THE GARDEN OF ALLAH

BY

ROBERT HICHENS

 PREPARER'S NOTE

 This text was prepared from an edition published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York. It was originally published in 1904. 

 CONTENTS

 BOOK I. PRELUDE BOOK II. THE VOICE OF PRAYER BOOK III. THE GARDEN BOOK IV. THE JOURNEY BOOK V. THE REVELATION BOOK VI. THE JOURNEY BACK

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH

BOOK I. PRELUDE

CHAPTER I

The fatigue caused by a rough sea journey, and, perhaps, theconsciousness that she would have to be dressed before dawn to catch thetrain for Beni-Mora, prevented Domini Enfilden from sleeping. There wasdeep silence in the Hotel de la Mer at Robertville. The French officerswho took their pension there had long since ascended the hill of Addounato the barracks. The cafes had closed their doors to the drinkers anddomino players. The lounging Arab boys had deserted the sandy Place dela Marine. In their small and dusky bazaars the Israelites had reckonedup the takings of the day, and curled themselves up in gaudy quiltson their low divans to rest. Only two or three _gendarmes_ were stillabout, and a few French and Spaniards at the Port, where, moored againstthe wharf, lay the steamer _Le General Bertrand_, in which Domini hadarrived that evening from Marseilles. 

In the hotel the fair and plump Italian waiter, who had drifted to NorthAfrica from Pisa, had swept up the crumbs from the two long tablesin the _salle-a-manger_, smoked a thin, dark cigar over a copy of the_Depeche Algerienne_, put the paper down, scratched his blonde head, onwhich the hair stood up in bristles, stared for a while at nothing inthe firm manner of weary men who are at the same time thoughtless anddepressed, and thrown himself on his narrow bed in the dusty corner ofthe little room on the stairs near the front door. Madame, the landlady, had laid aside her front and said her prayer to the Virgin. Monsieur, the landlord, had muttered his last curse against the Jews and drunkhis last glass of rum. They snored like honest people recruiting theirstrength for the morrow. In number two Suzanne Charpot, Domini's maid, was dreaming of the Rue de Rivoli. 

But Domini with wide-open eyes, was staring from her big, square pillowat the red brick floor of her bedroom, on which stood various trunksmarked by the officials of the Douane. There were two windows in theroom looking out towards the Place de la Marine, below which lay thestation. Closed _persiennes_ of brownish-green, blistered wood protectedthem. One of these windows was open. Yet the candle at Domini's bedsideburnt steadily. The night was warm and quiet, without wind. 

As she lay there, Domini still felt the movement of the sea. The passagehad been a bad one. The ship, crammed with French recruits for theAfrican regiments, had pitched and rolled almost incessantly forthirty-one hours, and Domini and most of the recruits had been ill. Domini had had an inner cabin, with a skylight opening on to the lowerdeck, and heard above the sound of the waves and winds their groans andexclamations, rough laughter, and half-timid, half-defiant conversationsas she shook in her berth. At Marseilles she had seen them come onboard, one by one, dressed in every variety of poor costume, each onelooking anxiously around to see what the others were like, each onecarrying a mean yellow or black bag or a carefully-tied bundle. On thewharf stood a Zouave, in tremendous red trousers and a fez, among greatheaps of dull brown woollen rugs. And as the recruits came hesitatinglyalong he stopped them with a sharp word, examined the tickets they heldout, gave each one a rug, and pointed to the gangway that led from thewharf to the vessel. Domini, then leaning over the rail of the upperdeck, had noticed the different expressions with which the recruitslooked at the Zouave. To all of them he was a phenomenon, a mystery ofAfrica and of the new life for which they were embarking. He stood thereimpudently and indifferently among the woollen rugs, his red fez pushedwell back on his short, black hair cut _en brosse_, his bronzed facetwisted into a grimace of fiery contempt, throwing, with his big andmuscular arms, rug after rug to the anxious young peasants who filedbefore him. They all gazed at his legs in the billowing red trousers;some like children regarding a Jack-in-the-box which had just sprungup into view, others like ignorant, but superstitious, people whohad unexpectedly come upon a shrine by the wayside. One or two seemeddisposed to laugh nervously, as the very stupid laugh at anythingthey see for the first time. But fear seized them. They refrainedconvulsively and shambled on to the gangway, looking sideways, likefowls, and holding their rugs awkwardly to their breasts with theirdirty, red hands. 

To Domini there was something pitiful in the sight of all these lads, uprooted from their homes in France, stumbling helplessly on board thisship that was to convey them to Africa. They crowded together. Theirpoor bundles and bags jostled one against the other. With their clumsyboots they trod on each other's feet. And yet all were lonely strangers. No two in the mob seemed to be acquaintances. And every lad, each inhis different way, was furtively on the defensive, uneasily wonderingwhether some misfortune might not presently come to him from one ofthese unknown neighbours. 

A few of the recruits, as they came on board, looked up at Domini as sheleant over the rail; and in all the different coloured and shaped eyesshe thought she read a similar dread and nervous hope that things mightturn out pretty well for them in the new existence that had to be faced. The Zouave, wholly careless or unconscious of the fact that he wasan incarnation of Africa to these raw peasants, who had never beforestirred beyond the provinces where they were born, went on takingthe tickets, and tossing the woollen rugs to the passing figures, andpointing ferociously to the gangway. He got very tired of his tasktowards the end, and showed his fatigue to the latest comers, shovingtheir rugs into their arms with brusque violence. And when at length thewharf was bare he spat on it, rubbed his short-fingered, sunburnt handsdown the sides of his blue jacket, and swaggered on board with the airof a dutiful but injured man who longed to do harm in the world. By thistime the ship was about to cast off, and the recruits, ranged in linealong the bulwarks of the lower deck, were looking in silence towardsMarseilles, which, with its tangle of tall houses, its forest of masts, its long, ugly factories and workshops, now represented to them thewhole of France. The bronchial hoot of the siren rose up menacingly. Suddenly two Arabs, in dirty white burnouses and turbans bound withcords of camel's hair, came running along the wharf. The siren hootedagain. The Arabs bounded over the gangway with grave faces. All therecruits turned to examine them with a mixture of superiority anddeference, such as a schoolboy might display when observing theagilities of a tiger. The ropes fell heavily from the posts of thequay into the water, and were drawn up dripping by the sailors, and _LeGeneral Bertrand_ began to move out slowly among the motionless ships. 

Domini, looking towards the land with the vague and yet inquiring glanceof those who are going out to sea, noticed the church of Notre dame dela Garde, perched on its high hill, and dominating the noisy city, the harbour, the cold, grey squadrons of the rocks and Monte Cristo'sdungeon. At the time she hardly knew it, but now, as she lay in bed inthe silent inn, she remembered that, keeping her eyes upon the church, she had murmured a confused prayer to the Blessed Virgin for therecruits. What was the prayer? She could scarcely recall it. A woman'spetition, perhaps, against the temptations that beset men shifting forthemselves in far-off and dangerous countries; a woman's cry to a womanto watch over all those who wander. 

When the land faded, and the white sea rose, less romanticconsiderations took possession of her. She wished to sleep, and drank adose of a drug. It did not act completely, but only numbed her senses. Through the long hours she lay in the dark cabin, looking at the faintradiance that penetrated through the glass shutters of the skylight. The recruits, humanised and drawn together by misery, were becomingacquainted. The incessant murmur of their voices dropped down to her, with the sound of the waves, and of the mysterious cries and creakingshudders that go through labouring ships. And all these noises seemed toher hoarse and pathetic, suggestive, too, of danger. 

When they reached the African shore, and saw the lights of housestwinkling upon the hills, the pale recruits were marshalled on the whiteroad by Zouaves, who met them from the barracks of Robertville. Alreadythey looked older than they had looked when they embarked. Domini sawthem march away up the hill. They still clung to their bags and bundles. Some of them, lifting shaky voices, tried to sing in chorus. One ofthe Zouaves angrily shouted to them to be quiet. They obeyed, anddisappeared heavily into the shadows, staring about them anxiously atthe feathery palms that clustered in this new and dark country, and atthe shrouded figures of Arabs who met them on the way. 

The red brick floor was heaving gently, Domini thought. She foundherself wondering how the cane chair by the small wardrobe kept itsfooting, and why the cracked china basin in the iron washstand, paintedbright yellow, did not stir and rattle. Her dressing-bag was open. Shecould see the silver backs and tops of the brushes and bottles in itgleaming. They made her think suddenly of England. She had no idea why. But it was too warm for England. There, in the autumn time, an openwindow would let in a cold air, probably a biting blast. The woodenshutter would be shaking. There would be, perhaps, a sound of rain. AndDomini found herself vaguely pitying England and the people mewed up init for the winter. Yet how many winters she had spent there, dreaming ofliberty and doing dreary things--things without savour, without meaning, without salvation for brain or soul. Her mind was still dulled to acertain extent by the narcotic she had taken. She was a strong andactive woman, with long limbs and well-knit muscles, a clever fencer, a tireless swimmer, a fine horsewoman. But to-night she felt almostneurotic, like one of the weak or dissipated sisterhood for whom "restcures" are invented, and by whom bland doctors live. That heaving redfloor continually emphasised for her her present feebleness. She hatedfeebleness. So she blew out the candle and, with misplaced energy, strove resolutely to sleep. Possibly her resolution defeated its object. She continued in a condition of dull and heavy wakefulness till thedarkness became intolerable to her. In it she saw perpetually the longprocession of the pale recruits winding up the hill of Addouna withtheir bags and bundles, like spectres on a way of dreams. Finally sheresolved to accept a sleepless night. She lit her candle again and sawthat the brick floor was no longer heaving. Two of the books thatshe called her "bed-books" lay within easy reach of her hand. One wasNewman's _Dream of Gerontius_, the other a volume of the BadmintonLibrary. She chose the former and began to read. 

Towards two o'clock she heard a long-continued rustling. At first shesupposed that her tired brain was still playing her tricks. But therustling continued and grew louder. It sounded like a noise coming fromsomething very wide, and spread out as a veil over an immense surface. She got up, walked across the floor to the open window and unfastenedthe _persiennes_. Heavy rain was falling. The night was very black, and smelt rich and damp, as if it held in its arms strange offerings--amerchandise altogether foreign, tropical and alluring. As she stoodthere, face to face with a wonder that she could not see, Domini forgotNewman. She felt the brave companionship of mystery. In it she divinedthe beating pulses, the hot, surging blood of freedom. 

She wanted freedom, a wide horizon, the great winds, the great sun, theterrible spaces, the glowing, shimmering radiance, the hot, entrancingmoons and bloomy, purple nights of Africa. She wanted the nomad's firesand the acid voices of the Kabyle dogs. She wanted the roar of thetom-toms, the dash of the cymbals, the rattle of the negroes' castanets, the fluttering, painted figures of the dancers. She wanted--more thanshe could express, more than she knew. It was there, want, aching inher heart, as she drew into her nostrils this strange and wealthyatmosphere. 

When Domini returned to her bed she found it impossible to read any moreNewman. The rain and the scents coming up out of the hidden earth ofAfrica had carried her mind away, as if on a magic carpet. She wascontent now to lie awake in the dark. 

Domini was thirty-two, unmarried, and in a singularly independent--somemight have thought a singularly lonely--situation. Her father, LordRens, had recently died, leaving Domini, who was his only child, alarge fortune. His life had been a curious and a tragic one. Lady Rens, Domini's mother, had been a great beauty of the gipsy type, the daughterof a Hungarian mother and of Sir Henry Arlworth, one of the mostprominent and ardent English Catholics of his day. A son of his became apriest, and a famous preacher and writer on religious subjects. Anotherchild, a daughter, took the veil. Lady Rens, who was not clever, although she was at one time almost universally considered to have theface of a muse, shared in the family ardour for the Church, but was fartoo fond of the world to leave it. While she was very young she met LordRens, a Lifeguardsman of twenty-six, who called himself a Protestant, but who was really quite happy without any faith. He fell madly in lovewith her and, in order to marry her, became a Catholic, and even a verydevout one, aiding his wife's Church by every means in his power, givinglarge sums to Catholic charities, and working, with almost fiery zeal, for the spread of Catholicism in England. 

Unfortunately, his new faith was founded only on love for a human being, and when Lady Rens, who was intensely passionate and impulsive, suddenlythrew all her principles to the winds, and ran away with a Hungarianmusician, who had made a furor one season in London by his magnificentviolin-playing, her husband, stricken in his soul, and also woundedalmost to the death in his pride, abandoned abruptly the religion of thewoman who had converted and betrayed him. 

Domini was nineteen, and had recently been presented at Court when thescandal of her mother's escapade shook the town, and changed her fatherin a day from one of the happiest to one of the most cynical, embitteredand despairing of men. She, who had been brought up by both her parentsas a Catholic, who had from her earliest years been earnestly educatedin the beauties of religion, was now exposed to the almost franticpersuasions of a father who, hating all that he had formerly loved, abandoning all that, influenced by his faithless wife, he had formerlyclung to, wished to carry his daughter with him into his new and mostmiserable way of life. But Domini, who, with much of her mother's darkbeauty, had inherited much of her quick vehemence and passion, was alsogifted with brains, and with a certain largeness of temperament andclearness of insight which Lady Rens lacked. Even when she was stillquivering under the shock and shame of her mother's guilt and her ownsolitude, Domini was unable to share her father's intensely egoisticview of the religion of the culprit. She could not be persuaded that thefaith in which she had been brought up was proved to be a sham becauseone of its professors, whom she had above all others loved and trusted, had broken away from its teachings and defied her own belief. She wouldnot secede with her father; but remained in the Church of the mother shewas never to see again, and this in spite of extraordinary and doggedefforts on the part of Lord Rens to pervert her to his own Atheism. Hismind had been so warped by the agony of his heart that he had come tofeel as if by tearing his only child from the religion he had been ledto by the greatest sinner he had known, he would be, in some degree atleast, purifying his life tarnished by his wife's conduct, raising againa little way the pride she had trampled in the dust. 

Her uncle, Father Arlworth, helped Domini by his support and counsel inthis critical period of her life, and Lord Rens in time ceased from theendeavour to carry his child with him as companion in his tragic journeyfrom love and belief to hatred and denial. He turned to the violentoccupations of despair, and the last years of his life were hideousenough, as the world knew and Domini sometimes suspected. But thoughDomini had resisted him she was not unmoved or wholly uninfluenced byher mother's desertion and its effect upon her father. She remained aCatholic, but she gradually ceased from being a devout one. Althoughshe had seemed to stand firm she had in truth been shaken, if not inher belief, in a more precious thing--her love. She complied with theordinances, but felt little of the inner beauty of her faith. The effortshe had made in withstanding her father's assault upon it had exhaustedher. Though she had had the strength to triumph, at the moment, apartial and secret collapse was the price she had afterwards to pay. Father Arlworth, who had a subtle understanding of human nature, noticedthat Domini was changed and slightly hardened by the tragedy she hadknown, and was not surprised or shocked. Nor did he attempt to forceher character back into its former way of beauty. He knew that to doso would be dangerous, that Domini's nature required peace in which tobecome absolutely normal once again after the shock it had sustained. 

When Domini was twenty-one he died, and her safest guide, the one whounderstood her best, went from her. The years passed. She lived with herembittered father; and drifted into the unthinking worldliness of thelife of her order. Her home was far from ideal. Yet she would not marry. The wreck of her parents' domestic life had rendered her mistrustful ofhuman relations. She had seen something of the terror of love, and couldnot, like other women, regard it as safety and as sweetness. So she putit from her, and strove to fill her life with all those lesser thingswhich men and women grasp, as the Chinese grasp the opium pipe, thosethings which lull our comprehension of realities to sleep. 

When Lord Rens died, still blaspheming, and without any of theconsolations of religion, Domini felt the imperious need of change. Shedid not grieve actively for the dead man. In his last years they hadbeen very far apart, and his death relieved her from the perpetualcontemplation of a tragedy. Lord Rens had grown to regard his daughteralmost with enmity in his enmity against her mother's religion, whichwas hers. She had come to think of him rather with pity than with love. Yet his death was a shock to her. When he could speak no more, but onlylie still, she remembered suddenly just what he had been before hermother's flight. The succeeding period, long though it had been andugly, was blotted out. She wept for the poor, broken life now ended, and was afraid for his future in the other world. His departure into theunknown roused her abruptly to a clear conception of how his action andher mother's had affected her own character. As she stood by his bedshe wondered what she might have been if her mother had been true, herfather happy, to the end. Then she felt afraid of herself, recognisingpartially, and for the first time, how all these years had seen her longindifference. She felt self-conscious too, ignorant of the real meaningof life, and as if she had always been, and still remained, rather acomplicated piece of mechanism than a woman. A desolate enervation ofspirit descended upon her, a sort of bitter, and yet dull, perplexity. She began to wonder what she was, capable of what, of how much good orevil, and to feel sure that she did not know, had never known or triedto find out. Once, in this state of mind, she went to confession. Shecame away feeling that she had just joined with the priest in a farce. How can a woman who knows nothing about herself make anything but aworthless confession? she thought. To say what you have done is notalways to say what you are. And only what you are matters eternally. 

Presently, still in this perplexity of spirit, she left England withonly her maid as companion. After a short tour in the south of Europe, with which she was too familiar, she crossed the sea to Africa, whichshe had never seen. Her destination was Beni-Mora. She had chosen itbecause she liked its name, because she saw on the map that it was anoasis in the Sahara Desert, because she knew it was small, quiet, yetface to face with an immensity of which she had often dreamed. Idly shefancied that perhaps in the sunny solitude of Beni-Mora, far fromall the friends and reminiscences of her old life, she might learn tounderstand herself. How? She did not know. She did not seek to know. Here was a vague pilgrimage, as many pilgrimages are in this world--thejourney of the searcher who knew not what she sought. And so now she layin the dark, and heard the rustle of the warm African rain, and smeltthe perfumes rising from the ground, and felt that the unknown was verynear her--the unknown with all its blessed possibilities of change. 

CHAPTER II

Long before dawn the Italian waiter rolled off his little bed, put a capon his head, and knocked at Domini's and at Suzanne Charpot's doors. 

It was still dark, and still raining, when the two women came out to getinto the carriage that was to take them to the station. The place de laMarine was a sea of mud, brown and sticky as nougat. Wet palms drippedby the railing near a desolate kiosk painted green and blue. The sky wasgrey and low. Curtains of tarpaulin were let down on each side of thecarriage, and the coachman, who looked like a Maltese, and wore a roundcap edged with pale yellow fur, was muffled up to the ears. Suzanne'sround, white face was puffy with fatigue, and her dark eyes, generallygood-natured and hopeful, were dreary, and squinted slightly, as shetipped the Italian waiter, and handed her mistress's dressing-bag andrug into the carriage. The waiter stood an the discoloured step, yawningfrom ear to ear. Even the tip could not excite him. Before the carriagestarted he had gone into the hotel and banged the door. The horsestrotted quickly through the mud, descending the hill. One of thetarpaulin curtains had been left unbuttoned by the coachman. It flappedto and fro, and when its movement was outward Domini could catchshort glimpses of mud, of glistening palm-leaves with yellow stems, ofgas-lamps, and of something that was like an extended grey nothingness. This was the sea. Twice she saw Arabs trudging along, holding theirskirts up in a bunch sideways, and showing legs bare beyond the knees. Hoods hid their faces. They appeared to be agitated by the weather, and to be continually trying to plant their naked feet in dry places. Suzanne, who sat opposite to Domini, had her eyes shut. If she had notfrom time to time passed her tongue quickly over her full, pale lips shewould have looked like a dead thing. The coquettish angle at which herlittle black hat was set on her head seemed absurdly inappropriateto the occasion and her mood. It suggested a hat being worn at somefestival. Her black, gloved hands were tightly twisted together in herlap, and she allowed her plump body to wag quite loosely with the motionof the carriage, making no attempt at resistance. She had really theappearance of a corpse sitting up. The tarpaulin flapped monotonously. The coachman cried out in the dimness to his horses like a bird, prolonging his call drearily, and then violently cracking his whip. Domini kept her eyes fixed on the loose tarpaulin, so that she might notmiss one of the wet visions it discovered by its reiterated movement. She had not slept at all, and felt as if there was a gritty drynessclose behind her eyes. She also felt very alert and enduring, but notin the least natural. Had some extraordinary event occurred; had thecarriage, for instance, rolled over the edge of the road into the sea, she was convinced that she could not have managed to be either surprisedor alarmed, If anyone had asked her whether she was tired she wouldcertainly have answered "No. "

Like her mother, Domini was of a gipsy type. She stood five feet ten, had thick, almost coarse and wavy black hair that was parted in themiddle of her small head, dark, almond-shaped, heavy-lidded eyes, and aclear, warmly-white skin, unflecked with colour. She never flushed underthe influence of excitement or emotion. Her forehead was broad and low. Her eyebrows were long and level, thicker than most women's. The shapeof her face was oval, with a straight, short nose, a short, but ratherprominent and round chin, and a very expressive mouth, not very small, slightly depressed at the corners, with perfect teeth, and red lipsthat were unusually flexible. Her figure was remarkably athletic, withshoulders that were broad in a woman, and a naturally small waist. Herhands and feet were also small. She walked splendidly, like a Syrian, but without his defiant insolence. In her face, when it was in repose, there was usually an expression of still indifference, some thought ofopposition. She looked her age, and had never used a powderpuff in herlife. She could smile easily and easily become animated, and in heranimation there was often fire, as in her calmness there was sometimescloud. Timid people were generally disconcerted by her appearance, andher manner did not always reassure them. Her obvious physical strengthhad something surprising in it, and woke wonder as to how it had been, or might be, used. Even when her eyes were shut she looked singularlywakeful. 

Domini and Suzanne got to the station of Robertville much too early. The large hall in which they had to wait was miserably lit, blank anddecidedly cold. The ticket-office was on the left, and the room wasdivided into two parts by a broad, low counter, on which the heavyluggage was placed before being weighed by two unshaven and hulking menin blue smocks. Three or four Arab touts, in excessively shabby Europeanclothes and turbans, surrounded Domini with offers of assistance. One, the dirtiest of the group, with a gaping eye-socket, in which therewas no eye, succeeded by his passionate volubility and impudence inattaching himself to her in a sort of official capacity. He spokefluent, but faulty, French, which attracted Suzanne, and, beingabnormally muscular and active, in an amazingly short time got holdof all their boxes and bags and ranged them on the counter. He thenindulged in a dramatic performance, which he apparently consideredlikely to rouse into life and attention the two unshaven men in smocks, who were smoking cigarettes, and staring vaguely at the metal sheet onwhich the luggage was placed to be weighed. Suzanne remained expectantlyin attendance, and Domini, having nothing to do, and seeing no bench torest on, walked slowly up and down the hall near the entrance. 

It was now half-past four in the morning, and in the air Domini fanciedthat she felt the cold breath of the coming dawn. Beyond the opening ofthe station, as she passed and repassed in her slow and aimless walk, she saw the soaking tarpaulin curtains of the carriage she had just leftglistening in the faint lamp-light. After a few minutes the Arabs shehad noticed on the road entered. Their brown, slipperless feet werecaked with sticky mud, and directly they found themselves under shelterin a dry place they dropped the robes they had been holding up, and, bending down, began to flick it off on to the floor with their delicatefingers. They did this with extraordinary care and precision, rubbed thesoles of their feet repeatedly against the boards, and then put on theiryellow slippers and threw back the hoods which had been drawn over theirheads. 

A few French passengers straggled in, yawning and looking irritable. The touts surrounded them, with noisy offers of assistance. The men insmocks still continued to smoke and to stare at the metal sheet on thefloor. Although the luggage now extended in quite a long line upon thecounter they paid no attention to it, or to the violent and reiteratedcries of the Arabs who stood behind it, anxious to earn a tip by gettingit weighed and registered quickly. Apparently they were wrapped insavage dreams. At length a light shone through the small opening of theticket-office, the men in smocks stirred and threw down their cigarettestumps, and the few travellers pressed forward against the counter, and pointed to their boxes with their sticks and hands. Suzanne Charpotassumed an expression of attentive suspicion, and Domini ceasedfrom walking up and down. Several of the recruits came in hastily, accompanied by two Zouaves. They were wet, and looked dazed and tiredout. Grasping their bags and bundles they went towards the platform. Atrain glided slowly in, gleaming faintly with lights. Domini's trunkswere slammed down on the weighing machine, and Suzanne, drawing out herpurse, took her stand before the shining hole of the ticket-office. 

In the wet darkness there rose up a sound like a child calling out aninsulting remark. This was followed immediately by the piping of a horn. With a jerk the train started, passed one by one the station lamps, and, with a steady jangling and rattling, drew out into the shrouded country. Domini was in a wretchedly-lit carriage with three Frenchmen, facingthe door which opened on to the platform. The man opposite to her wasenormously fat, with a coal-black beard growing up to his eyes. He woreblack gloves and trousers, a huge black cloth hat, and a thick blackcloak with a black buckle near the throat. His eyes were shut, and hislarge, heavy head drooped forward. Domini wondered if he was travellingto the funeral of some relative. The two other men, one of whom lookedlike a commercial traveller, kept shifting their feet upon the hot-watertins that lay on the floor, clearing their throats and sighing loudly. One of them coughed, let down the window, spat, drew the window up, satsideways, put his legs suddenly up on the seat and groaned. The trainrattled more harshly, and shook from side to side as it got up speed. Rain streamed down the window-panes, through which it was impossible tosee anything. 

Domini still felt alert, but an overpowering sensation of dreariness hadcome to her. She did not attribute this sensation to fatigue. She didnot try to analyse it. She only felt as if she had never seen or heardanything that was not cheerless, as if she had never known anything thatwas not either sad, or odd, or inexplicable. What did she remember? Atrain of trifles that seemed to have been enough to fill all her life;the arrival of the nervous and badly-dressed recruits at the wharf, their embarkation, their last staring and pathetic look at France, the stormy voyage, the sordid illness of almost everyone on board, theapproach long after sundown to the small and unknown town, of which itwas impossible to see anything clearly, the marshalling of the recruitspale with sickness, their pitiful attempt at cheerful singing, angrilychecked by the Zouaves in charge of them, their departure up the hillcarrying their poor belongings, the sleepless night, the sound of therain falling, the scents rising from the unseen earth. The tap of theItalian waiter at the door, the damp drive to the station, the long waitthere, the sneering signal, followed by the piping horn, the jerking andrattling of the carriage, the dim light within it falling upon the stoutFrenchman in his mourning, the streaming water upon the window-panes. These few sights, sounds, sensations were like the story of a life toDomini just then, were more, were like the whole of life; alwaysdull noise, strange, flitting, pale faces, and an unknown regionthat remained perpeturally invisible, and that must surely be ugly orterrible. 

The train stopped frequently at lonely little stations. Domini lookedout, letting down the window for a moment. At each station she saw atiny house with a peaked roof, a wooden railing dividing the platformfrom the country road, mud, grass bending beneath the weight ofwater-drops, and tall, dripping, shaggy eucalyptus trees. Sometimes thestation-master's children peered at the train with curious eyes, anddepressed-looking Arabs, carefully wrapped up, their mouths and chinscovered by folds of linen, got in and out slowly. 

Once Domini saw two women, in thin, floating white dresses and spangledveils, hurrying by like ghosts in the dark. Heavy silver ornamentsjangled on their ankles, above their black slippers splashed with mud. Their sombre eyes stared out from circles of Kohl, and, with stained, claret-coloured hands, whose nails were bright red, they clasped theirlight and bridal raiment to their prominent breasts. They were escortedby a gigantic man, almost black, with a zigzag scar across the leftside of his face, who wore a shining brown burnous over a grey woollenjacket. He pushed the two women into the train as if he were pushingbales, and got in after them, showing enormous bare legs, with calvesthat stuck out like lumps of iron. 

The darkness began to fade, and presently, as the grey light grew slowlystronger, the rain ceased, and it was possible to see through the glassof the carriage window. 

The country began to discover itself, as if timidly, to Domini's eyes. She had recently noticed that the train was going very slowly, and shecould now see why. They were mounting a steep incline. The rich, dampearth of the plains beyond Robertville, with its rank grass, its moistploughland and groves of eucalyptus, was already left behind. The trainwas crawling in a cup of the hills, grey, sterile and abandoned, without roads or houses, without a single tree. Small, grey-green bushesflourished here and there on tiny humps of earth, but they seemed ratherto emphasise than to diminish the aspect of poverty presented by thesoil, over which the dawn, rising from the wet arms of night, shed acold and reticent illumination. By a gash in the rounded hills, wherethe earth was brownish yellow, a flock of goats with flapping earstripped slowly, followed by two Arab boys in rags. One of the boys wasplaying upon a pipe coverd with red arabesques. Domini heard two orthree bars of the melody. They were ineffably wild and bird-like, very clear and sweet. They seemed to her to match exactly the pure andascetic light cast by the dawn over these bare, grey hills, and theystirred her abruptly from the depressed lassitude in which the drearychances of recent travel had drowned her. She began, with a certainfaint excitement, to realise that these low, round-backed hills wereAfrica, that she was leaving behind the sea, so many of whose wavesswept along European shores, that somewhere, beyond the broken and nearhorizon line toward which the train was creeping, lay the great desert, her destination, with its pale sands and desolate cities, its sunburnttribes of workers, its robbers, warriors and priests, its etherealmysteries of mirage, its tragic splendours of colour, of tempest andof heat. A sense of a wider world than the compressed world into whichphysical fatigue had decoyed her woke in her brain and heart. The littleArab, playing carelessly upon his pipe with the red arabesques, was sooninvisible among his goats beside the dry water-course that was probablythe limit of his journeying, but Domini felt that like a musician at thehead of a procession he had played her bravely forward into the dawn andAfrica. 

At Ah-Souf Domini changed into another train and had the carriage toherself. The recruits had reached their destination. Hers was a longerpilgramage and still towards the sun. She could not afterwards rememberwhat she thought about during this part of her journey. Subsequentevents so coloured all her memories of Africa that every fold of itssun-dried soil was endowed in her mind with the significance of a livingthing. Every palm beside a well, every stunted vine and clamberingflower upon an _auberge_ wall, every form of hill and silhouette ofshadow, became in her heart intense with the beauty and the pathos sheused, as a child, to think must lie beyond the sunset. 

And so she forgot. 

A strange sense of leaving all things behind had stolen over her. Shewas really fatigued by travel and by want of sleep, but she did notknow it. Lying back in her seat, with her head against the dirty whitecovering of the shaking carriage, she watched the great change that wascoming over the land. 

It seemed as if God were putting forth His hand to withdraw graduallyall things of His creation, all the furniture He had put into the greatPalace of the world; as if He meant to leave it empty and utterly naked. 

So Domini thought. 

First He took the rich and shaggy grass, and all the little flowersthat bloomed modestly in it. Then He drew away the orange groves, theoleander and the apricot trees, the faithful eucalyptus with its palestems and tressy foliage, the sweet waters that fertilised the soil, making it soft and brown where the plough seamed it into furrows, thetufted plants and giant reeds that crowd where water is. And still, as the train ran on, His gifts were fewer. At last even the palmswere gone, and the Barbary fig displayed no longer among the crumblingboulders its tortured strength, and the pale and fantastic evolutionsof its unnatural foliage. Stones lay everywhere upon the pale yellow orgrey-brown earth. Crystals glittered in the sun like shallow jewels, andfar away, under clouds that were dark and feathery, appeared hard andrelentless mountains, which looked as if they were made of iron carvedinto horrible and jagged shapes. Where they fell into ravines theybecame black. Their swelling bosses and flanks, sharp sometimes asthe spines of animals, were steel coloured. Their summits were purple, deepening where the clouds came down to ebony. 

Journeying towards these terrible fastnesses were caravans on whichDomini looked with a heavy and lethargic interest. Many Kabyles, fairerthan she was, moved slowly on foot towards their rock villages. 

Over the withered earth they went towards the distant mountains and theclouds. The sun was hidden. The wind continued to rise. Sand found itsway in through the carriage windows. The mountains, as Domini saw themmore clearly, looked more gloomy, more unearthly. There was somethingunnatural in their hard outlines, in the rigid mystery of theirinnumerable clefts. That all these people should be journeying towardsthem was pathetic, and grieved the imagination. 

The wind seemed so cold, now the sun was hidden, that she had drawn boththe windows up and thrown a rug over her. She put her feet up on theopposite seat, and half closed her eyes. But she still turned themtowards the glass on her left, and watched. It seemed to herquite impossible that this shaking and slowly moving train had anydestination. The desolation of the country had become so absolute thatshe could not conceive of anything but still greater desolation lyingbeyond. She had no feeling that she was merely traversing a tract ofsterility. Her sensation was that she had passed the boundary of theworld God had created, and come into some other place, upon which He hadnever looked and of which He had no knowledge. 

Abruptly she felt as if her father had entered into some such regionwhen he forced his way out of his religion. And in this region he haddied. She had stood on the verge of it by his deathbed. Now she was init. 

There were no Arabs journeying now. No tents huddled among the lowbushes. The last sign of vegetation was obliterated. The earth rose andfell in a series of humps and depressions, interspersed with piles ofrock. Every shade of yellow and of brown mingled and flowed away towardsthe foot of the mountains. Here and there dry water-courses showed theirteeth. Their crumbling banks were like the rind of an orange. Littlebirds, the hue of the earth, with tufted crests, tripped jauntily amongthe stones, fluttered for a few yards and alighted, with an air ofstrained alertness, as if their minute bodies were full of tremblingwires. They were the only living things Domini could see. 

She thought again of her father. In some such region as this his soulmust surely be wandering, far away from God. 

She let down the glass. 

The wind was really cold and blowing gustily. She drank it in as ifshe were tasting a new wine, and she was conscious at once that shehad never before breathed such air. There was a wonderful, a startlingflavour in it, the flavour of gigantic spaces and of rolling leagues ofemptiness. Neither among mountains nor upon the sea had she ever foundan atmosphere so fiercely pure, clean and lively with unutterablefreedom. She leaned out to it, shutting her eyes. And now that she sawnothing her palate savoured it more intensely. The thought of her fatherfled from her. All detailed thoughts, all the minutia of the mind wereswept away. She was bracing herself to an encounter with somethinggigantic, something unshackled, the being from whose lips this wonderfulbreath flowed. 

When two lovers kiss their breath mingles, and, if they really love, each is conscious that in the breath of the loved one is the loved one'ssoul, coming forth from the temple of the body through the temple door. As Domini leaned out, seeing nothing, she was conscious that in thisbreath she drank there was a soul, and it seemed to her that it was thesoul which flames in the centre of things, and beyond. She could notthink any longer of her father as an outcast because he had abandoned areligion. For all religions were surely here, marching side by side, andbehind them, background to them, there was something far greater thanany religion. Was it snow or fire? Was it the lawlessness of that whichhas made laws, or the calm of that which has brought passion into being?Greater love than is in any creed, or greater freedom than is in anyhuman liberty? Domini only felt that if she had ever been a slave atthis moment she would have died of joy, realising the boundless freedomthat circles this little earth. 

"Thank God for it!" she murmured aloud. 

Her own words woke her to a consciousness of ordinary things--or madeher sleep to the eternal. 

She closed the window and sat down. 

A little later the sun came out again, and the various shades of yellowand of orange that played over the wrinkled earth deepened and glowed. Domini had sunk into a lethargy so complete that, though not asleep, shewas scarcely aware of the sun. She was dreaming of liberty. 

Presently the train slackened and stopped. She heard a loud chatteringof many voices and looked out. The sun was now shining brilliantly, and she saw a station crowded with Arabs in white burnouses, who werevociferously greeting friends in the train, were offering enormousoranges for sale to the passengers, or were walking up and down gazingcuriously into the carriages, with the unblinking determination andindifference to a return of scrutiny which she had already noticed andthought animal. A guard came up, told her the place was El-Akbara, andthat the train would stay there ten minutes to wait for the train fromBeni-Mora. She decided to get out and stretch her cramped limbs. Onthe platform she found Suzanne, looking like a person who had just beenslapped. One side of the maid's face was flushed and covered with afaint tracery of tiny lines. The other was greyish white. Sleep hungin her eyes, over which the lids drooped as if they were partiallyparalysed. Her fingers were yellow from peeling an orange, and her smartlittle hat was cocked on one side. There were grains of sand on herblack gown, and when she saw her mistress she at once began tocompress her lips, and to assume the expression of obstinate patiencecharacteristic of properly-brought-up servants who find themselvestravelling far from home in outlandish places. 

"Have you been asleep, Suzanne?"

"No, Mam'zelle. "

"You've had an orange?"

"I couldn't get it down, Mam'zelle. "

"Would you like to see if you can get a cup of coffee here?"

"No, thank you, Mam'zelle. I couldn't touch this Arab stuff. "

"We shall soon be there now. "

Suzanne made all her naturally small features look much smaller, glanceddown at her skirt, and suddenly began to shake the grains of sand fromit in an outraged manner, at the same time extending her left foot. Twoor three young Arabs came up and stood, staring, round her. Their eyeswere magnificent, and gravely observant. Suzanne went on shaking andpatting her skirt, and Domini walked away down the platform, wonderingwhat a French maid's mind was like. Suzanne's certainly had itslimitations. It was evident that she was horrified by the sight of barelegs. Why?

As Domini walked along the platform among the fruit-sellers, the guides, the turbaned porters with their badges, the staring children and theragged wanderers who thronged about the train, she thought of the desertto which she was now so near. It lay, she knew, beyond the terrificwall of rock that faced her. But she could see no opening. The toweringsummits of the cliffs, jagged as the teeth of a wolf, broke crudely uponthe serene purity of the sky. Somewhere, concealed in the darkness ofthe gorge at their feet, was the mouth from which had poured forth thatwonderful breath, quivering with freedom and with unearthly things. Thesun was already declining, and the light it cast becoming softened andromantic. Soon there would be evening in the desert. Then there wouldbe night. And she would be there in the night with all things that thedesert holds. 

A train of camels was passing on the white road that descended into theshadow of the gorge. Some savage-looking men accompanied them, cryingcontinually, "Oosh! Oosh!" They disappeared, desert-men with theirdesert-beasts, bound no doubt on some tremendous journey through theregions of the sun. Where would they at last unlade the groaning camels?Domini saw them in the midst of dunes red with the dying fires of thewest. And their shadows lay along the sands like weary things reposing. 

She started when a low voice spoke to her in French, and, turning round, saw a tall Arab boy, magnificently dressed in pale blue cloth trousers, a Zouave jacket braided with gold, and a fez, standing near her. She wasstruck by the colour of his skin, which was faint as the colour of _cafeau lait_, and by the contrast between his huge bulk and his languid, almost effeminate, demeanour. As she turned he smiled at her calmly, andlifted one hand toward the wall of rock. 

"Madame has seen the desert?" he asked. 

"Never, " answered Domini. 

"It is the garden of oblivion, " he said, still in a low voice, andspeaking with a delicate refinement that was almost mincing. "In thedesert one forgets everything; even the little heart one loves, and thedesire of one's own soul. "

"How can that be?" asked Domini. 

"Shal-lah. It is the will of God. One remembers nothing any more. "

His eyes were fixed upon the gigantic pinnacles of the rocks. There wassomething fanatical and highly imaginative in their gaze. 

"What is your name?" Domini asked. 

"Batouch, Madame. You are going to Beni-Mora?"

"Yes, Batouch. "

"I too. To-night, under the mimosa trees, I shall compose a poem. Itwill be addressed to Irena, the dancing-girl. She is like the littlemoon when it first comes up above the palm trees. "

Just then the train from Beni-Mora ran into the station, and Dominiturned to seek her carriage. As she was coming to it she noticed, withthe pang of the selfish traveller who wishes to be undisturbed, thata tall man, attended by an Arab porter holding a green bag, was at thedoor of it and was evidently about to get in. He glanced round as Dominicame up, half drew back rather awkwardly as if to allow her to precedehim, then suddenly sprang in before her. The Arab lifted in the bag, and the man, endeavouring hastily to thrust some money into his hand, dropped the coin, which fell down between the step of the carriageand the platform. The Arab immediately made a greedy dive after it, interposing his body between Domini and the train; and she was obligedto stand waiting while he looked for it, grubbing frantically inthe earth with his brown fingers, and uttering muffled exclamations, apparently of rage. Meanwhile, the tall man had put the green bag upon the rack, gone quickly to the far side of the carriage, and sat downlooking out of the window. 

Domini was struck by the mixture of indecision and blundering hastewhich he had shown, and by his impoliteness. Evidently he was not agentleman, she thought, or he would surely have obeyed his first impulseand allowed her to get into the train before him. It seemed, too, asif he were determined to be discourteous, for he sat with his shoulderdeliberately turned towards the door, and made no attempt to get hisArab out of the way, although the train was just about to start. Dominiwas very tired, and she began to feel angry with him, contemptuous too. The Arab could not find the money, and the little horn now piped itswarning of departure. It was absolutely necessary for her to get in atonce if she did not mean to stay at El-Akbara. She tried to pass thegrovelling Arab, but as she did so he suddenly sprang up, jumped onto the step of the carriage, and, thrusting his body half through thedoorway, began to address a torrent of Arabic to the passenger within. The horn sounded again, and the carriage jerked backwards preparatory tostarting on its way to Beni-Mora. 

