34

verandah with the stuffed alligator, or crocodile, varnished and
neatly mounted on the wall. Rafton was at home there, had been in
the Holy Land, in Greece too. But what did he know of anything?
The things he said, were transmuting-stations for other things,
said. There were vibrations in the things he said, but one had
to be careful. It was so hysterical of the French women, for the
little temple that was really and actually about the size of the
Birth House, she had seen that wasn't there, had been closed.
Rafton hadn't told her about the cat-house or the lion-house.
Where was he? She had written, it would be anti-climax if you
came now. Come now.

So she had saved her face, for she hadn't had time to see
him, even if he had been there. But no doubt, by that time, he
had found someone else to ride into the desert with him; perhaps
he had so ridden. It was all a nurse-maid novelette, Mary herself
couldn't have done better. Rafton wasn't Rafton but a sort of
transmitting-agent. It was not Rafton who had said "the Greeks
came to Egypt to learn." All Rafton knew of Greeks was that they
cheated, had fleas in the beds at Samothrace where he, unhappily,
once was stationed, that they grew tobacco in Macedonia and cur-
rants in Stampoulia. All Rafton knew about Greeks was that they
were an unreliable and dirty Balkan nation. "The Greeks came to
Egypt to learn", was not spoken by this Captain Rafton, on his way

35

up to Assuan, engineer, consultant on this same Dam. Rafton
was not Rafton - who then, was Margaret?

In a moment, she knew that she would not be. There wasn't
any question of it. The boat was quiet but not stagnant. There
was a wind somewhere. She had been asleep and was wakened by the
wind rattling the curtain that shivered, hanging straight down,
but shaking the curtain-rings. All the doors have these rings,
Margaret said to herself, assuring herself of something. It was
a green curtain, she remembered. She thought they must have been
moving forward steadily for hours, for the air was different,
fresh to her nostrils, to her lungs. It was not so unusual to
wake like this. Curtain-rings do rattle. It had been her con-
stant pre-occupations, she recalled, during the sand-storm; she
had felt more malaise than she had ever felt in any storm at sea.
She repeated to herself, that it was natural for curtain-rings to
rattle.

She propped herself up on her elbow however, as one does be-
fore wind or shock. It was wind or shock. The curtains moved
almost imperceptibly, but it was wind or shock. The curtain
parted by ever so slight a fraction, only enough to let light in.
Well - it's like heat-lightning, she said to herself, there may
be a storm somewhere. Her mind worked, as if she were talking

36

aloud. She knew there was no storm anywhere.

It was absolutely quiet.

People should rattle things, turn in beds; she seemed to
have remembered elbows thumping on partitions and occasional
muffled "damns" and shaving-mugs being filled - but that was in
the morning. Arabs, linked in a strange sort of dance, washed
the decks to rhythm, but of course that was in the morning. It
would soon be morning.

She knew, as one does know these things, that the slices
of light weren't ordinary dimensional slices of light. They were
spears of light. But I am propped on my elbow, it's quite natural.
Probably it's a lantern from some passing house-boat or sail-boat.

She knew it was no lantern.

The curtain was flung inward and her eyes shut, as they do,
automatically, before some blaze of light before forked-lightning.
It wasn't forked-lightning or even heat-lightning, it was a sheet
of luminous light, such as you get at dawn, pre-dawn. But it was
still dark. It was dawn but still dark. Well - what can I do?
She could jerk suddenly alert, shout for help, call Mary. She
could not shout for help, call Mary. It would be anti-climax if
you came now, she had written. This wasn't anti-climax. Come
now, she had written.

He came now.

So this was the god, the demonstration, but it didn't prove
Rafton was or wasn't. Rafton was a sort of symbol, I am a sort

37

of symbol. O God - I never thanked him. O God, let him know I
thanked him. The stars, over the temple, were like a near roof.
Let me thank him.

But if I walk out (I know now, if I walk out past that curtain,
there will be eternity) it will be awkward. She thought in stupid
symbol, how awkward it would be for Mary, what a shock to find me
or not find me. If they didn't find me ... this was, she knew, a
mere convention, she couldn't walk out. She couldn't move, anymore
than she could on the wall at Karnak - though she was un-selfconscious
then, didn't know she was in another dimension. Now, she did know.

