but further he could not get. There _were_ Powers at work;
they were being stirred, wakened somewhere into activity. Evocation had
already begun. That sense of their approach as he had walked along from
Helouan was not imaginary. A descent of some type of life, vanished from
the world too long for recollection, was on the way,--so vast that it
would manifest itself in a group of forms, a troop, a host, an army.
These two were near him somewhere at this very moment, already long at
work, their minds driving beyond this little world. The valley was
emptying itself--for the descent of life their ritual invited.

And the movement in the sand was likewise true. He recalled the
sentences the woman had used. "My body," he reflected, "like the bodies
life makes use of everywhere, is mere upright heap of earth and dust
and--sand. Here in the Desert is the raw material, the greatest store of
it in the world."

And on the heels of it came sharply that other thing: that this
descending Life would press into its service all loose matter within its
reach--to form that sphere of action which would be in a literal sense
its Body.

In the first few seconds, as he stood there, he realised all this, and
realised it with an overwhelming conviction it was futile to deny. The
fast-emptying valley would later brim with an unaccustomed and terrific
life. Yet Death hid there too--a little, ugly, insignificant death. With
the name of Vance it flashed upon his mind and vanished, too tiny to be
thought about in this torrent of grander messages that shook the depths
within his soul. He bowed his head a moment, hardly knowing what he did.
He could have waited thus a thousand years it seemed. He was conscious
of a wild desire to run away, to hide, to efface himself utterly, his
terror, his curiosity, his little wonder, and not be seen of anything.
But it was all vain and foolish. The Desert saw him. The Gigantic knew
that he was there. No escape was possible any longer. Caught by the
sand, he stood amid eternal things. The river of movement swept him too.

These hills, now motionless as statues, would presently glide forward
into the cavalcade, sway like vessels, and go past with the procession.
At present only the contents, not the frame, of the Wadi moved. An
immense soft brush of moonlight swept it empty for what was on the
way.... But presently the entire Desert would stand up and also go.

Then, making a sideways movement, his feet kicked a