Domini caught hold of the short European jacket the Arab was wearing, and said in French:

"You must let me get in at once. The train is going. "

The man, however, intent on replacing the coin he had lost, took nonotice of her, but went on vociferating and gesticulating. The travellersaid something in Arabic. Domini was now very angry. She gripped thejacket, exerted all her force, and pulled the Arab violently from thedoor. He alighted on the platform beside her and nearly fell. Before hehad recovered himself she sprang up into the train, which began tomove at that very moment. As she got in, the man who had caused all thebother was leaning forward with a bit of silver in his hand, looking asif he were about to leave his seat. Domini cast a glance of contempt athim, and he turned quickly to the window again and stared out, at thesame time putting the coin back into his pocket. A dull flush rose onhis cheek, but he attempted no apology, and did not even offer to fastenthe lower handle of the door. 

"What a boor!" Domini thought as she bent out of the window to do it. 

When she turned from the door, after securing the handle, she found thecarriage full of a pale twilight. The train was stealing into the gorge, following the caravan of camels which she had seen disappearing. Shepaid no more attention to her companion, and her feeling of acuteirritation against him died away for the moment. The towering cliffscast mighty shadows, the darkness deepened, the train, quickening itsspeed, seemed straining forward into the arms of night. There was achill in the air. Domini drank it into her lungs again, and againwas startled, stirred, by the life and the mentality of it. She wasconscious of receiving it with passion, as if, indeed, she held her lipsto a mouth and drank some being's very nature into hers. She forgot herrecent vexation and the man who had caused it. She forgot everything inmere sensation. She had no time to ask, "Whither am I going?" She feltlike one borne upon a wave, seaward, to the wonder, to the danger, perhaps, of a murmuring unknown. The rocks leaned forward; their teethwere fastened in the sky; they enclosed the train, banishing the sun andthe world from all the lives within it. She caught a fleeting glimpse ofrushing waters far beneath her; of crumbling banks, covered with debrislike the banks of a disused quarry; of shattered boulders, grouped in awild disorder, as if they had been vomited forth from some underworldor cast headlong from the sky; of the flying shapes of fruit trees, mulberries and apricot trees, oleanders and palms; of dull yellow wallsguarding pools the colour of absinthe, imperturbable and still. A strongimpression of increasing cold and darkness grew in her, and the noisesof the train became hollow, and seemed to be expanding, as if they werestriving to press through the impending rocks and find an outletinto space; failing, they rose angrily, violently, in Domini's ears, protesting, wrangling, shouting, declaiming. The darkness became likethe darkness of a nightmare. All the trees vanished, as if they fled infear. The rocks closed in as if to crush the train. There was a momentin which Domini shut her eyes, like one expectant of a tremendous blowthat cannot be avoided. 

She opened them to a flood of gold, out of which the face of a manlooked, like a face looking out of the heart of the sun. 

CHAPTER III

It flashed upon her with the desert, with the burning heaps of carnationand orange-coloured rocks, with the first sand wilderness, the firstbrown villages glowing in the late radiance of the afternoon like carventhings of bronze, the first oasis of palms, deep green as a wave of thesea and moving like a wave, the first wonder of Sahara warmth and Saharadistance. She passed through the golden door into the blue country, andsaw this face, and, for a moment, moved by the exalted sensation of amagical change in all her world, she looked at it simply as a new sightpresented, with the sun, the mighty rocks, the hard, blind villages, andthe dense trees, to her eyes, and connected it with nothing. It was partof this strange and glorious desert region to her. That was all, for amoment. 

In the play of untempered golden light the face seemed pale. It wasnarrow, rather long, with marked and prominent features, a nose with ahigh bridge, a mouth with straight, red lips, and a powerful chin. Theeyes were hazel, almost yellow, with curious markings of a darker shadein the yellow, dark centres that looked black, and dark outer circles. The eyelashes were very long, the eyebrows thick and strongly curved. The forehead was high, and swelled out slightly above the temples. Therewas no hair on the face, which was closely shaved. Near the mouth weretwo faint lines that made Domini think of physical suffering, and alsoof mediaeval knights. Despite the glory of the sunshine there seemed tobe a shadow falling across the face. 

This was all that Domini noticed before the spell of change and theabrupt glory was broken, and she knew that she was staring into the faceof the man who had behaved so rudely at the station of El-Akbara. Theknowledge gave her a definite shock, and she thought that her expressionmust have changed abruptly, for a dull flush rose on the stranger's thincheeks and mounted to his rugged forehead. He glanced out of the windowand moved his hands uneasily. Domini noticed that they scarcely talliedwith his face. Though scrupulously clean, they looked like the hands ofa labourer, hard, broad, and brown. Even his wrists, and a small sectionof his left forearm, which showed as he lifted his left hand from oneknee to the other, were heavily tinted by the sun. The spaces betweenthe fingers were wide, as they usually are in hands accustomed tograsping implements, but the fingers themselves were rather delicate andartistic. 

Domini observed this swiftly. Then she saw that her neighbour wasunpleasantly conscious of her observation. This vexed her vaguely, perhaps because even so trifling a circumstance was like a thin linkbetween them. She snapped it by ceasing to look at or think of him. Thewindow was down. A delicate and warm breeze drifted in, coming fromthe thickets of the palms. In flashing out of the darkness of the gorgeDomini had had the sensation of passing into a new world and a newatmosphere. The sensation stayed with her now that she was no longerdreaming or giving the reins to her imagination, but was calmly herself. Against the terrible rampart of rock the winds beat across the land ofthe Tell. But they die there frustrated. And the rains journey thitherand fail, sinking into the absinthe-coloured pools of the gorge. And thesnows and even the clouds stop, exhausted in their pilgrimage. The gorgeis not their goal, but it is their grave, and the desert never seestheir burial. So Domini's first sense of casting away the knownremained, and even grew, but now strongly and quietly. It was wellfounded, she thought. For she looked out of the carriage window towardsthe barrier she was leaving, and saw that on this side, guarding thedesert from the world that is not desert, it was pink in the eveninglight, deepening here and there to rose colour, whereas on the far sideit had a rainy hue as of rocks in England. And there was a lustre ofgold in the hills, tints of glowing bronze slashed with a red line asthe heart of a wound, but recalling the heart of a flower. The folds ofthe earth glistened. There was flame down there in the river bed. Thewreckage of the land, the broken fragments, gleamed as if braided withprecious things. Everywhere the salt crystals sparkled with the violenceof diamonds. Everywhere there was a strength of colour that hurleditself to the gaze, unabashed and almost savage, the colour of summerthat never ceases, of heat that seldom dies, in a land where there is noautumn and seldom a flitting cold. 

Down on the road near the village there were people; old men playingthe "lady's game" with stones set in squares of sand, women peeping fromflat roofs and doorways, children driving goats. A man, like a fair andbeautiful Christ, with long hair and a curling beard, beat on the groundwith a staff and howled some tuneless notes. He was dressed in red andgreen. No one heeded him. A distant sound of the beating of drums rosein the air, mingled with piercing cries uttered by a nasal voice. Andas if below it, like the orchestral accompaniment of a dramaticsolo, hummed many blending noises; faint calls of labourers in thepalm-gardens and of women at the wells; chatter of children in duskycourts sheltered with reeds and pale-stemmed grasses; dim pipings ofhomeward-coming shepherds drowned, with their pattering charges, in thegolden vapours of the west; soft twitterings of birds beyond brown wallsin green seclusions; dull barking of guard dogs; mutter of camel driversto their velvet-footed beasts. 

The caravan which Domini had seen descending into the gorge reappeared, moving deliberately along the desert road towards the south. Awatch-tower peeped above the palms. Doves were circling round it. Manyof them were white. They flew like ivory things above this tower ofglowing bronze, which slept at the foot of the pink rocks. On the leftrose a mass of blood-red earth and stone. Slanting rays of the sunstruck it, and it glowed mysteriously like a mighty jewel. 

As Domini leaned out of the window, and the salt crystals sparkled toher eyes, and the palms swayed languidly above the waters, and the roseand mauve of the hills, the red and orange of the earth, streamed byin the flames of the sun before the passing train like a barbaricprocession, to the sound of the hidden drums, the cry of the hiddenpriest, and all the whispering melodies of these strange and unknownlives, tears started into her eyes. The entrance into this land of flameand colour, through its narrow and terrific portal, stirred her almostbeyond her present strength. The glory of this world mounted to herheart, oppressing it. The embrace of Nature was so violent that itcrushed her. She felt like a little fly that had sought to wing itsway to the sun and, at a million miles' distance from it, was beingshrivelled by its heat. When all the voices of the village faintedaway she was glad, although she strained her ears to hear their fadingechoes. Suddenly she knew that she was very tired, so tired thatemotions acted upon her as physical exertion acts upon an exhausted man. She sat down and shut her eyes. For a long time she stayed with her eyesshut, but she knew that on the windows strange lights were glittering, that the carriage was slowly filling with the ineffable splendours ofthe west. Long afterwards she often wondered whether she endowed thesunset of that day with supernatural glories because she was so tired. Perhaps the salt mountain of El-Alia did not really sparkle like thecelestial mountains in the visions of the saints. Perhaps the long chainof the Aures did not really look as if all its narrow clefts had beenpowdered with the soft and bloomy leaves of unearthly violets, andthe desert was not cloudy in the distance towards the Zibans with themagical blue she thought she saw there, a blue neither of sky nor sea, but like the hue at the edge of a flame in the heart of a wood fire. Sheoften wondered, but she never knew. 

The sound of a movement made her look up. Her companion was changing hisplace and going to the other side of the compartment. He walked softly, no doubt with the desire not to disturb Domini. His back was towards herfor an instant, and she noticed that he was a powerful man, thoughvery thin, and that his gait was heavy. It made her think again of hislabourer's hands, and she began to wonder idly what was his rank andwhat he did. He sat down in the far corner on the same side as herselfand stared out of his window, crossing his legs. He wore large bootswith square toes, clumsy and unfashionable, but comfortable and good forwalking in. His clothes had obviously been made by a French tailor. The stuff of them was grey and woolly, and they were cut tighter tothe figure than English clothes generally are. He had on a black silknecktie, and a soft brown travelling hat dented in the middle. By theway in which he looked out of the window, Domini judged that he, too, was seeing the desert for the first time. There was something almostpassionately attentive in his attitude, something of strained eagernessin that part of his face which she could see from where she wassitting. His cheek was not pale, as she had thought at first, but brown, obviously burnt by the sun of Africa. But she felt that underneath thesunburn there was pallor. She fancied he might be a painter, and wasnoting all the extraordinary colour effects with the definiteness of aman who meant, perhaps, to reproduce them on canvas. 

The light, which had now the peculiar, almost supernatural softnessand limpidity of light falling at evening from a declining sun in a hotcountry, came full upon him, and brightened his hair. Domini saw that itwas brown with some chestnut in it, thick, and cut extremely short, asif his head had recently been shaved. She felt convinced that he was notFrench. He might be an Austrian, perhaps, or a Russian from the south ofRussia. He remained motionless in that attitude of profound observation. It suggested great force not merely of body, but also of mind, an almostabnormal concentration upon the thing observed. This was a man whocould surely shut out the whole world to look at a grain of sand, if hethought it beautiful or interesting. 

They were near Beni-Mora now. Its palms appeared far off, and in themidst of them a snow-white tower. The Sahara lay beyond and around it, rolling away from the foot of low, brown hills, that looked as ifthey had been covered with a soft powder of bronze. A long spur ofrose-coloured mountains stretched away towards the south. The sun wasvery near his setting. Small, red clouds floated in the western quarterof the sky, and the far desert was becoming mysteriously dim and blue, like a remote sea. Here and there thin wreaths of smoke ascended fromit, and lights glittered in it, like earth-bound stars. 

Domini had never before understood how strangely, how strenuously, colour can at moments appeal to the imagination. In this pageant of theEast she saw arise the naked soul of Africa; no faded, gentle thing, fearful of being seen, fearful of being known and understood; but aphenomenon vital, bold and gorgeous, like the sound of a trumpet pealinga great _reveille_. As she looked on this flaming land laid fearlesslybare before her, disdaining the clothing of grass, plant and flower, ofstream and tree, displaying itself with an almost brazen _insouciance_, confident in its spacious power, and in its golden pride, her heartleaped up as if in answer to a deliberate appeal. The fatigue in herdied. She responded to this _reveille_ like a young warrior who, sosoon as he is wakened, stretches out his hand for his sword. The sunsetflamed on her clear, white cheeks, giving them its hue of life. Andher nature flamed to meet it. In the huge spaces of the Sahara her soulseemed to hear the footsteps of Freedom treading towards the south. And all her dull perplexities, all her bitterness of _ennui_, all herquestionings and doubts, were swept away on the keen desert windinto the endless plains. She had come from her last confession askingherself, "What am I?" She had felt infinitely small confronted with thepettiness of modern, civilised life in a narrow, crowded world. Now shedid not torture herself with any questions, for she knew that somethinglarge, something capable, something perhaps even noble, rose up withinher to greet all this nobility, all this mighty frankness and fierce, undressed sincerity of nature. This desert and this sun would be hercomrades, and she was not afraid of them. 

Without being aware of it she breathed out a great sigh, feeling thenecessity of liberating her joy of spirit, of letting the body, howeverinadequately and absurdly, make some demonstration in response to thesecret stirring of the soul. The man in the far corner of the carriageturned and looked at her. When she heard this movement Domini rememberedher irritation against him at El-Akbara. In this splendid moment thefeeling seemed to her so paltry and contemptible that she had a livelyimpulse to make amends for the angry look she had cast at him. Possibly, had she been quite normal, she would have checked such an impulse. Thevoice of conventionality would have made itself heard. But Domini couldact vigorously, and quite carelessly, when she was moved. And she wasdeeply moved now, and longed to lavish the humanity, the sympathy andardour that were quick in her. In answer to the stranger's movement sheturned towards him, opening her lips to speak to him. Afterwards shenever knew what she meant to say, whether, if she had spoken, the wordswould have been French or English. For she did not speak. 

The man's face was illuminated by the setting sun as he sat half roundon his seat, leaning with his right hand palm downwards on the cushions. The light glittered on his short hair. He had pushed back his soft hat, and exposed his high, rugged forehead to the air, and his brown lefthand gripped the top of the carriage door. The large, knotted veinson it, the stretched sinews, were very perceptible. The hand lookedviolent. Domini's eyes fell on it as she turned. The impulse to speakbegan to fail, and when she glanced up at the man's face she no longerfelt it at all. For, despite the glory of the sunset on him, thereseemed to be a cold shadow in his eyes. The faint lines near hismouth looked deeper than before, and now suggested most powerfully thedreariness, the harshness of long-continued suffering. The mouth itselfwas compressed and grim, and the man's whole expression was fierce andstartling as the expression of a criminal bracing himself to endureinevitable detection. So crude and piercing indeed was this maskconfronting her that Domini started and was inclined to shudder. Fora minute the man's eyes held hers, and she thought she saw in themunfathomable depths of misery or of wickedness. She hardly knew which. Sorrow was like crime, and crime like the sheer desolation of grief toher just then. And she thought of the outer darkness spoken of in theBible. It came before her in the sunset. Her father was in it, and thisstranger stood by him. The thing was as vital, and fled as swiftly as ahallucination in a madman's brain. 

Domini looked down. All the triumph died out in her, all the exquisiteconsciousness of the freedom, the colour, the bigness of life. For therewas a black spot on the sun--humanity, God's mistake in the great planof Creation. And the shadow cast by humanity tempered, even surelyconquered, the light. She wondered whether she would always feel thecold of the sunless places in the golden dominion of the sun. 

The man had dropped his eyes too. His hand fell from the door to hisknee. He did not move till the train ran into Beni-Mora, and the eagerfaces of countless Arabs stared in upon them from the scorched field ofmanoeuvres where Spahis were exercising in the gathering twilight. 

CHAPTER IV

Having given her luggage ticket to a porter, Domini passed out of thestation followed by Suzanne, who looked and walked like an exhaustedmarionette. Batouch, who had emerged from a third-class compartmentbefore the train stopped, followed them closely, and as they reached thejostling crowd of Arabs which swarmed on the roadway he joined them withthe air of a proprietor. 

"Which is Madame's hotel?"

Domini looked round. 

"Ah, Batouch!"

Suzanne jumped as if her string had been sharply pulled, and cast aglance of dreary suspicion upon the poet. She looked at his legs, thenupwards. 

He wore white socks which almost met his pantaloons. Scarcely more thanan inch of pale brown skin was visible. The gold buttons of his jacketglittered brightly. His blue robe floated majestically from his broadshoulders, and the large tassel of his fez fell coquettishly towardshis left ear, above which was set a pale blue flower with a woolly greenleaf. 

Suzanne was slightly reassured by the flower and the bright buttons. She felt that they needed a protector in this mob of shouting brown andblack men, who clamoured about them like savages, exposing bare legs andarms, even bare chests, in a most barbarous manner. 

"We are going to the Hotel du Desert, " Domini continued. "Is it far?"

"Only a few minutes, Madame. "

"I shall like to walk there. "

Suzanne collapsed. Her bones became as wax with apprehension. She sawherself toiling over leagues of sand towards some nameless hovel. 

"Suzanne, you can get into the omnibus and take the handbags. "

At the sweet word omnibus a ray of hope stole into the maid's heart, andwhen a nicely-dressed man, in a long blue coat and indubitable trousers, assisted her politely into a vehicle which was unmistakable she almostwept for joy. 

Meanwhile Domini, escorted serenely by the poet, walked towards the longgardens of Beni-Mora. She passed over a wooden bridge. White dust wasflying from the road, along which many of the Arab aristocracy wereindolently strolling, carrying lightly in their hands small red roses orsprigs of pink geranium. In their white robes they looked, she thought, like monks, though the cigarettes many of them were smoking foughtagainst the illusion. Some of them were dressed like Batouch inpale-coloured cloth. They held each other's hands loosely as theysauntered along, chattering in soft contralto voices. Two or three wereattended by servants, who walked a pace or two behind them on the left. These were members of great families, rulers of tribes, men who hadinfluence over the Sahara people. One, a shortish man with a coal-blackbeard, moved so majestically that he seemed almost a giant. His face wasvery pale. On one of his small, almost white, hands glittered a diamondring. A boy with a long, hooked nose strolled gravely near him, wearingbrown kid gloves and a turban spangled with gold. 

"That is the Kaid of Tonga, Madame, " whispered Batouch, looking at thepale man reverently. "He is here _en permission_. "

"How white he is. "

"They tried to poison him. Ever since he is ill inside. That is hisbrother. The brown gloves are very chic. "

A light carriage rolled rapidly by them in a white mist of dust. It wasdrawn by a pair of white mules, who whisked their long tails as theytrotted briskly, urged on by a cracking whip. A big boy with heavy browneyes was the coachman. By his side sat a very tall young negro with ahumorous pointed nose, dressed in primrose yellow. He grinned at Batouchout of the mist, which accentuated the coal-black hue of his whimsical, happy face. 

"That is the Agha's son with Mabrouk. "

They turned aside from the road and came into a long tunnel formed bymimosa trees that met above a broad path. To right and left were otherlittle paths branching among the trunks of fruit trees and the narrowtwigs of many bushes that grew luxuriantly. Between sandy brown banks, carefully flattened and beaten hard by the spades of Arab gardeners, glided streams of opaque water that were guided from the desert by asystem of dams. The Kaid's mill watched over them and the great wallof the fort. In the tunnel the light was very delicate and tinged withgreen. The noise of the water flowing was just audible. A few Arabs weresitting on benches in dreamy attitudes, with their heelless slippershanging from the toes of their bare feet. Beyond the entrance of thetunnel Domini could see two horsemen galloping at a tremendous pace intothe desert. Their red cloaks streamed out over the sloping quarters oftheir horses, which devoured the earth as if in a frenzy of emulation. They disappeared into the last glories of the sun, which still lingeredon the plain and blazed among the summits of the red mountains. 

All the contrasts of this land were exquisite to Domini and, in somemysterious way, suggested eternal things; whispering through colour, gleam, and shadow, through the pattern of leaf and rock, through theair, now fresh, now tenderly warm and perfumed, through the silence thathung like a filmy cloud in the golden heaven. 

She and Batouch entered the tunnel, passing at once into definiteevening. The quiet of these gardens was delicious, and was onlyinterrupted now and then by the sound of wheels upon the road as acarriage rolled by to some house which was hidden in the distance of theoasis. The seated Arabs scarcely disturbed it by their murmured talk. Many of them indeed said nothing, but rested like lotus-eaters ingraceful attitudes, with hanging hands, and eyes, soft as the eyes ofgazelles, that regarded the shadowy paths and creeping waters with agrave serenity born of the inmost spirit of idleness. 

But Batouch loved to talk, and soon began a languid monologue. 

He told Domini that he had been in Paris, where he had been the guest ofa French poet who adored the East; that he himself was "instructed, " andnot like other Arabs; that he smoked the hashish and could sing the lovesongs of the Sahara; that he had travelled far in the desert, to Soufand to Ouargla beyond the ramparts of the Dunes; that he composedverses in the night when the uninstructed, the brawlers, the drinkers ofabsinthe and the domino players were sleeping or wasting their timein the darkness over the pastimes of the lewd, when the sybariteswere sweating under the smoky arches of the Moorish baths, and the_marechale_ of the dancing-girls sat in her flat-roofed house guardingthe jewels and the amulets of her gay confederation. These verses werewritten both in Arabic and in French, and the poet of Paris and hisfriends had found them beautiful as the dawn, and as the palm trees ofOurlana by the Artesian wells. All the girls of the Ouled Nails werecelebrated in these poems--Aishoush and Irena, Fatma and Baali. In themalso were enshrined legends of the venerable marabouts who slept in theParadise of Allah, and tales of the great warriors who had fought abovethe rocky precipices of Constantine and far off among the sands ofthe South. They told the stories of the Koulouglis, whose mothers wereMoorish slaves, and romances in which figured the dark-skinned BeniM'Zab and the freed negroes who had fled away from the lands in the veryheart of the sun. 

All this information, not wholly devoid of a naive egoism, Batouchpoured forth gently and melodiously as they walked through the twilightin the tunnel. And Domini was quite content to listen. The strange namesthe poet mentioned, his liquid pronunciation of them, his allusionsto wild events that had happened long ago in desert places, and to thelives of priests of his old religion, of fanatics, and girls who rodeon camels caparisoned in red to the dancing-houses of Sahara cities--allthese things cradled her humour at this moment and seemed to plant her, like a mimosa tree, deep down in this sand garden of the sun. 

She had forgotten her bitter sensation in the railway carriage when itwas recalled to her mind by an incident that clashed with her presentmood. 

Steps sounded on the path behind them, going faster than they were, andpresently Domini saw her fellow-traveller striding along, accompaniedby a young Arab who was carrying the green bag. The stranger was lookingstraight before him down the tunnel, and he went by swiftly. But hisguide had something to say to Batouch, and altered his pace to keepbeside them for a moment. He was a very thin, lithe, skittish-lookingyouth, apparently about twenty-three years old, with a chocolate-brownskin, high cheek bones, long, almond-shaped eyes twinkling withdissipated humour, and a large mouth that smiled showing pointed whiteteeth. A straggling black moustache sprouted on his upper lip, and longcoarse strands of jet-black hair escaped from under the front of a fezthat was pushed back on his small head. His neck was thin and long, andhis hands were wonderfully delicate and expressive, with rosy and quiteperfect nails. When he laughed he had a habit of throwing his headforward and tucking in his chin, letting the tassel of his fez fall overhis temple to left or right. He was dressed in white with a burnous, and had a many-coloured piece of silk with frayed edges wound about hiswaist, which was as slim as a young girl's. 

He spoke to Batouch with intense vivacity in Arabic, at the sametime shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and evenpreternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with thedignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy continuedfor two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a quarrel, butshe was not accustomed to Arabs' talk. Meanwhile, the stranger in fronthad slackened his pace, and was obviously lingering for his neglectfulguide. Once or twice he nearly stopped, and made a movement as if toturn round. But he checked it and went on slowly. His guide spoke moreand more vehemently, and suddenly, tucking in his chin and displayinghis rows of big and dazzling teeth, burst into a gay and boyish laugh, at the same time shaking his head rapidly. Then he shot one last slylook at Domini and hurried on, airily swinging the green bag to and fro. His arms had tiny bones, but they were evidently strong, and he walkedwith the light ease of a young animal. After he had gone he turned hishead once and stared full at Domini. She could not help laughing at thevanity and consciousness of his expression. It was childish. Yet therewas something ruthless and wicked in it too. As he came up to thestranger the latter looked round, said something to him, and thenhastened forward. Domini was struck by the difference between theirgaits. For the stranger, although he was so strongly built and muscular, walked rather heavily and awkwardly, with a peculiar shuffling motionof his feet. She began to wonder how old he was. About thirty-five orthirty-seven, she thought. 

"That is Hadj, " said Batouch in his soft, rich voice. 

"Hadj?"

"Yes. He is my cousin. He lives in Beni-Mora, but he, too, has been inParis. He has been in prison too. "

"What for?"

"Stabbing. "

Batouch gave this piece of information with quiet indifference, andcontinued

"He likes to laugh. He is lazy. He has earned a great deal of money, andnow he has none. To-night he is very gay, because he has a client. "

"I see. Then he is a guide?"

"Many people in Beni-Mora are guides. But Hadj is always lucky ingetting the English. "

"That man with him isn't English!" Domini exclaimed. 

She had wondered what the traveller's nationality was, but it had neveroccurred to her that it might be the same as her own. 

"Yes, he is. And he is going to the Hotel du Desert. You and he are theonly English here, and almost the only travellers. It is too early formany travellers yet. They fear the heat. And besides, few English comehere now. What a pity! They spend money, and like to see everything. Hadj is very anxious to buy a costume at Tunis for the great _fete_ atthe end of Ramadan. It will cost fifty or sixty francs. He hopes theEnglishman is rich. But all the English are rich and generous. "

Here Batouch looked steadily at Domini with his large, unconcerned eyes. 

"This one speaks Arabic a little. "

Domini made no reply. She was surprised by this piece of information. There was something, she thought, essentially un-English about thestranger. He was certainly not dressed by an English tailor. But it wasnot only that which had caused her mistake. His whole air and look, hismanner of holding himself, of sitting, of walking--yes, especially ofwalking--were surely foreign. Yet, when she came to think about it, shecould not say that they were characteristic of any other country. Idlyshe had said to herself that the stranger might be an Austrian or aRussian. But she had been thinking of his colouring. It happened thattwo _attaches_ of those two nations, whom she had met frequently inLondon, had hair of that shade of rather warm brown. 

"He does not look like an Englishman, " she said presently. 

"He can talk in French and in Arabic, but Hadj says he is English. "

"How should Hadj know?"

"Because he has the eyes of the jackal, and has been with many English. We are getting near to the Catholic church, Madame. You will see itthrough the trees. And there is Monsieur the Cure coming towards us. Heis coming from his house, which is near the hotel. "

At some distance in the twilight of the tunnel Domini saw a black figurein a soutane walking very slowly towards them. The stranger, who hadbeen covering the ground rapidly with his curious, shuffling stride, was much nearer to it than they were, and, if he kept on at hispresent pace, would soon pass it. But suddenly Domini saw him pause andhesitate. He bent down and seemed to be doing something to his boot. Hadj dropped the green bag, and was evidently about to kneel down, andassist him when he lifted himself up abruptly and looked before him, asif at the priest who was approaching, then turned sharply to the rightinto a path which led out of the garden to the arcades of the RueBerthe. Hadj followed, gesticulating frantically, and volubly explainingthat the hotel was in the opposite direction. But the stranger did notstop. He only glanced swiftly back over his shoulder once, and thencontinued on his way. 

"What a funny man that is!" said Batouch. "What does he want to do?"

Domini did not answer him, for the priest was just passing them, and shesaw the church to the left among the trees. It was a plain, unpretendingbuilding, with a white wooden door set in an arch. Above the arch werea small cross, two windows with rounded tops, a clock, and a white towerwith a pink roof. She looked at it, and at the priest, whose face wasdark and meditative, with lustrous, but sad, brown eyes. Yet she thoughtof the stranger. 

Her attention was beginning to be strongly fixed upon the unknown man. His appearance and manner were so unusual that it was impossible not tonotice him. 

"There is the hotel, Madame!" said Batouch. 

Domini saw it standing at right angles to the church, facing thegardens. A little way back from the church was the priest's house, awhite building shaded by date palms and pepper trees. As they drew nearthe stranger reappeared under the arcade, above which was the terrace ofthe hotel. He vanished through the big doorway, followed by Hadj. 

While Suzanne was unpacking Domini came out on to the broad terracewhich ran along the whole length of the Hotel du Desert. Her bedroomopened on to it in front, and at the back communicated with a smallsalon. This salon opened on to a second and smaller terrace, from whichthe desert could be seen beyond the palms. There seemed to be no guestsin the hotel. The verandah was deserted, and the peace of the softevening was profound. Against the white parapet a small, round table anda cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in slipperscame up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a tea-tray. He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which Domini hadalready observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly vanished. Shesat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning her left arm onthe parapet. 

Her head was very tired and her temples felt compressed. She wasthankful for the quiet round her. Any harsh voice would have beenintolerable to her just then. There were many sounds in the village, butthey were vague, and mingled, flowing together and composing one soundthat was soothing, the restrained and level voice of Life. It hummed inDomini's ears as she sipped her tea, and gave an under-side of romanceto the peace. The light that floated in under the round arches of theterrace was subdued. The sun had just gone down, and the bright coloursbloomed no more upon the mountains, which looked like silent monstersthat had lost the hue of youth and had suddenly become mysteriously old. The evening star shone in a sky that still held on its Western bordersome last pale glimmerings of day, and, at its signal, many duskywanderers folded their loose garments round them, slung their long gunsacross their shoulders, and prepared to start on their journey, helpedby the cool night wind that blows in the desert when the sun departs. 

Domini did not know of them, but she felt the near presence of thedesert, and the feeling quieted her nerves. She was thankful at thismoment that she was travelling without any woman friend and was notpersecuted by any sense of obligation. In her fatigue, to rest passivein the midst of quiet, and soft light, calm in the belief, almost thecertainty, that this desert village contained no acquaintance to disturbher, was to know all the joy she needed for the moment. She drank itin dreamily. Liberty had always been her fetish. What woman had moreliberty than she had, here on this lonely verandah, with the shadowytrees below?

The bell of the church near by chimed softly, and the familiar soundfell strangely upon Domini's ears out here in Africa, reminding her ofmany sorrows. Her religion was linked with terrible memories, with cruelstruggles, with hateful scenes of violence. Lord Rens had been a man ofpassionate temperament. Strong in goodness when he had been led by love, he had been equally strong in evil when hate had led him. Domini hadbeen forced to contemplate at close quarters the raw character of awarped man, from whom circumstance had stripped all tenderness, nearlyall reticence. The terror of truth was known to her. She had shudderedbefore it, but she had been obliged to watch it during many years. Incoming to Beni-Mora she had had a sort of vague, and almost childish, feeling that she was putting the broad sea between herself and it. Yetbefore she had started it had been buried in the grave. She never wishedto behold such truth again. She wanted to look upon some other truthof life--the truth of beauty, of calm, of freedom. Lord Rens had alwaysbeen a slave, the slave of love, most of all when he was filled withhatred, and Domini, influenced by his example, instinctively connectedlove with a chain. Only the love a human being has for God seemed to hersometimes the finest freedom; the movement of the soul upward into theinfinite obedient to the call of the great Liberator. The love of manfor woman, of woman for man, she thought of as imprisonment, bondage. Was not her mother a slave to the man who had wrecked her life andcarried her spirit beyond the chance of heaven? Was not her father aslave to her mother? She shrank definitely from the contemplation ofherself loving, with all the strength she suspected in her heart, ahuman being. In her religion only she had felt in rare moments somethingof love. And now here, in this tremendous and conquering land, she felta divine stirring in her love for Nature. For that afternoon Nature, sooften calm and meditative, or gently indifferent, as one too complete tobe aware of those who lack completeness, had impetuously summoned herto worship, had ardently appealed to her for something more than atemperate watchfulness or a sober admiration. There had been a mostdefinite demand made upon her. Even in her fatigue and in this dreamytwilight she was conscious of a latent excitement that was not lulled tosleep. 

And as she sat there, while the darkness grew in the sky and spreadsecretly along the sandy rills among the trees, she wondered howmuch she held within her to give in answer to this cry to her ofself-confident Nature. Was it only a little? She did not know. Perhapsshe was too tired to know. But however much it was it must seem meagre. What is even a woman's heart given to the desert or a woman's soul tothe sea? What is the worship of anyone to the sunset among the hills, orto the wind that lifts all the clouds from before the face of the moon?

A chill stole over Domini. She felt like a very poor woman, who cannever know the joy of giving, because she does not possess even a mite. 

The church bell chimed again among the palms. Domini heard voices quiteclearly below her under the arcade. A French cafe was installed there, and two or three soldiers were taking their _aperitif_ before dinnerout in the air. They were talking of France, as people in exile talk oftheir country, with the deliberateness that would conceal regret and thechild's instinctive affection for the mother. Their voices made Dominithink again of the recruits, and then, because of them, of Notre Dame dela Garde, the mother of God, looking towards Africa. She remembered thetragedy of her last confession. Would she be able to confess here tothe Father whom she had seen strolling in the tunnel? Would she learn toknow here what she really was?

How warm it was in the night, and how warmth, as it develops thefecundity of the earth, develops also the possibilities in many men andwomen. Despite her lassitude of body, which kept her motionless as anidol in her chair, with her arm lying along the parapet of the verandah, Domini felt as if a confused crowd of things indefinable, but violent, was already stirring within her nature, as if this new climate wascalling armed men into being. Could she not hear the murmur of theirvoices, the distant clashing of their weapons?

Without being aware of it she was dropping into sleep. The sound of afootstep on the wooden floor of the verandah recalled her. It was atsome distance behind her. It crossed the verandah and stopped. She feltquite certain that it was the step of her fellow-traveller, not becauseshe knew he was staying in the hotel, but rather because of the curious, uneven heaviness of the tread. 

What was he doing? Looking over the parapet into the fruit gardens, where the white figures of the Arabs were flitting through the trees?

He was perfectly silent. Domini was now wide awake. The feeling of calmserenity had left her. She was nervously troubled by this presence nearher, and swiftly recalled the few trifling incidents of the day whichhad begun to delineate a character for her. They were, she found, allunpleasant, all, at least, faintly disagreeable. Yet, in sum, what wastheir meaning? The sketch they traced was so slight, so confused, thatit told little. The last incident was the strangest. And again she sawthe long and luminous pathway of the tunnel, flickering with lightand shade, carpeted with the pale reflections of the leaves and narrowbranches of the trees, the black figure of the priest far down it, andthe tall form of the stranger in an attitude of painful hesitation. Eachtime she had seen him, apparently desirous of doing something definite, hesitation had overtaken him. In his indecision there was somethinghorrible to her, something alarming. 

She wished he was not standing behind her, and her discomfort increased. She could still hear the voices of the soldiers in the cafe. Perhaps hewas listening to them. They sounded louder. 

The speakers were getting up from their seats. There was a jingling ofspurs, a tramp of feet, and the voices died away. The church bellchimed again. As it did so Domini heard heavy and uneven steps cross theverandah hurriedly. An instant later she heard a window shut sharply. 

"Suzanne!" she called. 

Her maid appeared, yawning, with various parcels in her hands. 

"Yes, Mademoiselle. "

"I sha'n't go down to the _salle-a-manger_ to-night. Tell them to giveme some dinner in my _salon_. "

"Yes, Mademoiselle. "

"You did not see who was on the verandah just now?"

The maid looked surprised. 

"I was in Mademoiselle's room. "

"Yes. How near the church is. "

"Mademoiselle will have no difficulty in getting to Mass. She will notbe obliged to go among all the Arabs. "

Domini smiled. 

"I have come here to be among the Arabs, Suzanne. "

"The porter of the omnibus tells me they are dirty and very dangerous. They carry knives, and their clothes are full of fleas. "

"You will feel quite differently about them in the morning. Don't forgetabout dinner. "

"I will speak about it at once, Mademoiselle. "

Suzanne disappeared, walking as one who suspects an ambush. 

After dinner Domini went again to the verandah. She found Batouch there. He had now folded a snow-white turban round his head, and looked likea young high priest of some ornate religion. He suggested that Dominishould come out with him to visit the Rue des Ouled Nails and see thestrange dances of the Sahara. But she declined. 

"Not to-night, Batouch. I must go to bed. I haven't slept for twonights. "

"But I do not sleep, Madame. In the night I compose verses. My brain isalive. My heart is on fire. "

"Yes, but I am not a poet. Besides, I may be here for a long time. Ishall have many evenings to see the dances. "

The poet looked displeased. 

"The gentleman is going, " he said. "Hadj is at the door waiting for himnow. But Hadj is afraid when he enters the street of the dancers. "

"Why?"

"There is a girl there who wishes to kill him. Her name is Aishoush. Shewas sent away from Beni-Mora for six months, but she has come back, andafter all this time she still wishes to kill Hadj. "

"What has he done to her?"

"He has not loved her. Yes, Hadj is afraid, but he will go with thegentleman because he must earn money to buy a costume for the _fete_ ofRamadan. I also wish to buy a new costume. "

He looked at Domini with a dignified plaintiveness. His pose againstthe pillar of the verandah was superb. Over his blue cloth jacket hehad thrown a thin white burnous, which hung round him in classic folds. Domini could scarcely believe that so magnificent a creature was toutingfor a franc. The idea certainly did occur to her, but she banished it. For she was a novice in Africa. 

"I am too tired to go out to-night, " she said decisively. 

"Good-night, Madame. I shall be here to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. The dawn in the garden of the gazelles is like the flames of Paradise, and you can see the Spahis galloping upon horses that are beautifulas--"

"I shall not get up early to-morrow. "

Batouch assumed an expression that was tragically submissive and turnedto go. Just then Suzanne appeared at the French window of her bedroom. She started as she perceived the poet, who walked slowly past her to thestaircase, throwing his burnous back from his big shoulders, and stoodlooking after him. Her eyes fixed themselves upon the section of bareleg that was visible above his stockings white as the driven snow, and afaintly sentimental expression mingled with their defiance and alarm. 

Domini got up from her chair and leaned over the parapet. A streakof yellow light from the doorway of the hotel lay upon the white roadbelow, and in a moment she saw two figures come out from beneath theverandah and pause there. Hadj was one, the stranger was the other. The stranger struck a match and tried to light a cigar, but failed. Hestruck another match, and then another, but still the cigar would notdraw. Hadj looked at him with mischievous astonishment. 

"If Monsieur will permit me--" he began. 

But the stranger took the cigar hastily from his mouth and flung itaway. 

"I don't want to smoke, " Domini heard him say in French. 

Then he walked away with Hadj into the darkness. 

As they disappeared Domini heard a faint shrieking in the distance. Itwas the music of the African hautboy. 

The night was marvellously dry and warm. The thickly growing trees inthe garden scarcely moved. It was very still and very dark. Suzanne, standing at her window, looked like a shadow in her black dress. Herattitude was romantic. Perhaps the subtle influence of this Saharavillage was beginning to steal even over her obdurate spirit. 

The hautboy went on crying. Its notes, though faint, were sharp andpiercing. Once more the church bell chimed among the date palms, andthe two musics, with their violently differing associations, clashingtogether smote upon Domini's heart with a sense of trouble, almost oftragedy. The pulses in her temples throbbed, and she clasped her handstightly together. That brief moment, in which she heard the duet ofthose two voices, was one of the most interesting, yet also one of themost painful she had ever known. The church bell was silent now, but thehautboy did not cease. It was barbarous and provocative, shrill with apersistent triumph. 

Domini went to bed early, but she could not sleep. Just before midnightshe heard someone walking up and down on the verandah. The step washeavy and shuffling. It came and went, came and went, without pause tillshe was in a fever of uneasiness. Only when two chimed from the churchdid it cease at last. 

She whispered a prayer to Notre Dame de la Garde, The Blessed Virgin, looking towards Africa. For the first time she felt the loneliness ofher situation and that she was far away. 

CHAPTER V

Towards morning Domini slept. It was nearly eight o'clock when sheawoke. The room was full of soft light which told of the sun outside, and she got up at once, put on a pair of slippers and opened the Frenchwindow on to the verandah. Already Beni-Mora was bathed in golden beamsand full of gentle activities. A flock of goats pattered by towards theedge of the oasis. The Arab gardeners were lazily sweeping small leavesfrom the narrow paths under the mimosa and pepper trees. Soldiers inloose white suits, dark blue sashes and the fez, were hastening fromthe Fort towards the market. A distant bugle rang out and the snarl ofcamels was audible from the village. Domini stood on the verandah fora moment, drinking in the desert air. It made her feel very pure andclean, as if she had just bathed in clear water. She looked up atthe limpid sky, which seemed full of hope and of the power to grantblessings, and she was glad that she had come to Beni-Mora. Her lonelysensation of the previous night had gone. As she stood in the sun shewas conscious that she needed re-creation and that here she might findit. The radiant sky, the warm sun and the freedom of the coming day andof many coming desert days, filled her heart with an almost childishsensation. She felt younger than she had felt for years, and evenfoolishly innocent, like a puppy dog or a kitten. Her thick black hair, unbound, fell in a veil round her strong, active body, and she had therare consciousness that behind that other more mysterious veil her soulwas to-day a less unfit companion for its mate than it had been sinceher mother's sin. 

