Finding no mass of worshippers through whom it mightexpress itself completely, it pressed inanimate matter thus into itsservice. 

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 thisgroup-energy sought to clothe itself as visible form, were curiouslyfamiliar. It was not a new thing that he would see. Booming softly asthey dropped downwards through the sky, with a motion the size of themrendered delusive, they trooped up the Avenue towards the central pointthat summoned them. He realised the giant flock of them--descent offearful beauty--outlining a type of life denied to the world for ages, countless as this sand that blew against his skin. Careering over thewaste of Desert moved the army of dark Splendours, that dwarfed anyorganic structure called a body men have ever known. He recognised them, cold in him of death, though the outlines reared higher than thepyramids, and towered up to hide whole groups of stars. Yes, herecognised them in their partial revelation, though he never saw themonstrous host complete. But, one of them, he realised, posing itseternal riddle to the sands, had of old been glimpsed sufficiently toseize its form in stone, --yet poorly seized, as a doll may stand for thedignity of a human being or a child's toy represent an engine that drawstrains. .. . 

And he knelt there on his narrow ledge, the world of men forgotten. Thepower that caught him was too great a thing for wonder or for fear; heeven felt no awe. Sensation of any kind that can be named or realisedleft him utterly. He forgot himself. He merely watched. The glory numbedhim. Block and pencil, as the reason of his presence there at all, nolonger existed. .. . 

Yet one small link remained that held him to some kind of consciousnessof earthly things: he never lost sight of this--that, being just outsidethe circle of evocation, he was safe, and that the man and woman, beingstationary in its untouched centre, were also safe. But--that a movementof six inches in any direction meant for any one of them instant death. 

What was it, then, that suddenly strengthened this solitary link so thatthe chain tautened and he felt the pull of it? Henriot could not say. Hecame 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 thismoment, in the Wadi Hof, and that the cold of dawn was in the air abouthim. The chill breath of the Desert made him shiver. 

But at first, so deeply had his soul been dipped in this fragment ofancient worship, he could remember nothing more. Somewhere lay a littlespot of streets and houses; its name escaped him. He had once beenthere; there were many people, but insignificant people. Who were they?And what had he to do with them? All recent memories had been drowned inthe tide that flooded him from an immeasurable Past. 

And who were they--these two beings, standing on the white floor of sandbelow him? For a long time he could not recover their names. Yet heremembered them; and, thus robbed of association that names bring, hesaw them for an instant naked, and knew that one of them was evil. Oneof them was vile. Blackness touched the picture there. The man, his namestill out of reach, was sinister, impure and dark at the heart. And forthis reason the evocation had been partial only. The admixture of anevil motive was the flaw that marred complete success. 

The names then flashed upon him--Lady Statham--RichardVance. 

Vance! With a horrid drop from splendour into something meanand sordid, Henriot felt the pain of it. The motive of the man wasso insignificant, his purpose so atrocious. More and more, with thename, came back--his first repugnance, fear, suspicion. And humanterror caught him. He shrieked. But, as in nightmare, no sound escapedhis lips. He tried to move; a wild desire to interfere, to protect, to prevent, flung him forward--close to the dizzy edge of thegulf below. But his muscles refused obedience to the will. Theparalysis 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 dislocatedthe machinery of clairvoyant vision. The inner perceptionclouded and grew dark. Outer and inner mingled in violent, inextricableconfusion. The wrench seemed almost physical. It happenedall at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. And, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least hewas aware that it had come to pass. He knew it as positively asthough his eye were glued against a magnifying lens in the stillnessof some laboratory. He witnessed it. 

The supreme moment of evocation was close. Life, through thatawful sandy vortex, whirled and raged. Loose particles showeredand pelted, caught by the draught of vehement life that moulded thesubstance of the Desert into imperial outline--when, suddenly, shotthe little evil thing across that marred and blasted it. 

Into the whirlpool flew forward a particle of material that was ahuman being. And the Group-Soul caught and used it. 

The actual accomplishment Henriot did not claim to see. He wasa witness, but a witness who could give no evidence. Whether thewoman was pushed of set intention, or whether some detail ofsound and pattern was falsely used to effect the terrible result, hewas helpless to determine. He pretends no itemised account. Shewent. In one second, with appalling swiftness, she disappeared, swallowed out of space and time within that awful maw--one littlecorpuscle among a million through which the Life, now stalking theDesert 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 theycame. The avenues of Memory closed; the Splendours all wentdown into their sandy tombs. .. . 

 * * * * *

The moon had sunk into the Libyan wilderness; the eastern sky wasred. The dawn drew out that wondrous sweetness of the Desert, which is as sister to the sweetness that the moonlight brings. TheDesert settled back to sleep, huge, unfathomable, charged to thebrim with life that watches, waits, and yet conceals itself behindthe 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 figuremoving. It came quickly towards him, yet unsteadily, and with ahurry that was ugly. Vance was on the way to fetch him. And thehorror 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 themurderer's tread as he began to climb over the splintered rocks, andthe faint echo of his voice, calling him by name--falsely and inpretence--for help. 

THE END

[Transcriber's Note: In chapter IX of the story Sand, theword "indescriable" was corrected to "indescribable. "]