But the voice seemed in the room still--close beside him:

"I am the Sand," he heard, before it died away. *       *       *       *       *

And next he realised that the glitter of Paris lay behind him, and a
steamer was taking him with much unnecessary motion across a sparkling
sea towards Alexandria. Gladly he saw the Riviera fade below the
horizon, with its hard bright sunshine, treacherous winds, and its smear
of rich, conventional English. All restlessness now had left him. True
vagabond still at forty, he only felt the unrest and discomfort of life
when caught in the network of routine and rigid streets, no chance of
breaking loose. He was off again at last, money scarce enough indeed,
but the joy of wandering expressing itself in happy emotions of release. Every warning of calculation was stifled. He thought of the American
woman who walked out of her Long Island house one summer's day to look
at a passing sail--and was gone eight years before she walked in again. Eight years of roving travel! He had always felt respect and admiration
for that woman. For Felix Henriot, with his admixture of foreign blood, was philosopher
as well as vagabond, a strong poetic and religious strain sometimes
breaking out through fissures in his complex nature. He had seen much
life; had read many books. The passionate desire of youth to solve the
world's big riddles had given place to a resignation filled to the brim
with wonder. Anything _might_ be true. Nothing surprised him. The most
outlandish beliefs, for all he knew, might fringe truth somewhere. He
had escaped that cheap cynicism with which disappointed men soothe their
vanity when they realise that an intelligible explanation of the
universe lies beyond their powers. He no longer expected final answers. For him, even the smallest journeys held the spice of some adventure;
all minutes were loaded with enticing potentialities. And they shaped
for themselves somehow a dramatic form. "It's like a story," his friends
said when he told his travels. It always was a story. But the adventure that lay waiting for him where the silent streets of
little Helouan kiss the great Desert's lips, was of a different kind to
any Henriot had yet encountered. Looking back, he has often asked
himself, "How in the world can I accept it?" And, perhaps, he never yet has accepted it. It was sand that brought it. For the Desert, the stupendous thing that mothers little Helouan,
produced it. II


He slipped through Cairo with the same relief that he left the Riviera,
resenting its social vulgarity so close to the imperial aristocracy of
the Desert; he settled down into the peace of soft and silent little
Helouan. The hotel in which he had a room on the top floor had been
formerly a Khedivial Palace. It had the air of a palace still. He felt
himself in a country-house, with lofty ceilings, cool and airy
corridors, spacious halls. Soft-footed Arabs attended to his wants;
white walls let in light and air without a sign of heat; there was a
feeling of a large, spread tent pitched on the very sand; and the wind
that stirred the oleanders in the shady gardens also crept in to rustle
the palm leaves of his favourite corner seat. Through the large windows
where once the Khedive held high court, the sunshine blazed upon vistaed
leagues of Desert. And from his bedroom windows he watched the sun dip into gold and
crimson behind the swelling Libyan sands. This side of the pyramids he
saw the Nile meander among palm groves and tilled fields. Across his
balcony railings the Egyptian stars trooped down beside his very bed,
shaping old constellations for his dreams; while, to the south, he
looked out upon the vast untamable Body of the sands that carpeted the
world for thousands of miles towards Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the dread
Sahara itself. He wondered again why people thought it necessary to go
so far afield to know the Desert. Here, within half an hour of Cairo, it
lay breathing solemnly at his very doors. For little Helouan, caught thus between the shoulders of the Libyan and
Arabian Deserts, is utterly sand-haunted. The Desert lies all round it
like a sea. Henriot felt he never could escape from it, as he moved
about the island whose coasts are washed with sand. Down each broad and
shining street the two end houses framed a vista of its dim
immensity--glimpses of shimmering blue, or flame-touched purple. There
were stretches of deep sea-green as well, far off upon its bosom. The
streets were open channels of approach, and the eye ran down them as
along the tube of a telescope laid to catch incredible distance out of
space. Through them the Desert reached in with long, thin feelers
towards the village. Its Being flooded into Helouan, and over it. Past
walls and houses, churches and hotels, the sea of Desert pressed in
silently with its myriad soft feet of sand. It poured in everywhere,
through crack and slit and crannie. These were reminders of possession
and ownership. And every passing wind that lifted eddies of dust at the
street corners were messages from the quiet, powerful Thing that
permitted Helouan to lie and dream so peacefully in the sunshine. Mere
artificial oasis, its existence was temporary, held on lease, just for
ninety-nine centuries or so. This sea idea became insistent. For, in certain lights, and especially
in the brief, bewildering dusk, the Desert rose--swaying towards the
small white houses. The waves of it ran for fifty miles without a break. It was too deep for foam or surface agitation, yet it knew the swell of
tides. And underneath flowed resolute currents, linking distance to the
centre. These many deserts were really one. A storm, just retreated, had
tossed Helouan upon the shore and left it there to dry; but any morning
he would wake to find it had been carried off again into the depths. Some fragment, at least, would disappear. The grim Mokattam Hills were
rollers that ever threatened to topple down and submerge the sandy bar
that men called Helouan. Being soundless, and devoid of perfume, the Desert's message reached him
through two senses only--sight and touch; chiefly, of course, the
former. Its invasion was concentrated through the eyes. And vision, thus
uncorrected, went what pace it pleased. The Desert played with him. Sand
stole into his being--through the eyes. And so obsessing was this majesty of its close presence, that Henriot
sometimes wondered how people dared their little social activities
within its very sight and hearing; how they played golf and tennis upon
reclaimed edges of its face, picnicked so blithely hard upon its
frontiers, and danced at night while this stern, unfathomable Thing lay
breathing just beyond the trumpery walls that kept it out. The challenge
of their shallow admiration seemed presumptuous, almost provocative. Their pursuit of pleasure suggested insolent indifference. They ran
fool-hardy hazards, he felt; for there was no worship in their vulgar
hearts.