Cleanliness--what a blessed condition that was, a condition to breedbravery. In this early morning hour Beni-Mora looked magically clean. Domini thought of the desperate dirt of London mornings, of the sootyair brooding above black trees and greasy pavements. Surely it wasdifficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One wouldtune one's lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm treebeside a water-spring. She took up a little vellum-bound book which shehad laid at night upon her dressing-table. It was _Of the Imitation ofChrist_, and she opened it at haphazard and glanced down on a sunlitpage. Her eyes fell on these words:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it isnot disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mountethupwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth thecry of this voice. "

The sunlight on the page of the little book was like the vivid flameand the burning torch spoken of in it. Heat, light, a fierce vitality. Domini had been weary so long, weary of soul, that she was almoststartled to find herself responding quickly to the sacred passion on thepage, to the bright beam that kissed it as twin kisses twin. She kneltdown to say her morning prayer, but all she could whisper was:

"O, God, renew me. O, God, renew me. Give me power to feel, keenly, fiercely, even though I suffer. Let me wake. Let me feel. Let me be aliving thing once more. O, God, renew me, renew me!"

While she prayed she pressed her face so hard against her hands thatpatches of red came upon her cheeks. And afterwards it seemed to her asif her first real, passionate prayer in Beni-Mora had been almost like acommand to God. Was not such a fierce prayer perhaps a blasphemy?

She rose from that prayer to the first of her new days. 

After breakfast she looked over the edge of the verandah and saw Batouchand Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below. They weresmoking cigarettes and talking eagerly. Their conversation, which was inArabic, sounded violent. The accented words were like blows. Domini hadnot looked over the parapet for more than a minute before the two guidessaw her and rose smiling to their feet. 

"I am waiting to show the village to Madame, " said Batouch, coming outsoftly into the road, while Hadj remained under the trees, exposing histeeth in a sarcastic grin, which plainly enough conveyed to Domini hispity for her sad mistake in not engaging him as her attendant. 

Domini nodded, went back into her room and put on a shady hat. Suzannehanded her a large parasol lined with green, and she descended thestairs rather slowly. She was not sure whether she wanted a companion inher first walk about Beni-Mora. There would be more savour of freedom insolitude. Yet she had hardly the heart to dismiss Batouch, with all hisdignity and determination. She resolved to take him for a little whileand then to get rid of him on some pretext. Perhaps she would make somepurchases in the bazaars and send him to the hotel with them. 

"Madame has slept well?" asked the poet as she emerged into the sun. 

"Pretty well, " she answered, nodding again to Hadj, whose grin becamemore mischievous, and opening her parasol. "Where are we going?"

"Wherever Madame wishes. There is the market, the negro village, themosque, the casino, the statue of the Cardinal, the bazaars, the gardenof the Count Ferdinand Anteoni. "

"A garden, " said Domini. "Is it a beautiful one?"

Batouch was about to burst into a lyric ecstasy, but he checked himselfand said:

"Madame shall see for herself and tell me afterwards if in all Europethere is one such garden. "

"Oh, the English gardens are wonderful, " she said, smiling at hispatriotic conceit. 

"No doubt. Madame shall tell me, Madame shall tell me, " he repeated withimperturbable confidence. 

"But first I wish to go for a moment into the church, " she said. "Waitfor me here, Batouch. "

She crossed the road, passed the modest, one-storied house of thepriest, and came to the church, which looked out on to the quietgardens. Before going up the steps and in at the door she paused fora moment. There was something touching to her, as a Catholic, in thissymbol of her faith set thus far out in the midst of Islamism. The crosswas surely rather lonely, here, raised above the white-robed men to whomit meant nothing. She was conscious that since she had come to thisland of another creed, and of another creed held with fanaticism, hersentiment for her own religion, which in England for many years had beenbut lukewarm, had suddenly gained in strength. She had an odd, almostmanly, sensation that it was her duty in Africa to stand up for herfaith, not blatantly in words to impress others, but perseveringly inheart to satisfy herself. Sometimes she felt very protective. Shefelt protective today as she looked at this humble building, which shelikened to one of the poor saints of the Thebaid, who dwelt afar indesert places, and whose devotions were broken by the night-cries ofjackals and by the roar of ravenous beasts. With this feeling strongupon her she pushed open the door and went in. 

The interior was plain, even ugly. The walls were painted a hideousdrab. The stone floor was covered with small, hard, straw-bottomedchairs and narrow wooden forms for the patient knees of worshippers. In the front were two rows of private chairs, with velvet cushions ofvarious brilliant hues and velvet-covered rails. On the left was a highstone pulpit. The altar, beyond its mean black and gold railing, was dingy and forlorn. On it there was a tiny gold cross with a goldstatuette of Christ hanging, surmounted by a canopy with four pillars, which looked as if made of some unwholesome sweetmeat. Long candlesof blue and gold and bouquets of dusty artificial flowers flanked it. Behind it, in a round niche, stood a painted figure of Christ holdinga book. The two adjacent side chapels had domed roofs representing thefirmament. Beneath the pulpit stood a small harmonium. At the oppositeend of the church was a high gallery holding more chairs. The mean, featureless windows were filled with glass half white, half staring reddotted with yellow crosses. Round the walls were reliefs of the fourteenstations of the Cross in white plaster on a gilt ground framed in greymarble. From the roof hung vulgar glass chandeliers with ropes tiedwith faded pink ribands. Several frightful plaster statues daubedwith scarlet and chocolate brown stood under the windows, which wereprotected with brown woollen curtains. Close to the entrance were areceptacle for holy water in the form of a shell, and a confessional ofstone flanked by boxes, one of which bore the words, "Graces obtenues, "the other, "Demandes, " and a card on which was printed, "Litanies enhonneur de Saint Antoine de Padoue. "

There was nothing to please the eye, nothing to appeal to the senses. There was not even the mystery which shrouds and softens, for thesunshine streamed in through the white glass of the windows, revealing, even emphasising, as if with deliberate cruelty, the cheap finery, thetarnished velvet, the crude colours, the meretricious gestures and posesof the plaster saints. Yet as Domini touched her forehead and breastwith holy water, and knelt for a moment on the stone floor, she wasconscious that this rather pitiful house of God moved her to an emotionshe had not felt in the great and beautiful churches to which she wasaccustomed in England and on the Continent. Through the windows she sawthe outlines of palm leaves vibrating in the breeze; African fingers, feeling, with a sort of fluttering suspicion, if not enmity, round theheart of this intruding religion, which had wandered hither from somedistant place, and, stayed, confronting the burning glance of thedesert. Bold, little, humble church! Domini knew that she would love it. But she did not know then how much. 

She wandered round slowly with a grave face. Yet now and then, as shestood by one of the plaster saints, she smiled. They were indeed strangeofferings at the shrine of Him who held this Africa in the hollow of Hishand, of Him who had ordered the pageant of the sun which she had seenlast night among the mountains. And presently she and this little churchin which she stood alone became pathetic in her thoughts, and even thereligion which the one came to profess in the other pathetic too. Forhere, in Africa, she began to realise the wideness of the world, andthat many things must surely seem to the Creator what these plastersaints seemed just then to her. 

"Oh, how little, how little!" she whispered to herself. "Let me bebigger! Oh, let me grow, and here, not only hereafter!"

The church door creaked. She turned her head and saw the priest whom shehad met in the tunnel entering. He came up to her at once, saluted her, and said:

"I saw you from my window, Madame, and thought I would offer to show youour little church here. We are very proud of it. "

Domini liked his voice and his naive remark. His face, too, thoughundistinguished, looked honest, kind, and pathetic, but with a pathosthat was unaffected and quite unconscious. The lower part of it washidden by a moustache and beard. 

"Thank you, " she answered. "I have been looking round already. "

"You are a Catholic, Madame?"

"Yes. "

The priest looked pleased. There was something childlike in the mobilityof his face. 

"I am glad, " he said simply. "We are not a rich community in Beni-Mora, but we have been fortunate in bygone years. Our great Cardinal, theFather of Africa, loved this place and cherished his children here. "

"Cardinal Lavigerie?"

"Yes, Madame. His house is now a native hospital. His statue faces thebeginning of the great desert road, But we remember him and his spiritis still among us. "

The priest's eyes lit up as he spoke. The almost tragic expression ofhis face changed to one of enthusiasm. 

"He loved Africa, I believe, " Domini said. 

"His heart was here. And what he did! I was to have been one of his_freres armes_, but my health prevented, and afterwards the associationwas dissolved. "

The sad expression returned to his face. 

"There are many temptations in such a land and climate as this, " hesaid. "And men are weak. But there are still the White Fathers whom hefounded. Glorious men. They carry the Cross into the wildest places ofthe world. The most fanatical Arabs respect the White Marabouts. "

"You wish you were with them?"

"Yes, Madame. But my health only permits me to be a humble parish priesthere. Not all who desire to enter the most severe life can do so. Ifit were otherwise I should long since have been a monk. The Cardinalhimself showed me that my duty lay in other paths. "

He pointed out to Domini one or two things in the church which headmired and thought worthy; the carving of the altar rail into grapes, ears of corn, crosses, anchors; the white embroidered muslin that drapedthe tabernacle; the statue of a bishop in a red and gold mitre holding astaff and Bible, and another statue representing a saint with a languidand consumptive expression stretching out a Bible, on the leaves ofwhich a tiny, smiling child was walking. 

As they were about to leave the church he made Domini pause in front ofa painting of Saint Bruno dressed in a white monkish robe, beneath whichwas written in gilt letters:

 "Saint Bruno ordonne a ses disciples De renoncer aux biens terrestres Pour acquerir les biens celestes. "

The disciples stood around the saint in grotesque attitudes of piousattention. 

"That, I think, is very beautiful, " he said. "Who could look at itwithout feeling that the greatest act of man is renunciation?"

His dark eyes flamed. Just then a faint soprano bark came to them fromoutside the church door, a very discreet and even humble, but atthe same time anxious, bark. The priest's face changed. The almostpassionate asceticism of it was replaced by a soft and gentle look. 

"Bous-Bous wants me, " he said, and he opened the door for Domini to passout. 

A small white and yellow dog, very clean and well brushed, was sittingon the step in an attentive attitude. Directly the priest appeared itbegan to wag its short tail violently and to run round his feet, curvingits body into semi-circles. He bent down and patted it. 

"My little companion, Madame, " he said. "He was not with me yesterday, as he was being washed. "

Then he took off his hat and walked towards his house, accompanied byBous-Bous, who had suddenly assumed an air of conscious majesty, as ofone born to preside over the fate of an important personage. 

Domini stood for a moment under the palm trees looking after them. Therewas a steady shining in her eyes. 

"Madame is a Catholic too?" asked Batouch, staring steadily at her. 

Domini nodded. She did not want to discuss religion with an Arab minorpoet just then. 

"Take me to the market, " she said, mindful of her secret resolve to getrid of her companion as soon as possible. 

They set out across the gardens. 

It was a celestial day. All the clear, untempered light of the worldseemed to have made its home in Beni-Mora. Yet the heat was notexcessive, for the glorious strength of the sun was robbed of itsterror, its possible brutality, by the bright and feathery dryness andcoolness of the airs. She stepped out briskly. Her body seemed suddenlyto become years younger, full of elasticity and radiant strength. 

"Madame is very strong. Madame walks like a Bedouin. "

Batouch's voice sounded seriously astonished, and Domini burst outlaughing. 

"In England there are many strong women. But I shall grow stronger here. I shall become a real Arab. This air gives me life. "

They were just reaching the road when there was a clatter of hoofs, anda Spahi, mounted on a slim white horse, galloped past at a tremendouspace, holding his reins high above the red peak of his saddle andstaring up at the sun. Domini looked after him with critical admiration. 

"You've got some good horses here, " she said when the Spahi haddisappeared. 

"Madame knows how to ride?"

She laughed again. 

"I've ridden ever since I was a child. "

"You can buy a fine horse here for sixteen pounds, " remarked Batouch, using the pronoun "tu, " as is the custom of the Arabs. 

"Find me a good horse, a horse with spirit, and I'll buy him, " Dominisaid. "I want to go far out in the desert, far away from everything. "

"You must not go alone. "

"Why not?"

"There are bandits in the desert. "

"I'll take my revolver, " Domini said carelessly. "But I will go alone. "

They were in sight of the market now, and the hum of voices came tothem, with nasal cries, the whine of praying beggars, and the fiercebraying of donkeys. At the end of the small street in which they wereDomini saw a wide open space, in the centre of which stood a quantityof pillars supporting a peaked roof. Round the sides of the square werearcades swarming with Arabs, and under the central roof a mob of figurescame and went, as flies go and come on a piece of meat flung out into asunny place. 

"What a quantity of people! Do they all live in Beni-Mora?" she asked. 

"No, they come from all parts of the desert to sell and to buy. But mostof those who sell are Mozabites. "

Little children in bright-coloured rags came dancing round Domini, holding out their copper-coloured hands, and crying shrilly, "'Msee, M'dame! 'Msee, M'dame!" A deformed man, who looked like a distortedbeetle, crept round her feet, gazing up at her with eyes that squintedhorribly, and roaring in an imperative voice some Arab formula in whichthe words "Allah-el-Akbar" continually recurred. A tall negro, with along tuft of hair hanging from his shaven head, followed hard upon herheels, rolling his bulging eyes, in which two yellow flames were caught, and trying to engage her attention, though with what object she couldnot imagine. From all directions tall men with naked arms and legs, andfluttering white garments, came slowly towards her, staring intently ather with lustrous eyes, whose expression seemed to denote rather a calmand dignified appraisement than any vulgar curiosity. Boys, with thewhitest teeth she had ever beheld, and flowers above their well-shaped, delicate ears, smiled up at her with engaging impudence. Her nostrilswere filled with a strange crowd of odours, which came from humanitydressed in woollen garments, from fruits exposed for sale in rushpanniers, from round close bouquets of roses ringed with tight bordersof green leaves, from burning incense twigs, from raw meat, from amberornaments and strong perfumes in glass phials figured with gold attar ofrose, orange blossom, geranium and white lilac. In the shining heat ofthe sun sounds, scents and movements mingled, and were almost painfullyvivid and full of meaning and animation. Never had a London mob on somegreat _fete_ day seemed so significant and personal to Domini as thislittle mob of desert people, come together for the bartering of beasts, the buying of burnouses, weapons, skins and jewels, grain for theircamels, charms for their women, ripe glistening dates for the littlechildren at home in the brown earth houses. 

As she made her way slowly through the press, pioneered by Batouch, whoforced a path with great play of his huge shoulders and mighty arms, shewas surprised to find how much at home she felt in the midst of thesefierce and uncivilised-looking people. She had no sense of shrinkingfrom their contact, no feeling of personal disgust at their touch. Whenher eyes chanced to meet any of the bold, inquiring eyes around her shewas inclined to smile as if in recognition of these children of the sun, who did not seem to her like strangers, despite the unknown languagethat struggled fiercely in their throats. Nevertheless, she did not wishto stay very long among them now. She was resolved to get a full anddelicately complete first impression of Beni-Mora, and to do that sheknew that she must detach herself from close human contact. Shedesired the mind's bird's-eye view--a height, a watchtower and a littlesolitude. So, when the eager Mozabite merchants called to her she didnot heed them, and even the busy patter of the informing Batouch fellupon rather listless ears. 

"I sha'n't stay here, " she said to him. "But I'll buy some perfumes. Where can I get them?"

A thin youth, brooding above a wooden tray close by, held up in hisdelicate fingers a long bottle, sealed and furnished with a tiny label, but Batouch shook his head. 

"For perfumes you must go to Ahmeda, under the arcade. "

They crossed a sunlit space and stood before a dark room, sunk lightlybelow the level of the pathway in a deserted corner. Shadows congregatedhere, and in the gloom Domini saw a bent white figure hunched againstthe blackened wall, and heard an old voice murmuring like a drowsy bee. The perfume-seller was immersed in the Koran, his back to the buyingworld. Batouch was about to call upon him, when Domini checked theexclamation with a quick gesture. For the first time the mystery thatcoils like a great black serpent in the shining heart of the Eaststartled and fascinated her, a mystery in which indifference anddevotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to and fro, carryingthe dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed to hear a far-awayfanaticism, the bourdon of a fatalism which she longed to understand. 

"Ahmeda!"

Batouch shouted. His voice came like a stone from a catapult. Themerchant turned calmly and without haste, showing an aquiline facecovered with wrinkles, tufted with white hairs, lit by eyes that shonewith the cruel expressiveness of a falcon's. After a short colloquy inArabic he raised himself from his haunches, and came to the front of theroom, where there was a small wooden counter. He was smiling now with agrace that was almost feminine. 

"What perfume does Madame desire?" he said in French. 

Domini gazed at him as at a deep mystery, but with the searchingdirectness characteristic of her, a fearlessness so absolute that itembarrassed many people. 

"Please give me something that is of the East--not violets, not lilac. "

"Amber, " said Batouch. 

The merchant, still smiling, reached up to a shelf, showing an arm likea brown twig, and took down a glass bottle covered with red and greenlines. He removed the stopper, made Domini take off her glove, touchedher bare hand with the stopper, then with his forefinger gently rubbedthe drop of perfume which had settled on her skin till it was slightlyred. 

"Now, smell it, " he commanded. 

Domini obeyed. The perfume was faintly medicinal, but it filled herbrain with exotic visions. She shut her eyes. Yes, that was a voice ofAfrica too. Oh! how far away she was from her old life and hollow days. The magic carpet had been spread indeed, and she had been wafted into astrange land where she had all to learn. 

"Please give me some of that, " she said. 

The merchant poured the amber into a phial, where it lay like a threadin the glass, weighed it in a scales and demanded a price. Batouch beganat once to argue with vehemence, but Domini stopped him. 

"Pay him, " she said, giving Batouch her purse. 

The perfume-seller took the money with dignity, turned away, squattedupon his haunches against the blackened wall, and picked up thebroad-leaved volume which lay upon the floor. He swayed gently andrhythmically to and fro. Then once more the voice of the drowsy beehummed in the shadows. The worshipper and the Prophet stood before thefeet of Allah. 

And the woman--she was set afar off, as woman is by white-robed men inAfrica. 

"Now, Batouch, you can carry the perfume to the hotel and I will go tothat garden. "

"Alone? Madame will never find it. "

"I can ask the way. "

"Impossible! I will escort Madame to the gate. There I will waitfor her. Monsieur the Count does not permit the Arabs to enter withstrangers. "

"Very well, " Domini said. 

The seller of perfumes had led her towards a dream. She was notcombative, and she would be alone in the garden. As they walked towardsit in the sun, through narrow ways where idle Arabs lounged with happyaimlessness, Batouch talked of Count Anteoni, the owner of the garden. 

Evidently the Count was the great personage of Beni-Mora. Batouch spokeof him with a convinced respect, describing him as fabulously rich, fabulously generous to the Arabs. 

"He never gives to the French, Madame, but when he is here each Friday, upon our Sabbath, he comes to the gate with a bag of money in his hand, and he gives five franc pieces to every Arab who is there. "

"And what is he? French?"

"He is Italian; but he is always travelling, and he has made gardenseverywhere. He has three in Africa alone, and in one he keeps manylions. When he travels he takes six Arabs with him. He loves only theArabs. "

Domini began to feel interested in this wandering maker of gardens, whowas a pilgrim over the world like Monte Cristo. 

"Is he young?" she asked. 

"No. "

"Married?"

"Oh, no! He is always alone. Sometimes he comes here and stays for threemonths, and is never once seen outside the garden. And sometimes for ayear he never comes to Beni-Mora. But he is here now. Twenty Arabsare always working in the garden, and at night ten Arabs with guns arealways awake, some in a tent inside the door and some among the trees. 

"Then there is danger at night?"

"The garden touches the desert, and those who are in the desert withoutarms are as birds in the air without wings. "

They had come out from among the houses now into a broad, straight road, bordered on the left by land that was under cultivation, by fruit trees, and farther away by giant palms, between whose trunks could be seenthe stony reaches of the desert and spurs of grey-blue and faintrose-coloured mountains. On the right was a shady garden with fountainsand stone benches, and beyond stood a huge white palace built in theMoorish style, and terraced roofs and a high tower ornamented with greenand peacock-blue tiles. In the distance, among more palms, appeared anumber of low, flat huts of brown earth. The road, as far as the eyescould see, stretched straight forward through enormous groves of palms, whose feathery tops swayed gently in the light wind that blew from thedesert. Upon all things rained a flood of blue and gold. A blindingradiance made all things glad. 

"How glorious light is!" Domini exclaimed, as she looked down the roadto the point where its whiteness was lost in the moving ocean of thetrees. 

Batouch assented without enthusiasm, having always lived in the light. 

"As we return from the garden we will visit the tower, " he said, pointing to the Moorish palace. "It is a hotel, and is not yet open, but I know the guardian. From the tower Madame will see the whole ofBeni-Mora. Here is the negro village. "

They traversed its dusty alleys slowly. On the side where the lowbrown dwellings threw shadows some of the inhabitants were dreaming orchattering, wrapped in garments of gaudy cotton. Little girls in thefiercest orange colour, with tattooed foreheads and leathern amulets, darted to and fro, chasing each other and shrieking with laughter. Nakedbabies, whose shaven heads made a warm resting-place for flies, staredat Domini with a lustrous vacancy of expression. At the corners of thealleys unveiled women squatted, grinding corn in primitive hand-mills, or winding wool on wooden sticks. Their heads were covered with plaitsof imitation hair made of wool, in which barbaric silver ornaments werefastened, and their black necks and arms jingled with chains and banglesset with squares of red coral and large dull blue and green stones. Someof them called boldly to Batouch, and he answered them with carelessimpudence. The palm-wood door of one of the houses stood wide open, andDomini looked in. She saw a dark space with floor and walls of earth, a ceiling of palm and brushwood, a low divan of earth without mat orcovering of any kind. 

"They have no furniture?" she asked Batouch. 

"No. What do they want with it? They live out here in the sun and go into sleep. "

Life simplified to this extent made her smile. Yet she looked at thesquatting figures in the gaudy cotton rags with a stirring of envy. Thememory of her long and complicated London years, filled with a multitudeof so-called pleasures which had never stifled the dull pain set up inher heart by the rude shock of her mother's sin and its result, madethis naked, sunny, barbarous existence seem desirable. She stood for amoment to watch two women sorting grain for cous-cous. Their gutturallaughter, their noisy talk, the quick and energetic movements of theirbusy black hands, reminded her of children's gaiety. And Nature rosebefore her in the sunshine, confronting artifice and the heavy languorsof modern life in cities. How had she been able to endure the yoke solong?

"Will Madame take me to London with her when she returns?" said Batouch, slyly. 

"I am not going back to London for a very long time, " she replied withenergy. 

"You will stay here many weeks?"

"Months, perhaps. And perhaps I shall travel on into the desert. Yes, Imust do that. "

"If we followed the white road into the desert, and went on and on formany days, we should come at last to Tombouctou, " said Batouch. "Butvery likely we should be killed by the Touaregs. They are fierce andthey hate strangers. "

"Would you be afraid to go?" Domini asked him, curiously. 

"Why afraid?"

"Of being killed?"

He looked calmly surprised. "Why should I be afraid to die? All mustpass through that door. It does not matter whether it is to-day orto-morrow. "

"You have no fear of death, then?"

"Of course not. Have you, Madame?" He gazed at Domini with genuineastonishment. 

"I don't know, " she answered. 

And she wondered and could not tell. 

"There is the Villa Anteoni. "

Batouch lifted his hand and pointed. They had turned aside from theway to Tombouctou, left the village behind them, and come into a narrowtrack which ran parallel to the desert. The palm trees rustled on theirright, the green corn waved, the narrow cuttings in the earth gleamedwith shallow water. But on their other side was limitless sterility; thewide, stony expanse of the great river bed, the Oued-Beni-Mora, then alow earth cliff, and then the immense airy flats stretching away intothe shining regions of the sun. At some distance, raised on a dazzlingwhite wall above the desert in an unshaded place, Domini saw a narrow, two-sided white house, with a flat roof and a few tiny loopholes insteadof windows. One side looked full upon the waterless river bed, theother, at right angles to it, ran back towards a thicket of palms andended in an arcade of six open Moorish arches, through which the fierceblue of the cloudless sky stared, making an almost theatrical effect. Beyond, masses of trees were visible, looking almost black against theintense, blinding pallor of wall, villa and arcade, the intense blueabove. 

"What a strange house!" Domini said. "There are no windows. "

"They are all on the other side, looking into the garden. "

The villa fascinated Domini at once. The white Moorish arcade framingbare, quivering blue, blue from the inmost heart of heaven, intense asa great vehement cry, was beautiful as the arcade of a Geni's home inFairyland. Mystery hung about this dwelling, a mystery of light, notdarkness, secrets of flame and hidden things of golden meaning. She feltalmost like a child who is about to penetrate into the red land of thewinter fire, and she hastened her steps till she reached a tall whitegate set in an arch of wood, and surmounted with a white coat of armsand two lions. Batouch struck on it with a white knocker and then beganto roll a cigarette. 

"I will wait here for Madame. "

Domini nodded. A leaf of wood was pulled back softly in the gate, andshe stepped into the garden and confronted a graceful young Arab dressedin pale green, who saluted her respectfully and gently closed the door. 

"May I walk about the garden a little?" she asked. 

She did not look round her yet, for the Arab's face interested and evencharmed her. It was aristocratic, enchantingly indolent, like theface of a happy lotus-eater. The great, lustrous eyes were tender asa gazelle's and thoughtless as the eyes of a sleepy child. Hisperfectly-shaped feet were bare on the shining sand. In one hand he helda large red rose and in the other a half-smoked cigarette. 

Domini could not kelp smiling at him as she put her question, and hesmiled contentedly back at her as he answered, in a low, level voice:

"You can go where you will. Shall I show you the paths?"

He lifted his hand and calmly smelt his red rose, keeping his great eyesfixed upon her. Domini's wish to be alone had left her. This was surelythe geni of the garden, and his company would add to its mystery andfragrance. 

"You need not stay by the door?" she asked. 

"No one will come. There is no one in Beni-Mora. And Hassan will stay. "

He pointed with his rose to a little tent that was pitched close to thegate beneath a pepper tree. In it Domini saw a brown boy curled up likea dog and fast asleep. She began to feel as if she had eaten hashish. The world seemed made for dreaming. 

"Thank you, then. "

And now for the first time she looked round to see whether Batouch hadimplied the truth. Must the European gardens give way to this Easterngarden, take a lower place with all their roses?

She stood on a great expanse of newly-raked smooth sand, rising in avery gentle slope to a gigantic hedge of carefully trimmed evergreens, which projected at the top, forming a roof and casting a pleasant shadeupon the sand. At intervals white benches were placed under this hedge. To the right was the villa. She saw now that it was quite small. Therewere two lines of windows--on the ground floor and the upper story. Thelower windows opened on to the sand, those above on to a verandah witha white railing, which was gained by a white staircase outside the housebuilt beneath the arches of the arcade. The villa was most delicatelysimple, but in this riot of blue and gold its ivory cleanliness, setthere upon the shining sand which was warm to the foot, made it lookmagical to Domini. She thought she had never known before what spotlesspurity was like. 

"Those are the bedrooms, " murmured the Arab at her side. 

"There are only bedrooms?" she asked in surprise. 

"The other rooms, the drawing-room of Monsieur the Count, thedining-room, the smoking-room, the Moorish bath, the room of the littledog, the kitchen and the rooms for the servants are in different partsof the garden. There is the dining-room. "

He pointed with his rose to a large white building, whose dazzling wallsshowed here and there through the masses of trees to the left, where alittle raised sand-path with flattened, sloping sides wound away into amaze of shadows diapered with gold. 

"Let us go down that path, " Domini said almost in a whisper. 

The spell of the place was descending upon her. This was surely a homeof dreams, a haven where the sun came to lie down beneath the trees andsleep. 

"What is your name?" she added. 

"Smain, " replied the Arab. "I was born in this garden. My father, Mohammed, was with Monsieur the Count. "

He led the way over the sand, moving silently on his long, brown feet, straight as a reed in a windless place. Domini followed, holding herbreath. Only sometimes she let her strong imagination play utterly atits will. She let it go now as she and Smain turned into the goldendiapered shadows of the little path and came into the swaying mysteryof the trees. The longing for secrecy, for remoteness, for the beauty offar away had sometimes haunted her, especially in the troubled momentsof her life. Her heart, oppressed, had overleaped the horizon linein answer to a calling from hidden things beyond. Her emotions hadwandered, seeking the great distances in which the dim purple twilightholds surely comfort for those who suffer. But she had never thought tofind any garden of peace that realised her dreams. Nevertheless, she wasalready conscious that Smain with his rose was showing her the way toher ideal, that her feet were set upon its pathway, that its legendarytrees were closing round her. 

Behind the evergreen hedge she heard the liquid bubbling of a hiddenwaterfall, and when they had left the untempered sunlight behind themthis murmur grew louder. It seemed as if the green gloom in which theywalked acted as a sounding-board to the delicious voice. The littlepath wound on and on between two running rills of water, which slippedincessantly away under the broad and yellow-tipped leaves of dwarfpalms, making a music so faint that it was more like a remembered soundin the mind than one which slid upon the ear. On either hand towered ajungle of trees brought to this home in the desert from all parts of theworld. 

There were many unknown to Domini, but she recognised several varietiesof palms, acacias, gums, fig trees, chestnuts, poplars, false peppertrees, the huge olive trees called Jamelons, white laurels, indiarubberand cocoanut trees, bananas, bamboos, yuccas, many mimosas andquantities of tall eucalyptus trees. Thickets of scarlet geranium flamedin the twilight. The hibiscus lifted languidly its frail and rosy cup, and the red gold oranges gleamed amid leaves that looked as if they hadbeen polished by an attentive fairy. 

As she went with Smain farther into the recesses of the garden the voiceof the waterfall died away. No birds were singing. Domini thought thatperhaps they dared not sing lest they might wake the sun from its goldenreveries, but afterwards, when she knew the garden better, she oftenheard them twittering with a subdued, yet happy, languor, as if joiningin a nocturn upon the edge of sleep. Under the trees the sand wasyellow, of a shade so voluptuously beautiful that she longed to touchit with her bare feet like Smain. Here and there it rose in symmetricallittle pyramids, which hinted at absent gardeners, perhaps enjoying asiesta. 

Never before had she fully understood the enchantment of green, quiterealised how happy a choice was made on that day of Creation when it wasshowered prodigally over the world. But now, as she walked secretly overthe yellow sand between the rills, following the floating green robe ofSmain, she rested her eyes, and her soul, on countless mingling shadesof the delicious colour; rough, furry green of geranium leaves, silvergreen of olives, black green of distant palms from which the sun heldaloof, faded green of the eucalyptus, rich, emerald green of fan-shaped, sunlit palms, hot, sultry green of bamboos, dull, drowsy green ofmulberry trees and brooding chestnuts. It was a choir of colours in onecolour, like a choir of boys all with treble voices singing to the sun. 

Gold flickered everywhere, weaving patterns of enchantment, quivering, vital patterns of burning beauty. Down the narrow, branching paths thatled to inner mysteries the light ran in and out, peeping between thedivided leaves of plants, gliding over the slippery edges of the palmbranches, trembling airily where the papyrus bent its antique head, dancing among the big blades of sturdy grass that sprouted in tufts hereand there, resting languidly upon the glistening magnolias that werebesieged by somnolent bees. All the greens and all the golds of Creationwere surely met together in this profound retreat to prove the perfectharmony of earth with sun. 

And now, growing accustomed to the pervading silence, Domini began tohear the tiny sounds that broke it. They came from the trees andplants. The airs were always astir, helping the soft designs of Nature, loosening a leaf from its stem and bearing it to the sand, striking aberry from its place and causing it to drop at Domini's feet, giving afaded geranium petal the courage to leave its more vivid companionsand resign itself to the loss of the place it could no longer fill withbeauty. Very delicate was the touch of the dying upon the yellow sand. It increased the sense of pervading mystery and made Domini more deeplyconscious of the pulsing life of the garden. 

"There is the room of the little dog, " said Smain. 

They had come out into a small open space, over which an immensecocoanut tree presided. Low box hedges ran round two squares of grasswhich were shadowed by date palms heavy with yellow fruit, and beneathsome leaning mulberry trees Domini saw a tiny white room with two glasswindows down to the ground. She went up to it and peeped in, smiling. 

There, in a formal salon, with gilt chairs, oval, polished tables, fadedrugs and shining mirrors, sat a purple china dog with his tail curledover his back sternly staring into vacancy. His expression and hisattitude were autocratic and determined, betokening a tyrannical nature, and Domini peeped at him with precaution, holding herself very stilllest he should become aware of her presence and resent it. 

"Monsieur the Count paid much money for the dog, " murmured Smain. "He isvery valuable. "

"How long has he been there?"

"For many years. He was there when I was born, and I have been marriedtwice and divorced twice. "

Domini turned from the window and looked at Smain with astonishment. Hewas smelling his rose like a dreamy child. 

"You have been divorced twice?"

"Yes. Now I will show Madame the smoking-room. "

They followed another of the innumerable alleys of the garden. This onewas very narrow and less densely roofed with trees than those they hadalready traversed. Tall shrubs bent forward on either side of it, andtheir small leaves almost meeting, were transformed by the radiantsunbeams into tongues of pale fire, quivering, well nigh transparent. As she approached them Domini could not resist the fancy that they wouldburn her. A brown butterfly flitted forward between them and vanishedinto the golden dream beyond. 

"Oh, Smain, how you must love this garden!" she said. 

A sort of ecstasy was waking within her. The pure air, the caressingwarmth, the enchanted stillness and privacy of this domain touched hersoul and body like the hands of a saint with power to bless her. 

"I could live here for ever, " she added, "without once wishing to go outinto the world. "

Smain looked drowsily pleased. 

"We are coming to the centre of the garden, " he said, as they passedover a palm-wood bridge beneath which a stream glided under the redpetals of geraniums. 

The tongues of flame were left behind. Green darkness closed in uponthem and the sand beneath their feet looked blanched. The sense ofmystery increased, for the trees were enormous and grew densely here. Pine needles lay upon the ground, and there was a stirring of suddenwind far up above their heads in the tree-tops. 

"This is the part of the garden that Monsieur the Count loves, " saidSmain. "He comes here every day. "

"What is that?" said Domini, suddenly stopping on the pale sand. 

A thin and remote sound stole to them down the alley, clear and frail asthe note of a night bird. 

"It is Larbi playing upon the flute. He is in love. That is why he playswhen he ought to be watering the flowers and raking out the sand. "

The distant love-song of the flute seemed to Domini the last touch ofenchantment making this indeed a wonderland. She could not move, andheld up her hands to stay the feet of Smain, who was quite contentto wait. Never before had she heard any music that seemed to mean andsuggest so much to her as this African tune played by an enamouredgardener. Queer and uncouth as it was, distorted with ornaments andtricked out with abrupt runs, exquisitely unnecessary grace notes, and sudden twitterings prolonged till a strange and frivolous Eternitytripped in to banish Time, it grasped Domini's fancy and laid a spellupon her imagination. For it sounded as naively sincere as the song of abird, and as if the heart from which it flowed were like the heart ofa child, a place of revelation, not of concealment. The sun made mencareless here. They opened their windows to it, and one could see intothe warm and glowing rooms. Domini looked at the gentle Arab youthbeside her, already twice married and twice divorced. She listened toLarbi's unending song of love. And she said to herself, "These people, uncivilised or not, at least live, and I have been dead all my life, dead in life. " That was horribly possible. She knew it as she felt theenormously powerful spell of Africa descending upon her, envelopingher quietly but irresistibly. The dream of this garden was quick witha vague and yet fierce stirring of realities. There was a murmuringof many small and distant voices, like the voices of innumerable tinythings following restless activities in a deep forest. As she stoodthere the last grain of European dust was lifted from Domini's soul. Howdeeply it had been buried, and for how many years. 

"The greatest act of man is the act of renunciation. " She had just heardthose words. The eyes of the priest had flamed as he spoke them, and shehad caught the spark of his enthusiasm. But now another fire seemed litwithin her, and she found herself marvelling at such austerity. Was itnot a fanatical defiance flung into the face of the sun? She shrank fromher own thought, like one startled, and walked on softly in the greendarkness. 

Larbi's flute became more distant. Again and again it repeated the samequeer little melody, changing the ornamentation at the fantasy of theplayer. She looked for him among the trees but saw no one. He must be insome very secret place. Smain touched her. 

"Look!" he said, and his voice was very low. 

He parted the branches of some palms with his delicate hands, andDomini, peering between them, saw in a place of deep shadows an isolatedsquare room, whose white walls were almost entirely concealed by massesof purple bougainvillea. It had a flat roof. In three of its sides werelarge arched window-spaces without windows. In the fourth was a narrowdoorway without a door. Immense fig trees and palms and thickets ofbamboo towered around it and leaned above it. And it was circled by anarrow riband of finely-raked sand. 

"That is the smoking-room of Monsieur the Count, " said Smain. "He spendsmany hours there. Come and I will show the inside to Madame. "

They turned to the left and went towards the room. The flute was closeto them now. "Larbi must be in there, " Domini whispered to Smain, as aperson whispers in a church. 

"No, he is among the trees beyond. "

"But someone is there. "

She pointed to the arched window-space nearest to them. A thin spiral ofblue-grey smoke curled through it and evaporated into the shadows ofthe trees. After a moment it was followed gently and deliberately byanother. 

"It is not Larbi. He would not go in there. It must be----"

He paused. A tall, middle-aged man had come to the doorway of the littleroom and looked out into the garden with bright eyes. 

CHAPTER VI

Domini drew back and glanced at Smain. She was not accustomed to feelingintrusive, and the sudden sensation rendered her uneasy. 

"It is Monsieur the Count, " Smain said calmly and quite aloud. 

The man in the doorway took off his soft hat, as if the words effectedan introduction between Domini and him. 

"You were coming to see my little room, Madame?" he said in French. "IfI may show it to you I shall feel honoured. "

The timbre of his voice was harsh and grating, yet it was a veryinteresting, even a seductive, voice, and, Domini thought, peculiarlyfull of vivid life, though not of energy. His manner at once banishedher momentary discomfort. There is a freemasonry between people born inthe same social world. By the way in which Count Anteoni took off hishat and spoke she knew at once that all was right. 

"Thank you, Monsieur, " she answered. "I was told at the gate you gavepermission to travellers to visit your garden. "

"Certainly. "

He spoke a few words in fluent Arabic to Smain, who turned away anddisappeared among the trees. 

"I hope you will allow me to accompany you through the rest of thegarden, " he said, turning again to Domini. "It will give me greatpleasure. "

"It is very kind of you. "

The way in which the change of companion had been effected made it seema pleasant, inevitable courtesy, which neither implied nor demandedanything. 

"This is my little retreat, " Count Anteoni continued, standing asidefrom the doorway that Domini might enter. 

She drew a long breath when she was within. 

The floor was of fine sand, beaten flat and hard, and strewn withEastern rugs of faint and delicate hues, dim greens and faded rosecolours, grey-blues and misty topaz yellows. Round the white walls ranbroad divans, also white, covered with prayer rugs from Bagdad, andlarge cushions, elaborately worked in dull gold and silver thread, withpatterns of ibises and flamingoes in flight. In the four angles of theroom stood four tiny smoking-tables of rough palm wood, holdinghammered ash-trays of bronze, green bronze torches for the lighting ofcigarettes, and vases of Chinese dragon china filled with velvety redroses, gardenias and sprigs of orange blossom. Leather footstools, covered with Tunisian thread-work, lay beside them. From the arches ofthe window-spaces hung old Moorish lamps of copper, fitted with smallpanes of dull jewelled glass, such as may be seen in venerable churchwindows. In a round copper brazier, set on one of the window-seats, incense twigs were drowsily burning and giving out thin, dwarf columnsof scented smoke. Through the archways and the narrow doorway thedense walls of leafage were visible standing on guard about this airyhermitage, and the hot purple blossoms of the bougainvillea shed a cloudof colour through the bosky dimness. 

And still the flute of Larbi showered soft, clear, whimsical music fromsome hidden place close by. 

Domini looked at her host, who was standing by the doorway, leaning onearm against the ivory-white wall. 

"This is my first day in Africa, " she said simply. "You may imagine whatI think of your garden, what I feel in it. I needn't tell you. Indeed, Iam sure the travellers you so kindly let in must often have worried youwith their raptures. "

"No, " he answered, with a still gravity which yet suggested kindness, "for I leave nearly always before the travellers come. That sounds alittle rude? But you would not be in Beni-Mora at this season, Madame, if it could include you. "

"I have come here for peace, " Domini replied simply. 

