Four Weird Tales

  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.