CHAPTER XVII 



EGYPT (continued) : DREAMS OF THE DESERT 



The Egyptian State Railways Express whirled 

 out of Cairo station — Ismailia bound. Date- 

 palms and peasant villages were wrapped in 

 gloom, and I lay back in the corner of my 

 comfortable coach and slumbered. It had been 

 a day of gorgeous brilliance, and the memories 

 of the giant, sombre Pyramids, of the eternal 

 watcher on the desert sands, of the lazy, languid 

 Nile, and the wonder city bathed in moonlight 

 below the alabaster mosque, lulled me into 

 delicious dreamland. Agaio the great stone 

 pile of Cheops loomed up before me, and the 

 silence of the ceaseless sands seized earth and 

 sky in a great irresistible embrace of stillness; 

 such a stillness as must follow the last trump of 

 doom, when all the living things of earth have 

 been called to the throne of judgment. 



And then it seemed that the face of the great 

 Pyramid was cleft in two, and the figure of a 

 man emerged from the tomb of rent rocks. 

 He was tall and handsome, and scorn played on 

 his sharp features. 



" Who are you? " he asked, and I knew not 

 what to answer. 



He turned his withering gaze from me for a 

 moment and looked where the strange old Sphinx 

 kept everlasting vigil. And then he raised his 

 eyes towards the Pyramids of Sakkara and the 

 site of Memphis. 



250 