She said it because she felt as if it was already understood by hercompanion. 

Count Anteoni took down his arm from the white wall and pulled a branchof the purple flowers slowly towards him through the doorway. 

"There is peace--what is generally called so, at least--in Beni-Mora, "he answered rather slowly and meditatively. "That is to say, there issimilarity of day with day, night with night. The sun shines untiringlyover the desert, and the desert always hints at peace. "

He let the flowers go, and they sprang softly back, and hung quiveringin the space beyond his thin figure. Then he added:

"Perhaps one should not say more than that. "

"No. "

Domini sat down for a moment. She looked up at him with her direct eyesand at the shaking flowers. The sound of Larbi's flute was always in herears. 

"But may not one think, feel a little more?" she asked. 

"Oh, why not? If one can, if one must? But how? Africa is as fierce andfull of meaning as a furnace, you know. "

"Yes, I know--already, " she replied. 

His words expressed what she had already felt here in Beni-Mora, surreptitiously and yet powerfully. He said it, and last night theAfrican hautboy had said it. Peace and a flame. Could they existtogether, blended, married?

"Africa seems to me to agree through contradiction, " she added, smilinga little, and touching the snowy wall with her right hand. "But then, this is my first day. "

"Mine was when I was a boy of sixteen. "

"This garden wasn't here then?"

"No. I had it made. I came here with my mother. She spoilt me. She letme have my whim. "

"This garden is your boy's whim?"

"It was. Now it is a man's----"

He seemed to hesitate. 

"Paradise, " suggested Domini. 

"I think I was going to say hiding-place. "

There was no bitterness in his odd, ugly voice, yet surely the wordsimplied bitterness. The wounded, the fearful, the disappointed, thecondemned hide. Perhaps he remembered this, for he added rather quickly:

"I come here to be foolish, Madame, for I come here to think. This is myspecial thinking place. "

"How strange!" Domini exclaimed impulsively, and leaning forward on thedivan. 

"Is it?"

"I only mean that already Beni-Mora has seemed to me the ideal place forthat. "

"For thought?"

"For finding out interior truth. "

Count Anteoni looked at her rather swiftly and searchingly. His eyeswere not large, but they were bright, and held none of the languorso often seen in the eyes of his countrymen. His face was expressivethrough its mobility rather than through its contours. The features weresmall and refined, not noble, but unmistakably aristocratic. The nosewas sensitive, with wide nostrils. A long and straight moustache, turning slightly grey, did not hide the mouth, which had unusually palelips. The ears were set very flat against the head, and were finelyshaped. The chin was pointed. The general look of the whole face wastense, critical, conscious, but in the defiant rather than in the timidsense. Such an expression belongs to men who would always be aware ofthe thoughts and feelings of others concerning them, but who would throwthose thoughts and feelings off as decisively and energetically as a dogshakes the waterdrops from its coat on emerging from a swim. 

"And sending it forth, like Ishmael, to shift for itself in the desert, "he said. 

The odd remark sounded like neither statement nor question, merely likethe sudden exclamation of a mind at work. 

"Will you allow me to take you through the rest of the garden, Madame?"he added in a more formal voice. 

"Thank you, " said Domini, who had already got up, moved by the examininglook cast at her. 

There was nothing in it to resent, and she had not resented it, but ithad recalled her to the consciousness that they were utter strangers toeach other. 

As they came out on the pale riband of sand which circled the littleroom Domini said:

"How wild and extraordinary that tune is!"

"Larbi's. I suppose it is, but no African music seems strange to me. Iwas born on my father's estate, near Tunis. He was a Sicilian; but cameto North Africa each winter. I have always heard the tomtoms and thepipes, and I know nearly all the desert songs of the nomads. "

"This is a love-song, isn't it?"

"Yes. Larbi is always in love, they tell me. Each new dancer catches himin her net. Happy Larbi!"

"Because he can love so easily?"

"Or unlove so easily. Look at him, Madame. "

At a little distance, under a big banana tree, and half hidden by clumpsof scarlet geraniums, Domini saw a huge and very ugly Arab, with analmost black skin, squatting on his heels, with a long yellow and redflute between his thick lips. His eyes were bent down, and he did notsee them, but went on busily playing, drawing from his flute coquettishphrases with his big and bony fingers. 

"And I pay him so much a week all the year round for doing that, " theCount said. 

His grating voice sounded kind and amused. They walked on, and Larbi'stune died gradually away. 

"Somehow I can't be angry with the follies and vices of the Arabs, " theCount continued. "I love them as they are; idle, absurdly amorous, quick to shed blood, gay as children, whimsical as--well, Madame, were Italking to a man I might dare to say pretty women. "

"Why not?"

"I will, then. I glory in their ingrained contempt of civilisation. But I like them to say their prayers five times in the day as it iscommanded, and no Arab who touches alcohol in defiance of the Prophet'slaw sets foot in my garden. "

There was a touch of harshness in his voice as he said the last words, the sound of the autocrat. Somehow Domini liked it. This man hadconvictions, and strong ones. That was certain. There was somethingoddly unconventional in him which something in her responded to. He wasperfectly polite, and yet, she was quite sure, absolutely careless ofopinion. Certainly he was very much a man. 

"It is pleasant, too, " he resumed, after a slight pause, "to besurrounded by absolutely thoughtless people with thoughtful faces andmysterious eyes--wells without truth at the bottom of them. "

She laughed. 

"No one must think here but you!"

"I prefer to keep all the folly to myself. Is not that a grandcocoanut?"

He pointed to a tree so tall that it seemed soaring to heaven. 

"Yes, indeed. Like the one that presides over the purple dog. "

"You have seen my fetish?"

"Smain showed him to me, with reverence. "

"Oh, he is king here. The Arabs declare that on moonlight nights theyhave heard him joining in the chorus of the Kabyle dogs. "

"You speak almost as if you believed it. "

"Well, I believe more here than I believe anywhere else. That is partlywhy I come here. "

"I can understand that--I mean believing much here. "

"What! Already you feel the spell of Beni-Mora, the desert spell! Yes, there is enchantment here--and so I never stay too long. "

"For fear of what?"

Count Anteoni was walking easily beside her. He walked from the hips, like many Sicilians, swaying very slightly, as if he liked to be awarehow supple his body still was. As Domini spoke he stopped. They were nowat a place where four paths joined, and could see four vistas of greenand gold, of magical sunlight and shadow. 

"I scarcely know; of being carried who knows where--in mind or heart. Oh, there is danger in Beni-Mora, Madame, there is danger. Thisstartling air is full of influences, of desert spirits. "

He looked at her in a way she could not understand--but it made herthink of the perfume-seller in his little dark room, and of the suddensensation she had had that mystery coils, like a black serpent, in theshining heart of the East. 

"And now, Madame, which path shall we take? This one leads to mydrawing-room, that on the right to the Moorish bath. "

"And that?"

"That one goes straight down to the wall that overlooks the Sahara. "

"Please let us take it. "

"The desert spirits are calling to you? But you are wise. What makesthis garden remarkable is not its arrangement, the number and variety ofits trees, but the fact that it lies flush with the Sahara--like a man'sthoughts of truth with Truth, perhaps. "

He turned up the tail of the sentence and his harsh voice gave a littlegrating crack. 

"I don't believe they are so different from one another as the gardenand the desert. "

She looked at him directly. 

"It would be too ironical. "

"But nothing is, " the Count said. 

"You have discovered that in this garden?"

"Ah, it is new to you, Madame!"

For the first time there was a sound of faint bitterness in his voice. 

"One often discovers the saddest thing in the loveliest place, " headded. "There you begin to see the desert. "

Far away, at the small orifice of the tunnel of trees down which theywere walking, appeared a glaring patch of fierce and quivering sunlight. 

"I can only see the sun, " Domini said. 

"I know so well what it hides that I imagine I actually see the desert. One loves one's kind, assiduous liar. Isn't it so?"

"The imagination? But perhaps I am not disposed to allow that it is aliar. "

"Who knows? You may be right. "

He looked at her kindly with his bright eyes. It had not seem to strikehim that their conversation was curiously intimate, considering thatthey were strangers to one another, that he did not even know her name. Domini wondered suddenly how old he was. That look made him seem mucholder than he had seemed before. There was such an expression in hiseyes as may sometimes be seen in eyes that look at a child who iskissing a rag doll with deep and determined affection. "Kiss your doll!"they seemed to say. "Put off the years when you must know that dolls cannever return a kiss. "

"I begin to see the desert now, " Domini said after a moment of silentwalking. "How wonderful it is!"

"Yes, it is. The most wonderful thing in Nature. You will think it muchmore wonderful when you fancy you know it well. "

"Fancy!"

"I don't think anyone can ever really know the desert. It is the thingthat keeps calling, and does not permit one to draw near. "

"But then, one might learn to hate it. "

"I don't think so. Truth does just the same, you know. And yet men keepon trying to draw near. "

"But sometimes they succeed. "

"Do they? Not when they live in gardens. "

He laughed for the first time since they had been together, and all hisface was covered with a network of little moving lines. 

"One should never live in a garden, Madame. "

"I will try to take your word for it, but the task will be difficult. "

"Yes? More difficult, perhaps, when you see what lies beside my thoughtsof truth. "

As he spoke they came out from the tunnel and were seized by the fiercehands of the sun. It was within half an hour of noon, and the radiancewas blinding. Domini put up her parasol sharply, like one startled. Shestopped. 

"But how tremendous!" she exclaimed. 

Count Anteoni laughed again, and drew down the brim of his grey hatover his eyes. The hand with which he did it was almost as burnt as anArab's. 

"You are afraid of it?"

"No, no. But it startled me. We don't know the sun really in Europe. "

"No. Not even in Southern Italy, not even in Sicily. It is fiercethere in summer, but it seems further away. Here it insists on the mostintense intimacy. If you can bear it we might sit down for a moment?"

"Please. "

All along the edge of the garden, from the villa to the boundary ofCount Anteoni's domain, ran a straight high wall made of earth brickshardened by the sun and topped by a coping of palm wood painted white. This wall was some eight feet high on the side next to the desert, butthe garden was raised in such a way that the inner side was merely alow parapet running along the sand path. In this parapet were cut smallseats, like window-seats, in which one could rest and look full upon thedesert as from a little cliff. Domini sat down on one of them, and theCount stood by her, resting one foot on the top of the wall and leaninghis right arm on his knee. 

"There is the world on which I look for my hiding-place, " he said. "Avast world, isn't it?"

Domini nodded without speaking. 

Immediately beneath them, in the narrow shadow of the wall, was a pathof earth and stones which turned off at the right at the end of thegarden into the oasis. Beyond lay the vast river bed, a chaos of hotboulders bounded by ragged low earth cliffs, interspersed here and therewith small pools of gleaming water. These cliffs were yellow. From theiredge stretched the desert, as Eternity stretches from the edge of Time. Only to the left was the immeasurable expanse intruded upon by a longspur of mountains, which ran out boldly for some distance and thenstopped abruptly, conquered and abashed by the imperious flats. Beneaththe mountains were low, tent-like, cinnamon-coloured undulations, whichreminded Domini of those made by a shaken-out sheet, one smaller thanthe other till they melted into the level. The summits of the mostdistant mountains, which leaned away as if in fear of the desert, weredark and mistily purple. Their flanks were iron grey at this hour, flecked in the hollows with the faint mauve and pink which becamecarnation colour when the sun set. 

Domini scarcely looked at them. Till now she had always thought thatshe loved mountains. The desert suddenly made them insignificant, almostmean to her. She turned her eyes towards the flat spaces. It was in themthat majesty lay, mystery, power, and all deep and significant things. In the midst of the river bed, and quite near, rose a round and squatwhite tower with a small cupola. Beyond it, on the little cliff, was atangle of palms where a tiny oasis sheltered a few native huts. At animmense distance, here and there, other oases showed as dark stains showon the sea where there are hidden rocks. And still farther away, on allhands, the desert seemed to curve up slightly like a shallow wine-huedcup to the misty blue horizon line, which resembled a faintly seen andmysterious tropical sea, so distant that its sultry murmur was lost inthe embrace of the intervening silence. 

An Arab passed on the path below the wall. He did not see them. A whitedog with curling lips ran beside him. He was singing to himself ina low, inward voice. He went on and turned towards the oasis, stillsinging as he walked slowly. 

"Do you know what he is singing?" the Count asked. 

Domini shook her head. She was straining her ears to hear the melody aslong as possible. 

"It is a desert song of the freed negroes of Touggourt--'No one but Godand I knows what is in my heart. '"

Domini lowered her parasol to conceal her face. In the distance shecould still hear the song, but it was dying away. 

"Oh! what is going to happen to me here?" she thought. 

Count Anteoni was looking away from her now across the desert. A strangeimpulse rose up in her. She could not resist it. She put down herparasol, exposing herself to the blinding sunlight, knelt down on thehot sand, leaned her arms on the white parapet, put her chin in theupturned palms of her hands and stared into the desert almost fiercely. 

"No one but God and I knows what is in my heart, " she thought. "Butthat's not true, that's not true. For I don't know. "

The last echo of the Arab's song fainted on the blazing air. Surely ithad changed now. Surely, as he turned into the shadows of the palms, he was singing, "No one but God knows what is in my heart. " Yes, he wassinging that. "No one but God--no one but God. "

Count Anteoni looked down at her. She did not notice it, and he kept hiseyes on her for a moment. Then he turned to the desert again. 

By degrees, as she watched, Domini became aware of many thingsindicative of life, and of many lives in the tremendous expanse thatat first had seemed empty of all save sun and mystery. She saw low, scattered tents, far-off columns of smoke rising. She saw a bird passacross the blue and vanish towards the mountains. Black shapes appearedamong the tiny mounds of earth, crowned with dusty grass and dwarftamarisk bushes. She saw them move, like objects in a dream, slowlythrough the shimmering gold. They were feeding camels, guarded by nomadswhom she could not see. 

At first she persistently explored the distances, carried forcibly by an_elan_ of her whole nature to the remotest points her eyes could reach. Then she withdrew her gaze gradually, reluctantly, from the hiddensummoning lands, whose verges she had with difficulty gained, andlooked, at first with apprehension, upon the nearer regions. But herapprehension died when she found that the desert transmutes what isclose as well as what is remote, suffuses even that which the handcould almost touch with wonder, beauty, and the deepest, most strangesignificance. 

Quite near in the river bed she saw an Arab riding towards the desertupon a prancing black horse. He mounted a steep bit of path and came outon the flat ground at the cliff top. Then he set his horse at a gallop, raising his bridle hand and striking his heels into the flanks of thebeast. And each of his movements, each of the movements of his horse, was profoundly interesting, and held the attention of the onlooker in avice, as if the fates of worlds depended upon where he was carried andhow soon he reached his goal. A string of camels laden with wooden balesmet him on the way, and this chance encounter seemed to Domini fraughtwith almost terrible possibilities. Why? She did not ask herself. Againshe sent her gaze further, to the black shapes moving stealthily amongthe little mounds, to the spirals of smoke rising into the glimmeringair. Who guarded those camels? Who fed those distant fires? Who watchedbeside them? It seemed of vital consequence to her that she should know. 

Count Anteoni took out his watch and glanced at it. 

"I am looking to see if it is nearly the hour of prayer, " he said. "WhenI am in Beni-Mora I usually come here then. "

"You turn to the desert as the faithful turn towards Mecca?"

"Yes. I like to see men praying in the desert. "

He spoke indifferently, but Domini felt suddenly sure that withinhim there were depths of imagination, of tenderness, even perhaps ofmysticism. 

"An atheist in the desert is unimaginable, " he added. "In cathedralsthey may exist very likely, and even feel at home. I have seencathedrals in which I could believe I was one, but--how many humanbeings can you see in the desert at this moment, Madame?"

Domini, still with her round chin in her hands, searched the blazingregion with her eyes. She saw three running figures with the train ofcamels which was now descending into the river bed. In the shadow of thelow white tower two more were huddled, motionless. She looked away toright and left, but saw only the shallow pools, the hot and gleamingboulders, and beyond the yellow cliffs the brown huts peeping throughthe palms. The horseman had disappeared. 

"I can see five, " she answered. 

"Ah! you are not accustomed to the desert. "

"There are more?"

"I could count up to a dozen. Which are yours?"

"The men with the camels and the men under that tower. "

"There are four playing the _jeu des dames_ in the shadow of the cliffopposite to us. There is one asleep under a red rock where the pathascends into the desert. And there are two more just at the edge of thelittle oasis--Filiash, as it is called. One is standing under a palm, and one is pacing up and down. "

"You must have splendid eyes. "

"They are trained to the desert. But there are probably a score of Arabswithin sight whom I don't see. "

"Oh! now I see the men at the edge of the oasis. How oddly that one ismoving. He goes up and down like a sailor on the quarter-deck. "

"Yes, it is curious. And he is in the full blaze of the sun. That can'tbe an Arab. "

He drew a silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket, put it to his lipsand sounded a call. In a moment Smain same running lightly over thesand. Count Anteoni said something to him in Arabic. He disappeared, andspeedily returned with a pair of field-glasses. While he was gone Dominiwatched the two doll-like figures on the cliff in silence. One wasstanding under a large isolated palm tree absolutely still, as Arabsoften stand. The other, at a short distance from him and full in thesun, went to and fro, to and fro, always measuring the same spaceof desert, and turning and returning at two given points which nevervaried. He walked like a man hemmed in by walls, yet around him were theinfinite spaces. The effect was singularly unpleasant upon Domini. Allthings in the desert, as she had already noticed, became almostterribly significant, and this peculiar activity seemed full of someextraordinary and even horrible meaning. She watched it with strainingeyes. 

Count Anteoni took the glasses from Smain and looked through them, adjusting them carefully to suit his sight. 

"_Ecco!_" he said. "I was right. That man is not an Arab. "

He moved the glasses and glanced at Domini. 

"You are not the only traveller here, Madame. "

He looked through the glasses again. 

"I knew that, " she said. 

"Indeed?"

"There is one at my hotel. "

"Possibly this is he. He makes me think of a caged tiger, who has beenso long in captivity that when you let him out he still imagines thebars to be all round him. What was he like?"

All the time he was speaking he was staring intently through theglasses. As Domini did not reply he removed them from his eyes andglanced at her inquiringly. 

"I am trying to think what he looked like, " she said slowly. "But I feelthat I don't know. He was quite unlike any ordinary man. "

"Would you care to see if you can recognise him? These are reallymarvellous glasses. "

Domini took them from him with some eagerness. 

"Twist them about till they suit your eyes. "

At first she could see nothing but a fierce yellow glare. She turned thescrew and gradually the desert came to her, startlingly distinct. Theboulders of the river bed were enormous. She could see the veins ofcolour in them, a lizard running over one of them and disappearing intoa dark crevice, then the white tower and the Arabs beneath it. One wasan old man yawning; the other a boy. He rubbed the tip of his brownnose, and she saw the henna stains upon his nails. She lifted theglasses slowly and with precaution. The tower ran away. She came to thelow cliff, to the brown huts and the palms, passed them one by one, and reached the last, which was separated from its companions. Under itstood a tall Arab in a garment like a white night-shirt. 

"He looks as if he had only one eye!" she exclaimed. 

"The palm-tree man--yes. "

She travelled cautiously away from him, keeping the glasses level. 

"Ah!" she said on an indrawn breath. 

As she spoke the thin, nasal cry of a distant voice broke upon her ears, prolonging a strange call. 

"The Mueddin, " said Count Anteoni. 

And he repeated in a low tone the words of the angel to the prophet: "Ohthou that art covered arise . . . And magnify thy Lord; and purify thyclothes, and depart from uncleanness. "

The call died away and was renewed three times. The old man and theboy beneath the tower turned their faces towards Mecca, fell upon theirknees and bowed their heads to the hot stones. The tall Arab under thepalm sank down swiftly. Domini kept the glasses at her eyes. Throughthem, as in a sort of exaggerated vision, very far off, yet intenselydistinct, she saw the man with whom she had travelled in the train. Hewent to and fro, to and fro on the burning ground till the fourth callof the Mueddin died away. Then, as he approached the isolated palm treeand saw the Arab beneath it fall to the earth and bow his long body inprayer, he paused and stood still as if in contemplation. The glasseswere so powerful that it was possible to see the expressions on faceseven at that distance. The expression on the traveller's face was, or seemed to be, at first one of profound attention. But this changedswiftly as he watched the bowing figure, and was succeeded by a look ofuneasiness, then of fierce disgust, then--surely--of fear or horror. Heturned sharply away like a driven man, and hurried off along the cliffedge in a striding walk, quickening his steps each moment till hisdeparture became a flight. He disappeared behind a projection of earthwhere the path sank to the river bed. 

Domini laid the glasses down on the wall and looked at Count Anteoni. 

"You say an atheist in the desert is unimaginable?

"Isn't it true?"

"Has an atheist a hatred, a horror of prayer?"

"Chi lo sa? The devil shrank away from the lifted Cross. "

"Because he knew how much that was true it symbolised. "

"No doubt had it been otherwise he would have jeered, not cowered. Butwhy do you ask me this question, Madame?"

"I have just seen a man flee from the sight of prayer. "

"Your fellow-traveller?"

"Yes. It was horrible. "

She gave him back the glasses. 

"They reveal that which should be hidden, " she said. 

Count Anteoni took the glasses slowly from her hands. As he bent to doit he looked steadily at her, and she could not read the expression inhis eyes. 

"The desert is full of truth. Is that what you mean?" he asked. 

She made no reply. Count Anteoni stretched out his hand to the shiningexpanse before them. 

"The man who is afraid of prayer is unwise to set foot beyond the palmtrees, " he said. 

"Why unwise?"

He answered her very gravely. 

"The Arabs have a saying: 'The desert is the garden of Allah. '"

* * * * *

Domini did not ascend the tower of the hotel that morning. She had seenenough for the moment, and did not wish to disturb her impressions byadding to them. So she walked back to the Hotel du Desert with Batouch. 

Count Anteoni had said good-bye to her at the door of the garden, andhad begged her to come again whenever she liked, and to spend as manyhours there as she pleased. 

"I shall take you at your word, " she said frankly. "I feel that I may. "

As they shook hands she gave him her card. He took out his. "By theway, " he said, "the big hotel you passed in coming here is mine. Ibuilt it to prevent a more hideous one being built, and let it to theproprietor. You might like to ascend the tower. The view at sundown isincomparable. At present the hotel is shut, but the guardian will showyou everything if you give him my card. "

He pencilled some words in Arabic on the back from right to left. 

"You write Arabic, too?" Domini said, watching the forming of the prettycurves with interest. 

"Oh, yes; I am more than half African, though my father was a Sicilianand my mother a Roman. "

He gave her the card, took off his hat and bowed. When the tall whitedoor was softly shut by Smain, Domini felt rather like a new Eveexpelled from Paradise, without an Adam as a companion in exile. 

"Well, Madame?" said Batouch. "Have I spoken the truth?"

"Yes. No European garden can be so beautiful as that. Now I am goingstraight home. "

She smiled to herself as she said the last word. 

Outside the hotel they found Hadj looking ferocious. He exchanged somewords with Batouch, accompanying them with violent gestures. When he hadfinished speaking he spat upon the ground. 

"What is the matter with him?" Domini asked. 

"The Monsieur who is staying here would not take him to-day, but wentinto the desert alone. Hadj wishes that the nomads may cut his throat, and that his flesh may be eaten by jackals. Hadj is sure that he is abad man and will come to a bad end. "

"Because he does not want a guide every day! But neither shall I. "

"Madame is quite different. I would give my life for Madame. "

"Don't do that, but go this afternoon and find me a horse. I don't wanta quiet one, but something with devil, something that a Spahi would liketo ride. "

The desert spirits were speaking to her body as well as to her mind. Aphysical audacity was stirring in her, and she longed to give it vent. 

"Madame is like the lion. She is afraid of nothing. "

"You speak without knowing, Batouch. Don't come for me this afternoon, but bring round a horse, if you can find one, to-morrow morning. "

"This very evening I will--"

"No, Batouch. I said to-morrow morning. "

She spoke with a quiet but inflexible decision which silenced him. Thenshe gave him ten francs and went into the dark house, from which theburning noonday sun was carefully excluded. She intended to rest after_dejeuner_, and towards sunset to go to the big hotel and mount alone tothe summit of the tower. 

It was half-past twelve, and a faint rattle of knives and forks from the_salle-a-manger_ told her that _dejeuner_ was ready. She went upstairs, washed her face and hands in cold water, stood still while Suzanne shookthe dust from her gown, and then descended to the public room. The keenair had given her an appetite. 

The _salle-a-manger_ was large and shady, and was filled with smalltables, at only three of which were people sitting. Four French officerssat together at one. A small, fat, perspiring man of middle age, probably a commercial traveller, who had eyes like a melancholy toad, was at another, eating olives with anxious rapidity, and wiping hisforehead perpetually with a dirty white handkerchief. At the third wasthe priest with whom Domini had spoken in the church. His napkin wastucked under his beard, and he was drinking soup as he bent well overhis plate. 

A young Arab waiter, with a thin, dissipated face, stood near the doorin bright yellow slippers. When Domini came in he stole forward to showher to her table, making a soft, shuffling sound on the polished woodenfloor. The priest glanced up over his napkin, rose and bowed. The Frenchofficers stared with an interest they were too chivalrous to attempt toconceal. Only the fat little man was entirely unconcerned. He wiped hisforehead, stuck his fork deftly into an olive, and continued to looklike a melancholy toad entangled by fate in commercial pursuits. 

Domini's table was by a window, across which green Venetian shutterswere drawn. It was at a considerable distance from the other guests, whodid not live in the house, but came there each day for their meals. Nearit she noticed a table laid for one person, and so arranged that if hecame to _dejeuner_ he would sit exactly opposite to her. She wonderedif it was for the man at whom she had just been looking through CountAnteoni's field-glasses, the man who had fled from prayer in the "Gardenof Allah. " As she glanced at the empty chair standing before the knivesand forks, and the white cloth, she was uncertain whether she wished itto be filled by the traveller or not. She felt his presence in Beni-Moraas a warring element. That she knew. She knew also that she had comethere to find peace, a great calm and remoteness in which she could atlast grow, develop, loose her true self from cramping bondage, cometo an understanding with herself, face her heart and soul, and--as itwere--look them in the eyes and know them for what they were, goodor evil. In the presence of this total stranger there was somethingunpleasantly distracting which she could not and did not ignore, something which roused her antagonism and which at the same timecompelled her attention. She had been conscious of it in the train, conscious of it in the tunnel at twilight, at night in the hotel, andonce again in Count Anteoni's garden. This man intruded himself, nodoubt unconsciously, or even against his will, into her sight, herthoughts, each time that she was on the point of giving herself to whatCount Anteoni called "the desert spirits. " So it had been when the trainran out of the tunnel into the blue country. So it had been again whenshe leaned on the white wall and gazed out over the shining fastnessesof the sun. He was there like an enemy, like something determined, egoistical, that said to her, "You would look at the greatness of thedesert, at immensity, infinity, God!--Look at me. " And she couldnot turn her eyes away. Each time the man had, as if without effort, conquered the great competing power, fastened her thoughts upon himself, set her imagination working about his life, even made her heart beatfaster with some thrill of--what? Was it pity? Was it a faint horror?She knew that to call the feeling merely repugnance would not besincere. The intensity, the vitality of the force shut up in a humanbeing almost angered her at this moment as she looked at the empty chairand realised all that it had suddenly set at work. There was somethinginsolent in humanity as well as something divine, and just then shefelt the insolence more than the divinity. Terrifically greater, moreoverpowering than man, the desert was yet also somehow less than man, feebler, vaguer. Or else how could she have been grasped, moved, turnedto curiosity, surmise, almost to a sort of dread--all at the desert'sexpense--by the distant moving figure seen through the glasses?

Yes, as she looked at the little white table and thought of all this, Domini began to feel angry. But she was capable of effort, whethermental or physical, and now she resolutely switched her mind off fromthe antagonistic stranger and devoted her thoughts to the priest, whose narrow back she saw down the room in the distance. As she ateher fish--a mystery of the seas of Robertville--she imagined his quietexistence in this remote place, sunny day succeeding sunny day, eachone surely so like its brother that life must become a sort of dream, through which the voice of the church bell called melodiously and theincense rising before the altar shed a drowsy perfume. How strange itmust be really to live in Beni-Mora, to have your house, your workhere, your friendships here, your duties here, perhaps here too thetiny section of earth which would hold at the last your body. It must bestrange and monotonous, and yet surely rather sweet, rather safe. 

The officers lifted their heads from their plates, the fat man stared, the priest looked quietly up over his napkin, and the Arab waiterslipped forward with attentive haste. For the swing door of the_salle-a-manger_ at this moment was pushed open, and the traveller--soDomini called him in her thoughts--entered and stood looking withhesitation from one table to another. 

Domini did not glance up. She knew who it was and kept her eyesresolutely on her plate. She heard the Arab speak, a loud noise of stoutboots tramping over the wooden floor, and the creak of a chair receivinga surely tired body. The traveller sat down heavily. She went on slowlyeating the large Robertville fish, which was like something between atrout and a herring. When she had finished it she gazed straight beforeher at the cloth, and strove to resume her thoughts of the priest's lifein Beni-Mora. But she could not. It seemed to her as if she were backagain in Count Anteoni's garden. She looked once more through theglasses, and heard the four cries of the Mueddin, and saw the pacingfigure in the burning heat, the Arab bent in prayer, the one who watchedhim, the flight. And she was indignant with herself for her strangeinability to govern her mind. It seemed to her a pitiful thing of whichshe should be ashamed. 

She heard the waiter set down a plate upon the traveller's table, andthen the noise of a liquid being poured into a glass. She could not keepher eyes down any more. Besides, why should she? Beni-Mora wasbreeding in her a self-consciousness--or a too acute consciousness ofothers--that was unnatural in her. She had never been sensitive likethis in her former life, but the fierce African sun seemed now to havethawed the ice of her indifference. She felt everything with almostunpleasant acuteness. All her senses seemed to her sharpened. Shesaw, she heard, as she had never seen and heard till now. Suddenly sheremembered her almost violent prayer--"Let me be alive! Let me feel!"and she was aware that such a prayer might have an answer that would beterrible. 

Looking up thus with a kind of severe determination, she saw the managain. He was eating and was not looking towards her, and she fanciedthat his eyes were downcast with as much conscious resolution as hershad been a moment before. He wore the same suit as he had worn in thetrain, but now it was flecked with desert dust. She could not "place"him at all. He was not of the small, fat man's order. They would havenothing in common. With the French officers? She could not imagine howhe would be with them. The only other man in the room--the servant hadgone out for the moment--was the priest. He and the priest--they wouldsurely be antagonists. Had he not turned aside to avoid the priest inthe tunnel? Probably he was one of those many men who actively hatethe priesthood, to whom the soutane is anathema. Could he find pleasantcompanionship with such a man as Count Anteoni, an original man, nodoubt, but also a cultivated and easy man of the world? She smiledinternally at the mere thought. Whatever this stranger might be she feltthat he was as far from being a man of the world as she was from being aCockney sempstress or a veiled favourite in a harem. She could not, she found, imagine him easily at home with any type of human being withwhich she was acquainted. Yet no doubt, like all men, he had somewherefriends, relations, possibly even a wife, children. 

No doubt--then why could she not believe it?

The man had finished his fish. He rested his broad, burnt hands on thetable on each side of his plate and looked at them steadily. Then heturned his head and glanced sideways at the priest, who was behind himto the right. Then he looked again at his hands. And Domini knew thatall the time he was thinking about her, as she was thinking abouthim. She felt the violence of his thought like the violence of a handstriking her. 

The Arab waiter brought her some ragout of mutton and peas, and shelooked down again at her plate. 

As she left the room after _dejeuner_ the priest again got up andbowed. She stopped for a moment to speak to him. All the French officerssurveyed her tall, upright figure and broad, athletic shoulders withintent admiration. Domini knew it and was indifferent. If a hundredFrench soldiers had been staring at her critically she would not havecared at all. She was not a shy woman and was in nowise uncomfortablewhen many eyes were fixed upon her. So she stood and talked a little tothe priest about Count Anteoni and her pleasure in his garden. Andas she did so, feeling her present calm self-possession, she wonderedsecretly at the wholly unnatural turmoil--she called it that, exaggerating her feeling because it was unusual--in which she had been afew minutes before as she sat at her table. 

The priest spoke well of Count Anteoni. 

"He is very generous, " he said. 

Then he paused, twisting his napkin, and added:

"But I never have any real intercourse with him, Madame. I believe hecomes here in search of solitude. He spends days and even weeks aloneshut up in his garden. "

"Thinking, " she said. 

The priest looked slightly surprised. 

"It would be difficult not to think, Madame, would it not?"

"Oh, yes. But Count Anteoni thinks rather as a Bashi-Bazouk fights, Ifancy. "

She heard a chair creak in the distance and glanced over her shoulder. The traveller had turned sideways. At once she bade the priest good-byeand walked away and out through the swing door. 

All the afternoon she rested. The silence was profound. Beni-Mora wasenjoying a siesta in the heat. Domini revelled in the stillness. Thefatigue of travel had quite gone from her now and she began to feelstrangely at home. Suzanne had arranged photographs, books, flowers inthe little salon, had put cushions here and there, and thrown prettycoverings over the sofa and the two low chairs. The room had an airof cosiness, of occupation. It was a room one could sit in withoutrestlessness, and Domini liked its simplicity, its bare wooden floor andwhite walls. The sun made everything right here. Without the sun--butshe could not think of Beni-Mora without the sun. 

She read on the verandah and dreamed, and the hours slipped quicklyaway. No one came to disturb her. She heard no footsteps, no movementsof humanity in the house. Now and then the sound of voices floated upto her from the gardens, mingling with the peculiar dry noise of palmleaves stirring in a breeze. Or she heard the distant gallop of horses'feet. The church bell chimed the hours and made her recall the previousevening. Already it seemed far off in the past. She could scarcelybelieve that she had not yet spent twenty-four hours in Beni-Mora. Aconviction came to her that she would be there for a long while, thatshe would strike roots into this sunny place of peace. When she heardthe church bell now she thought of the interior of the church and of thepriest with an odd sort of familiar pleasure, as people in England oftenthink of the village church in which they have always been accustomed toworship, and of the clergyman who ministers in it Sunday after Sunday. Yet at moments she remembered her inward cry in Count Anteoni's garden, "Oh, what is going to happen to me here?" And then she was dimlyconscious that Beni-Mora was the home of many things besides peace. Itheld warring influences. At one moment it lulled her and she was like aninfant rocked in a cradle. At another moment it stirred her, and shewas a woman on the edge of mysterious possibilities. There must bemany individualities among the desert spirits of whom Count Anteonihad spoken. Now one was with her and whispered to her, now another. Shefancied the light touch of their hands on hers, pulling gently at her, as a child pulls you to take you to see a treasure. And their treasurewas surely far away, hidden in the distance of the desert sands. 

As soon as the sun began to decline towards the west she put on her hat, thrust the card Count Anteoni had given her into her glove and set outtowards the big hotel alone. She met Hadj as she walked down the arcade. He wished to accompany her, and was evidently filled with treacherousideas of supplanting his friend Batouch, but she gave him a franc andsent him away. The franc soothed him slightly, yet she could see thathis childish vanity was injured. There was a malicious gleam inhis long, narrow eyes as he looked after her. Yet there was genuineadmiration too. The Arab bows down instinctively before any dominatingspirit, and such a spirit in a foreign woman flashes in his eyes likea bright flame. Physical strength, too, appeals to him with peculiarforce. Hadj tossed his head upwards, tucked in his chin, and mutteredsome words in his brown throat as he noted the elastic grace with whichthe rejecting foreign woman moved till she was out of his sight. And shenever looked back at him. That was a keen arrow in her quiver. He fellinto a deep reverie under the arcade and his face became suddenly likethe face of a sphinx. 

Meanwhile Domini had forgotten him. She had turned to the left down asmall street in which some Indians and superior Arabs had bazaars. One of the latter came out from the shadow of his hanging rugs andembroideries as she passed, and, addressing her in a strange mixtureof incorrect French and English, begged her to come in and examine hiswares. 

She shook her head, but could not help looking at him with interest. 

He was the thinnest man she had ever seen, and moved and stood almost asif he were boneless. The line of his delicate and yet arbitrary featureswas fierce. His face was pitted with small-pox and marked by an oldwound, evidently made by a knife, which stretched from his left cheek tohis forehead, ending just over the left eyebrow. The expression of hiseyes was almost disgustingly intelligent. While they were fixed upon herDomini felt as if her body were a glass box in which all her thoughts, feelings, and desires were ranged for his inspection. In his demeanourthere was much that pleaded, but also something that commanded. Hisfingers were unnaturally long and held a small bag, and he plantedhimself right before her in the road. 

"Madame, come in, venez avec moi. Venez--venez! I have much--I willshow--j'ai des choses extraordinaires! Tenez! Look!"

He untied the mouth of the bag. Domini looked into it, expecting to seesomething precious--jewels perhaps. She saw only a quantity of sand, laughed, and moved to go on. She thought the Arab was an impudent fellowtrying to make fun of her. 

"No, no, Madame! Do not laugh! Ce sable est du desert. Il y a deshistoires la-dedans. Il y a l'histoire de Madame. Come bazaar! I willread for Madame--what will be--what will become--I will read--I willtell. Tenez!" He stared down into the bag and his face became suddenlystern and fixed. "Deja je vois des choses dans la vie de Madame. Ah! MonDieu! Ah! Mon Dieu!"

"No, no, " Domini said. 

She had hesitated, but was now determined. 

"I have no time to-day. "

The man cast a quick and sly glance at her, then stared once moreinto the bag. "Ah! Mon Dieu! Ah! Mon Dieu!" he repeated. "The life tocome--the life of Madame--I see it in the bag!"

His face looked tortured. Domini walked on hurriedly. When she hadgot to a little distance she glanced back. The man was standing in themiddle of the road and glaring into the bag. His voice came down thestreet to her. 

"Ah! Mon Dieu! Ah! Mon Dieu! I see it--I see--je vois la vie deMadame--Ah! Mon Dieu!"

There was an accent of dreadful suffering in his voice. It made Dominishudder. 

She passed the mouth of the dancers' street. At the corner there wasa large Cafe Maure, and here, on rugs laid by the side of the road, numbers of Arabs were stretched, some sipping tea from glasses, someplaying dominoes, some conversing, some staring calmly into vacancy, like animals drowned in a lethargic dream. A black boy ran by holdinga hammered brass tray on which were some small china cups filled withthick coffee. Halfway up the street he met three unveiled women clad involuminous white dresses, with scarlet, yellow, and purple handkerchiefsbound over their black hair. He stopped and the women took the cups withtheir henna-tinted fingers. Two young Arabs joined them. There was ascuffle. White lumps of sugar flew up into the air. Then there was ababel of voices, a torrent of cries full of barbaric gaiety. 

Before it had died out of Domini's ears she stood by the statue ofCardinal Lavigerie. Rather militant than priestly, raised high on amarble pedestal, it faced the long road which, melting at last into afaint desert track, stretched away to Tombouctou. The mitre upon thehead was worn surely as if it were a helmet, the pastoral staff with itsdouble cross was grasped as if it were a sword. Upon the lower cross wasstretched a figure of the Christ in agony. And the Cardinal, gazingwith the eyes of an eagle out into the pathless wastes of sand that laybeyond the palm trees, seemed, by his mere attitude, to cry to all themyriad hordes of men the deep-bosomed Sahara mothered in her mystery andsilence, "Come unto the Church! Come unto me!"

He called men in from the desert. Domini fancied his voice echoing alongthe sands till the worshippers of Allah and of his Prophet heard it likea clarion in Tombouctou. 

When she reached the great hotel the sun was just beginning to set. Shedrew Count Anteoni's card from her glove and rang the bell. After along interval a magnificent man, with the features of an Arab but a skinalmost as black as a negro, opened the door. 

"Can I go up the tower to see the sunset?" she asked, giving him thecard. 

The man bowed low, escorted her through a long hall full of furnitureshrouded in coverings, up a staircase, along a corridor with numberedrooms, up a second staircase and out upon a flat-terraced roof, fromwhich the tower soared high above the houses and palms of Beni-Mora, alandmark visible half-a-day's journey out in the desert. A narrow spiralstair inside the tower gained the summit. 

"I'll go up alone, " Domini said. "I shall stay some time and I wouldrather not keep you. "

She put some money into the Arab's hand. He looked pleased, yet doubtfultoo for a moment. Then he seemed to banish his hesitation and, with adeprecating smile, said something which she could not understand. Shenodded intelligently to get rid of him. Already, from the roof, shecaught sight of a great visionary panorama glowing with colour andmagic. She was impatient to climb still higher into the sky, to lookdown on the world as an eagle does. So she turned away decisively andmounted the dark, winding stair till she reached a door. She pushed itopen with some difficulty, and came out into the air at a dizzy height, shutting the door forcibly behind her with an energetic movement of herstrong arms. 

