The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

CHAPTER I.
THE VOICE OF THE SINGING SAND

More than eleven years have gone by, and the scene upon which our curtain rises again is different indeed to that upon which it fell. In place of that little London house where Rupert had lain sick, behold the mouth of a cliff-hewn temple, and on the face of it, cut from the solid rock, four colossal statues of an Egyptian king, nearly seventy feet high each of them, that gaze for ever across the waters of the Nile and the desert beyond—that unchanging desert whence for three thousand five hundred years, dawn by dawn, they have greeted the newly-risen sun. For this place is the temple of Abu-Simbel below the Second Cataract of the Nile in the Soudan.

It is afternoon in the month of September, of the year 1889, and beneath one of the colossi near to the entrance of the temple is seated a British officer in uniform—a big, bearded, rugged-faced man, with clear grey eyes, and an expression that at this moment, at any rate, would have impressed an observer as remarkable for intensity and power. Indeed, in this respect it was not unlike that stamped upon the stone countenances of the mighty statues above him. There was in it something of the same calm, patient strength—something of that air of contemptuous expectancy with which the old Egyptian sculptors had the art of clothing those effigies of their gods and kings.

It would have been hard to recognise in this man the lad whom we left recovering from a sore sickness, for some twelve years of work, thought, struggle, and self-control—chisels, all of them, that cut deeply—had made their marks upon him. Yet it was Rupert Ullershaw and no other.

The history of that period of his life can be given in few words. He had entered the army and gone to India, and there done very well. Having been fortunate enough to be employed in two of our little frontier wars, attention had been called to his conspicuous professional abilities. As it chanced also he was a studious man, and the fact that he devoted himself but little to amusements—save to big-game shooting when it came in his way—left him plenty of time for study. A chance conversation with a friend who had travelled much in the East, and who pointed out to him how advantageous it might be for his future to have a knowledge of Arabic, with which very few English officers were acquainted at the time, caused him to turn his attention to that language. These labours of his becoming known to those in authority, the Indian Government appointed him upon some sudden need to a semi-diplomatic office on the Persian Gulf. Here he did well, and although he never got the full public credit of it, was fortunate enough to avert a serious trouble that might have grown to large proportions and involved a naval demonstration. In recognition of his services he was advanced in rank and made a C.B. at a very early age, with the result that, had he wished it, he might have entered on a diplomatic career with every hope of distinction.

But Rupert was, above all things, a soldier, so turning his back upon these pleasant prospects, he applied to be allowed to serve in Egypt, a request that was readily granted on account of his knowledge of Arabic. Here in one capacity or another he took part in various campaigns, being present at the battles of El-Teb and Tamai, in the latter of which he was wounded. Afterwards he marched with Sir Herbert Stewart from Dongola and fought with him at Abu-Klea. Returning to Egypt after the death of Gordon, he was employed as an Intelligence officer at Cairo, and finally made a lieutenant-colonel in the Egyptian army. In this capacity he accompanied General Grenfell up the Nile, and took part in the battle of Toski, where the Dervishes were routed on 3rd August, 1889. Then he was stationed at Abu-Simbel, a few miles away, to make arrangements as to the disposal of prisoners, and subsequently to carry on negotiations with certain Arab chiefs whose loyalty remained doubtful.

Such is a brief record of those years of the life of Rupert Ullershaw, with which, eventful as they were, our story has nothing to do. He had done exceedingly well; indeed, there were few officers of his standing who could look to the future with greater confidence, for although he appeared older than his years, he was still a young man; moreover, he was liked and respected by all who knew him, and notwithstanding his success, almost without enemies. It only remains to add that he had kept the promise which he made to his mother upon his sick-bed to the very letter. Ever since that sad first entanglement, Rupert’s life had been spotless.

The sun was beginning to sink, and its rays made red pathways on the flooded Nile, and bathed the desert beyond with a tremulous, rosy light, in which isolated mountains, that in shape exactly resembled pyramids, stood up here and there like the monuments of kings. The scene was extraordinarily beautiful; silent also, for Rupert had pitched his camp, and that of his small escort, half a mile away further up the river. As he watched, the solemnities of the time and place sank into his heart, stilling the transient emotions of the moment, and tuning his mind until it was in key with its surroundings, an instrument open to the subtle influences of the past and future.

Here in the shadow of the mighty works of men who had been dead for a hundred generations, and looking out upon the river, the desert, and the mountains, which to them must have seemed as unutterably ancient as they did to him this day, his own absolute insignificance came home to Rupert as perhaps it had never done before. He thought of his petty strivings for personal advancement, and a smile grew upon his face like the smile upon that of the god-king above him. Through the waste of all the weary ages, how many men, he wondered, even in this desolate spot, had brooded on the hope of such advantage, and gone forth, but few to triumph, the most to fail, and all of them to learn within some short years that failure and success are one when forgetfulness has covered them. Thus the warning of the past laid its heavy hand upon him and pressed his spirit down, and the sound of the Nile flowing on, flowing ever from the far-off mountains of its birth through the desert to the sea, murmured in his ear that like those of Job, his days were “swifter than a post,” sung in his ear the song of Koholeth: Vanity of vanities: all is vanity. Rupert grew sad as the shadow of the hills which gathered deep about him, empty and desolate of mind as the vast, deserted temple at whose mouth he sat, the fane of a faith that was more dead than were its worshippers. Then suddenly he remembered how that morning at the dawn he had seen those cups of shadow filled with overflowing light, and how by it on the walls of that very temple he had read prayers of faith and affirmations strangely certain, of the eternity of all good works and the resurrection of all good men, in which they who carved them five-and-thirty centuries before, believed as firmly as he believed to-day.

Now it was the future that spoke to him as his heart took hope once more. Oh! he knew full surely—it came upon him with a strange conviction—that though many troubles and much bitterness might await him, though he might be born to sorrows as the sparks fly upwards, yet he should not live uselessly, or endure death in vain, that no life, not even that of the ant which toiled ceaselessly at his side in the yellow sand, was devoid of purpose or barren of result; that chance and accident did not exist; that every riddle had its answer, and every pang its issue in some new birth; that of the cloth of thoughts and deeds which he wove now would be fashioned the garment that he must wear hereafter.