Some say that the terrible gnousar sickness was upon the three travellers,
and that their very mules were dripping with it, and suppose that they
were driven to the city by hunger, but suggest no better reason for so
terrible a crime.

But most believe that it was a message from the desert himself, who owns
all the Earth to the southwards, spoken with his peculiar cry to those
three who knew his voice--men who had been out on the sand-wastes without
tents by night, who had been by day without water, men who had been out
there where the desert mutters, and had grown to know his needs and his
malevolence. They say that the desert had a need for Bethmoora, that he
wished to come into her lovely streets, and to send into her temples and
her houses his storm-winds draped with sand. For he hates the sound and
the sight of men in his old evil heart, and he would have Bethmoora silent
and undisturbed, save for the weird love he whispers to her gates.

If I knew what that message was that the three men brought on mules, and
told in the copper gate, I think that I should go and see Bethmoora once
again. For a great longing comes on me here in London to see once more
that white and beautiful city, and yet I dare not, for I know not the
danger I should have to face, whether I should risk the fury of unknown
dreadful gods, or some disease unspeakable and slow, or the desert's curse
or torture in some little private room of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, or
something that the travelers have not told--perhaps more fearful still.




IDLE DAYS ON THE YANN