The top of the tower was small and square, and guarded by a whiteparapet breast high. In the centre of it rose the outer walls and theceiling of the top of the staircase, which prevented a person standingon one side of the tower from seeing anybody who was standing at theopposite side. There was just sufficient space between parapet andstaircase wall for two people to pass with difficulty and manoeuvring. 

But Domini was not concerned with such trivial details, as she wouldhave thought them had she thought of them. Directly she had shut thelittle door and felt herself alone--alone as an eagle in the sky--shetook the step forward that brought her to the parapet, leaned her armson it, looked out and was lost in a passion of contemplation. 

At first she did not discern any of the multitudinous minutiae in thegreat evening vision beneath and around her. She only felt conscious ofdepth, height, space, colour, mystery, calm. She did not measure. Shedid not differentiate. She simply stood there, leaning lightly onthe snowy plaster work, and experienced something that she had neverexperienced before, that she had never imagined. It was scarcely vivid;for in everything that is vivid there seems to be something small, thepoint to which wonders converge, the intense spark to which many fireshave given themselves as food, the drop which contains the murmuringforce of innumerable rivers. It was more than vivid. It was reliantlydim, as is that pulse of life which is heard through and above the crashof generations and centuries falling downwards into the abyss; thatpersistent, enduring heart-beat, indifferent in its mystical regularity, that ignores and triumphs, and never grows louder nor diminishes, inexorably calm, inexorably steady, undefeated--more--utterly unaffectedby unnumbered millions of tragedies and deaths. 

Many sounds rose from far down beneath the tower, but at first Dominidid not hear them. She was only aware of an immense, living silence, asilence flowing beneath, around and above her in dumb, invisible waves. Circles of rest and peace, cool and serene, widened as circles in a pooltowards the unseen limits of the satisfied world, limits lost in thehidden regions beyond the misty, purple magic where sky and desert met. And she felt as if her brain, ceaselessly at work from its birth, her heart, unresting hitherto in a commotion of desires, her soul, aneternal flutter of anxious, passionate wings, folded themselves togethergently like the petals of roses when a summer night comes into a garden. 

She was not conscious that she breathed while she stood there. Shethought her bosom ceased to rise and fall. The very blood dreamed in herveins as the light of evening dreamed in the blue. 

She knew the Great Pause that seems to divide some human lives in two, as the Great Gulf divided him who lay in Abraham's bosom from him whowas shrouded in the veil of fire. 

BOOK II. THE VOICE OF PRAYER

CHAPTER VII

The music of things from below stole up through the ethereal spaces toDomini without piercing her dream. But suddenly she started with asense of pain so acute that it shook her body and set the pulses in hertemples beating. She lifted her arms swiftly from the parapet and turnedher head. She had heard a little grating noise which seemed to be nearto her, enclosed with her on this height in the narrow space of thetower. Slight as it was, and short--already she no longer heard it--ithad in an instant driven her out of Heaven, as if it had been an angelwith a flaming sword. She felt sure that there must be something alivewith her at the tower summit, something which by a sudden movement hadcaused the little noise she had heard. What was it? When she turned herhead she could only see the outer wall of the staircase, a section ofthe narrow white space which surrounded it, an angle of the parapet andblue air. 

She listened, holding her breath and closing her two hands on theparapet, which was warm from the sun. Now, caught back to reality, shecould hear faintly the sounds from below in Beni-Mora. But they did notconcern her, and she wished to shut them out from her ears. What didconcern her was to know what was with her up in the sky. Had a birdalighted on the parapet and startled her by scratching at the plasterwith its beak? Could a mouse have shuffled in the wall? Or was there ahuman being up there hidden from her by the masonry?

This last supposition disturbed her almost absurdly for a moment. Shewas inclined to walk quickly round to the opposite side of the tower, but something stronger than her inclination, an imperious shyness, heldher motionless. She had been carried so far away from the world thatshe felt unable to face the scrutiny of any world-bound creature. Havingbeen in the transparent region of magic it seemed to her as if hersecret, the great secret of the absolutely true, the naked personalityhidden in every human being, were set blazing in her eyes like sometorch borne in a procession, just for that moment. The moment past, shecould look anyone fearlessly in the face; but not now, not yet. 

While she stood there, half turning round, she heard the sound again andknew what caused it. A foot had shifted on the plaster floor. There wassomeone else then looking out over the desert. A sudden idea struck her. Probably it was Count Anteoni. He knew she was coming and might havedecided to act once more as her cicerone. He had not heard her climbingthe stairs, and, having gone to the far side of the tower, was no doubtwatching the sunset, lost in a dream as she had been. 

She resolved not to disturb him--if it was he. When he had dreamedenough he must inevitably come round to where she was standing in orderto gain the staircase. She would let him find her there. Less troublednow, but in an utterly changed mood, she turned, leaned once more onthe parapet and looked over, this time observantly, prepared to note thedetails that, combined and veiled in the evening light of Africa, madethe magic which had so instantly entranced her. 

She looked down into the village and could see its extent, precisely howit was placed in the Sahara, in what relation exactly it stood to themountain ranges, to the palm groves and the arid, sunburnt tracts, whereits life centred and where it tailed away into suburban edges not unlikethe ragged edges of worn garments, where it was idle and frivolous, where busy and sedulous. She realised for the first time that therewere two distinct layers of life in Beni-Mora--the life of the streets, courts, gardens and market-place, and above it the life of the roofs. Both were now spread out before her, and the latter, in its domesticintimacy, interested and charmed her. She saw upon the roofs thechildren playing with little dogs, goats, fowls, mothers in rags ofgaudy colours stirring the barley for cous-cous, shredding vegetables, pounding coffee, stewing meat, plucking chickens, bending over bowlsfrom which rose the steam of soup; small girls, seated in dusty corners, solemnly winding wool on sticks, and pausing, now and then, to squeak todistant members of the home circle, or to smell at flowers laid besidethem as solace to their industry. An old grandmother rocked and kisseda naked baby with a pot belly. A big grey rat stole from a rubbish heapclose by her, flitted across the sunlit space, and disappeared into acranny. Pigeons circled above the home activities, delicate lovers ofthe air, wandered among the palm tops, returned and fearlessly alightedon the brown earth parapets, strutting hither and thither and makingtheir perpetual, characteristic motion of the head, half nod, halfgenuflection. Veiled girls promenaded to take the evening cool, foldingtheir arms beneath their flowing draperies, and chattering to oneanother in voices that Domini could not hear. More close at hand certainroofs in the dancers' street revealed luxurious sofas on which paintedhouris were lolling in sinuous attitudes, or were posed with a stiffnessof idols, little tables set with coffee cups, others round which weregathered Zouaves intent on card games, but ever ready to pause for acaress or for some jesting absurdity with the women who squatted besidethem. Some men, dressed like girls, went to and fro, serving the dancerswith sweetmeats and with cigarettes, their beards flowing down with agrotesque effect over their dresses of embroidered muslin, their hairyarms emerging from hanging sleeves of silk. A negro boy sat holding atomtom between his bare knees and beating it with supple hands, and aJewess performed the stomach dance, waving two handkerchiefs stained redand purple, and singing in a loud and barbarous contralto voice whichDomini could hear but very faintly. The card-players stopped their gameand watched her, and Domini watched too. For the first time, and fromthis immense height, she saw this universal dance of the east; thedoll-like figure, fantastically dwarfed, waving its tiny hands, wriggling its minute body, turning about like a little top, struttingand bending, while the soldiers--small almost from here as toys takenout of a box--assumed attitudes of deep attention as they leaned uponthe card-table, stretching out their legs enveloped in balloon-liketrousers. 

Domini thought of the recruits, now, no doubt, undergoing elsewheretheir initiation. For a moment she seemed to see their coarse peasantfaces rigid with surprise, their hanging jaws, their childish, and yetsensual, round eyes. Notre Dame de la Garde must seem very far away fromthem now. 

With that thought she looked quickly away from the Jewess and thesoldiers. She felt a sudden need of something more nearly in relationwith her inner self. She was almost angry as she realised how deep hadbeen her momentary interest in a scene suggestive of a license which wassurely unattractive to her. Yet was it unattractive? She scarcelyknew. But she knew that it had kindled in her a sudden and very strongcuriosity, even a vague, momentary desire that she had been born in sometent of the Ouled Nails--no, that was impossible. She had not felt sucha desire even for an instant. She looked towards the thickets of thepalms, towards the mountains full of changing, exquisite colours, towards the desert. And at once the dream began to return, and she feltas if hands slipped under her heart and uplifted it. 

What depths and heights were within her, what deep, dark valleys, and what mountain peaks! And how she travelled within herself, withswiftness of light, with speed of the wind. What terrors of activity sheknew. Did every human being know similar terrors?

The colours everywhere deepened as day failed. The desert spirits wereat work. She thought of Count Anteoni again, and resolved to go round tothe other side of the tower. As she moved to do this she heard once morethe shifting of a foot on the plaster floor, then a step. Evidentlyshe had infected him with an intention similar to her own. She went on, still hearing the step, turned the corner and stood face to face in thestrong evening light with the traveller. Their bodies almost touched inthe narrow space before they both stopped, startled. For a moment theystood still looking at each other, as people might look who have spokentogether, who know something of each other's lives, who may like ordislike, wish to avoid or to draw near to each other, but who cannotpretend that they are complete strangers, wholly indifferent to eachother. They met in the sky, almost as one bird may meet another on thewing. And, to Domini, at any rate, it seemed as if the depth, height, space, colour, mystery and calm--yes, even the calm--which were above, around and beneath them, had been placed there by hidden hands as asetting for their encounter, even as the abrupt pageant of the previousday, into which the train had emerged from the blackness of the tunnel, had surely been created as a frame for the face which had looked uponher as if out of the heart of the sun. The assumption was absurd, unreasonable, yet vital. She did not combat it because she felt it toopowerful for common sense to strive against. And it seemed to her thatthe stranger felt it too, that she saw her sensation reflected in hiseyes as he stood between the parapet and the staircase wall, barring--indespite of himself--her path. The moment seemed long while they stoodmotionless. Then the man took off his soft hat awkwardly, yet with realpoliteness, and stood quickly sideways against the parapet to let herpass. She could have passed if she had brushed against him, and made amovement to do so. Then she checked herself and looked at him again asif she expected him to speak to her. His hat was still in his hand, andthe light desert wind faintly stirred his short brown hair. He did notspeak, but stood there crushing himself against the plaster work with asort of fierce timidity, as if he dreaded the touch of her skirt againsthim, and longed to make himself small, to shrivel up and let her go byin freedom. 

"Thank you, " she said in French. 

She passed him, but was unable to do so without touching him. Her leftarm was hanging down, and her bare hand knocked against the back of thehand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment shetouched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatiguedmen sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly, sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. Theintense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, hisattitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politenessagainst the white wall, the expression in his eyes when their handstouched--a look she could not analyse, but which seemed to hold amingling of wistfulness and repellance, as of a being stretching outarms for succour, and crying at the same time, "Don't draw near to me!Leave me to myself!"--everything about him moved her. She felt thatshe was face to face with a solitariness of soul such as she had neverencountered before, a solitariness that was cruel, that was weighed downwith agony. And directly she had passed the man and thanked him formallyshe stopped with her usual decision of manner. She had abruptly made upher mind to talk to him. He was already moving to turn away. She spokequickly, and in French. 

"Isn't it wonderful here?" she said; and she made her voice rather loud, and almost sharp, to arrest his attention. 

He turned round swiftly, yet somehow reluctantly, looked at heranxiously, and seemed doubtful whether he would reply. 

After a silence that was short, but that seemed, and in suchcircumstances was, long, he answered, in French:

"Very wonderful, Madame. "

The sound of his own voice seemed to startle him. He stood as if he hadheard an unusual noise which had alarmed him, and looked at Domini asif he expected that she would share in his sensation. Very quietly anddeliberately she leaned her arms again on the parapet and spoke to himonce more. 

"We seem to be the only travellers here. "

The man's attitude became slightly calmer. He looked less momentary, less as if he were in haste to go, but still shy, fierce andextraordinarily unconventional. 

"Yes, Madame; there are not many here. "

After a pause, and with an uncertain accent, he added:

"Pardon, Madame--for yesterday. "

There was a sudden simplicity, almost like that of a child, in the soundof his voice as he said that. Domini knew at once that he alluded to theincident at the station of El-Akbara, that he was trying to make amends. The way he did it touched her curiously. She felt inclined to stretchout her hand to him and say, "Of course! Shake hands on it!" almost asan honest schoolboy might. But she only answered:

"I know it was only an accident. Don't think of it any more. "

She did not look at him. 

"Where money is concerned the Arabs are very persistent, " she continued. 

The man laid one of his brown hands on the top of the parapet. Shelooked at it, and it seemed to her that she had never before seen theback of a hand express so much of character, look so intense, so ardent, and so melancholy as his. 

"Yes, Madame. "

He still spoke with an odd timidity, with an air of listening to his ownspeech as if in some strange way it were phenomenal to him. It occurredto her that possibly he had lived much in lonely places, in which hissolitude had rarely been broken, and he had been forced to acquire thehabit of silence. 

"But they are very picturesque. They look almost like some religiousorder when they wear their hoods. Don't you think so?"

She saw the brown hand lifted from the parapet, and heard hercompanion's feet shift on the floor of the tower. But this time he saidnothing. As she could not see his hand now she looked out again overthe panorama of the evening, which was deepening in intensity with everypassing moment, and immediately she was conscious of two feelings thatfilled her with wonder: a much stronger and sweeter sense of the Africanmagic than she had felt till now, and the certainty that the greaterforce and sweetness of her feeling were caused by the fact that she hada companion in her contemplation. This was strange. An intense desirefor loneliness had driven her out of Europe to this desert place, and acompanion, who was an utter stranger, emphasised the significance, gavefibre to the beauty, intensity to the mystery of that which she lookedon. It was as if the meaning of the African evening were suddenlydoubled. She thought of a dice-thrower who throws one die and turns upsix, then throws two and turns up twelve. And she remained silent in hersurprise. The man stood silently beside her. Afterwards she felt as if, during this silence in the tower, some powerful and unseen being hadarrived mysteriously, introduced them to one another and mysteriouslydeparted. 

The evening drew on in their silence and the dream was deeper now. Allthat Domini had felt when first she approached the parapet she felt morestrangely, and she grasped, with physical and mental vision, not onlythe whole, but the innumerable parts of that which she looked on. Shesaw, fancifully, the circles widen in the pool of peace, but she sawalso the things that had been hidden in the pool. The beauty of dimness, the beauty of clearness, joined hands. The one and the other were, withher, like sisters. She heard the voices from below, and surely alsothe voices of the stars that were approaching with the night, blendingharmoniously and making a music in the air. The glowing sky and theglowing mountains were as comrades, each responsive to the emotions ofthe other. The lights in the rocky clefts had messages for the shadowymoon, and the palm trees for the thin, fire-tipped clouds about thewest. Far off the misty purple of the desert drew surely closer, like amother coming to fold her children in her arms. 

The Jewess still danced upon the roof to the watching Zouaves, but nowthere was something mystic in her tiny movements which no longer rousedin Domini any furtive desire not really inherent in her nature. Therewas something beautiful in everything seen from this altitude in thiswondrous evening light. 

Presently, without turning to her companion, she said:

"Could anything look ugly in Beni-Mora from here at this hour, do youthink?"

Again there was the silence that seemed characteristic of this manbefore he spoke, as if speech were very difficult to him. 

"I believe not, Madame. "

"Even that woman down there on that roof looks graceful--the one dancingfor those soldiers. "

He did not answer. She glanced at him and pointed. 

"Down there, do you see?"

She noticed that he did not follow her hand and that his face becamestern. He kept his eyes fixed on the trees of the garden of the Gazellesnear Cardinal Lavigerie's statue and replied:

"Yes, Madame. "

His manner made her think that perhaps he had seen the dance at closequarters and that it was outrageous. For a moment she felt slightlyuncomfortable, but determined not to let him remain under a falseimpression, she added carelessly:

"I have never seen the dances of Africa. I daresay I should thinkthem ugly enough if I were near, but from this height everything istransformed. "

"That is true, Madame. "

There was an odd, muttering sound in his voice, which was deep, andprobably strong, but which he kept low. Domini thought it was the mostmale voice she had ever heard. It seemed to be full of sex, like hishands. Yet there was nothing coarse in either the one or the other. Everything about him was vital to a point that was so remarkable as tobe not actually unnatural but very near the unnatural. 

She glanced at him again. He was a big man, but very thin. Herexperienced eyes of an athletic woman told her that he was capableof great and prolonged muscular exertion. He was big-boned anddeep-chested, and had nervous as well as muscular strength. The timidityin him was strange in such a man. What could it spring from? It wasnot like ordinary shyness, the _gaucherie_ of a big, awkward loutunaccustomed to woman's society but able to be at his ease andboisterous in the midst of a crowd of men. Domini thought that he wouldbe timid even of men. Yet it never struck her that he might be a coward, unmanly. Such a quality would have sickened her at once, and she knewshe would have at once divined it. He did not hold himself very well, but was inclined to stoop and to keep his head low, as if he were in thehabit of looking much on the ground. The idiosyncrasy was rather ugly, and suggested melancholy to her, the melancholy of a man given toover-much meditation and afraid to face the radiant wonder of life. 

She caught herself up at this last thought. She--thinking naturally thatlife was full of radiant wonder! Was she then so utterly transformedalready by Beni-Mora? Or had the thought come to her because she stoodside by side with someone whose sorrows had been unfathomably deeperthan her own, and so who, all unconsciously, gave her a knowledge of herown--till then unsuspected--hopefulness?

She looked at her companion again. He seemed to have relinquished hisintention of leaving her, and was standing quietly beside her, staringtowards the desert, with his head slightly drooped forward. In one handhe held a thick stick. He had put his hat on again. His attitude wasmuch calmer than it had been. Already he seemed more at ease with her. She was glad of that. She did not ask herself why. But the intensebeauty of evening in this land and at this height made her wishenthusiastically that it could produce a happiness such as it created inher in everyone. Such beauty, with its voices, its colours, its linesof tree and leaf, of wall and mountain ridge, its mystery of shapes andmovements, stillness and dreaming distance, its atmosphere of the faroff come near, chastened by journeying, fine with the unfamiliar, itssolemn changes towards the impenetrable night, was too large a thing andfraught with too much tender and lovable invention to be worshipped inany selfishness. It made her feel as if she could gladly be a martyr forunseen human beings, as if sacrifice would be an easy thing if made forthose to whom such beauty would appeal. Brotherhood rose up and cried inher, as it surely sang in the sunset, in the mountains, the palm grovesand the desert. The flame above the hills, their purple outline, themoving, feathery trees; dark under the rose-coloured glory of the west, and most of all the immeasurably remote horizons, each moment morestrange and more eternal, made her long to make this harsh strangerhappy. 

"One ought to find happiness here, " she said to him very simply. 

She saw his hand strain itself round the wood of his stick. 

"Why?" he said. 

He turned right round to her and looked at her with a sort of anger. 

"Why should you suppose so?" he added, speaking quite quickly, andwithout his former uneasiness and consciousness. 

"Because it is so beautiful and so calm. "

"Calm!" he said. "Here!"

There was a sound of passionate surprise in his voice. Domini wasstartled. She felt as if she were fighting, and must fight hard if shewere not to be beaten to the dust. But when she looked at him she couldfind no weapons. She said nothing. In a moment he spoke again. 

"You find calm here, " he said slowly. "Yes, I see. "

His head dropped lower and his face hardened as he looked over the edgeof the parapet to the village, the blue desert. Then he lifted his eyesto the mountains and the clear sky and the shadowy moon. Each element inthe evening scene was examined with a fierce, painful scrutiny, as if hewas resolved to wring from each its secret. 

"Why, yes, " he added in a low, muttering voice full of a sort ofterrified surprise, "it is so. You are right. Why, yes, it is calmhere. "

He spoke like a man who had been suddenly convinced, beyond power offurther unbelief, of something he had never suspected, never dreamed of. And the conviction seemed to be bitter to him, even alarming. 

"But away out there must be the real home of peace, I think, " Dominisaid. 

"Where?" said the man, quickly. 

She pointed towards the south. 

"In the depths of the desert, " she said. "Far away from civilisation, far away from modern men and modern women, and all the noisy trifles weare accustomed to. "

He looked towards the south eagerly. In everything he did there was aflamelike intensity, as if he could not perform an ordinary action, orturn his eyes upon any object, without calling up in his mind, or heart, a violence of thought or of feeling. 

"You think it--you think there would be peace out there, far away in thedesert?" he said, and his face relaxed slightly, as if in obedience tosome thought not wholly sad. 

"It may be fanciful, " she replied. "But I think there must. SurelyNature has not a lying face. "

He was still gazing towards the south, from which the night was slowlyemerging, a traveller through a mist of blue. He seemed to be heldfascinated by the desert which was fading away gently, like a mysterywhich had drawn near to the light of revelation, but which was nowslipping back into an underworld of magic. He bent forward as one whowatches a departure in which he longs to share, and Domini felt surethat he had forgotten her. She felt, too, that this man was gripped bythe desert influence more fiercely even than she was, and that he musthave a stronger imagination, a greater force of projection even than shehad. Where she bore a taper he lifted a blazing torch. 

A roar of drums rose up immediately beneath them. From the negro villageemerged a ragged procession of thick-lipped men, and singing, caperingwomen tricked out in scarlet and yellow shawls, headed by a male dancerclad in the skins of jackals, and decorated with mirrors, camels' skullsand chains of animals' teeth. He shouted and leaped, rolled his bulgingeyes, and protruded a fluttering tongue. The dust curled up round hisstamping, naked feet. 

"Yah-ah-la! Yah-ah-la!"

The howling chorus came up to the tower, with a clash of enormouscastanets, and of poles beaten rhythmically together. 

"Yi-yi-yi-yi!" went the shrill voices of the women. 

The cloud of dust increased, enveloping the lower part of theprocession, till the black heads and waving arms emerged as if from amaelstrom. The thunder of the drums was like the thunder of a cataractin which the singers, disappearing towards the village, seemed to beswept away. 

The man at Domini's side raised himself up with a jerk, and all theformer fierce timidity and consciousness came back to his face. Heturned round, pulled open the door behind him, and took off his hat. 

"Excuse me, Madame, " he said. "Bon soir!"

"I am coming too, " Domini answered. 

He looked uncomfortable and anxious, hesitated, then, as if driven to doit in spite of himself, plunged downward through the narrow doorway ofthe tower into the darkness. Domini waited for a moment, listening tothe heavy sound of his tread on the wooden stairs. She frowned till herthick eyebrows nearly met and the corners of her lips turned down. Thenshe followed slowly. When she was on the stairs and the footsteps diedaway below her she fully realised that for the first time in her life aman had insulted her. Her face felt suddenly very hot, and her lips verydry, and she longed to use her physical strength in a way not whollyfeminine. In the hall, among the shrouded furniture, she met the smilingdoorkeeper. She stopped. 

"Did the gentleman who has just gone out give you his card?" she saidabruptly. 

The Arab assumed a fawning, servile expression. 

"No, Madame, but he is a very good gentleman, and I know well thatMonsieur the Count--"

Domini cut him short. 

"Of what nationality is he?"

"Monsieur the Count, Madame?"

"No, no. "

"The gentleman? I do not know. But he can speak Arabic. Oh, he is a verynice--"

"Bon soir, " said Domini, giving him a franc. 

When she was out on the road in front of the hotel she saw the strangerstriding along in the distance at the tail of the negro procession. Thedust stirred up by the dancers whirled about him. Several small negroesskipped round him, doubtless making eager demands upon his generosity. He seemed to take no notice of them, and as she watched him Dominiwas reminded of his retreat from the praying Arab in the desert thatmorning. 

"Is he afraid of women as he is afraid of prayer?" she thought, andsuddenly the sense of humiliation and anger left her, and was succeededby a powerful curiosity such as she had never felt before about anyone. She realised that this curiosity had dawned in her almost at the firstmoment when she saw the stranger, and had been growing ever since. Onecircumstance after another had increased it till now it was definite, concrete. She wondered that she did not feel ashamed of such a feelingso unusual in her, and surely unworthy, like a prying thing. Of all herold indifference that side which confronted people had always been themost sturdy, the most solidly built. Without affectation she had been aprofoundly incurious woman as to the lives and the concerns of others, even of those whom she knew best and was supposed to care for most. Her nature had been essentially languid in human intercourse. Theexcitements, troubles, even the passions of others had generally stirredher no more than a distant puppet-show stirs an absent-minded passer inthe street. 

In Africa it seemed that her whole nature had been either violentlyrenewed, or even changed. She could not tell which. But this strongstirring of curiosity would, she believed, have been impossible in thewoman she had been but a week ago, the woman who travelled to Marseillesdulled, ignorant of herself, longing for change. Perhaps instead ofbeing angry she ought to welcome it as a symptom of the re-creation shelonged for. 

While she changed her gown for dinner that night she debated withinherself how she would treat her fellow-guest when she met him in the_salle-a-manger_. She ought to cut him after what had occurred, shesupposed. Then it seemed to her that to do so would be undignified, andwould give him the impression that he had the power to offend her. Sheresolved to bow to him if they met face to face. Just before she wentdownstairs she realised how vehement her internal debate had been, andwas astonished. Suzanne was putting away something in a drawer, bendingdown and stretching out her plump arms. 

"Suzanne!" Domini said. 

"Yes, Mam'zelle!"

"How long have you been with me?"

"Three years, Mam'zelle. "

The maid shut the drawer and turned round, fixing her shallow, blue-grey eyes on her mistress, and standing as if she were ready to bephotographed. 

"Would you say that I am the same sort of person to-day as I was threeyears ago?"

Suzanne looked like a cat that has been startled by a sudden noise. 

"The same, Mam'zelle?"

"Yes. Do you think I have altered in that time?"

Suzanne considered the question with her head slightly on one side. 

"Only here, Mam'zelle, " she replied at length. 

"Here!" said Domini, rather eagerly. "Why, I have only been heretwenty-six hours. "

"That is true. But Mam'zelle looks as if she had a little life here, alittle emotion. Mon Dieu! Mam'zelle will pardon me, but what is a womanwho feels no emotion? A packet. Is it not so, Mam'zelle?"

"Well, but what is there to be emotional about here?"

Suzanne looked vaguely crafty. 

"Who knows, Mam'zelle? Who can say? Mon Dieu! This village is dull, butit is odd. No band plays. There are no shops for a girl to look into. There is nothing chic except the costumes of the Zouaves. But one cannotdeny that it is odd. When Mam'zelle was away this afternoon in the towerMonsieur Helmuth--"

"Who is that?"

"The Monsieur who accompanies the omnibus to the station. MonsieurHelmuth was polite enough to escort me through the village. Mon Dieu, Mam'zelle, I said to myself, 'Anything might occur here. '"

"Anything! What do you mean?"

But Suzanne did not seem to know. She only made her figure look moretense than ever, tucked in her round little chin, which was dimpled andunmeaning, and said:

"Who knows, Mam'zelle? This village is dull, that is true, but it isodd. One does not find oneself in such places every day. "

Domini could not help laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she wentdownstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. Till nowthe maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni-Mora wascertainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly different shape. And Domini seemed to see an Eastern potter at work, squatting in the sunand with long and delicate fingers changing the outline of the statuetteof a woman, modifying a curve here, an angle there, till the clay beganto show another woman, but with, as it were, the shadow of the formerone lurking behind the new personality. 

The stranger was not at dinner. His table was laid and Domini satexpecting each moment to hear the shuffling tread of his heavy boots onthe wooden floor. When he did not come she thought she was glad. Afterdinner she spoke for a moment to the priest and then went upstairs tothe verandah to take coffee. She found Batouch there. He had renouncedhis determined air, and his _cafe-au-lait_ countenance and huge bodyexpressed enduring pathos, as of an injured, patient creature laid outfor the trampling of Domini's cruel feet. 

"Well?" she said, sitting down by the basket table. 

"Well, Madame?"

He sighed and looked on the ground, lifted one white-socked foot, removed its yellow slipper, shook out a tiny stone from the slipper andput it on again, slowly, gracefully and very sadly. Then he pulled thewhite sock up with both hands and glanced at Domini out of the cornersof his eyes. 

"What's the matter?"

"Madame does not care to see the dances of Beni-Mora, to hear the music, to listen to the story-teller, to enter the cafe of El Hadj whereAchmed sings to the keef smokers, or to witness the beautiful religiousecstasies of the dervishes from Oumach. Therefore I come to bid Madamerespectfully goodnight and to take my departure. "

He threw his burnous over his left shoulder with a sudden gesture ofdespair that was full of exaggeration. Domini smiled. 

"You've been very good to-day, " she said. 

"I am always good, Madame. I am of a serious disposition. Not one keepsRamadan as I do. "

"I am sure of it. Go downstairs and wait for me under the arcade. "

Batouch's large face became suddenly a rendezvous of all the gaieties. 

"Madame is coming out to-night?"

"Presently. Be in the arcade. "

He swept away with the ample magnificence of joyous bearing and movementthat was like a loud Te Deum. 

"Suzanne! Suzanne!"

Domini had finished her coffee. 

"Mam'zelle!" answered Suzanne, appearing. 

"Would you like to come out with me to-night?"

"Mam'zelle is going out?"

"Yes, to see the village by night. "

Suzanne looked irresolute. Craven fear and curiosity fought a battlewithin her, as was evident by the expressions that came and went in herface before she answered. 

"Shall we not be murdered, Mam'zelle, and are there interesting thingsto see?"

"There are interesting things to see--dancers, singers, keef smokers. But if you are afraid don't come. "

"Dancers, Mam'zelle! But the Arabs carry knives. And is there singing?I--I should not like Mam'zelle to go without me. But----"

"Come and protect me from the knives then. Bring my jacket--any one. Idon't suppose I shall put it on. "

As she spoke the distant tomtoms began. Suzanne started nervously andlooked at Domini with sincere apprehension. 

"We had better not go, Mam'zelle. It is not safe out here. Men who makea noise like that would not respect us. "

"I like it. "

"That sound? But it is always the same and there is no music in it. "

"Perhaps there is more in it than music. The jacket?"

Suzanne went gingerly to fetch it. The faint cry of the African hautboyrose up above the tomtoms. The evening _fete_ was beginning. To-nightDomini felt that she must go to the distant music and learn tounderstand its meaning, not only for herself, but for those who made itand danced to it night after night. It stirred her imagination, andmade her in love with mystery, and anxious at least to steal to the verythreshold of the barbarous world. Did it stir those who had had it intheir ears ever since they were naked, sunburned babies rolling in thehot sun of the Sahara? Could it seem as ordinary to them as the colduproar of the piano-organ to the urchins of Whitechapel, or the whineof the fiddle to the peasants of Touraine where Suzanne was born? Shewanted to know. Suzanne returned with the jacket. She still lookedapprehensive, but she had put on her hat and fastened a sprig of redgeranium in the front of her black gown. The curiosity was in theascendant. 

"We are not going quite alone, Mam'zelle?"

"No, no. Batouch will protect us. "

Suzanne breathed a furtive sigh. 

The poet was in the white arcade with Hadj, who looked both wickedand deplorable, and had a shabby air, in marked contrast to Batouch'sostentatious triumph. Domini felt quite sorry for him. 

"You come with us too, " she said. 

Hadj squared his shoulders and instantly looked vivacious and almostsmart. But an undecided expression came into his face. 

"Where is Madame going?"

"To see the village. "

Batouch shot a glance at Hadj and smiled unpleasantly. 

"I will come with Madame. "

Batouch still smiled. 

"We are going to the Ouled Nails, " he said significantly to Hadj. 

"I--I will come. "

They set out. Suzanne looked gently at the poet's legs and seemedcomforted. 

"Take great care of Mademoiselle Suzanne, " Domini said to the poet. "Sheis a little nervous in the dark. "

"Mademoiselle Suzanne is like the first day after the fast of Ramadan, "replied the poet, majestically. "No one would harm her were she towander alone to Tombouctou. "

The prospect drew from Suzanne a startled gulp. Batouch placed himselftenderly at her side and they set out, Domini walking behind with Hadj. 

CHAPTER VIII

The village was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. Thenight was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardensDomini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how hepassed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and shefancied him sitting in some plainly-furnished little room with Bous-Bousand a few books, smoking a pipe and thinking sadly of the White Fathersof Africa and of his frustrated desire for complete renunciation. Withthis last thought blended the still remote sound of the hautboy. It suggested anything rather than renunciation; mysteriousmelancholy--successor to passion--the cry of longing, the wail of theunknown that draws some men and women to splendid follies and to ardentpilgrimages whose goal is the mirage. 

Hadj was talking in a low voice, but Domini did not listen to him. Shewas vaguely aware that he was abusing Batouch, saying that he was aliar, inclined to theft, a keef smoker, and in a general way steepedto the lips in crime. But the moon was rising, the distant music wasbecoming more distinct. She could not listen to Hadj. 

As they turned into the street of the sand-diviner the first ray of themoon fell on the white road. Far away at the end of the street Dominicould see the black foliage of the trees in the Gazelles' garden, andbeyond, to the left, a dimness of shadowy palms at the desert edge. Thedesert itself was not visible. Two Arabs passed, shrouded in burnouses, with the hoods drawn up over their heads. Only their black beards couldbe seen. They were talking violently and waving their arms. Suzanneshuddered and drew close to the poet. Her plump face worked and sheglanced appealingly at her mistress. But Domini was not thinking of her, or of violence or danger. The sound of the tomtoms and hautboysseemed suddenly much louder now that the moon began to shine, making awhiteness among the white houses of the village, the white robes of theinhabitants, a greater whiteness on the white road that lay beforethem. And she was thinking that the moon whiteness of Beni-Mora was morepassionate than pure, more like the blanched face of a lover than thecool, pale cheek of a virgin. There was excitement in it, suggestiongreater even than the suggestion of the tremendous coloured scenes ofthe evening that preceded such a night. And she mused of white heat andof what it means--the white heat of the brain blazing with thoughts thatgovern, the white heat of the heart blazing with emotions that make suchthoughts seem cold. She had never known either. Was she incapable ofknowing them? Could she imagine them till there was physical heat inher body if she was incapable of knowing them? Suzanne and the two Arabswere distant shadows to her when that first moon-ray touched their feet. The passion of the night began to burn her, and she thought she wouldlike to take her soul and hold it out to the white flame. 

As they passed the sand-diviner's house Domini saw his spectral figurestanding under the yellow light of the hanging lantern in the middleof his carpet shop, which was lined from floor to ceiling with dullred embroideries and dim with the fumes of an incense brazier. He wastalking to a little boy, but keeping a wary eye on the street, and hecame out quickly, beckoning with his long hands, and calling softly, ina half-chuckling and yet authoritative voice:

"Venez, Madame, venez! Come! come!"

Suzanne seized Domini's arm. 

"Not to-night!" Domini called out. 

"Yes, Madame, to-night. The vie of Madame is there in the sand to-night. Je la vois, je la vois. C'est la dans le sable to-night. "

The moonlight showed the wound on his face. Suzanne uttered a cry andhid her eyes with her hands. They went on towards the trees. Hadj walkedwith hesitation. 

"How loud the music is getting, " Domini said to him. 

"It will deafen Madame's ears if she gets nearer, " said Hadj, eagerly. "And the dancers are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a greatlady of the most respectable England! Madame will be red with disgust, with anger. Madame will have _mal-au-coeur_. "

Batouch began to look like an idol on whose large face the artificer hadcarved an expression of savage ferocity. 

"Madame is my client, " he said fiercely. "Madame trusts in me. "

Hadj laughed with a snarl:

"He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue, " herejoined. 

The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but herestrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thicklips like a snake. 

"I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim, " he said softly. 

"Fatma is sick, " said Hadj, quickly. 

"It will not be Fatma. "

Hadj began suddenly to gesticulate with his thin, delicate hands and tolook fiercely excited. 

"Halima is at the Fontaine Chaude, " he cried. 

"Keltoum will be there. "

"She will not. Her foot is sick. She cannot dance. For a week she willnot dance. I know it. "

"And--Irena? Is she sick? Is she at the Hammam Salahine?"

Hadj's countenance fell. He looked at his cousin sideways, alwaysshowing his teeth. 

"Do you not know, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"

"_Ana ma 'audi ma nek oul lek!_"[*] growled Hadj in his throat. 

 [*] "I have nothing to say to you. "

They had reached the end of the little street. The whiteness of thegreat road which stretched straight through the oasis into the desertlay before them, with the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie staring down itin the night. At right angles was the street of the dancers, narrow, bounded with the low white houses of the ouleds, twinkling with starrylights, humming with voices, throbbing with the clashing music thatpoured from the rival _cafes maures_, thronged with the white figuresof the desert men, strolling slowly, softly as panthers up and down. Themoonlight was growing brighter, as if invisible hands began to fan thewhite flame of passion which lit up Beni-Mora. A patrol of TirailleursIndigenes passed by going up the street, in yellow and blue uniforms, turbans and white gaiters, their rifles over their broad shoulders. Thefaint tramp of their marching feet was just audible on the sandy road. 

"Hadj can go home if he is afraid of anything in the dancing street, "said Domini, rather maliciously. "Let us follow the soldiers. "

Hadj started as if he had been stung, and looked at Domini as if hewould like to strangle her. 

"I am afraid of nothing, " he exclaimed proudly. "Madame does not knowHadj-ben-Ibrahim. "

Batouch laughed soundlessly, shaking his great shoulders. It was evidentthat he had divined his cousin's wish to supplant him and was busilytaking his revenge. Domini was amused, and as they went slowly up thestreet in the wake of the soldiers she said:

"Do you often come here at night, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"

"Oh, yes, Madame, when I am alone. But with ladies--"

"You were here last night, weren't you, with the traveller from thehotel?"

"No, Madame. The Monsieur of the hotel preferred to visit the cafe ofthe story-teller, which is far more interesting. If Madame will permitme to take her--"

But this last assault was too much for the poet's philosophy. Hesuddenly threw off all pretence of graceful calm, and poured out uponHadj a torrent of vehement Arabic, accompanying it with passionategestures which filled Suzanne with horror and Domini with secretdelight. She liked this abrupt unveiling of the raw. There had alwayslurked in her an audacity, a quick spirit of adventure more boyish thanfeminine. She had reached the age of thirty-two without ever gratifyingit, or even fully realising how much she longed to gratify it. But nowshe began to understand it and to feel that it was imperious. 

"I have a barbarian in me, " she thought. 

"Batouch!" she said sharply. 

The poet turned a distorted face to her. 

"Madame!"

"That will do. Take us to the dancing-house. "

Batouch shot a last ferocious glance at Hadj and they went on into thecrowd of strolling men. 

The little street, bright with the lamps of the small houses, from whichprojected wooden balconies painted in gay colours, and with the glowingradiance of the moon, was mysterious despite its gaiety, its obviousdedication to the cult of pleasure. Alive with the shrieking sounds ofmusic, the movement and the murmur of desert humanity made it almostsolemn. This crowd of boys and men, robed in white from head to heel, preserved a serious grace in its vivacity, suggested besides a dignifiedbarbarity a mingling of angel, monk and nocturnal spirit. In thedistance of the moonbeams, gliding slowly over the dusty road withslippered feet, there was something soft and radiant in their movingwhiteness. Nearer, their pointed hoods made them monastical as aprocession stealing from a range of cells to chant a midnight mass. Inthe shadowy dusk of the tiny side alleys they were like wandering ghostsintent on unholy errands or returning to the graveyard. 

On some of the balconies painted girls were leaning and smokingcigarettes. Before each of the lighted doorways from which the shrillnoise of music came, small, intent crowds were gathered, watching theperformance that was going on inside. The robes of the Arabs brushedagainst the skirts of Domini and Suzanne, and eyes stared at them fromevery side with a scrutiny that was less impudent than seriously bold. 

"Madame!"

Hadj's thin hand was pulling Domini's sleeve. 

"Well, what is it?"

"This is the best dancing-house. The children dance here. "

Domini's height enabled her to peer over the shoulders of those gatheredbefore the door, and in the lighted distance of a white-walled room, painted with figures of soldiers and Arab chiefs, she saw a smallwriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby handswaving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping vigorouslyupon an earthen floor, for background a divan crowded with women andmusicians, with inflated cheeks and squinting eyes. She stood for amoment to look, then she turned away. There was an expression of disgustin her eyes. 

"No, I don't want to see children, " she said. "That's too--"

She glanced at her escort and did not finish. 

"I know, " said Batouch. "Madame wishes for the real ouleds. "

He led them across the street. Hadj followed reluctantly. Before goinginto this second dancing-house Domini stopped again to see from outsidewhat it was like, but only for an instant. Then a brightness came intoher eyes, an eager look. 

"Yes, take me in here, " she said. 

Batouch laughed softly, and Hadj uttered a word below his breath. 

"Madame will see Irena here, " said Batouch, pushing the watching Arabsunceremoniously away. 

