He zigzagged down the Red Sea while the
Great Bear swung northward low down in the sky above the rail of the
quarterdeck, and the Southern Cross began to blaze in the south; he
touched at Tor and at Yambo; he saw the tall white houses of Yeddah lift
themselves out of the sea, and admired the dark brine-withered woodwork
of their carved casements; he walked through the dusk of its roofed
bazaars with the joy of the homesick after long years come home; and
from Yeddah he crossed between the narrowing coral-reefs into the
land-locked harbour of Suakin.
Westward from Suakin stretched the desert, with all that it meant to
this man whom it had smitten and cast out--the quiet padding of the
camels' feet in sand; the great rock-cones rising sheer and abrupt as
from a rippleless ocean, towards which you march all day and get no
nearer; the gorgeous momentary blaze of sunset colours in the west; the
rustle of the wind through the short twilight when the west is a pure
pale green and the east the darkest blue; and the downward swoop of the
planets out of nothing to the earth. The inheritor of the other places
dreamed himself back into his inheritance as he tramped to and fro,
forgetful of his blindness and parched with desire as with a
fever--until unexpectedly he heard the blackbirds and the swallows
bustling and piping in the garden, and knew that outside his windows the
world was white with dawn.
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