Great is the solitude of the desert, with no sign of life in it at all; haunting is its solitude when, in the far distance, a solitary figure moves slowly across the limitless sands.
It is the most perfect illustration of the little span of life granted each of us upon this earth.
Out of seeming nothing, remote, alone, the figure approaches, growing clearer and clearer to the watching eye; maybe for a space he stops and raises his head to the star-strewn sky, or maybe he passes on, heedless of God’s thoughts about him; even if he stays it will be but for a brief second before he continues his journey, growing dimmer and dimmer until he passes out of sight, alone, into apparent nothingness.
Helen Raynor sat watching a solitary figure as it came slowly towards her from a far distance, and pressed her hand upon her heart, troubled by the biblical picture, the silence, the unknown.
So might Abraham have looked in his youth, or Job before affliction fell upon him, or Boaz, or David, for the desert has not changed since their days, nor has the camel learned to hasten its pace or to alter the insolence of its gait. The night breeze died away suddenly and the flowers born of it faded, leaving a path, marked in grey and silver as though the tide had but just receded from it, for the passage of the camel’s feet, which were suddenly urged to a swift trot by its rider, who rode bare-headed and wrapped in a burnous.
When about a mile off Ralph Trenchard raised his hand above his head in salutation to the figure he could see sitting on the hummock, and urged his camel quicker still, then pulled it to a halt and sat and stared at the girl, who looked like some silver statue under the light of the stars; then slipped to the ground instead of bringing the beast to its knees, hobbled it, dropped the white cloak, and followed the beckoning finger of Love, whom he could not see for the beauty of the girl, along the path which had been marked for him to tread even before the days of Abraham.
And Helen Raynor rose and walked towards him, holding out her hand, so that they neared each other and met yet again, as those who truly love do meet down the ages, and will meet, until in perfect understanding they become one perfect spirit which will not be divided even by the short-lived dream of death.
“I seem to know you so well,” said Ralph Trenchard quietly.
“And I you. I have seen you—I recognize the scar across your temple.” Helen Raynor pressed her hand against her forehead in an effort to capture the elusive memory which had suddenly flitted through her mind. “I cannot remember. I——”
“My name is Ralph Trenchard, and my business in Egypt one of pleasure. I was riding out into the desert to be alone at sunrise.”