Domini did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on a man who was sitting in acorner far up the room, bending forward and staring intently at a womanwho was in the act of stepping down from a raised platform decoratedwith lamps and small bunches of flowers in earthen pots. 

"I wish to sit quite near the door, " she whispered to Batouch as theywent in. 

"But it is much better--"

"Do what I tell you, " she said. "The left side of the room. "

Hadj looked a little happier. Suzanne was clinging to his arm. He smiledat her with something of mischief, but he took care, when a place wascleared on a bench for their party, to sit down at the end next thedoor, and he cast an anxious glance towards the platform where thedancing-girls attached to the cafe sat in a row, hunched up against thebare wall, waiting their turn to perform. Then suddenly he shook hishead, tucked in his chin and laughed. His whole face was transformedfrom craven fear to vivacious rascality. While he laughed he looked atBatouch, who was ordering four cups of coffee from the negro attendant. The poet took no notice. For the moment he was intent upon hisprofessional duties. But when the coffee was brought, and set upon around wooden stool between two bunches of roses, he had time to noteHadj's sudden gaiety and to realise its meaning. Instantly he spoke tothe negro in a low voice. Hadj stopped laughing. The negro sped awayand returned with the proprietor of the cafe, a stout Kabyle with a fairskin and blue eyes. 

Batouch lowered his voice to a guttural whisper and spoke in Arabic, while Hadj, shifting uneasily on the end seat, glanced at him sidewaysout of his almond-shaped eyes. Domini heard the name "Irena, " andguessed that Batouch was asking the Kabyle to send for her and make herdance. She could not help being amused for a moment by the comedy ofintrigue, complacently malignant on both sides, that was being played bythe two cousins, but the moment passed and left her engrossed, absorbed, and not merely by the novelty of the surroundings, by the strangeness ofthe women, of their costumes, and of their movements. She watched them, but she watched more closely, more eagerly, rather as a spy than asa spectator, one who was watching them with an intentness, a stillpassion, a fierce curiosity and a sort of almost helpless wonder such asshe had never seen before, and could never have found within herself toput at the service of any human marvel. 

Close to the top of the room on the right the stranger was sitting inthe midst of a mob of Arabs, whose flowing draperies almost concealedhis ugly European clothes. On the wall immediately behind him was abrilliantly-coloured drawing of a fat Ouled Nail leering at a Frenchsoldier, which made an unconventional background to his leaning figureand sunburnt face, in which there seemed now to be both asceticism andsomething so different and so powerful that it was likely, from momentto moment, to drive out the asceticism and to achieve the loneliness ofall conquering things. This fighting expression made Domini think of apicture she had once seen representing a pilgrim going through a darkforest attended by his angel and his devil. The angel of the pilgrimwas a weak and almost childish figure, frail, bloodless, scarcely evenradiant, while the devil was lusty and bold, with a muscular body and asensual, aquiline face, which smiled craftily, looking at the pilgrim. There was surely a devil in the watching traveller which was pushingthe angel out of him. Domini had never before seemed to see clearlythe legendary battle of the human heart. But it had never before beenmanifested to her audaciously in the human face. 

All around the Arabs sat, motionless and at ease, gazing on the curiousdance of which they never tire--a dance which has some ingenuity, much sensuality and provocation, but little beauty and little mystery, unless--as happens now and then--an idol-like woman of the South, withall the enigma of the distant desert in her kohl-tinted eyes, dancesit with the sultry gloom of a half-awakened sphinx, and makes of it abarbarous manifestation of the nature that lies hidden in the heart ofthe sun, a silent cry uttered by a savage body born in a savage land. 

In the cafe of Tahar, the Kabyle, there was at present no such woman. His beauties, huddled together on their narrow bench before a tabledecorated with glasses of water and sprigs of orange blossom in earthenvases, looked dull and cheerless in their gaudy clothes. Their bodieswere well formed, but somnolent. Their painted hands hung down like thehands of marionettes. The one who was dancing suggested Duty clad inEastern garb and laying herself out carefully to be wicked. Herjerks and wrigglings, though violent, were inhuman, like those of acomplicated piece of mechanism devised by a morbid engineer. Aftera glance or two at her Domini felt that she was bored by her ownagilities. Domini's wonder increased when she looked again at thetraveller. 

For it was this dance of the _ennui_ of the East which raised up in himthis obvious battle, which drove his secret into the illumination ofthe hanging lamps and gave it to a woman, who felt half confused, halfashamed at possessing it, and yet could not cast it away. 

If they both lived on, without speaking or meeting, for another halfcentury, Domini could never know the shape of the devil in this man, thelight of the smile upon its face. 

The dancing woman had observed him, and presently she began slowly towriggle towards him between the rows of Arabs, fixing her eyes uponhim and parting her scarlet lips in a greedy smile. As she came on thestranger evidently began to realise that he was her bourne. He had beenleaning forward, but when she approached, waving her red hands, shakingher prominent breasts, and violently jerking her stomach, he satstraight up, and then, as if instinctively trying to get away from her, pressed back against the wall, hiding the painting of the Ouled Nail andthe French soldier. A dark flush rose on his face and even floodedhis forehead to his low-growing hair. His eyes were full of a piteousanxiety and discomfort, and he glanced almost guiltily to right andleft of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to condemnhis presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to it. Thedancer noticed his confusion and seemed pleased by it, and moved to moreenergetic demonstrations of her art. She lifted her arms above herhead, half closed her eyes, assumed an expression of languid ecstasy andslowly shuddered. Then, bending backward, she nearly touched the floor, swung round, still bending, and showed the long curve of her bare throatto the stranger, while the girls, huddled on the bench by the musicians, suddenly roused themselves and joined their voices in a shrill andprolonged twitter. The Arabs did not smile, but the deepness of theirattention seemed to increase like a cloud growing darker. All theluminous eyes in the room were steadily fixed upon the man leaningback against the hideous picture on the wall and the gaudy siren curvedalmost into an arch before him. The musicians blew their hautboys andbeat their tomtoms more violently, and all things, Domini thought, were filled with a sense of climax. She felt as if the room, all theinanimate objects, and all the animate figures in it, were instrumentsof an orchestra, and as if each individual instrument was contributingto a slow and great, and irresistible crescendo. The stranger took hispart with the rest, but against his will, and as if under some terriblecompulsion. 

His face was scarlet now, and his shining eyes looked down on thedancer's throat and breast with a mingling of eagerness and horror. Slowly she raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, andpresented her face to him, while the women twittered once more inchorus. He still stared at her without moving. The hautboy playersprolonged a wailing note, and the tomtoms gave forth a fierce and dullmurmur almost like a death, roll. 

"She wants him to give her money, " Batouch whispered to Domini. "Whydoes not he give her money?"

Evidently the stranger did not understand what was expected of him. Themusic changed again to a shrieking tune, the dancer drew back, did a fewmore steps, jerked her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on the floor. Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, glided closeto the stranger, and falling down deliberately laid her head on hisknees, while again the women twittered, and the long note of thehautboys went through the room like a scream of interrogation. 

Domini grew hot as she saw the look that came into the stranger's facewhen the woman touched his knees. 

"Go and tell him it's money she wants!" she whispered to Batouch. "Goand tell him!"

Batouch got up, but at this moment a roguish Arab boy, who sat by thestranger, laughingly spoke to him, pointing to the woman. The strangerthrust his hand into his pocket, found a coin and, directed by theroguish youth, stuck it upon the dancer's greasy forehead. At onceshe sprang to her feet. The women twittered. The music burst intoa triumphant melody, and through the room there went a stir. Almosteveryone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his hoodand settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to his lips. Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a flower, lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite still. Withthe stranger's action a strain had been removed, a mental tensionabruptly loosened, a sense of care let free in the room. Domini felt itacutely. The last few minutes had been painful to her. She sighedwith relief at the cessation of another's agony. For the stranger hadcertainly--from shyness or whatever cause--been in agony while thedancer kept her head upon his knees. 

His angel had been in fear, perhaps, while his devil----

But Domini tried resolutely to turn her thoughts from the smiling face. 

After pressing the money on the girl's forehead the man made a movementas if he meant to leave the room, but once again the curious indecisionwhich Domini had observed in him before cut his action, as it were, intwo, leaving it half finished. As the dancer, turning, wriggledslowly to the platform, he buttoned up his jacket with a sort of hastyresolution, pulled it down with a jerk, glanced swiftly round, and roseto his feet. Domini kept her eyes on him, and perhaps they drew his, for, just as he was about to step into the narrow aisle that led to thedoor he saw her. Instantly he sat down again, turned so that she couldonly see part of his face, unbuttoned his jacket, took out some matchesand busied himself in lighting a cigarette. She knew he had felt herconcentration on him, and was angry with herself. Had she really a spyin her? Was she capable of being vulgarly curious about a man? A suddenmovement of Hadj drew her attention. His face was distorted by anexpression that seemed half angry, half fearful. Batouch was smilingseraphically as he gazed towards the platform. Suzanne, with apinched-up mouth, was looking virginally at her lap. Her whole attitudeshowed her consciousness of the many blazing eyes that were intentlystaring at her. The stomach dance which she had just been watching hadamazed her so much that she felt as if she were the only respectablewoman in the world, and as if no one would suppose it unless she hungout banners white as the walls of Beni-Mora's houses. She strove to doso, and, meanwhile, from time to time, cast sideway glances towards theplatform to see whether another stomach dance was preparing. She didnot see Hadj's excitement or the poet's malignant satisfaction, but she, with Domini, saw a small door behind the platform open, and the stoutKabyle appear followed by a girl who was robed in gold tissue, anddecorated with cascades of golden coins. 

Domini guessed at once that this was Irena, the returned exile, whowished to kill Hadj, and she was glad that a new incident had occurredto switch off the general attention from the stranger. 

Irena was evidently a favourite. There was a grave movement as she camein, a white undulation as all the shrouded forms bent slightly forwardin her direction. Only Hadj caught his burnous round him with his thinfingers, dropped his chin, shook his hood down upon his forehead, leanedback against the wall, and, curling his legs under him, seemed to fallasleep. But beneath his brown lids and long black lashes his furtiveeyes followed every movement of the girl in the sparkling robe. 

She came in slowly and languidly, with a heavy and cross expression uponher face, which was thin to emaciation and painted white, with scarletlips and darkened eyes and eyebrows. Her features were narrow andpointed. Her bones were tiny, and her body was so slender, her waistso small, that, with her flat breast and meagre shoulders, she lookedalmost like a stick crowned with a human face and hung with brilliantdraperies. Her hair, which was thick and dark brown, was elaboratelybraided and covered with a yellow silk handkerchief. Domini thought shelooked consumptive, and was bitterly disappointed in her appearance. Forsome unknown reason she had expected the woman who wished to killHadj, and who obviously inspired him with fear, to be a magnificent andglowing desert beauty. This woman might be violent. She looked weary, anaemic, and as if she wished to go to bed, and Domini's contempt forHadj increased as she looked at her. To be afraid of a thin, tired, sleepy creature such as that was too pitiful. But Hadj did not seemto think so. He had pulled his hood still further forward, and was nowmerely a bundle concealed in the shade of Suzanne. 

Irena stepped on to the platform, pushed the girl who sat at the end ofthe bench till she moved up higher, sat down in the vacant place, dranksome water out of the glass nearest to her, and then remained quitestill staring at the floor, utterly indifferent to the Arabs who weredevouring her with their eyes. No doubt the eyes of men had devoured herever since she could remember. It was obvious that they meant nothingto her, that they did not even for an instant disturb the current of herdreary thoughts. 

Another girl was dancing, a stout, Oriental Jewess with a thick hookednose, large lips and bulging eyes, that looked as if they had been newlyscoured with emery powder. While she danced she sang, or rather shoutedroughly, an extraordinary melody that suggested battle, murder andsudden death. Careless of onlookers, she sometimes scratched her heador rubbed her nose without ceasing her contortions. Domini guessed thatthis was the girl whom she had seen from the tower dancing upon the roofin the sunset. Distance and light had indeed transformed her. Under thelamps she was the embodiment of all that was coarse and greasy. Even thepitiful slenderness of Irena seemed attractive when compared with herbillowing charms, which she kept in a continual commotion that wasalmost terrifying. 

"Hadj is nearly dead with fear, " whispered Batouch, complacently. Domini's lips curled. 

"Does not Madame think Irena beautiful as the moon on the waters of theOued Beni-Mora?"

"Indeed I don't, " she replied bluntly. "And I think a man who can beafraid of such a little thing must be afraid of the children in thestreet. "

"Little! But Irena is tall as a female palm in Ourlana. "

"Tall!"

Domini looked at her again more carefully, and saw that Batouch spokethe truth. Irena was unusually tall, but her excessive narrowness, hertiny bones, and the delicate way in which she held herself deceived theeye and gave her a little appearance. 

"So she is; but who could be afraid of her? Why, I could pick her up andthrow her over that moon of yours. "

"Madame is strong. Madame is like the lioness. But Irena is the mostterrible girl in all Beni-Mora if she loves or if she is angry, the mostterrible in all the Sahara. "

Domini laughed. 

"Madame does not know her, " said Batouch, imperturbably. "But Madamecan ask the Arabs. Many of the dancers of Beni-Mora are murdered, eachseason two or three. But no man would try to murder Irena. No man woulddare. "

The poet's calm and unimpassioned way of alluding to the most horriblecrimes as if they were perfectly natural, and in no way to be condemnedor wondered at, amazed Domini even more than his statement about Irena. 

"Why do they murder the dancers?" she asked quickly. 

"For their jewels. At night, in those little rooms with the balconieswhich Madame has seen, it is easy. You enter in to sleep there. Youclose your eyes, you breathe gently and a little loud. The woman hears. She is not afraid. She sleeps. She dreams. Her throat is like that"--hethrew back his head, exposing his great neck. "Just before dawn you drawyour knife from your burnous. You bend down. You cut the throat withoutnoise. You take the jewels, the money from the box by the bed. Yougo down quietly with bare feet. No one is on the stair. You unbar thedoor--and there before you is the great hiding-place. "

"The great hiding-place!"

"The desert, Madame. " He sipped his coffee. Domini looked at him, fascinated. 

Suzanne shivered. She had been listening. The loud contralto cry ofthe Jewess rose up, with its suggestion of violence and of roughindifference. And Domini repeated softly:

"The great hiding-place. "

With every moment in Beni-Mora the desert seemed to become more--morefull of meaning, of variety, of mystery, of terror. Was it everything?The garden of God, the great hiding-place of murderers! She had calledit, on the tower, the home of peace. In the gorge of El-Akbara, ere heprayed, Batouch had spoken of it as a vast realm of forgetfulness, wherethe load of memory slips from the weary shoulders and vanishes into thesoft gulf of the sands. 

But was it everything then? And if it was so much to her already, in anight and a day, what would it be when she knew it, what would it be toher after many nights and many days? She began to feel a sort of terrormingled with the most extraordinary attraction she had ever known. 

Hadj crouched right back against the wall. The voice of the Jewessceased in a shout. The hautboys stopped playing. Only the tomtomsroared. 

"Hadj can be happy now, " observed Batouch in a voice of almostsatisfaction, "for Irena is going to dance. Look! There is the littleMiloud bringing her the daggers. "

An Arab boy, with a beautiful face and a very dark skin, slipped on tothe platform with two long, pointed knives in his hand. He laid them onthe table before Irena, between the bouquets of orange blossom, jumpedlightly down and disappeared. 

Directly the knives touched the table the hautboy players blew aterrific blast, and then, swelling the note, till it seemed as ifthey must burst both themselves and their instruments, swung into atremendous and magnificent tune, a tune tingling with barbarity, yetsuch as a European could have sung or written down. In an instant itgripped Domini and excited her till she could hardly breathe. It pouredfire into her veins and set fire about her heart. It was triumphant as agreat song after war in a wild land, cruel, vengeful, but so strong andso passionately joyous that it made the eyes shine and the blood leap, and the spirit rise up and clamour within the body, clamour for utterliberty, for action, for wide fields in which to roam, for long days andnights of glory and of love, for intense hours of emotion and of lifelived with exultant desperation. It was a melody that seemed to set thesoul of Creation dancing before an ark. The tomtoms accompanied itwith an irregular but rhythmical roar which Domini thought was like thedeep-voiced shouting of squadrons of fighting men. 

Irena looked wearily at the knives. Her expression had not changed, andDomini was amazed at her indifference. The eyes of everyone in theroom were fixed upon her. Even Suzanne began to be less virginal inappearance under the influence of this desert song of triumph. Dominidid not let her eyes stray any more towards the stranger. For the momentindeed she had forgotten him. Her attention was fastened upon the thin, consumptive-looking creature who was staring at the two knives laid uponthe table. When the great tune had been played right through once, and apassionate roll of tomtoms announced its repetition, Irena suddenly shotout her tiny arms, brought her hands down on the knives, seized them andsprang to her feet. She had passed from lassitude to vivid energy withan abruptness that was almost demoniacal, and to an energy with whichboth mind and body seemed to blaze. Then, as the hautboys screamed outthe tune once more, she held the knives above her head and danced. 

Irena was not an Ouled Nail. She was a Kabyle woman born in themountains of Djurdjura, not far from the village of Tamouda. As a childshe had lived in one of those chimneyless and windowless mud cottageswith red tiled roofs which are so characteristic a feature of La GrandeKabylie. She had climbed barefoot the savage hills, or descended intothe gorges yellow with the broom plant and dipped her brown toes in thewaters of the Sebaou. How had she drifted so far from the sharp spursof her native hills and from the ruddy-haired, blue-eyed people of hertribe? Possibly she had sinned, as the Kabyle women often sin, andfled from the wrath that she would understand, and that all her fiercebravery could not hope to conquer. Or perhaps with her Kabyle blood, itself a brew composed of various strains, Greek, Roman, as well asBerber, were mingling some drops drawn from desert sources, which hadmanifested themselves physically in her dark hair, mentally in a nomadicinstinct which had forbidden her to rest among the beauties of AitOuaguennoun, whose legendary charm she did not possess. There was thelook of an exile in her face, a weariness that dreamed, perhaps, ofdistant things. But now that she danced that fled, and the gleam offlame-lit steel was in her eyes. 

Tangled and vital impressions came to Domini as she watched. Now she sawJael and the tent, and the nails driven into the temples of the sleepingwarrior. Now she saw Medea in the moment before she tore to pieces herbrother and threw the bloody fragments in Aetes's path; Clytemnestra'sface while Agamemnon was passing to the bath, Delilah's when Samson laysleeping on her knee. But all these imagined faces of named women fledlike sand grains on a desert wind as the dance went on and therecurrent melody came back and back and back with a savage and gloriouspersistence. They were too small, too individual, and pinned theimagination down too closely. This dagger dance let in upon her a largeratmosphere, in which one human being was as nothing, even a goddess ora siren prodigal of enchantments was a little thing not without a narrowmeanness of physiognomy. 

She looked and listened till she saw a grander procession troop by, garlanded with mystery and triumph: War as a shape with woman's eyes:Night, without poppies, leading the stars and moon and all the vigorousdreams that must come true: Love of woman that cannot be set aside, butwill govern the world from Eden to the abyss into which the nations fallto the outstretched hands of God: Death as Life's leader, with a stafffrom which sprang blossoms red as the western sky: Savage Fecundity thatcrushes all barren things into the silent dust: and then the Desert. 

That came in a pale cloud of sand, with a pale crowd of worshippers, those who had received gifts from the Desert's hands and sought formore: white-robed Marabouts who had found Allah in his garden and becomea guide to the faithful through all the circling years: murderers whohad gained sanctuary with barbaric jewels in their blood-stained hands:once tortured men and women who had cast away terrible recollections inthe wastes among the dunes and in the treeless purple distances, and whohad been granted the sweet oases of forgetfulness to dwell in: ardentbeings who had striven vainly to rest content with the world of hillsand valleys, of sea-swept verges and murmuring rivers, and who had beendriven, by the labouring soul, on and on towards the flat plains whereroll for ever the golden wheels of the chariot of the sun. She saw, too, the winds that are the Desert's best-loved children: Health withshining eyes and a skin of bronze: Passion, half faun, half black-browedHercules: and Liberty with upraised arms, beating cymbals like monstrousspheres of fire. 

And she saw palm trees waving, immense palm trees in the south. Itseemed to her that she travelled as far away from Beni-Mora as she hadtravelled from England in coming to Beni-Mora. She made her way towardsthe sun, joining the pale crowd of the Desert's worshippers. And always, as she travelled, she heard the clashing of the cymbals of Liberty. Aconviction was born in her that Fate meant her to know the Desert well, strangely well; that the Desert was waiting calmly for her to come toit and receive that which it had to give to her; that in the Desertshe would learn more of the meaning of life than she could ever learnelsewhere. It seemed to her suddenly that she understood more clearlythan hitherto in what lay the intense, the over-mastering and hypnoticattraction exercised already by the Desert over her nature. In theDesert there must be, there was--she felt it--not only light to warmthe body, but light to illuminate the dark places of the soul. Analmost fatalistic idea possessed her. She saw a figure--one of theMessengers--standing with her beside the corpse of her father andwhispering in her ear "Beni-Mora"; taking her to the map and pointing tothe word there, filling her brain and heart with suggestions, till--asshe had thought almost without reason, and at haphazard--she choseBeni-Mora as the place to which she would go in search of recovery, ofself-knowledge. It had been pre-ordained. The Messenger had been sent. The Messenger had guided her. And he would come again, when the time wasripe, and lead her on into the Desert. She felt it. She knew it. 

She looked round at the Arabs. She was as much a fatalist as any one ofthem. She looked at the stranger. What was he?

Abruptly in her imagination a vision rose. She gazed once more intothe crowd that thronged about the Desert having received gifts at theDesert's hands, and in it she saw the stranger. 

He was kneeling, his hands were stretched out, his head was bowed, andhe was praying. And, while he prayed, Liberty stood by him smiling, andher fiery cymbals were like the aureoles that illumine the beautifulfaces of the saints. 

For some reason that she could not understand her heart began to beatfast, and she felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. 

She thought that this extraordinary music, that this amazing dance, excited her too much. 

The white bundle at Suzanne's side stirred. Irena, holding the daggersabove her head, had sprung from the little platform and was dancing onthe earthen floor in the midst of the Arabs. 

Her thin body shook convulsively in time to the music. She marked theaccents with her shudders. Excitement had grown in her till she seemedto be in a feverish passion that was half exultant, half despairing. Inher expression, in her movements, in the way she held herself, leaningbackwards with her face looking up, her breast and neck exposed asif she offered her life, her love and all the mysteries in her, to animagined being who dominated her savage and ecstatic soul, there was avivid suggestion of the two elements in Passion--rapture and melancholy. In her dance she incarnated passion whole by conveying the two halvesthat compose it. Her eyes were nearly closed, as a woman closes themwhen she has seen the lips of her lover descending upon hers. And hermouth seemed to be receiving the fiery touch of another mouth. In thismoment she was a beautiful woman because she looked like womanhood. And Domini understood why the Arabs thought her more beautiful thanthe other dancers. She had what they had not--genius. And genius, underwhatever form, shows to the world at moments the face of Aphrodite. 

She came slowly nearer, and those by the platform turned round to followher with their eyes. Hadj's hood had slipped completely down over hisface, and his chin was sunk on his chest. Batouch noticed it and lookedangry, but Domini had forgotten both the comedy of the two cousinsand the tragedy of Irena's love for Hadj. She was completely under thefascination of this dance and of the music that accompanied it. Now thatIrena was near she was able to see that, without her genius, there wouldhave been no beauty in her face. It was painfully thin, painfully longand haggard. Her life had written a fatal inscription across it astheir life writes upon the faces of poor street-bred children the oneword--Want. As they have too little this dancing woman had had too much. The sparkle of her robe of gold tissue covered with golden coins wasstrong in the lamplight. Domini looked at it and at the two sharpknives above her head, looked at her violent, shuddering movements, andshuddered too, thinking of Batouch's story of murdered dancers. It wasdangerous to have too much in Beni-Mora. 

Irena was quite close now. She seemed so wrapped in the ecstasy of thedance that it did not occur to Domini at first that she was imitatingthe Ouled Nail who had laid her greasy head upon the stranger's knees. The abandonment of her performance was so great that it was difficult toremember its money value to her and to Tahar, the fair Kabyle. Only whenshe was actually opposite to them and stayed there, still performing hershuddering dance, still holding the daggers above her head, did Dominirealise that those half-closed, passionate eyes had marked the strangerwoman, and that she must add one to the stream of golden coins. Shetook out her purse but did not give the money at once. With the pitilessscrutiny of her sex she noticed all the dancer's disabilities. Shewas certainly young, but she was very worn. Her mouth drooped. At thecorners of her eyes there were tiny lines tending downward. Her foreheadhad what Domini secretly called a martyred look. Nevertheless, she wassavage and triumphant. Her thin body suggested force; the way she heldherself consuming passion. Even so near at hand, even while she waspausing for money, and while her eyes were, doubtless, furtively readingDomini, she shed round her a powerful atmosphere, which stirred theblood, and made the heart leap, and created longing for unknown andviolent things. As Domini watched her she felt that Irena must havelived at moments magnificently, that despite her almost shatteredcondition and permanent weariness--only cast aside for the moment of thedance--she must have known intense joys, that so long as she lived shewould possess the capacity for knowing them again. There was somethingburning within her that would burn on so long as she was alive, a sparkof nature that was eternally red hot. It was that spark which made herthe idol of the Arabs and shed a light of beauty through her haggardframe. 

The spirit blazed. 

Domini put her hand at last into her purse and took out a piece of gold. She was just going to give it to Irena when the white bundle that wasHadj made a sudden, though slight, movement, as if the thing inside ithad shivered. Irena noticed it with her half-closed eyes. Domini leanedforward and held out the money, then drew back startled. Irena hadchanged her posture abruptly. Instead of keeping her head thrown backand exposing her long throat, she lifted it, shot it forward. Her meagrebosom almost disappeared as she bent over. Her arms fell to her sides. Her eyes opened wide and became full of a sharp, peering intensity. Her vision and dreams dropped out of her. Now she was only fierce andquestioning, and horribly alert. She was looking at the white bundle. Itshifted again. She sprang upon it, showing her teeth, caught hold of it. With a swift turn of her thin hands she tore back the hood, and out ofthe bundle came Hadj's head and face livid with fear. One of the daggersflashed and came up at him. He leaped from the seat and screamed. Suzanne echoed his cry. Then the whole room was a turmoil of whitegarments and moving limbs. In an instant everybody seemed to be leaping, calling out, grasping, struggling. Domini tried to get up, but she washemmed in, and could not make a movement upward or free her arms, whichwere pressed against her sides by the crowd around her. For a momentshe thought she was going to be severely hurt or suffocated. She did notfeel afraid, but only indignant, like a boy who has been struck inthe face and longs to retaliate. Someone screamed again. It was Hadj. Suzanne was on her feet, but separated from her mistress. Batouch'sarm was round her. Domini put her hands on the bench and tried to forceherself up, violently setting her broad shoulders against the Arabswho were towering over her and covering her head and face with theirfloating garments as they strove to see the fight between Hadj and thedancer. The heat almost stifled her, and she was suddenly aware of astrong musky smell of perspiring humanity. She was beginning to pantfor breath when she felt two burning, hot, hard hands come down on hers, fingers like iron catch hold of hers, go under them, drag up her hands. She could not see who had seized her, but the life in the hands thatwere on hers mingled with the life in her hands like one fluid withanother, and seemed to pass on till she felt it in her body, and had anodd sensation as if her face had been caught in a fierce grip, and herheart too. 

Another moment and she was on her feet and out in the moonlit alleybetween the little white houses. She saw the stars, and the paintedbalconies crowded with painted women looking down towards the cafeshe had left and chattering in shrill voices. She saw the patrol ofTirailleurs Indigenes marching at the double to the doorway in which theArabs were still struggling. Then she saw that the traveller was besideher. She was not surprised. 

"Thank you for getting me out, " she said rather bluntly. "Where's mymaid?"

"She got away before us with your guide, Madame. "

He held up his hands and looked at them hard, eagerly, questioningly. 

"You weren't hurt?"

He dropped his hands quickly. "Oh, no, it wasn't----"

He broke off the sentence and was silent. Domini stood still, drew along breath and laughed. She still felt angry and laughed to controlherself. Unless she could be amused at this episode she knew that shewas capable of going back to the door of the cafe and hitting out rightand left at the men who had nearly suffocated her. Any violence done toher body, even an unintentional push against her in the street--if therewas real force in it--seemed to let loose a devil in her, such a devilas ought surely only to dwell inside a man. 

"What people!" she said. "What wild creatures!"

She laughed again. The patrol pushed its way roughly in at the doorway. 

"The Arabs are always like that, Madame. "

She looked at him, then she said, abruptly:

"Do you speak English?"

Her companion hesitated. It was perfectly obvious to her that he wasconsidering whether he should answer "Yes" or "No. " Such hesitationabout such a matter was very strange. At last he said, but still inFrench:

"Yes. "

And directly he had said it she saw by his face that he wished he hadsaid "No. "

From the cafe the Arabs began to pour into the street. The patrol wasclearing the place. The women leaning over the balconies cried outshrilly to learn the exact history of the tumult, and the men standingunderneath, and lifting up their bronzed faces in the moonlight, repliedin violent voices, gesticulating vehemently while their hanging sleevesfell back from their hairy arms. 

"I am an Englishwoman, " Domini said. 

But she too felt obliged to speak still in French, as if a suddenreserve told her to do so. He said nothing. They were standing in quitea crowd now. It swayed, parted suddenly, and the soldiers appearedholding Irena. Hadj followed behind, shouting as if in a frenzy ofpassion. There was some blood on one of his hands and a streak of bloodon the front of the loose shirt he wore under his burnous. He kepton shooting out his arms towards Irena as he walked, and franticallyappealing to the Arabs round him. When he saw the women on theirbalconies he stopped for a moment and called out to them like a manbeside himself. A Tirailleur pushed him on. The women, who had beenquiet to hear him, burst forth again into a paroxysm of chatter. Irenalooked utterly indifferent and walked feebly. The little processiondisappeared in the moonlight accompanied by the crowd. 

"She has stabbed Hadj, " Domini said. "Batouch will be glad. "

She did not feel as if she were sorry. Indeed, she thought she was gladtoo. That the dancer should try to do a thing and fail would have seemedcontradictory. And the streak of blood she had just seen seemed torelieve her suddenly and to take from her all anger. Her self-controlreturned. 

"Thank you once more, " she said to her companion. "Goodnight. "

She remembered the episode of the tower that afternoon, and resolved totake a definite line this time, and not to run the chance of a seconddesertion. She started off down the street, but found him walking besideher in silence. She stopped. 

"I am very much obliged to you for getting me out, " she said, lookingstraight at him. "And now, good-night. "

Almost for the first time he endured her gaze without any uncertainty, and she saw that though he might be hesitating, uneasy, evencontemptible--as when he hurried down the road in the wake of the negroprocession--he could also be a dogged man. 

"I'll go with you, Madame, " he said. 

"Why?"

"It's night. "

"I'm not afraid. "

"I'll go with you, Madame. "

He said it again harshly and kept his eyes on her, frowning. 

"And if I refuse?" she said, wondering whether she was going to refuseor not. 

"I'll follow you, Madame. "

She knew by the look on his face that he, too, was thinking of what hadhappened in the afternoon. Why should she wish to deprive him of thereparation he was anxious to make--obviously anxious in an almostpiteously determined way? It was poor pride in her, a mean littlefeeling. 

"Come with me, " she said. 

They went on together. 

The Arabs, stirred up by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething withexcitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little crowd, were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the statueof the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them and hesitated. 

"I think, Madame, it would be better to take a side street, " he said. 

"Very well. Let us go to the left here. It is bound to bring us to thehotel as it runs parallel to the house of the sand diviner. "

He started. 

"The sand-diviner?" he said in his low, strong voice. 

"Yes. "

She walked on into a tiny alley. He followed her. 

"You haven't seen the thin man with the bag of sand?"

"No, Madame. "

"He reads your past in sand from the desert and tells what your futurewill be. "

The man made no reply. 

"Will you pay him a visit?" Domini asked curiously. 

"No, Madame. I do not care for such things. "

Suddenly she stood still. 

"Oh, look!" she said. "How strange! And there are others all down thestreet. "

In the tiny alley the balconies of the houses nearly met. No figuresleaned on their railings. No chattering voices broke the furtive silencethat prevailed in this quarter of Beni-Mora. The moonlight was fainterhere, obscured by the close-set buildings, and at the moment there wasnot an Arab in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was profound, and as the rare windows of the houses, minute and protected by heavygratings, were dark, it had seemed to Domini at first as if all theinhabitants were in bed and asleep. But, in passing on, she had seen afaint and blanched illumination; then another; the vague vision of anaperture; a seated figure making a darkness against whiteness; a secondaperture and seated figure. She stopped and stood still. The man stoodstill beside her. 

The alley was an alley of women. In every house on either side of theway a similar picture of attentive patience was revealed: a narrowMoorish archway with a wooden door set back against the wall to show asteep and diminutive staircase winding up into mystery; upon the higheststair a common candlestick with a lit candle guttering in it, and, immediately below, a girl, thickly painted, covered with barbarousjewels and magnificently dressed, her hands, tinted with henna, foldedin her lap, her eyes watching under eyebrows heavily darkened, andprolonged until they met just above the bridge of the nose, to which anumber of black dots descended; her naked, brown ankles decorated withlarge circlets of gold or silver. The candle shed upon each watcher afaint light that half revealed her and left her half concealed upon herwhite staircase bounded by white walls. And in her absolute silence, absolute stillness, each one was wholly mysterious as she gazedceaselessly out towards the empty, narrow street. 

The woman before whose dwelling Domini had stopped was an Ouled Nail, with a square headdress of coloured handkerchiefs and feathers, a pinkand silver shawl, a blue skirt of some thin material powdered withsilver flowers, and a broad silver belt set with squares of red coral. She was sitting upright, and would have looked exactly like an idol setup for savage worship had not her long eyes gleamed and moved as shesolemnly returned the gaze of Domini and of the man who stood a littlebehind looking over her shoulder. 

When Domini stopped and exclaimed she did not realise to what thisstreet was dedicated, why these women sat in watchful silence, each onealone on her stair waiting in the night. But as she looked and saw thegaudy finery she began to understand. And had she remained in doubt anincident now occurred which must have enlightened her. 

A great gaunt Arab, one of the true desert men, almost black, with highcheek bones, hollow cheeks, fierce falcon's eyes shining as if withfever, long and lean limbs hard as iron, dressed in a rough, sacklikebrown garment, and wearing a turban bound with cords of camel's hair, strode softly down the alley, slipped in front of Domini, and went upto the woman, holding out something in his scaly hand. There was a briefcolloquy. The woman stretched her arm up the staircase, took the candle, held it to the man's open hand, and bent over counting the money thatlay in the palm. She counted it twice deliberately. Then she nodded. Shegot up, turned, holding the candle above her square headdress, and wentslowly up the staircase followed by the Arab, who grasped his coarsedraperies and lifted them, showing his bare legs. The two disappearedwithout noise into the darkness, leaving the stairway deserted, itswhite steps, its white walls faintly lit by the moon. 

The woman had not once looked at the man, but only at the money in hisscaly hand. 

Domini felt hot and rather sick. She wondered why she had stood therewatching. Yet she had not been able to turn away. Now, as she steppedback into the middle of the alley and walked on with the man beside hershe wondered what he was thinking of her. She could not talk to him anymore. She was too conscious of the lighted stairways, one after one, succeeding each other to right and left of them, of the still figures, of the watching eyes in which the yellow rays of the candles gleamed. Her companion did not speak; but as they walked he glanced furtivelyfrom one side to the other, then stared down steadily on the white road. When they turned to the right and came out by the gardens, and Dominisaw the great tufted heads of the palms black against the moon, she feltrelieved and was able to speak again. 

"I should like you to know that I am quite a stranger to all Africanthings and people, " she said. "That is why I am liable to fall intomistakes in such a place as this. Ah, there is the hotel, and my maid onthe verandah. I want to thank you again for looking after me. "

They were at a few steps from the hotel door in the road. The manstopped, and Domini stopped too. 

"Madame, " he said earnestly, with a sort of hardly controlledexcitement, "I--I am glad. I was ashamed--I was ashamed. "

"Why?"

"Of my conduct--of my awkwardness. But you will forgive it. I am notaccustomed to the society of ladies--like you. Anything I have done Ihave not done out of rudeness. That is all I can say. I have not done itout of rudeness. "

He seemed to be almost trembling with agitation. 

"I know, I know, " she said. "Besides, it was nothing. "

"Oh, no, it was abominable. I understand that. I am not so coarse-fibredas not to understand that. "

Domini suddenly felt that to take his view of the matter, exaggeratedthough it was, would be the kindest course, even the most delicate. 

"You were rude to me, " she said, "but I shall forget it from thismoment. "

She held out her hand. He grasped it, and again she felt as if a furnacewere pouring its fiery heat upon her. 

"Good-night. "

"Good-night, Madame. Thank you. "

She was going away to the hotel door, but she stopped. 

"My name is Domini Enfilden, " she said in English. 

The man stood in the road looking at her. She waited. She expected himto tell her his name. There was a silence. At last he said hesitatingly, in English with a very slight foreign accent:

"My name is Boris--Boris Androvsky. "

"Batouch told me you were English, " she said. 

"My mother was English, but my father was a Russian from Tiflis. That ismy name. "

There was a sound in his voice as if he were insisting like a man makingan assertion not readily to be believed. 

"Good-night, " Domini said again. 

And she went away slowly, leaving him standing on the moonlit road. 

He did not remain there long, nor did he follow her into the hotel. After she had disappeared he stood for a little while gazing up at thedeserted verandah upon which the moon-rays fell. Then he turned andlooked towards the village, hesitated, and finally walked slowly backtowards the tiny, shrouded alley in which on the narrow staircases thepainted girls sat watching in the night. 

CHAPTER IX

On the following morning Batouch arrived with a handsome grey Arabhorse for Domini to try. He had been very penitent the night before, andDomini had forgiven easily enough his pre-occupation with Suzanne, whohad evidently made a strong impression upon his susceptible nature. Hadjhad been but slightly injured by Irena, but did not appear at the hotelfor a very sufficient reason. Both the dancer and he were locked up forthe moment, till the Guardians of Justice in Beni-Mora had made up theirminds who should be held responsible for the uproar of the previousnight. That the real culprit was the smiling poet was not likely tooccur to them, and did not seem to trouble him. When Domini inquiredafter Hadj he showed majestic indifference, and when she hinted at hiscrafty share in the causing of the tragedy he calmly replied, "Hadj-ben-Ibrahim will know from henceforth whether the Mehari with theswollen tongue can bite. "

Then, leaping upon the horse, whose bridle he was holding, he forced itto rear, caracole and display its spirit and its paces before Domini, sitting it superbly, and shooting many sly glances at Suzanne, wholeaned over the parapet of the verandah watching, with a rapt expressionon her face. 

Domini admired the horse, but wished to mount it herself before comingto any conclusion about it. She had brought her own saddle with her andordered Batouch to put it on the animal. Meanwhile she went upstairs tochange into her habit. When she came out again on to the verandah BorisAndrovsky was there, standing bare-headed in the sun and looking downat Batouch and the horse. He turned quickly, greeted Domini with a deepbow, then examined her costume with wondering, startled eyes. 

"I'm going to try that horse, " she said with deliberate friendliness. "To see if I'll buy him. Are you a judge of a horse?"

"I fear not, Madame. "

She had spoken in English and he replied in the same language. She wasstanding at the head of the stairs holding her whip lightly in her righthand. Her splendid figure was defined by the perfectly-fitting, plainhabit, and she saw him look at it with a strange expression in his eyes, an admiration that was almost ferocious, and that was yet respectful andeven pure. It was like the glance of a passionate schoolboy verging onyoung manhood, whose natural instincts were astir but whose temperamentwas unwarped by vice; a glance that was a burning tribute, and that tolda whole story of sex and surely of hot, inquiring ignorance--strangeglances of a man no longer even very young. It made something in herleap and quiver. She was startled and almost angered by that, but not bythe eyes that caused it. 

"_Au revoir_, " she said, turning to go down. 

"May I--might I see you get up?" said Androvsky. 

"Get up!" she said. 

"Up on the horse?"

She could not help smiling at his fashion of expressing the act ofmounting. He was not a sportsman evidently, despite his muscularstrength. 

"Certainly, if you like. Come along. "

Without thinking of it she spoke rather as to a schoolboy, notwith superiority, but with the sort of bluffness age sometimes usesgood-naturedly to youth. He did not seem to resent it and followed herdown to the arcade. 

The side saddle was on and the poet held the grey by the bridle. SomeArab boys had assembled under the arcade to see what was going forward. The Arab waiter lounged at the door with the tassel of his fez swingingagainst his pale cheek. The horse fidgetted and tugged against the rein, lifting his delicate feet uneasily from the ground, flicking his narrowquarters with his long tail, and glancing sideways with his dark andbrilliant eyes, which were alive with a nervous intelligence that wasalmost hectic. Domini went up to him and caressed him with her hand. Hereared up and snorted. His whole body seemed a-quiver with the desire togallop furiously away alone into some far distant place. 

