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.  With a mental shudder, sometimes he watched the cheap tourist horde go laughing, chattering past within view of its ancient, half-closed eyes.  It was like defying deity.