For a tempest that seemed to toss loose stars about the sky swept round about him, pouring up the pillared avenue in front of the procession. A blast of giant energy, of liberty, came through. Forwards and backwards7, circling spirally about him like a whirlwind, came this revival8 of Life that sought to dip itself once more in matter and in form. It came to the accurate out-line of its form they had traced for it. He held his mind steady enough to realise that it was akin9 to what men call a “descent” of some “spiritual movement” that wakens a body of believers into faith — a race, an entire nation; only that he experienced it in this brief, concentrated form before it has scattered10 down into ten thousand hearts. Here he knew its source and essence, behind the veil. Crudely, unmanageable as yet, he felt it, rushing loose behind appearances. There was this amazing impact of a twisting, swinging force that stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs11 of the old stubborn hills. It sought to warm them with the stress of its own irresistible12 life-stream, to beat them into shape, and make pliable13 their obstinate14 resistance. Through all things the impulse poured and spread, like fire at white heat.
Yet nothing visible came as yet, no alteration15 in the actual landscape, no sign of change in things familiar to his eyes, while impetus16 thus fought against inertia17. He perceived nothing form-al. Calm and untouched himself, he lay outside the circle of evocation18, watching, waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, yet well aware that any minute the scene would transfer itself from memory that was subjective19 to matter that was objective.
And then, in a flash, the bridge was built, and the transfer was accomplished20. How or where he did not see, he could not tell. It was there before he knew it — there before his normal, earthly sight. He saw it, as he saw the hands he was holding stupidly up to shield his face. For this terrific release of force long held back, long stored up, latent for centuries, came pouring down the empty Wadi bed prepared for its reception. Through stones and sand and boulders21 it came in an impetuous hurricane of power. The liberation of its life appalled22 him. All that was free, untied23, responded instantly like chaff24; loose objects fled towards it; there was a yielding in the hills and precipices25; and even in the mass of Desert which provided their foundation. The hinges of the Sand went creaking in the night. It shaped for itself a bodily outline.
Yet, most strangely, nothing definitely moved. How could he express the violent contradiction? For the immobility was apparent only — a sham26, a counterfeit27; while behind it the essential being of these things did rush and shift and alter. He saw the two things side by side: the outer immobility the senses commonly agree upon, and this amazing flying-out of their inner, invisible substance towards the vortex of attracting life that sucked them in. For stubborn matter turned docile28 before the stress of this returning life, taught somewhere to be plastic. It was being moulded into an approach to bodily outline. A mobile elasticity29 invaded rigid30 substance. The two officiating human beings, safe at the stationary31 centre, and himself, just outside the circle of operation, alone remained untouched and unaffected. But a few feet in any direction, for any one of them, meant — instantaneous death. They would be absorbed into the vortex, mere32 corpuscles pressed into the service of this sphere of action of a mighty33 Body. . . .
How these perceptions reached him with such conviction, Henriot could never say. He knew it, because he felt it. Something fell about him from the sky that already paled towards the dawn. The stars themselves, it seemed, contributed some part of the terrific, flowing impulse that conquered matter and shaped itself this physical expression.
Then, before he was able to fashion any preconceived idea of what visible form this potent34 life might assume, he was aware of further change. It came at the briefest possible interval after the beginning — this certainty that, to and fro about him, as yet however indeterminate, passed Magnitudes that were stupendous as the desert. There was beauty in them too, though a terrible beauty hardly of this earth at all. A fragment of old Egypt had returned — a little portion of that vast Body of Belief that once was Egypt. Evoked35 by the worship of one human heart, passionately36 sincere, the Ka of Egypt stepped back to visit the material it once informed — the Sand.
Yet only a portion came. Henriot clearly realised that. It stretched forth37 an arm. Finding no mass of worshippers through whom it might express itself completely, it pressed inanimate matter thus into its service.
Here was the beginning the woman had spoken of — little opening clue. Entire reconstruction38 lay perhaps beyond.
And Henriot next realised that these Magnitudes in which this group-energy sought to clothe itself as visible form, were curiously39 familiar. It was not a new thing that he would see. Booming softly as they dropped downwards40 through the sky, with a motion the size of them rendered delusive41, they trooped up the Avenue towards the central point that summoned them. He realised the giant flock of them — descent of fearful beauty — outlining a type of life denied to the world for ages, countless42 as this sand that blew against his skin. Careering over the waste of Desert moved the army of dark Splendours, that dwarfed43 any organic structure called a body men have ever known. He recognised them, cold in him of death, though the outlines reared higher than the pyramids, and towered up to hide whole groups of stars. Yes, he recognised them in their partial revelation, though he never saw the monstrous44 host complete. But, one of them, he realised, posing its eternal riddle45 to the sands, had of old been glimpsed sufficiently46 to seize its form in stone — yet poorly seized, as a doll may stand for the dignity of a human being or a child’s toy represent an engine that draws trains. . . .
And he knelt there on his narrow ledge6, the world of men forgotten. The power that caught him was too great a thing for wonder or for fear; he even felt no awe47. Sensation of any kind that can be named or realised left him utterly48. He forgot himself. He merely watched. The glory numbed49 him. Block and pencil, as the reason of his presence there at all, no longer existed. . . .