Androvsky stood near the waiter, looking at Domini and at the horse withwonder and alarm in his eyes. 

The animal, irritated by inaction, began to plunge violently and to getout of hand. 

"Give me the reins, " Domini said to the poet. "That's it. Now put yourhand for me. "

Batouch obeyed. Her foot just touched his hand and she was in thesaddle. 

Androvsky sprang forward on to the pavement. His eyes were blazing withanxiety. She saw it and laughed gaily. 

"Oh, he's not vicious, " she said. "And vice is the only thing that'sdangerous. His mouth is perfect, but he's nervous and wants handling. I'll just take him up the gardens and back. "

She had been reining him in. Now she let him go, and galloped up thestraight track between the palms towards the station. The priest hadcome out into his little garden with Bous-Bous, and leaned over hisbrushwood fence to look after her. Bous-Bous barked in a light soprano. The Arab boys jumped on their bare toes, and one of them, who was abootblack, waved his board over his shaven head. The Arab waiter smiledas if with satisfaction at beholding perfect competence. But Androvskystood quite still looking down the dusty road at the diminishing formsof horse and rider, and when they disappeared, leaving behind them alight cloud of sand films whirling in the sun, he sighed heavily anddropped his chin on his chest as if fatigued. 

"I can get a horse for Monsieur too. Would Monsieur like to have ahorse?"

It was the poet's amply seductive voice. Androvsky started. 

"I don't ride, " he said curtly. 

"I will teach Monsieur. I am the best teacher in Beni-Mora. In threelessons Monsieur will--"

"I don't ride, I tell you. "

Androvsky was looking angry. He stepped out into the road. Bous-Bous, who was now observing Nature at the priest's garden gate, emerged withsome sprightliness and trotted towards him, evidently with the intentionof making his acquaintance. Coming up to him the little dog raised hishead and uttered a short bark, at the same time wagging his tail in akindly, though not effusive manner. Androvsky looked down, bent quicklyand patted him, as only a man really fond of animals and accustomedto them knows how to pat. Bous-Bous was openly gratified. He began towriggle affectionately. The priest in his garden smiled. Androvsky hadnot seen him and went on playing with the dog, who now made preparationsto lie down on his curly back in the road in the hope of being tickled, a process he was an amateur of. Still smiling, and with a friendlylook on his face, the priest came out of his garden and approached theplaymates. 

"Good morning, M'sieur, " he said politely, raising his hat. "I see youlike dogs. "

Androvsky lifted himself up, leaving Bous-Bous in a prayerful attitude, his paws raised devoutly towards the heavens. When he saw that it wasthe priest who had addressed him his face changed, hardened to grimness, and his lips trembled slightly. 

"That's my little dog, " the priest continued in a gentle voice. "He hasevidently taken a great fancy to you. "

Batouch was watching Androvsky under the arcade, and noted the suddenchange in his expression and his whole bearing. 

"I--I did not know he was your dog, Monsieur, or I should not haveinterfered with him, " said Androvsky. 

Bous-Bous jumped up against his leg. He pushed the little dog ratherroughly away and stepped back to the arcade. The priest looked puzzledand slightly hurt. At this moment the soft thud of horse's hoofs wasaudible on the road and Domini came cantering back to the hotel. Hereyes were sparkling, her face was radiant. She bowed to the priest andreined up before the hotel door, where Androvsky was standing. 

"I'll buy him, " she said to Batouch, who swelled with satisfaction atthe thought of his commission. "And I'll go for a long ride now--outinto the desert. "

"You will not go alone, Madame?"

It was the priest's voice. She smiled down at him gaily. 

"Should I be carried off by nomads, Monsieur?"

"It would not be safe for a lady, believe me. "

Batouch swept forward to reassure the priest. "I am Madame's guide. I have a horse ready saddled to accompany Madame. I have sent for italready, M'sieur. "

One of the little Arab boys was indeed visible running with all hismight towards the Rue Berthe. Domini's face suddenly clouded. Thepresence of the guide would take all the edge off her pleasure, and inthe short gallop she had just had she had savoured its keenness. She wasalive with desire to be happy. 

"I don't need you, Batouch, " she said. 

But the poet was inexorable, backed up by the priest. 

"It is my duty to accompany Madame. I am responsible for her safety. "

"Indeed, you cannot go into the desert alone, " said the priest. 

Domini glanced at Androvsky, who was standing silently under the arcade, a little withdrawn, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious. Sheremembered her thought on the tower of the dice-thrower, and of how thepresence of the stranger had seemed to double her pleasure then. Upthe road from the Rue Berthe came the noise of a galloping horse. Theshoeblack was returning furiously, his bare legs sticking out on eitherside of a fiery light chestnut with a streaming mane and tail. 

"Monsieur Androvsky, " she said. 

He started. 

"Madame?"

"Will you come with me for a ride into the desert?"

His face was flooded with scarlet, and he came a step forward, lookingup at her. 

"I!" he said with an accent of infinite surprise. 

"Yes. Will you?"

The chestnut thundered up and was pulled sharply back on its haunches. Androvsky shot a sideways glance at it and hesitated. Domini thoughthe was going to refuse and wished she had not asked him, wished itpassionately. 

"Never mind, " she said, almost brutally in her vexation at what she haddone. 

"Batouch!"

The poet was about to spring upon the horse when Androvsky caught him bythe arm. 

"I will go, " he said. 

Batouch looked vicious. "But Monsieur told me he did not----"

He stopped. The hand on his arm had given him a wrench that made himfeel as if his flesh were caught between steel pincers. Androvsky cameup to the chestnut. 

"Oh, it's an Arab saddle, " said Domini. 

"It does not matter, Madame. "

His face was stern. 

"Are you accustomed to them?"

"It makes no difference. "

He took hold of the rein and put his foot in the high stirrup, but soawkwardly that he kicked the horse in the side. It plunged. 

"Take care!" said Domini. 

Androvsky hung on, and climbed somehow into the saddle, coming down init heavily, with a thud. The horse, now thoroughly startled, plungedfuriously and lashed out with its hind legs. Androvsky was thrownforward against the high red peak of the saddle with his hands on theanimal's neck. There was a struggle. He tugged at the rein violently. The horse jumped back, reared, plunged sideways as if about to bolt. Androvsky was shot off and fell on his right shoulder heavily. Batouchcaught the horse while Androvsky got up. He was white with dust. Therewas even dust on his face and in his short hair. He looked passionate. 

"You see, " Batouch began, speaking to Domini, "that Monsieur cannot--"

"Give me the rein!" said Androvsky. 

There was a sound in his deep voice that was terrible. He was lookingnot at Domini, but at the priest, who stood a little aside with anexpression of concern on his face. Bous-Bous barked with excitementat the conflict. Androvsky took the rein, and, with a sort of furiousdetermination, sprang into the saddle and pressed his legs againstthe horse's flanks. It reared up. The priest moved back under thepalm trees, the Arab boys scattered. Batouch sought the shelter of thearcade, and the horse, with a short, whining neigh that was like acry of temper, bolted between the trunks of the trees, heading for thedesert, and disappeared in a flash. 

"He will be killed, " said the priest. 

Bous-Bous barked frantically. 

"It is his own fault, " said the poet. "He told me himself just now thathe did not know how to ride. "

"Why didn't you tell me so?" Domini exclaimed. 

"Madame----"

But she was gone, following Androvsky at a slow canter lest she shouldfrighten his horse by coming up behind it. She came out from the shadeof the palms into the sun. The desert lay before her. She searched iteagerly with her eyes and saw Androvsky's horse far off in the riverbed, still going at a gallop towards the south, towards that region inwhich she had told him on the tower she thought that peace must dwell. It was as if he had believed her words blindly and was frantically inchase of peace. And she pursued him through the blazing sunlight. Shewas out in the desert at length, beyond the last belt of verdure, beyondthe last line of palms. The desert wind was on her cheek and in herhair. The desert spaces stretched around her. Under her horse's hoofslay the sparkling crystals on the wrinkled, sun-dried earth. The redrocks, seamed with many shades of colour that all suggested primevalfires and the relentless action of heat, were heaped about her. But hereyes were fixed on the far-off moving speck that was the horse carryingAndrovsky madly towards the south. The light and fire, the great airs, the sense of the chase intoxicated her. She struck her horse with thewhip. It leaped, as if clearing an immense obstacle, came down lightlyand strained forward into the shining mysteries at a furious gallop. Theblack speck grew larger. She was gaining. The crumbling, cliff-like bankon her left showed a rent in which a faint track rose sharply to theflatness beyond. She put her horse at it and came out among the tinyhumps on which grew the halfa grass and the tamarisk bushes. A pale sandflew up here about the horse's feet. Androvsky was still below her inthe difficult ground where the water came in the floods. She gained andgained till she was parallel with him and could see his bent figure, hisarms clinging to the peak of his red saddle, his legs set forwardalmost on to his horse's withers by the short stirrups with their metaltoecaps. The animal's temper was nearly spent. She could see that. Theterror had gone out of his pace. As she looked she saw Androvsky raisehis arms from the saddle peak, catch at the flying rein, draw it up, lean against the saddle back and pull with all his force. The horsestopped dead. 

"His strength must be enormous, " Domini thought with a startledadmiration. 

She pulled up too on the bank above him and gave a halloo. He turned hishead, saw her, and put his horse at the bank, which was steep here andwithout any gap. "You can't do it, " she called. 

In reply he dug the heels of his heavy boots into the horse's flanks andcame on recklessly. She thought the horse would either refuse or tryto get up and roll back on its rider. It sprang at the bank and mountedlike a wild cat. There was a noise of falling stones, a shower ofscattered earth-clods dropping downward, and he was beside her, whitewith dust, streaming with sweat, panting as if the labouring breathwould rip his chest open, with the horse's foam on his forehead, and asavage and yet exultant gleam in his eyes. 

They looked at each other in silence, while their horses, standingquietly, lowered their narrow, graceful heads and touched noses withdelicate inquiry. Then she said:

"I almost thought----"

She stopped. 

"Yes?" he said, on a great gasping breath that was like a sob. 

"--that you were off to the centre of the earth, or--I don't know what Ithought. You aren't hurt?"

"No. "

He could only speak in monosyllables as yet. She looked his horse over. 

"He won't give much more trouble just now. Shall we ride back?"

As she spoke she threw a longing glance at the far desert, at the vergeof which was a dull green line betokening the distant palms of an oasis. 

Androvsky shook his head. 

"But you----" She hesitated. "Perhaps you aren't accustomed to horses, and with that saddle----"

He shook his head again, drew a tremendous breath and said

"I don't care, I'll go on, I won't go back. "

He put up one hand, brushed the foam from his streaming forehead, andsaid again fiercely:

"I won't go back. "

His face was extraordinary with its dogged, passionate expressionshowing through the dust and the sweat; like the face of a man in afight to the death, she thought, a fight with fists. She was glad at hislast words and liked the iron sound in his voice. 

"Come on then. "

And they began to ride towards the dull green line of the oasis, slowlyon the sandy waste among the little round humps where the dusty clusterof bushes grew. 

"You weren't hurt by the fall?" she said. "It looked a bad one. "

"I don't know whether I was. I don't care whether I was. "

He spoke almost roughly. 

"You asked me to ride with you, " he added. "I'll ride with you. "

She remembered what Batouch had said. There was pluck in this man, pluck that surged up in the blundering awkwardness, the hesitation, theincompetence and rudeness of him like a black rock out of the sea. Shedid not answer. They rode on, always slowly. His horse, having had itswill, and having known his strength at the end of his incompetence, went quietly, though always with that feathery, light, tripping actionpeculiar to purebred Arabs, an action that suggests the treading ofa spring board rather than of the solid earth. And Androvsky seemed alittle more at home on it, although he sat awkwardly on the chair-likesaddle, and grasped the rein too much as the drowning man seizes thestraw. Domini rode without looking at him, lest he might think she wascriticising his performance. When he had rolled in the dust she hadbeen conscious of a sharp sensation of contempt. The men she had beenaccustomed to meet all her life rode, shot, played games as a matter ofcourse. She was herself an athlete, and, like nearly all athletic women, inclined to be pitiless towards any man who was not so strong and soagile as herself. But this man had killed her contempt at once by hisdesperate determination not to be beaten. She knew by the look she hadjust seen in his eyes that if to ride with her that day meant death tohim he would have done it nevertheless. 

The womanhood in her liked the tribute, almost more than liked it. 

"Your horse goes better now, " she said at last to break the silence. 

"Does it?" he said. 

"You don't know!"

"Madame, I know nothing of horses or riding. I have not been on a horsefor twenty-three years. "

She was amazed. 

"We ought to go back then, " she exclaimed. 

"Why? Other men ride--I will ride. I do it badly. Forgive me. "

"Forgive you!" she said. "I admire your pluck. But why have you neverridden all these years?"

After a pause he answered:

"I--I did not--I had not the opportunity. "

His voice was suddenly constrained. She did not pursue the subject, butstroked her horse's neck and turned her eyes towards the dark greenline on the horizon. Now that she was really out in the desert she feltalmost bewildered by it, and as if she understood it far less thanwhen she looked at it from Count Anteoni's garden. The thousands uponthousands of sand humps, each crowned with its dusty dwarf bush, eachone precisely like the others, agitated her as if she were confronted bya vast multitude of people. She wanted some point which would keep theeyes from travelling but could not find it, and was mentally restless asthe swimmer far out at sea who is pursued by wave on wave, and who seesbeyond him the unceasing foam of those that are pressing to the horizon. Whither was she riding? Could one have a goal in this immense expanse?She felt an overpowering need to find one, and looked once more at thegreen line. 

"Do you think we could go as far as that?" she asked Androvsky, pointingwith her whip. 

"Yes, Madame. "

"It must be an oasis. Don't you think so?"

"Yes. I can go faster. "

"Keep your rein loose. Don't pull his mouth. You don't mind my tellingyou. I've been with horses all my life. "

"Thank you, " he answered. 

"And keep your heels more out. That's much better. I'm sure you couldteach me a thousand things; it will be kind of you to let me teach youthis. "

He cast a strange look at her. There was gratitude in it, but much more;a fiery bitterness and something childlike and helpless. 

"I have nothing to teach, " he said. 

Their horses broke into a canter, and with the swifter movement Dominifelt more calm. There was an odd lightness in her brain, as if herthoughts were being shaken out of it like feathers out of a bag. The power of concentration was leaving her, and a sensation ofcarelessness--surely gipsy-like--came over her. Her body, dipped inthe dry and thin air as in a clear, cool bath, did not suffer from theburning rays of the sun, but felt radiant yet half lazy too. They wenton and on in silence as intimate friends might ride together, isolatedfrom the world and content in each other's company, content enough tohave no need of talking. Not once did it strike Domini as strangethat she should go far out into the desert with a man of whom she knewnothing, but in whom she had noticed disquieting peculiarities. She wasnaturally fearless, but that had little to do with her conduct. Withoutsaying so to herself she felt she could trust this man. 

The dark green line showed clearer through the sunshine across thegleaming flats. It was possible now to see slight irregularities init, as in a blurred dash of paint flung across a canvas by an uncertainhand, but impossible to distinguish palm trees. The air sparkled as iffull of a tiny dust of intensely brilliant jewels, and near the groundthere seemed to quiver a maze of dancing specks of light. Everywherethere was solitude, yet everywhere there was surely a ceaseless movementof minute and vital things, scarce visible sun fairies eternally atplay. 

And Domini's careless feeling grew. She had never before experienced sodelicious a recklessness. Head and heart were light, reckless of thoughtor love. Sad things had no meaning here and grave things no place. Forthe blood was full of sunbeams dancing to a lilt of Apollo. Nothingmattered here. Even Death wore a robe of gold and went with an airystep. Ah, yes, from this region of quivering light and heat the Arabsdrew their easy and lustrous resignation. Out here one was in the handsof a God who surely sang as He created and had not created fear. 

Many minutes passed, but Domini was careless of time as of all else. The green line broke into feathery tufts, broadened into a still far-offdimness of palms. 

"Water!"

Androvsky's voice spoke as if startled. Domini pulled up. Their horsesstood side by side, and at once, with the cessation of motion, themysticism of the desert came upon them and the marvel of its silence, and they seemed to be set there in a wonderful dream, themselves andtheir horses dreamlike. 

"Water!" he said again. 

He pointed, and along the right-hand edge of the oasis Domini saw grey, calm waters. The palms ran out into them and were bathed by them softly. And on their bosom here and there rose small, dim islets. Yes, there waswater, and yet--The mystery of it was a mystery she had never known tobrood even over a white northern sea in a twilight hour of winter, wasdeeper than the mystery of the Venetian _laguna morta_, when the Angelusbell chimes at sunset, and each distant boat, each bending rower andpatient fisherman, becomes a marvel, an eerie thing in the gold. 

"Is it mirage?" she said to him almost in a whisper. 

And suddenly she shivered. 

"Yes, it is, it must be. "

He did not answer. His left hand, holding the rein, dropped down on thesaddle peak, and he stared across the waste, leaning forward and movinghis lips. She looked at him and forgot even the mirage in a suddenlonging to understand exactly what he was feeling. His mystery--themystery of that which is human and is forever stretching out itsarms--was as the fluid mystery of the mirage, and seemed to blend atthat moment with the mystery she knew lay in herself. The mirage waswithin them as it was far off before them in the desert, still, grey, full surely of indistinct movement, and even perhaps of sound they couldnot hear. 

At last he turned and looked at her. 

"Yes, it must be mirage, " he said. "The nothing that seems to be somuch. A man comes out into the desert and he finds there mirage. Hetravels right out and that's what he reaches--or at least he can't reachit, but just sees it far away. And that's all. And is that what a manfinds when he comes out into the world?"

It was the first time he had spoken without any trace of reserve to her, for even on the tower, though there had been tumult in his voice and afierceness of some strange passion in his words, there had been strugglein his manner, as if the pressure of feeling forced him to speak indespite of something which bade him keep silence. Now he spoke as if tosomeone whom he knew and with whom he had talked of many things. 

"But you ought to know better than I do, " she answered. 

"I!"

"Yes. You are a man, and have been in the world, and must know whatit has to give--whether there's only mirage, or something that can begrasped and felt and lived in, and----"

"Yes, I'm a man and I ought to know, " he replied. "Well, I don't know, but I mean to know. "

There was a savage sound in his voice. 

"I should like to know, too, " Domini said quietly. "And I feel as if itwas the desert that was going to teach me. "

"The desert--how?"

"I don't know. "

He pointed again to the mirage. 

"But that's what there is in the desert. "

"That--and what else?"

"Is there anything else?"

"Perhaps everything, " she answered. "I am like you. I want to know. "

He looked straight into her eyes and there was something dominating inhis expression. 

"You think it is the desert that could teach you whether the world holdsanything but a mirage, " he said slowly. "Well, I don't think it would bethe desert that could teach me. "

She said nothing more, but let her horse go and rode off. He followed, and as he rode awkwardly, yet bravely, pressing his strong legs againsthis animal's flanks and holding his thin body bent forward, he lookedat Domini's upright figure and brilliant, elastic grace--that gave in toher horse as wave gives to wind--with a passion of envy in his eyes. 

They did not speak again till the great palm gardens of the oasis theyhad seen far off were close upon them. From the desert they looked bothshabby and superb, as if some millionaire had poured forth money tocreate a Paradise out here, and, when it was nearly finished, hadsuddenly repented of his whim and refused to spend another farthing. Thethousands upon thousands of mighty trees were bounded by long, irregularwalls of hard earth, at the top of which were stuck distraught thornbushes. These walls gave the rough, penurious aspect which was in suchsharp contrast to the exotic mystery they guarded. Yet in the fierceblaze of the sun their meanness was not disagreeable. Domini even likedit. It seemed to her as if the desert had thrown up waves to protectthis daring oasis which ventured to fling its green glory like adefiance in the face of the Sahara. A wide track of earth, sprinkledwith stones and covered with deep ruts, holes and hummocks, wound infrom the desert between the earthen walls and vanished into the heart ofthe oasis. They followed it. 

Domini was filled with a sort of romantic curiosity. This luxury ofpalms far out in the midst of desolation, untended apparently byhuman hands--for no figures moved among them, there was no one onthe road--suggested some hidden purpose and activity, some concealedpersonage, perhaps an Eastern Anteoni, whose lair lay surely somewherebeyond them. As she had felt the call of the desert she now felt thecall of the oasis. In this land thrilled eternally a summons to goonward, to seek, to penetrate, to be a passionate pilgrim. She wonderedwhether her companion's heart could hear it. 

"I don't know why it is, " she said, "but out here I always feelexpectant. I always feel as if some marvellous thing might be going tohappen to me. "

She did not add "Do you?" but looked at him as if for a reply. 

"Yes, Madame, " he said. 

"I suppose it is because I am new to Africa. This is my first visithere. I am not like you. I can't speak Arabic. "

She suddenly wondered whether the desert was new to him as to her. Shehad assumed that it was. Yet as he spoke Arabic it was almost certainthat he had been much in Africa. 

"I do not speak it well, " he answered. 

And he looked away towards the dense thickets of the palms. The tracknarrowed till the trees on either side cast patterns of moving shadeacross it and the silent mystery was deepened. As far as the eye couldsee the feathery, tufted foliage swayed in the little wind. The deserthad vanished, but sent in after them the message of its soul, themarvellous breath which Domini had drunk into her lungs so long beforeshe saw it. That breath was like a presence. It dwells in all oases. Thehigh earth walls concealed the gardens. Domini longed to look over andsee what they contained, whether there were any dwellings in these dimand silent recesses, any pools of water, flowers or grassy lawns. 

Her horse neighed. 

"Something is coming, " she said. 

They turned a corner and were suddenly in a village. A mob of half-nakedchildren scattered from their horses' feet. Rows of seated men in whiteand earth-coloured robes stared upon them from beneath the shadow oftall, windowless earth houses. White dogs rushed to and fro upon theflat roofs, thrusting forward venomous heads, showing their teeth andbarking furiously. Hens fluttered in agitation from one side to theother. A grey mule, tethered to a palm-wood door and loaded withbrushwood, lashed out with its hoofs at a negro, who at once began tobatter it passionately with a pole, and a long line of sneering camelsconfronted them, treading stealthily, and turning their serpentinenecks from side to side as they came onwards with a soft and wearyinflexibility. In the distance there was a vision of a glaringmarket-place crowded with moving forms and humming with noises. 

The change from mysterious peace to this vivid and concentrated life wasstartling. 

With difficulty they avoided the onset of the camels by pulling theirhorses into the midst of the dreamers against the walls, who rolledand scrambled into places of safety, then stood up and surrounded them, staring with an almost terrible interest upon them, and surveying theirhorses with the eyes of connoisseurs. The children danced up and beganto ask for alms, and an immense man, with a broken nose and brownteeth like tusks, laid a gigantic hand on Domini's bridle and said, inatrocious French:

"I am the guide, I am the guide. Look at my certificates. Take no oneelse. The people here are robbers. I am the only honest man. I will showMadame everything. I will take Madame to the inn. Look--my certificates!Read them! Read what the English lord says of me. I alone am honesthere. I am honest Mustapha! I am honest Mustapha!"

He thrust a packet of discoloured papers and dirty visiting-cards intoher hands. She dropped them, laughing, and they floated down over thehorse's neck. The man leaped frantically to pick them up, assisted bythe robbers round about. A second caravan of camels appeared, precededby some filthy men in rags, who cried, "Oosh! oosh!" to clear the way. The immense man, brandishing his recovered certificates, plunged forwardto encounter them, shouting in Arabic, hustled them back, kicked them, struck at the camels with a stick till those in front receded upon thosebehind and the street was blocked by struggling beasts and resoundedwith roaring snarls, the thud of wooden bales clashing together, and thedesperate protests of the camel-drivers, one of whom was sent rollinginto a noisome dust heap with his turban torn from his head. 

"The inn! This is the inn! Madame will descend here. Madame will eat inthe garden. Monsieur Alphonse! Monsieur Alphonse! Here are clientsfor _dejeuner_. I have brought them. Do not believe Mohammed. It is Ithat--I will assist Madame to descend. I will----"

Domini was standing in a tiny cabaret before a row of absinthe bottles, laughing, almost breathless. She scarcely knew how she had come there. Looking back she saw Androvsky still sitting on his horse in the midstof the clamouring mob. She went to the low doorway, but Mustapha barredher exit. 

"This is Sidi-Zerzour. Madame will eat in the garden. She is tired, fainting. She will eat and then she will see the great Mosque ofZerzour. "

"Sidi-Zerzour!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Androvsky, do you know where weare? This is the famous Sidi-Zerzour, where the great warrior is buried, and where the Arabs make pilgrimages to worship at his tomb. "

"Yes, Madame. "

He answered in a low voice. 

"As we are here we ought to see. Do you know, I think we must yield tohonest Mustapha and have _dejeuner_ in the garden. It is twelve o'clockand I am hungry. We might visit the mosque afterwards and ride home inthe afternoon. "

He sat there hunched up on the horse and looked at her in silenthesitation, while the Arabs stood round staring. 

"You'd rather not?"

She spoke quietly. He shook his feet out of the stirrups. A number ofbrown hands and arms shot forth to help him. Domini turned back intothe cabaret. She heard a tornado of voices outside, a horse neighing andtrampling, a scuffling of feet, but she did not glance round. In aboutthree minutes Androvsky joined her. He was limping slightly and bendingforward more than ever. Behind the counter on which stood the absinthebottle was a tarnished mirror, and she saw him glance quickly, almostguiltily into it, put up his hands and try to brush the dust from hishair, his shoulders. 

"Let me do it, " she said abruptly. "Turn round. "

He obeyed without a word, turning his back to her. With her two hands, which were covered with soft, loose suede gloves, she beat and brushedthe dust from his coat. He stood quite still while she did it. When shehad finished she said:

"There, that's better. "

Her voice was practical. He did not move, but stood there. 

"I've done what I can, Monsieur Androvsky. "

Then he turned slowly, and she saw, with amazement, that there weretears in his eyes. He did not thank her or say a word. 

A small and scrubby-looking Frenchman, with red eyelids and moustachesthat drooped over a pendulous underlip, now begged Madame to followhim through a small doorway beyond which could be seen three just shotgazelles lying in a patch of sunlight by a wired-in fowl-run. Dominiwent after him, and Androvsky and honest Mustapha--still vigorouslyproclaiming his own virtues--brought up the rear. They came into themost curious garden she had ever seen. 

It was long and narrow and dishevelled, without grass or flowers. Theuneven ground of it was bare, sun-baked earth, hard as parquet, risinghere into a hump, falling there into a depression. Immediately behindthe cabaret, where the dead gazelles with their large glazed eyes layby the fowl-run, was a rough wooden trellis with vines trained over it, making an arbour. Beyond was a rummage of orange trees, palms, gums andfig trees growing at their own sweet will, and casting patterns of deepshade upon the earth in sharp contrast with the intense yellow sunlightwhich fringed them where the leafage ceased. An attempt had been madeto create formal garden paths and garden beds by sticking rushes intolittle holes drilled in the ground, but the paths were zig-zag as adrunkard's walk, and the round and oblong beds contained no trace ofplants. On either hand rose steep walls of earth, higher than a man, andcrowned with prickly thorn bushes. Over them looked palm trees. At theend of the garden ran a slow stream of muddy water in a channel withcrumbling banks trodden by many naked feet. Beyond it was yet anotherlower wall of earth, yet another maze of palms. Heat and silence broodedhere like reptiles on the warm mud of a tropic river in a jungle. Lizards ran in and out of the innumerable holes in the walls, and fliesbuzzed beneath the ragged leaves of the fig trees and crawled in the hotcracks of the earth. 

The landlord wished to put a table under the vine close to the cabaretwall, but Domini begged him to bring it to the end of the garden nearthe stream. With the furious assistance of honest Mustapha he carried itthere and quickly laid it in the shadow of a fig tree, while Domini andAndrovsky waited in silence on two straw-bottomed chairs. 

The atmosphere of the garden was hostile to conversation. The sluggishmuddy stream, the almost motionless trees, the imprisoned heat betweenthe surrounding walls, the faint buzz of the flies caused drowsiness tocreep upon the spirit. The long ride, too, and the ardent desertair, made this repose a luxury. Androvsky's face lost its emotionalexpression as he gazed almost vacantly at the brown water shiftingslowly by between the brown banks and the brown walls above whichthe palm trees peered. His aching limbs relaxed. His hands hung loosebetween his knees. And Domini half closed her eyes. A curious peacedescended upon her. Lapped in the heat and silence for the moment shewanted nothing. The faint buzz of the flies sounded in her ears andseemed more silent than even the silence to which it drew attention. Never before, not in Count Anteoni's garden, had she felt more utterlywithdrawn from the world. The feathery tops of the palms were likethe heads of sentinels guarding her from contact with all that she hadknown. And beyond them lay the desert, the empty, sunlit waste. She shuther eyes, and murmured to herself, "I am in far away. I am in faraway. " And the flies said it in her ears monotonously. And the lizardswhispered it as they slipped in and out of the little dark holes in thewalls. She heard Androvsky stir, and she moved her lips slowly. And theflies and the lizards continued the refrain. But she said now, "We arein far away. "

Honest Mustapha strode forward. He had a Bashi-Bazouk tread to wake up aworld. _Dejeuner_ was ready. Domini sighed. They took their places underthe fig tree on either side of the deal table covered with a rough whitecloth, and Mustapha, with tremendous gestures, and gigantic posturessuggesting the untamed descendant of legions of freeborn, sun-suckledmen, served them with red fish, omelette, gazelle steaks, cheese, oranges and dates, with white wine and Vals water. 

Androvsky scarcely spoke. Now that he was sitting at a meal with Dominihe was obviously embarrassed. All his movements were self-conscious. Heseemed afraid to eat and refused the gazelle. Mustapha broke out intoturbulent surprise and prolonged explanations of the delicious flavourof this desert food. But Androvsky still refused, looking desperatelydisconcerted. 

"It really is delicious, " said Domini, who was eating it. "But perhapsyou don't care about meat. "

She spoke quite carelessly and was surprised to see him look at her asif with sudden suspicion and immediately help himself to the gazelle. 

This man was perpetually giving a touch of the whip to her curiosity tokeep it alert. Yet she felt oddly at ease with him. He seemed somehowpart of her impression of the desert, and now, as they sat under thefig tree between the high earth walls, and at their _al fresco_ meal inunbroken silence--for since her last remark Androvsky had kept his eyesdown and had not uttered a word--she tried to imagine the desert withouthim. 

She thought of the gorge of El-Akbara, the cold, the darkness, and thenthe sun and the blue country. They had framed his face. She thought ofthe silent night when the voice of the African hautboy had died away. His step had broken its silence. She thought of the garden of CountAnteoni, and of herself kneeling on the hot sand with her arms on thewhite parapet and gazing out over the regions of the sun, of her dreamupon the tower, of her vision when Irena danced. He was there, partof the noon, part of the twilight, chief surely of the worshippers whoswept on in the pale procession that received gifts from the desert'shands. She could no longer imagine the desert without him. The almostpainful feeling that had come to her in the garden--of the human powerto distract her attention from the desert power--was dying, perhaps hadcompletely died away. Another feeling was surely coming to replace it;that Androvsky belonged to the desert more even than the Arabs did, thatthe desert spirits were close about him, clasping his hands, whisperingin his ears, and laying their unseen hands about his heart. But----

They had finished their meal. Domini set her chair once more in frontof the sluggish stream, while honest Mustapha bounded, with motionssuggestive of an ostentatious panther, to get the coffee. Androvskyfollowed her after an instant of hesitation. 

"Do smoke, " she said. 

He lit a small cigar with difficulty. She did not wish to watch him, but she could not help glancing at him once or twice, and the convictioncame to her that he was unaccustomed to smoking. She lit a cigarette, and saw him look at her with a sort of horrified surprise which changedto staring interest. There was more boy, more child in this man thanin any man she had ever known. Yet at moments she felt as if hehad penetrated more profoundly into the dark and winding valleys ofexperience than all the men of her acquaintance. 

"Monsieur Androvsky, " she said, looking at the slow waters of the streamslipping by towards the hidden gardens, "is the desert new to you?"

She longed to know. 

"Yes, Madame. "

"I thought perhaps--I wondered a little whether you had travelled in italready. "

"No, Madame. I saw it for the first time the day before yesterday. "

"When I did. "

"Yes. "

So they had entered it for the first time together. She was silent, watching the pale smoke curl up through the shade and out into the glareof the sun, the lizards creeping over the hot earth, the flies circlingbeneath the lofty walls, the palm trees looking over into this gardenfrom the gardens all around, gardens belonging to Eastern people, bornhere, and who would probably die here, and go to dust among the roots ofthe palms. 

On the earthen bank on the far side of the stream there appeared, whileshe gazed, a brilliant figure. It came soundlessly on bare feet froma hidden garden; a tall, unveiled girl, dressed in draperies of vividmagenta, who carried in her exquisitely-shaped brown hands a number ofhandkerchiefs--scarlet, orange, yellow green and flesh colour. She didnot glance into the _auberge_ garden, but caught up her draperies intoa bunch with one hand, exposing her slim legs far above the knees, wadedinto the stream, and bending, dipped the handkerchiefs in the water. 

The current took them. They streamed out on the muddy surface of thestream, and tugged as if, suddenly endowed with life, they were strivingto escape from the hand that held them. 

The girl's face was beautiful, with small regular features and lustrous, tender eyes. Her figure, not yet fully developed, was perfect in shape, and seemed to thrill softly with the spirit of youth. Her tint of bronzesuggested statuary, and every fresh pose into which she fell, while thewater eddied about her, strengthened the suggestion. With the goldensunlight streaming upon her, the brown banks, the brown waters, thebrown walls throwing up the crude magenta of her bunched-up draperies, the vivid colours of the handkerchiefs that floated from her hand, withthe feathery palms beside her, the cloudless blue sky above her, shelooked so strangely African and so completely lovely that Domini watchedher with an almost breathless attention. 

She withdrew the handkerchiefs from the stream, waded out, and spreadthem one by one upon the low earth wall to dry, letting her draperiesfall. When she had finished disposing them she turned round, and, nolonger preoccupied with her task, looked under her level brows into thegarden opposite and saw Domini and her companion. She did not start, but stood quite still for a moment, then slipped away in the directionwhence she had come. Only the brilliant patches of colour on the wallremained to hint that she had been there and would come again. Dominisighed. 

"What a lovely creature!" she said, more to herself than to Androvsky. 

He did not speak, and his silence made her consciously demand hisacquiescence in her admiration. 

"Did you ever see anything more beautiful and more characteristic ofAfrica?" she asked. 

"Madame, " he said in a slow, stern voice, "I did not look at her. "

Domini felt piqued. 

"Why not?" she retorted. 

Androvsky's face was cloudy and almost cruel. 

"These native women do not interest me, " he said. "I see nothingattractive in them. "

Domini knew that he was telling her a lie. Had she not seen him watchingthe dancing girls in Tahar's cafe? Anger rose in her. She said toherself then that it was anger at man's hypocrisy. Afterwards she knewthat it was anger at Androvsky's telling a lie to her. 

"I can scarcely believe that, " she answered bluntly. 

They looked at each other. 

"Why not, Madame?" he said. "If I say it is so?"

She hesitated. At that moment she realised, with hot astonishment, thatthere was something in this man that could make her almost afraid, thatcould prevent her even, perhaps, from doing the thing she had resolvedto do. Immediately she felt hostile to him, and she knew that, at thatmoment, he was feeling hostile to her. 

"If you say it is so naturally I am bound to take your word for it, " shesaid coldly. 

He flushed and looked down. The rigid defiance that had confronted herdied out of his face. 

Honest Mustapha broke joyously upon them with the coffee. Domini helpedAndrovsky to it. She had to make a great effort to perform this simpleact with quiet, and apparently indifferent, composure. 

"Thank you, Madame. "

His voice sounded humble, but she felt hard and as if ice were in allher veins. She sipped her coffee, looking straight before her at thestream. The magenta robe appeared once more coming out from the brownwall. A yellow robe succeeded it, a scarlet, a deep purple. The girl, with three curious young companions, stood in the sun examining theforeigners with steady, unflinching eyes. Domini smiled grimly. Fategave her an opportunity. She beckoned to the girls. They looked at eachother but did not move. She held up a bit of silver so that the sun wason it, and beckoned them again. The magenta robe was lifted above thepretty knees it had covered. The yellow, the scarlet, the deep purplerobes rose too, making their separate revelations. And the four girls, all staring at the silver coin, waded through the muddy water and stoodbefore Domini and Androvsky, blotting out the glaring sunshine withtheir young figures. Their smiling faces were now eager and confident, and they stretched out their delicate hands hopefully to the silver. Domini signified that they must wait a moment. 

She felt full of malice. 

The girls wore many ornaments. She began slowly and deliberately toexamine them; the huge gold earrings that were as large as the littleears that sustained them, the bracelets and anklets, the triangularsilver skewers that fastened the draperies across the gentle swellingbreasts, the narrow girdles, worked with gold thread, and hung withlumps of coral, that circled the small, elastic waists. Her inventorywas an adagio, and while it lasted Androvsky sat on his low straw chairwith this wall of young womanhood before him, of young womanhood nolonger self-conscious and timid, but eager, hardy, natural, warm withthe sun and damp with the trickling drops of the water. The vividdraperies touched him, and presently a little hand stole out to hisbreast, caught at the silver chain that lay across it, and jerked out ofits hiding-place--a wooden cross. 

Domini saw the light on it for a second, heard a low, fierceexclamation, saw Androvsky's arm push the pretty hand roughly away, andthen a thing that was strange. 

He got up violently from his chair with the cross hanging loose on hisbreast. Then he seized hold of it, snapped the chain in two, threw thecross passionately into the stream and walked away down the garden. Thefour girls, with a twittering cry of excitement, rushed into thewater, heedless of draperies, bent down, knelt down, and began to feelfrantically in the mud for the vanished ornament. Domini stood up andwatched them. Androvsky did not come back. Some minutes passed. Thenthere was an exclamation of triumph from the stream. The girl in magentaheld up the dripping cross with the bit of silver chain in herdripping fingers. Domini cast a swift glance behind her. Androvsky haddisappeared. Quickly she went to the edge of the water. As she was inriding-dress she wore no ornaments except two earrings made of largeand beautiful turquoises. She took them hastily out of her ears and heldthem out to the girl, signifying by gestures that she bartered them forthe little cross and chain. The girl hesitated, but the clear blue tintof the turquoise pleased her eyes. She yielded, snatched the earringswith an eager, gave up the cross and chain with a reluctant, hand. Domini's fingers closed round the wet gold. She threw some coins acrossthe stream on to the bank, and turned away, thrusting the cross into herbosom. 

And she felt at that moment as if she had saved a sacred thing fromoutrage. 

At the cabaret door she found Androvsky, once more surrounded by Arabs, whom honest Mustapha was trying to beat off. He turned when he heardher. His eyes were still full of a light that revealed an intensity ofmental agitation, and she saw his left hand, which hung down, quiveringagainst his side. But he succeeded in schooling his voice as he asked:

"Do you wish to visit the village, Madame?"

"Yes. But don't let me bother you if you would rather--"

"I will come. I wish to come. "

She did not believe it. She felt that he was in great pain, both of bodyand mind. His fall had hurt him. She knew that by the way he moved hisright arm. The unaccustomed exercise had made him stiff. Probably thephysical discomfort he was silently enduring had acted as an irritant tothe mind. She remembered that it was caused by his determination to beher companion, and the ice in her melted away. She longed to make himcalmer, happier. Secretly she touched the little cross that lay underher habit. He had thrown it away in a passion. Well, some day perhapsshe would have the pleasure of giving it back to him. Since he hadworn it he must surely care for it, and even perhaps for that which itrecalled. 

"We ought to visit the mosque, I think, " she said. 

"Yes, Madame. "

The assent sounded determined yet reluctant. She knew this was allagainst his will. Mustapha took charge of them, and they set out downthe narrow street, accompanied by a little crowd. They crossed theglaring market-place, with its booths of red meat made black by flies, its heaps of refuse, its rows of small and squalid hutches, in whichsat serious men surrounded by their goods. The noise here was terrific. Everyone seemed shouting, and the uproar of the various trades, theclamour of hammers on sheets of iron, the dry tap of the shoemaker'swooden wand on the soles of countless slippers, the thud of thecoffee-beater's blunt club on the beans, and the groaning grunt withwhich he accompanied each downward stroke mingled with the incessantroar of camels, and seemed to be made more deafening and intolerable bythe fierce heat of the sun, and by the innumerable smells which seethedforth upon the air. Domini felt her nerves set on edge, and was thankfulwhen they came once more into the narrow alleys that ran everywherebetween the brown, blind houses. In them there was shade and silence andmystery. Mustapha strode before to show the way, Domini and Androvskyfollowed, and behind glided the little mob of barefoot inquisitors inlong shirts, speechless and intent, and always hopeful of some chancescattering of money by the wealthy travellers. 

