Drifting and dreaming, Michael wandered on, the summer heavens above him, the mediaeval city surrounding him. The hot day's work was over; men and women were enjoying in their Oriental fashion the cooler and sweeter air of the late evening. Portly figures of elderly men were descending the high steps which raise the mosque-doors from the level of the street; narrow, two-wheeled carts, of immense length, packed full of black bundles—Egyptian women closely veiled—were taking tired workers back to their homes in the suburbs. Darkness, which falls so quickly and early in the East, even in mid-summer, was bringing relief to sun-tired eyes.
Reaction was affecting Michael very strongly. It had only set in when the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had suddenly opened up a chasm of distrust and doubt before his feet. In his desolate wandering through the city, Margaret seemed very far away. Indeed, he had never felt any assurance of her sympathy and presence since he had recovered from his illness. He had nerved and braced himself to make the supreme effort which he knew would be demanded of him if he was to reach the Valley; he had made it wholly unaided by any subconscious sense of her spiritual presence. His assurance of her unchanged confidence in his devotion had left him. It was to his material, not spiritual, will-power and determination that he owed his victory over the physical exhaustion which he had experienced.
He scarcely thought of Margaret as he wandered on; in his mood of self-pity he felt abandoned. Every minute he was drawing nearer and nearer to the gates of el-Azhar. Unconsciously he desired that when he reached the gate which led into the Court of the Perfection of Peace, it would open, and strong arms would gather him up as they had gathered him up in the Libyan Desert, and drown his restlessness and doubts in their strength; that he might spend his future at rest under the shadow of the Everlasting Arms—The God of Akhnaton, the God of Jesus, the God of Mohammed, His Arms encompass and enfold the world.
At the gates of el-Azhar Michael paused and listened. The praises of Allah, and man's love for Him, went up from a hundred devout voices. The pillared courtyard looked vast and solemn; the soft air of the summer night vibrated with the sonorous chanting of students and professors. The peace of God which passeth all understanding beautified the mediaeval building, which has been for long centuries the centre of culture and learning for the scattered Moslem world. It baptized Michael's fevered soul as the waters of Jordan baptized those who were converts of the forerunner of Jesus. Centuries of meditation and player have left their divine influence on the place.
All sacred enclosures hold the gift of healing. Michael had felt it in the temples of Egypt, in the temples of the Greeks, in the mosques. The things of the spirit remain in them, the thoughts which have been born by communion with the soul.
Impulsively Michael lifted the iron handle of the bell; it hung from a long chain which lay against a square column, one of the two posts at the outer gate. Here was the rest he was seeking, the beauty of divine meditation.
As he lifted the handle and his palm pressed it with the tightening grasp necessary for pulling it, he let it drop. Something made him drop it. He had ardently desired to ring it; it was not the lateness of the hour, or the nervousness which he might well have felt at taking a step which would lead him into fresh perplexity and doubt, which had made him pause. He had dropped it because he was compelled to, and as he dropped it, he knew that he would never again ring it for the same purpose. His super-self had triumphed; it had dominated his actions.
Suddenly the overwhelming significance of the step which he had been about to take so rashly made him tremble and feel apprehensive. He turned round quickly, as if he expected to see the hand which had stayed him. No one was there.
He stood tense, perfectly still, listening. Only the prayers from the courts of Islam came to his ears. Mingled with their solemnity, came with vivid clearness the picture of himself, seated on the marble floor of the courtyard, pretending that he was one in heart and soul with the others. He could see their devotion, their bridled intellects, their impersonal minds, strange peoples of every Oriental nation—black Nubians, pale Arabs, flat-featured Mongolians—all sincere and honest in this one thing at least, their absolute belief in, and surrender to Islam. He saw himself, a Western, with a Western mind; ha saw himself a hypocrite and charlatan. He saw the deadly monotony of the life which only a moment before had seemed the Way of Perfect Peace. His old friend, who had given him such wonderful counsel, would have read into his heart: he would have seen there the vast difference which lay between Michael's sincere beliefs and the beliefs which he was professing.
Resolutely he turned his back on the university-mosque. He would visit his friend at a more suitable hour, and ask him to explain to him some of the things that had happened. He would ask him if he was aware that his desert journey had, in a material sense at least, ended in failure, if his seer's vision had enabled him to discover what had happened to the treasure.