Yet one small link remained that held him to some kind of consciousness of earthly things: he never lost sight of this — that, being just outside the circle of evocation, he was safe, and that the man and woman, being stationary in its untouched centre, were also safe. But — that a movement of six inches in any direction meant for any one of them instant death.
What was it, then, that suddenly strengthened this solitary50 link so that the chain tautened and he felt the pull of it? Henriot could not say. He came back with the rush of a descending51 drop to the realisation — dimly, vaguely52, as from great distance — that he was with these two, now at this moment, in the Wadi Hof, and that the cold of dawn was in the air about him. The chill breath of the Desert made him shiver.
But at first, so deeply had his soul been dipped in this fragment of ancient worship, he could remember nothing more. Somewhere lay a little spot of streets and houses; its name escaped him. He had once been there; there were many people, but insignificant53 people. Who were they? And what had he to do with them? All recent memories had been drowned in the tide that flooded him from an immeasurable Past.
And who were they — these two beings, standing on the white floor of sand below him? For a long time he could not recover their names. Yet he remembered them; and, thus robbed of association that names bring, he saw them for an instant naked, and knew that one of them was evil. One of them was vile54. Blackness touched the picture there. The man, his name still out of reach, was sinister55, impure56 and dark at the heart. And for this reason the evocation had been partial only. The admixture of an evil motive57 was the flaw that marred58 complete success.
The names then flashed upon him — Lady Statham — Richard Vance.
Vance! With a horrid59 drop from splendour into something mean and sordid60, Henriot felt the pain of it. The motive of the man was so insignificant, his purpose so atrocious. More and more, with the name, came back — his first repugnance61, fear, suspicion. And human terror caught him. He shrieked62. But, as in nightmare, no sound escaped his lips. He tried to move; a wild desire to interfere63, to protect, to prevent, flung him forward — close to the dizzy edge of the gulf64 below. But his muscles refused obedience65 to the will. The paralysis66 of common fear rooted him to the rocks.
But the sudden change of focus instantly destroyed the picture; and so vehement67 was the fall from glory into meanness, that it dislocated the machinery68 of clairvoyant69 vision. The inner perception clouded and grew dark. Outer and inner mingled70 in violent, inextricable confusion. The wrench71 seemed almost physical. It happened all at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. And, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least he was aware that it had come to pass. He knew it as positively72 as though his eye were glued against a magnifying lens in the stillness of some laboratory. He witnessed it.
The supreme73 moment of evocation was close. Life, through that awful sandy vortex, whirled and raged. Loose particles showered and pelted74, caught by the draught75 of vehement life that moulded the substance of the Desert into imperial outline — when, suddenly, shot the little evil thing across that marred and blasted it.
Into the whirlpool flew forward a particle of material that was a human being. And the Group–Soul caught and used it.
The actual accomplishment76 Henriot did not claim to see. He was a witness, but a witness who could give no evidence. Whether the woman was pushed of set intention, or whether some detail of sound and pattern was falsely used to effect the terrible result, he was helpless to determine. He pretends no itemised account. She went. In one second, with appalling77 swiftness, she disappeared, swallowed out of space and time within that awful maw — one little corpuscle among a million through which the Life, now stalking the Desert wastes, moulded itself a troop-like Body. Sand took her.
There followed emptiness — a hush78 of unutterable silence, stillness, peace. Movement and sound instantly retired79 whence they came. The avenues of Memory closed; the Splendours all went down into their sandy tombs. . . .
The moon had sunk into the Libyan wilderness80; the eastern sky was red. The dawn drew out that wondrous81 sweetness of the Desert, which is as sister to the sweetness that the moonlight brings. The Desert settled back to sleep, huge, unfathomable, charged to the brim with life that watches, waits, and yet conceals82 itself behind the ruins of apparent desolation. And the Wadi, empty at his feet, filled slowly with the gentle little winds that bring the sunrise.
Then, across the pale glimmering83 of sand, Henriot saw a figure moving. It came quickly towards him, yet unsteadily, and with a hurry that was ugly. Vance was on the way to fetch him. And the horror of the man’s approach struck him like a hammer in the face. He closed his eyes, sinking back to hide.
But, before he swooned, there reached him the clatter84 of the murderer’s tread as he began to climb over the splintered rocks, and the faint echo of his voice, calling him by name — falsely and in pretence85 — for help.
The End
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1
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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2
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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3
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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8
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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10
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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11
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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12
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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13
pliable
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| adj.易受影响的；易弯的；柔顺的，易驾驭的 | |
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14
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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15
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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17
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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18
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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19
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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20
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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21
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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22
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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24
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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26
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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27
counterfeit
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| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
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28
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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29
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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30
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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31
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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32
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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35
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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36
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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37
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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38
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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39
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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40
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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41
delusive
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| adj.欺骗的，妄想的 | |
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42
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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43
dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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44
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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45
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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46
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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47
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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48
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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49
numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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51
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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52
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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53
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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54
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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55
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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56
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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57
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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58
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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59
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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60
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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61
repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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62
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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64
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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65
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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66
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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67
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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68
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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69
clairvoyant
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| adj.有预见的；n.有预见的人 | |
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70
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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71
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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72
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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73
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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74
pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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75
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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76
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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77
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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78
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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79
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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80
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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81
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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82
conceals
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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83
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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84
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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85
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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