And Henriot went back to sleep, caught instantly away into
unconsciousness; covered, blinded, swept over by this spreading thing of
reddish brown with the great, grey face, whose Being was colossal yet
quite tiny, and whose fingers, wings and eyes were countless as the
stars.

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




III


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

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

An Arab boy and donkey took out sleeping-bag, food and water to the Wadi
Hof, a desolate gorge about an hour eastwards. It winds between cliffs
whose summits rise some thousand feet above the sea. It opens suddenly,