If I get up and look out across the river, I will see - I will
see - Hadn't she already seen enough? She was frozen. I must stay
here. Would it be better to call Mary? The curtain was flung back
and, through no volition of her own, she gazed out across the river.
She did not see the river. She imagined the Nile, she did not know
why, as crowded with boats. There was no doubt music, which she
didn't hear but would hear, if she walked out. All she saw was one
star, luminous in the east. It was so large that she wanted to
measure it - in some way - a tea-cup might do. It was as large as
the electric-light bulb, that was by the door, on Mary's side.
She tried to give it a size for she said, I will forget, either I
will walk out and never come back. Or I will forget. She said, the
star is as large as the electric-light bulb ....

38

"Did you sleep well?" "Tolerably." There was the familiar chug-chug of the paddle-wheel, sounds off, the clatter of dishes, the pad of bare feet along the deck. "Are you going up for breakfast?" "Not this morning. I've just rung." She sat up. There would be a tray, tea/steaming in a small brown pot, familiar, English, almost common-place, Lyons Corner-house. There would be toast and honey, in a glass-jar. She held to these things.

"Hand me my cigarettes, will you?" Everything must be ordinary. Hold to this - let everything be ordinary. Yes, everything is ordinary. She forced herself to search a wall to see if an electric-light bulb was there. Yes - there was a large, bulbous light-bulb. As big as that star. She must hold on to something, whether it was an ordinary star, the east does things, the sky, the desert, surely it must be in any text-book. A star as large as a somewhat bloated electric-light bulb? It was a star - the star - She must hold on to something.

It was a very ordinary miracle - as miracles go.

It was quite logical - stars are like that in Egypt. Isis wept here for Osiris; the guide-book said, he was buried there at Philae. It was part of the tomb - part of - someone who was dead, was living, "out of Egypt;" it was, as the little boy said of Hamlet, too full of quotations. It was all quotations.

"The Greeks came to Egypt to learn" for instance, well she

39

had learnt something. She had, as a matter of fact, learnt every-
thing. There wasn't anything else she could learn. That is, there
wasn't anything else - she faced it here now, in Egypt. She must
weigh reality in terms of a carefully copied shawl, with thread
of green, violet, blue and pale lavender, twined into naturalistic
little flowers. A box of cigarettes was real, *a match, Mary*.

Mary was real enough, for the matter of that, Mrs.Thorpe-
Wharton, with her pre-occupation with patent leather hand-bags,
a second best diamond-set wrist watch (she had informed them at
dinner last night how much better it was to leave one's valuables
in the hotel-safe - she had left hers at Luxor). There were such
things as curtain-rings, for instance, a soap-dish that had annoy-
ed her for its jingling, as they had crept down, beaten, toward
Assuan, in the sand-storm. Sand was real. It crept into cani-
sters and tin-boxes, "you should have seen my collars," Sadie's
father or uncle or husband had exclaimed, that first day. There
was one reality of hunger, another of thirst. There was reality
of a bath-sponge, soaked in really cold water. "Dip that towel
in water, Mary."

"Have you got a head-ache?" "No - not exactly." The cigar-
ette could wait, Mary shoved forward the soap-dish, for an ash-
tray. Margaret slapped the wet towel against her temples. "That's
all right." A negro was standing, exactly like a steward on a

40

river-boat, or a train-porter in America, with her tray. "O
good - breakfast." There was reality of hot tea - there would
be, in a moment.

There was reality of something else, she tried to remember.
It was beating out toward open-sea, foam decked its sleek sides.
It was sleek and swift and cut through ocean-water. It was fitted
with soap-dishes that didn't rattle, with fine bevelled edges, a
yacht almost. It was making for Sicily where there was reality
of rock, blue thyme, and water. There was a spring that welled
up in the market-place - cold water. She put down the towel.
"O, don't bother with the towel."

Margaret said, "I'm trying to remember something - O yes,
tell your mother, I'll come back ... on that boat ..."

It was a name she was trying to remember ... de luxe steam-
ship appurtenances mixed oddly with other word-reactions.
Hesperia was the name, wasn't it, of a mythical country, some
Garden with golden apples ... or was it a Star merely?