The tumult of the market-place at length died away, and Domini wasconscious of a curious, far-off murmur. At first it was so faint thatshe was scarcely aware of it, and merely felt the soothing influence ofits level monotony. But as they walked on it grew deeper, stronger. Itwas like the sound of countless multitudes of bees buzzing in the noonamong flowers, drowsily, ceaselessly. She stopped under a low mud archto listen. And when she listened, standing still, a feeling of awecame upon her, and she knew that she had never heard such a strangelyimpressive, strangely suggestive sound before. 

"What is that?" she said. 

She looked at Androvsky. 

"I don't know, Madame. It must be people. "

"But what can they be doing?"

"They are praying in the mosque where Sidi-Zerzour is buried, " saidMustapha. 

Domini remembered the perfume-seller. This was the sound she had beardin his sunken chamber, infinitely multiplied. They went on again slowly. Mustapha had lost something of his flaring manner, and his gait wassubdued. He walked with a sort of soft caution, like a man approachingholy ground. And Domini was moved by his sudden reverence. It wasimpressive in such a fierce and greedy scoundrel. The level murmurdeepened, strengthened. All the empty and dim alleys surrounding theunseen mosque were alive with it, as if the earth of the houses, thepalm-wood beams, the iron bars of the tiny, shuttered windows, the verythorns of the brushwood roofs were praying ceaselessly and intently insecret under voices. This was a world intense with prayer as a flame isintense with heat, with prayer penetrating and compelling, urgent in itspersistence, powerful in its deep and sultry concentration, yet almostoppressive, almost terrible in its monotony. 

"Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!" It was the murmur of the desert and themurmur of the sun. It was the whisper of the mirage, and of the airsthat stole among the palm leaves. It was the perpetual heart-beat ofthis world that was engulfing her, taking her to its warm and glowingbosom with soft and tyrannical intention. 

"Allah! Allah! Allah!" Surely God must be very near, bending to such aneverlasting cry. Never before, not even when the bell sounded and theHost was raised, had Domini felt the nearness of God to His world, theabsolute certainty of a Creator listening to His creatures, watchingthem, wanting them, meaning them some day to be one with Him, as shefelt it now while she threaded the dingy alleys towards these countlessmen who prayed. 

Androvsky was walking slowly as if in pain. 

"Your shoulder isn't hurting you?" she whispered. 

This long sound of prayer moved her to the soul, made her feel very fullof compassion for everybody and everything, and as if prayer were a cordbinding the world together. He shook his head silently. She looked athim, and felt that he was moved also, but whether as she was she couldnot tell. His face was like that of a man stricken with awe. Mustaphaturned round to them. The everlasting murmur was now so near thatit seemed to be within them, as if they, too, prayed at the tomb ofZerzour. 

"Follow me into the court, Madame, " Mustapha said, "and remain at thedoor while I fetch the slippers. "

They turned a corner, and came to an open space before an archway, which led into the first of the courts surrounding the mosque. Underthe archway Arabs were sitting silently, as if immersed in profoundreveries. They did not move, but stared upon the strangers, and Dominifancied that there was enmity in their eyes. Beyond them, upon anuneven pavement surrounded with lofty walls, more Arabs were gathered, kneeling, bowing their heads to the ground, and muttering ceaselesswords in deep, almost growling, voices. Their fingers slipped over thebeads of the chaplets they wore round their necks, and Domini thoughtof her rosary. Some prayed alone, removed in shady corners, with facesturned to the wall. Others were gathered into knots. But each onepursued his own devotions, immersed in a strange, interior solitude towhich surely penetrated an unseen ray of sacred light. There were youngboys praying, and old, wrinkled men, eagles of the desert, with fierceeyes that did not soften as they cried the greatness of Allah, thegreatness of his Prophet, but gleamed as if their belief were a thingof flame and bronze. The boys sometimes glanced at each other while theyprayed, and after each glance they swayed with greater violence, andbowed down with more passionate abasement. The vision of prayer hadstirred them to a young longing for excess. The spirit of emulationflickered through them and turned their worship into war. 

In a second and smaller court before the portal of the mosque menwere learning the Koran. Dressed in white they sat in circles, holdingsquares of some material that looked like cardboard covered with minuteArab characters, pretty, symmetrical curves and lines, dots and dashes. The teachers squatted in the midst, expounding the sacred text in nasalvoices with a swiftness and vivacity that seemed pugnacious. Therewas violence within these courts. Domini could imagine the worshippersspringing up from their knees to tear to pieces an intruding dog of anunbeliever, then sinking to their knees again while the blood trickledover the sun-dried pavement and the lifeless body, lay there to rot anddraw the flies. 

"Allah! Allah! Allah!"

There was something imperious in such ardent, such concentrated anduntiring worship, a demand which surely could not be overlooked or setaside. The tameness, the half-heartedness of Western prayer and Westernpraise had no place here. This prayer was hot as the sunlight, thispraise was a mounting fire. The breath of this human incense was as thebreath of a furnace pouring forth to the gates of the Paradise of Allah. It gave to Domini a quite new conception of religion, of the relationbetween Creator and created. The personal pride which, like blood ina body, runs through all the veins of the mind of Mohammedanism, thatmeasureless hauteur which sets the soul of a Sultan in the twistedframe of a beggar at a street corner, and makes impressive, even almostmajestical, the filthy marabout, quivering with palsy and devoured bydisease, who squats beneath a holy bush thick with the discoloured ragsof the faithful, was not abased at the shrine of the warrior, Zerzour, was not cast off in the act of adoration. These Arabs humbled themselvesin the body. Their foreheads touched the stones. By their attitudes theyseemed as if they wished to make themselves even with the ground, toshrink into the space occupied by a grain of sand. Yet they were proudin the presence of Allah, as if the firmness of their belief in him andhis right dealing, the fury of their contempt and hatred for those wholooked not towards Mecca nor regarded Ramadan, gave them a patent ofnobility. Despite their genuflections they were all as men who knew, and never forgot, that on them was conferred the right to keep on theirhead-covering in the presence of their King. With their closed eyesthey looked God full in the face. Their dull and growling murmur had themajesty of thunder rolling through the sky. 

Mustapha had disappeared within the mosque, leaving Domini and Androvskyfor the moment alone in the midst of the worshippers. From the shadowyinterior came forth a ceaseless sound of prayer to join the prayerwithout. There was a narrow stone seat by the mosque door and she satdown upon it. She felt suddenly weary, as one being hypnotised feelsweary when the body and spirit begin to yield to the spell of theoperator. Androvsky remained standing. His eyes were fixed on theground, and she thought his face looked almost phantom-like, as if theblood had sunk away from it, leaving it white beneath the brown tintset there by the sun. He stayed quite still. The dark shadow cast by thetowering mosque fell upon him, and his immobile figure suggested to herranges of infinite melancholy. She sighed as one oppressed. There wasan old man praying near them at the threshold of the door, with his faceturned towards the interior. He was very thin, almost a skeleton, wasdressed in rags through which his copper-coloured body, sharp withscarce-covered bones, could be seen, and had a scanty white beardsticking up, like a brush, at the tip of his pointed chin. His face, worn with hardship and turned to the likeness of parchment by timeand the action of the sun, was full of senile venom; and his toothlessmouth, with its lips folded inwards, moved perpetually, as if hewere trying to bite. With rhythmical regularity, like one obeying aconductor, he shot forth his arms towards the mosque as if he wished tostrike it, withdrew them, paused, then shot them forth again. And ashis arms shot forth he uttered a prolonged and trembling shriek, full ofweak, yet intense, fury. 

He was surely crying out upon God, denouncing God for the evils thathad beset his nearly ended life. Poor, horrible old man! Androvsky wascloser to him than she was, but did not seem to notice him. Once she hadseen him she could not take her eyes from him. His perpetual gesture, his perpetual shriek, became abominable to her in the midst of thebowing bodies and the humming voices of prayer. Each time he struckat the mosque and uttered his piercing cry she seemed to hear an oathspoken in a sanctuary. She longed to stop him. This one blasphemer beganto destroy for her the mystic atmosphere created by the multitudes ofadorers, and at last she could no longer endure his reiterated enmity. 

She touched Androvsky's arm. He started and looked at her. 

"That old man, " she whispered. "Can't you speak to him?"

Androvsky glanced at him for the first time. 

"Speak to him, Madame? Why?"

"He--he's horrible!"

She felt a sudden disinclination to tell Androvsky why the old man washorrible to her. 

"What do you wish me to say to him?"

"I thought perhaps you might be able to stop him from doing that. "

Androvsky bent down and spoke to the old man in Arabic. 

He shot out his arms and reiterated his trembling shriek. It pierced thesound of prayer as lightning pierces cloud. 

Domini got up quickly. 

"I can't bear it, " she said, still in a whisper. "It's as if he werecursing God. "

Androvsky looked at the old man again, this time with profoundattention. 

"Isn't it?" she said. "Isn't it as if he were cursing God while thewhole world worshipped? And that one cry of hatred seems louder than thepraises of the whole world. "

"We can't stop it. "

Something in his voice made her say abruptly:

"Do you wish to stop it?"

He did not answer. The old man struck at the mosque and shrieked. Dominishuddered. 

"I can't stay here, " she said. 

At this moment Mustapha appeared, followed by the guardian of themosque, who carried two pairs of tattered slippers. 

"Monsieur and Madame must take off their boots. Then I will show themosque. "

Domini put on the slippers hastily, and went into the mosque withoutwaiting to see whether Androvsky was following. And the old man'sfurious cry pursued her through the doorway. 

Within there was space and darkness. The darkness seemed to be praying. Vistas of yellowish-white arches stretched away in front, to right andleft. On the floor, covered with matting, quantities of shrouded figuresknelt and swayed, stood up suddenly, knelt again, bowed down theirforeheads. Preceded by Mustapha and the guide, who walked on theirstockinged feet, Domini slowly threaded her way among them, followinga winding path whose borders were praying men. To prevent her slippersfrom falling off she had to shuffle along without lifting her feet fromthe ground. With the regularity of a beating pulse the old man's shriek, fainter now, came to her from without. But presently, as she penetratedfarther into the mosque, it was swallowed up by the sound of prayer. Noone seemed to see her or to know that she was there. She brushed againstthe white garments of worshippers, and when she did so she felt as ifshe touched the hem of the garments of mystery, and she held her habittogether with her hands lest she should recall even one of these heartsthat were surely very far off. 

Mustapha and the guardian stood still and looked round at Domini. Theirfaces were solemn. The expression of greedy anxiety had gone out ofMustapha's eyes. For the moment the thought of money had been driven outof his mind by some graver pre-occupation. She saw in the semi-darknesstwo wooden doors set between pillars. They were painted green andred, and fastened with clamps and bolts of hammered copper that lookedenormously old. Against them were nailed two pictures of winged horseswith human heads, and two more pictures representing a fantastical townof Eastern houses and minarets in gold on a red background. Balls ofpurple and yellow glass, and crystal chandeliers, hung from the highceiling above these doors, with many ancient lamps; and two tatteredand dusty banners of pale pink and white silk, fringed with gold andpowdered with a gold pattern of flowers, were tied to the pillars withthin cords of camel's hair. 

"This is the tomb of Sidi-Zerzour, " whispered Mustapha. "It is openedonce a year. "

The guardian of the mosque fell on his knees before the tomb. 

"That is Mecca. "

Mustapha pointed to the pictures of the city. Then he, too, dropped downand pressed his forehead against the matting. Domini glanced round forAndrovsky. He was not there. She stood alone before the tomb of Zerzour, the only human being in the great, dim building who was not worshipping. And she felt a terrible isolation, as if she were excommunicated, asif she dared not pray, for a moment almost as if the God to whom thistorrent of worship flowed were hostile to her alone. 

Had her father ever felt such a sensation of unutterable solitude?

It passed quickly, and, standing under the votive lamps before thepainted doors, she prayed too, silently. She shut her eyes and imagineda church of her religion--the little church of Beni-Mora. She triedto imagine the voice of prayer all about her, the voice of the greatCatholic Church. But that was not possible. Even when she saw nothing, and turned her soul inward upon itself, and strove to set this newworld into which she had come far off, she heard in the long murmur thatfilled it a sound that surely rose from the sand, from the heart and thespirit of the sand, from the heart and the spirit of desert places, andthat went up in the darkness of the mosque and floated under the archesthrough the doorway, above the palms and the flat-roofed houses, andthat winged its fierce way, like a desert eagle, towards the sun. 

Mustapha's hand was on her arm. The guardian, too, had risen from hisknees and drawn from his robe and lit a candle. She came to a tinydoorway, passed through it and began to mount a winding stair. The soundof prayer mounted with her from the mosque, and when she came out uponthe platform enclosed in the summit of the minaret she heard it stilland it was multiplied. For all the voices from the outside courts joinedit, and many voices from the roofs of the houses round about. 

Men were praying there too, praying in the glare of the sun upon theirhousetops. She saw them from the minaret, and she saw the town that hadsprung up round the tomb of the saint, and all the palms of the oasis, and beyond them immeasurable spaces of desert. 

"Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!"

She was above the eternal cry now. She had mounted like a prayer towardsthe sun, like a living, pulsing prayer, like the soul of prayer. Shegazed at the far-off desert and saw prayer travelling, the soulof prayer travelling--whither? Where was the end? Where was thehalting-place, with at last the pitched tent, the camp fires, and thelong, the long repose?

* * * * *

When she came down and reached the court she found the old man stillstriking at the mosque and shrieking out his trembling imprecation. Andshe found Androvsky still standing by him with fascinated eyes. 

She had mounted with the voice of prayer into the sunshine, surely alittle way towards God. 

Androvsky had remained in the dark shadow with a curse. 

It was foolish, perhaps--a woman's vagrant fancy--but she wished he hadmounted with her. 

BOOK III. THE GARDEN

CHAPTER X

It was noon in the desert. 

The voice of the Mueddin died away on the minaret, and the goldensilence that comes out of the heart of the sun sank down once moresoftly over everything. Nature seemed unnaturally still in the heat. The slight winds were not at play, and the palms of Beni-Mora stoodmotionless as palm trees in a dream. The day was like a dream, intenseand passionate, yet touched with something unearthly, something almostspiritual. In the cloudless blue of the sky there seemed a magicaldepth, regions of colour infinitely prolonged. In the vision of thedistances, where desert blent with sky, earth surely curving up to meetthe downward curving heaven, the dimness was like a voice whisperingstrange petitions. The ranges of mountains slept in the burning sand, and the light slept in their clefts like the languid in cool places. For there was a glorious languor even in the light, as if the sun werefaintly oppressed by the marvel of his power. The clearness of theatmosphere in the remote desert was not obscured, but was impregnatedwith the mystery that is the wonder child of shadows. The far-offgold that kept it seemed to contain a secret darkness. In the oasis ofBeni-Mora men, who had slowly roused themselves to pray, sank down tosleep again in the warm twilight of shrouded gardens or the warm nightof windowless rooms. 

In the garden of Count Anteoni Larbi's flute was silent. 

"It is like noon in a mirage, " Domini said softly. 

Count Anteoni nodded. 

"I feel as if I were looking at myself a long way off, " she added. "Asif I saw myself as I saw the grey sea and the islands on the way toSidi-Zerzour. What magic there is here. And I can't get accustomedto it. Each day I wonder at it more and find it more inexplicable. Italmost frightens me. "

"You could be frightened?"

"Not easily by outside things--it least I hope not. "

"But what then?"

"I scarcely know. Sometimes I think all the outside things, which dowhat are called the violent deeds in life, are tame, and timid, andridiculously impotent in comparison with the things we can't see, whichdo the deeds we can't describe. "

"In the mirage of this land you begin to see the exterior life as amirage? You are learning, you are learning. "

There was a creeping sound of something that was almost impish in hisvoice. 

"Are you a secret agent?" Domini asked him. 

"Of whom, Madame?"

She was silent. She seemed to be considering. He watched her withcuriosity in his bright eyes. 

"Of the desert, " she answered at length, quite seriously. 

"A secret agent has always a definite object. What is mine?"

"How can I know? How can I tell what the desert desires?"

"Already you personify it!"

The network of wrinkles showed itself in his brown face as he smiled, surely with triumph. 

"I think I did that from the first, " she answered gravely. "I know Idid. "

"And what sort of personage does the desert seem to you?"

"You ask me a great many questions to-day. "

"Mirage questions, perhaps. Forgive me. Let us listen to thequestion--or is it the demand?--of the desert in this noontide hour, thegreatest hour of all the twenty-four in such a land as this. "

They were silent again, watching the noon, listening to it, feeling it, as they had been silent when the Mueddin's nasal voice rose in the callto prayer. 

Count Anteoni stood in the sunshine by the low white parapet of thegarden. Domini sat on a low chair in the shadow cast by a great jamelontree. At her feet was a bush of vivid scarlet geraniums, againstwhich her white linen dress looked curiously blanched. There was ahalf-drowsy, yet imaginative light in her gipsy eyes, and her motionlessfigure, her quiet hands, covered with white gloves, lying loosely in herlap, looked attentive and yet languid, as if some spell began to bindher but had not completed its work of stilling all the pulses of lifethat throbbed within her. And in truth there was a spell upon her, thespell of the golden noon. By turns she gave herself to it consciously, then consciously strove to deny herself to its subtle summons. And eachtime she tried to withdraw it seemed to her that the spell was a littlestronger, her power a little weaker. Then her lips curved in a smilethat was neither joyous nor sad, that was perhaps rather part perplexedand part expectant. 

After a minute of this silence Count Anteoni drew back from the sun andsat down in a chair beside Domini. He took out his watch. 

"Twenty-five minutes, " he said, "and my guests will be here. "

"Guests!" she said with an accent of surprise. 

"I invited the priest to make an even number. "

"Oh!"

"You don't dislike him?"

"I like him. I respect him. "

"But I'm afraid you aren't pleased?"

Domini looked him straight in the face. 

"Why did you invite Father Roubier?" she said. 

"Isn't four better than three?"

"You don't want to tell me. "

"I am a little malicious. You have divined it, so why should I notacknowledge it? I asked Father Roubier because I wished to see the manof prayer with the man who fled from prayer. "

"Mussulman prayer, " she said quickly. 

"Prayer, " he said. 

His voice was peculiarly harsh at that moment. It grated like aninstrument on a rough surface. Domini knew that secretly he was standingup for the Arab faith, that her last words had seemed to strike againstthe religion of the people whom he loved with an odd, concealed passionwhose fire she began to feel at moments as she grew to know him better. 

It was plain from their manner to each other that their former slightacquaintance had moved towards something like a pleasant friendship. 

Domini looked as if she were no longer a wonder-stricken sight-seer inthis marvellous garden of the sun, but as if she had become familiarwith it. Yet her wonder was not gone. It was only different. There wasless sheer amazement, more affection in it. As she had said, she had notbecome accustomed to the magic of Africa. Its strangeness, its contrastsstill startled and moved her. But she began to feel as if she belongedto Beni-Mora, as if Beni-Mora would perhaps miss her a little if shewent away. 

Ten days had passed since the ride to Sidi-Zerzour--days rather like adream to Domini. 

What she had sought in coming to Beni-Mora she was surely finding. Heract was bringing forth its fruit. She had put a gulf, in which rolledthe sea, between the land of the old life and the land in which at leastthe new life was to begin. The completeness of the severance had actedupon her like a blow that does not stun, but wakens. The days went likea dream, but in the dream there was the stir of birth. Her lassitude waspermanently gone. There had been no returning after the first hoursof excitement. The frost that had numbed her senses had utterly meltedaway. Who could be frost-bound in this land of fire? She had longedfor peace and she was surely finding it, but it was a peace withoutstagnation. Hope dwelt in it, and expectancy, vague but persistent. As to forgetfulness, sometimes she woke from the dream and was almostdazed, almost ashamed to think how much she was forgetting, and howquickly. Her European life and friends--some of them intimate andclose--were like a far-off cloud on the horizon, flying still fartherbefore a steady wind that set from her to it. Soon it would disappear, would be as if it had never been. Now and then, with a sort of fierceobstinacy, she tried to stay the flight she had desired, and desiredstill. She said to herself, "I will remember. It's contemptible toforget like this. It's weak to be able to. " Then she looked at themountains or the desert, at two Arabs playing the ladies' game under theshadow of a cafe wall, or at a girl in dusty orange filling a goatskinpitcher at a well beneath a palm tree, and she succumbed to the lullinginfluence, smiling as they smile who hear the gentle ripple of thewaters of Lethe. 

She heard them perhaps most clearly when she wandered in Count Anteoni'sgarden. He had made her free of it in their first interview. She hadventured to take him at his word, knowing that if he repented she woulddivine it. He had made her feel that he had not repented. Sometimesshe did not see him as she threaded the sandy alleys between the littlerills, hearing the distant song of Larbi's amorous flute, or sat in thedense shade of the trees watching through a window-space of quiveringgolden leaves the passing of the caravans along the desert tracks. Sometimes a little wreath of ascending smoke, curling above the purplepetals of bougainvilleas, or the red cloud of oleanders, told her of hispresence, in some retired thinking-place. Oftener he joined her, withan easy politeness that did not conceal his oddity, but clothed it in apleasant garment, and they talked for a while or stayed for a while inan agreeable silence that each felt to be sympathetic. 

Domini thought of him as a new species of man--a hermit of the world. He knew the world and did not hate it. His satire was rarely quiteungentle. He did not strike her as a disappointed man who fled tosolitude in bitterness of spirit, but rather as an imaginative man withan unusual feeling for romance, and perhaps a desire for freedom thatthe normal civilised life restrained too much. He loved thought as manylove conversation, silence as some love music. Now and then he said asad or bitter thing. Sometimes she seemed to be near to something stern. Sometimes she felt as if there were a secret link which connected himwith the perfume-seller in his little darkened chamber, with the legionswho prayed about the tomb of Sidi-Zerzour. But these moments were rare. As a rule he was whimsical and kind, with the kindness of a good-heartedman who was human even in his detachment from ordinary humanity. Hishumour was a salt with plenty of savour. His imagination was of a sortwhich interested and even charmed her. 

She felt, too, that she interested him and that he was a man not readilyinterested in ordinary human beings. He had seen too many and judgedtoo shrewdly and too swiftly to be easily held for very long. She had noambition to hold him, and had never in her life consciously striven toattract or retain any man, but she was woman enough to find hisobvious pleasure in her society agreeable. She thought that her genuineadoration of the garden he had made, of the land in which it was set, had not a little to do with the happy nature of their intercourse. Forshe felt certain that beneath the light satire of his manner, his oftensmiling airs of detachment and quiet independence, there was somethingthat could seek almost with passion, that could cling with resolution, that could even love with persistence. And she fancied that he soughtin the desert, that he clung to its mystery, that he loved it and thegarden he had created in it. Once she had laughingly called him a desertspirit. He had smiled as if with contentment. 

They knew little of each other, yet they had become friends in thegarden which he never left. 

One day she said to him:

"You love the desert. Why do you never go into it?"

"I prefer to watch it, " he relied. "When you are in the desert itbewilders you. "

She remembered what she had felt during her first ride with Androvsky. 

"I believe you are afraid of it, " she said challengingly. 

"Fear is sometimes the beginning of wisdom, " he answered. "But you arewithout it, I know. "

"How do you know?"

"Every day I see you galloping away into the sun. "

She thought there was a faint sound of warning--or was it of rebuke--inhis voice. It made her feel defiant. 

"I think you lose a great deal by not galloping into the sun too, " shesaid. 

"But if I don't ride?"

That made her think of Androvsky and his angry resolution. It had notbeen the resolution of a day. Wearied and stiffened as he had been bythe expedition to Sidi-Zerzour, actually injured by his fall--she knewfrom Batouch that he had been obliged to call in the Beni-Mora doctor tobandage his shoulder--she had been roused at dawn on the day followingby his tread on the verandah. She had lain still while it descendedthe staircase, but then the sharp neighing of a horse had awakened anirresistible curiosity in her. She had got up, wrapped herself in afur coat and slipped out on to the verandah. The sun was not above thehorizon line of the desert, but the darkness of night was melting into aluminous grey. The air was almost cold. The palms looked spectral, eventerrible, the empty and silent gardens melancholy and dangerous. Itwas not an hour for activity, for determination, but for reverie, forapprehension. 

Below, a sleepy Arab boy, his hood drawn over his head, held thechestnut horse by the bridle. Androvsky came out from the arcade. Hewore a cap pulled down to his eyebrows which changed his appearance, giving him, as seen from above, the look of a groom or stable hand. Hestood for a minute and stared at the horse. Then he limped round to theleft side and carefully mounted, following out the directions Domini hadgiven him the previous day: to avoid touching the animal with his foot, to have the rein in his fingers before leaving the ground, and to comedown in the saddle as lightly as possible. She noted that all her hintswere taken with infinite precaution. Once on the horse he tried to situp straight, but found the effort too great in his weary and bruisedcondition. He leaned forward over the saddle peak, and rode away inthe luminous greyness towards the desert. The horse went quietly, as ifaffected by the mystery of the still hour. Horse and rider disappeared. The Arab boy wandered off in the direction of the village. But Dominiremained looking after Androvsky. She saw nothing but the grim palms andthe spectral atmosphere in which the desert lay. Yet she did not movetill a red spear was thrust up out of the east towards the last waningstar. 

He had gone to learn his lesson in the desert. 

Three days afterwards she rode with him again. She did not let him knowof her presence on the verandah, and he said nothing of his departure inthe dawn. He spoke very little and seemed much occupied with hishorse, and she saw that he was more than determined--that he was apt atacquiring control of a physical exercise new to him. His great strengthstood him in good stead. Only a man hard in the body could have sorapidly recovered from the effects of that first day of defeat andstruggle. His absolute reticence about his efforts and the iron willthat prompted them pleased Domini. She found them worthy of a man. 

She rode with him on three occasions, twice in the oasis through thebrown villages, once out into the desert on the caravan road thatBatouch had told her led at last to Tombouctou. They did not travel faralong it, but Domini knew at once that this route held more fascinationfor her than the route to Sidi-Zerzour. There was far more sand in thisregion of the desert. The little humps crowned with the scrub thecamels feed on were fewer, so that the flatness of the ground was moredefinite. Here and there large dunes of golden-coloured sand rose, some straight as city walls, some curved like seats in an amphitheatre, others indented, crenellated like battlements, undulating in beastlikeshapes. The distant panorama of desert was unbroken by any visible oasisand powerfully suggested Eternity to Domini. 

"When I go out into the desert for my long journey I shall go by thisroad, " she said to Androvsky. 

"You are going on a journey?" he said, looking at her as if startled. 

"Some day. "

"All alone?"

"I suppose I must take a caravan, two or three Arabs, some horses, atent or two. It's easy to manage. Batouch will arrange it for me. "

Androvsky still looked startled, and half angry, she thought. 

They had pulled up their horses among the sand dunes. It was nearsunset, and the breath of evening was in the sir, making its coolnesseven more ethereal, more thinly pure than in the daytime. The atmospherewas so clear that when they glanced back they could see the flagfluttering upon the white of the great hotel of Beni-Mora, manykilometres away among the palms; so still that they could hear the barkof a Kabyle off near a nomad's tent pitched in the green land by thewater-springs of old Beni-Mora. When they looked in front of them theyseemed to see thousands of leagues of flatness, stretching on and ontill the pale yellowish brown of it grew darker, merged into a strangeblueness, like the blue of a hot mist above a southern lake, then intoviolet, then into--the thing they could not see, the summoning thingwhose voice Domini's imagination heard, like a remote and thrillingecho, whenever she was in the desert. 

"I did not know you were going on a journey, Madame, " Androvsky said. 

"Don't you remember?" she rejoined laughingly, "that I told you on thetower I thought peace must dwell out there. Well, some day I shall setout to find it. "

"That seems a long time ago, Madame, " he muttered. 

Sometimes, when speaking to her, he dropped his voice till she couldscarcely hear him, and sounded like a man communing with himself. 

A red light from the sinking sun fell upon the dunes. As they rodeback over them their horses seemed to be wading through a silent seaof blood. The sky in the west looked like an enormous conflagration, inwhich tortured things were struggling and lifting twisted arms. 

Domini's acquaintance with Androvsky had not progressed as easily andpleasantly as her intercourse with Count Anteoni. She recognised thathe was what is called a "difficult man. " Now and then, as if under theprompting influence of some secret and violent emotion, he spoke withapparent naturalness, spoke perhaps out of his heart. Each time he didso she noticed that there was something of either doubt or amazement inwhat he said. She gathered that he was slow to rely, quick to mistrust. She gathered, too, that very many things surprised him, and felt surethat he hid nearly all of them from her, and would--had not his own willsometimes betrayed him--have hidden all. His reserve was as intense aseverything about him. There was a fierceness in it that revealed itsexistence. He always conveyed to her a feeling of strength, physical andmental. Yet he always conveyed, too, a feeling of uneasiness. To a womanof Domini's temperament uneasiness usually implies a public or secretweakness. In Androvsky's she seemed to be aware of passion, as if itwere one to dash obstacles aside, to break through doors of iron, torush out into the open. And then--what then? To tremble at the worldbefore him? At what he had done? She did not know. But she did knowthat even in his uneasiness there seemed to be fibre, muscle, sinew, nerve--all which goes to make strength, swiftness. 

Speech was singularly difficult to him. Silence seemed to be natural, not irksome. After a few words he fell into it and remained in it. Andhe was less self-conscious in silence than in speech. He seemed, shefancied, to feel himself safer, more a man when he was not speaking. Tohim the use of words was surely like a yielding. 

He had a peculiar faculty of making his presence felt when he wassilent, as if directly he ceased from speaking the flame in him wasfanned and leaped up at the outside world beyond its bars. 

She did not know whether he was a gentleman or not. 

If anyone had asked her, before she came to Beni-Mora, whether it wouldbe possible for her to take four solitary rides with a man, to meethim--if only for a few minutes--every day of ten days, to sit oppositeto him, and not far from him, at meals during the same space of time, and to be unable to say to herself whether he was or was not a gentlemanby birth and education--feeling set aside--she would have answeredwithout hesitation that it would be utterly impossible. Yet so it was. She could not decide. She could not place him. She could not imaginewhat his parentage, what his youth, his manhood had been. She couldnot fancy him in any environment--save that golden light, that blueradiance, in which she had first consciously and fully met him face toface. She could not hear him in converse with any set of men or women, or invent, in her mind, what he might be likely to say to them. Shecould not conceive him bound by any ties of home, or family, mother, sister, wife, child. When she looked at him, thought about him, hepresented himself to her alone, like a thing in the air. 

Yet he was more male than other men, breathed humanity--of some kind--asfire breathes heat. 

The child there was in him almost confused her, made her wonder whetherlong contact with the world had tarnished her own original simplicity. But she only saw the child in him now and then, and she fancied that it, too, he was anxious to conceal. 

This man had certainly a power to rouse feeling in others. She knewit by her own experience. By turns he had made her feel motherly, protecting, curious, constrained, passionate, energetic, timid--yes, almost timid and shy. No other human being had ever, even at moments, thus got the better of her natural audacity, lack of self-consciousness, and inherent, almost boyish, boldness. Nor was she aware what it was inhim which sometimes made her uncertain of herself. 

She wondered. But he often woke up wonder in her. 

Despite their rides, their moments of intercourse in the hotel, onthe verandah, she scarcely felt more intimate with him than she hadat first. Sometimes indeed she thought that she felt less so, that themoment when the train ran out of the tunnel into the blue country wasthe moment in which they had been nearest to each other since they trodthe verges of each other's lives. 

She had never definitely said to herself: "Do I like him or dislikehim?"

Now, as she sat with Count Anteoni watching the noon, the half-drowsy, half-imaginative expression had gone out of her face. She looked ratherrigid, rather formidable. 

Androvsky and Count Anteoni had never met. The Count had seen Androvskyin the distance from his garden more than once, but Androvsky had notseen him. The meeting that was about to take place was due to Domini. She had spoken to Androvsky on several occasions of the romantic beautyof this desert garden. 

"It is like a garden of the _Arabian Nights_, " she had said. 

He did not look enlightened, and she was moved to ask him abruptlywhether he had ever read the famous book. He had not. A doubt came toher whether he had ever even heard of it. She mentioned the fact ofCount Anteoni's having made the garden, and spoke of him, sketchinglightly his whimsicality, his affection for the Arabs, his love ofsolitude, and of African life. She also mentioned that he was by birth aRoman. 

"But scarcely of the black world I should imagine, " she added. 

Androvsky said nothing. 

"You should go and see the garden, " she continued. "Count Anteoni allowsvisitors to explore it. "

"I am sure it must be very beautiful, Madame, " he replied, rathercoldly, she thought. 

He did not say that he would go. 

As the garden won upon her, as its enchanted mystery, the airy wonderof its shadowy places, the glory of its trembling golden vistas, therestfulness of its green defiles, the strange, almost unearthly peacethat reigned within it embalmed her spirit, as she learned not only tomarvel at it, to be entranced by it, but to feel at home in it and loveit, she was conscious of a persistent desire that Androvsky should knowit too. 

Perhaps his dogged determination about the riding had touched her morethan she was aware. She often saw before her the bent figure, thatlooked tired, riding alone into the luminous grey; starting thus earlythat his act, humble and determined, might not be known by her. He didnot know that she had seen him, not only on that morning, but on manysubsequent mornings, setting forth to study the new art in the solitudeof the still hours. But the fact that she had seen, had watched tillhorse and rider vanished beyond the palms, had understood why, perhapsmoved her to this permanent wish that he could share her pleasure in thegarden, know it as she did. 

She did not argue with herself about the matter. She only knew that shewished, that presently she meant Androvsky to pass through the whitegate and be met on the sand by Smain with his rose. 

One day Count Anteoni had asked her whether she had made acquaintancewith the man who had fled from prayer. 

"Yes, " she said. "You know it. "

"How?"

"We have ridden to Sidi-Zerzour. "

"I am not always by the wall. "

"No, but I think you were that day. "

"Why do you think so?"

"I am sure you were. "

He did not either acknowledge or deny it. 

"He has never been to see my garden, " he said. 

"No. "

"He ought to come. "

"I have told him so. "

"Ah? Is he coming?"

"I don't think so. "

"Persuade him to. I have a pride in my garden--oh, you have no idea whata pride! Any neglect of it, any indifference about it rasps me, playsupon the raw nerve each one of us possesses. "

He spoke smilingly. She did not know what he was feeling, whether theremote thinker or the imp within him was at work or play. 

"I doubt if he is a man to be easily persuaded, " she said. 

"Perhaps not--persuade him. "

After a moment Domini said:

"I wonder whether you recognise that there are obstacles which the humanwill can't negotiate?"

"I could scarcely live where I do without recognising that the grains ofsand are often driven by the wind. But when there is no wind!"

"They lie still?"

"And are the desert. I want to have a strange experience. "

"What?"

"A _fete_ in my garden. "

"A fantasia?"

"Something far more banal. A lunch party, a _dejeuner_. Will you honourme?"

"By breakfasting with you? Yes, of course. Thank you. "

"And will you bring--the second sun worshipper?"

She looked into the Count's small, shining eyes. 

"Monsieur Androvsky?"

"If that is his name. I can send him an invitation, of course. Butthat's rather formal, and I don't think he is formal. "

"On what day do you ask us?"

"Any day--Friday. "

"And why do you ask us?"

"I wish to overcome this indifference to my garden. It hurts me, notonly in my pride, but in my affections. "

The whole thing had been like a sort of serious game. Domini had notsaid that she would convey the odd invitation; but when she was alone, and thought of the way in which Count Anteoni had said "Persuade him, "she knew she would, and she meant Androvsky to accept it. This was anopportunity of seeing him in company with another man, a man of theworld, who had read, travelled, thought, and doubtless lived. 

She asked him that evening, and saw the red, that came as it comes in aboy's face, mount to his forehead. 

"Everybody who comes to Beni-Mora comes to see the garden, " she saidbefore he could reply. "Count Anteoni is half angry with you for beingan exception. "

"But--but, Madame, how can Monsieur the Count know that I am here? Ihave not seen him. "

"He knows there is a second traveller, and he's a hospitable man. Monsieur Androvsky, I want you to come; I want you to see the garden. "

"It is very kind of you, Madame. "

The reluctance in his voice was extreme. Yet he did not like to say no. While he hesitated, Domini continued:

"You remember when I asked you to ride?"

"Yes, Madame. "

"That was new to you. Well, it has given you pleasure, hasn't it?"

"Yes, Madame. "

"So will the garden. I want to put another pleasure into your life. "

She had begun to speak with the light persuasiveness of a woman of theworld--wishing to overcome a man's diffidence or obstinacy, but whileshe said the words she felt a sudden earnestness rush over her. It wentinto the voice, and surely smote upon him like a gust of the hot windthat sometimes blows out of the desert. 

"I shall come, Madame, " he said quickly. 

"Friday. I may be in the garden in the morning. I'll meet you at thegate at half-past twelve. "

"Friday?" he said. 

Already he seemed to be wavering in his acceptance. Domini did not staywith him any longer. 

"I'm glad, " she said in a finishing tone. 

And she went away. 

Now Count Anteoni told her that he had invited the priest. Shefelt vexed, and her face showed that she did. A cloud came down andimmediately she looked changed and disquieting. Yet she liked thepriest. As she sat in silence her vexation became more profound. Shefelt certain that if Androvsky had known the priest was coming he wouldnot have accepted the invitation. She wished him to come, yet shewished he had known. He might think that she had known the fact and hadconcealed it. She did not suppose for a moment that he disliked FatherRoubier personally, but he certainly avoided him. He bowed to him in thecoffee-room of the hotel, but never spoke to him. Batouch had told herabout the episode with Bous-Bous. And she had seen Bous-Bous endeavourto renew the intimacy and repulsed with determination. Androvsky mustdislike the priesthood. He might fancy that she, a believing Catholic, had--a number of disagreeable suppositions ran through her mind. She hadalways been inclined to hate the propagandist since the tragedy inher family. It was a pity Count Anteoni had not indulged his imp in adifferent fashion. The beauty of the noon seemed spoiled. 

"Forgive my malice, " Count Anteoni said. "It was really a thing ofthistledown. Can it be going to do harm? I can scarcely think so. "

"No, no. "

She roused herself, with the instinct of a woman who has lived muchin the world, to conceal the vexation that, visible, would cause adepression to stand in the natural place of cheerfulness. 

"The desert is making me abominably natural, " she thought. 

At this moment the black figure of Father Roubier came out of theshadows of the trees with Bous-Bous trotting importantly beside it. 

"Ah, Father, " said Count Anteoni, going to meet him, while Domini gotup from her chair, "it is good of you to come out in the sun to eat fishwith such a bad parishioner as I am. Your little companion is welcome. "

He patted Bous-Bous, who took little notice of him. 

"You know Miss Enfilden, I think?" continued the Count. 

"Father Roubier and I meet every day, " said Domini, smiling. 

"Mademoiselle has been good enough to take a kind interest in the humblework of the Church in Beni-Mora, " said the priest with the serioussimplicity characteristic of him. 

He was a sincere man, utterly without pretension, and, as such men oftenare, quietly at home with anybody of whatever class or creed. 

"I must go to the garden gate, " Domini said. "Will you excuse me for amoment?"

"To meet Monsieur Androvsky? Let us accompany you if Father Roubier--"

"Please don't trouble. I won't be a minute. "

Something in her voice made Count Anteoni at once acquiesce, defying hiscourteous instinct. 

"We will wait for you here, " he said. 

There was a whimsical plea for forgiveness in his eyes. Domini's didnot reject it; they did not answer it. She walked away, and the two menlooked after her tall figure with admiration. As she went along thesand paths between the little streams, and came into the deep shade, hervexation seemed to grow darker like the garden ways. For a moment shethought she understood the sensations that must surely sometimes beseta treacherous woman. Yet she was incapable of treachery. Smain wasstanding dreamily on the great sweep of sand before the villa. She andhe were old friends now, and every day he calmly gave her a flower whenshe came into the garden. 

"What time is it, Smain?"

"Nearly half-past twelve, Madame. "

"Will you open the door and see if anyone is coming?"

He went towards the great door, and Domini sat down on a bench under theevergreen roof to wait. She had seldom felt more discomposed, and beganto reason with herself almost angrily. Even if the presence of thepriest was unpleasant to Androvsky, why should she mind? Antagonism tothe priesthood was certainly not a mental condition to be fostered, buta prejudice to be broken down. But she had wished--she still wished withardour--that Androvsky's first visit to the garden should be a happyone, should pass off delightfully. She had a dawning instinct to makethings smooth for him. Surely they had been rough in the past, roughereven than for herself. And she wondered for an instant whether he hadcome to Beni-Mora, as she had come, vaguely seeking for a happinessscarcely embodied in a definite thought. 

"There is a gentleman coming, Madame. "

It was the soft voice of Smain from the gate. In a moment Androvskystood before it. Domini saw him framed in the white wood, with abrilliant blue behind him and a narrow glimpse of the watercourse. Hewas standing still and hesitating. 

"Monsieur Androvsky!" she called. 

He started, looked across the sand, and stepped into the garden with asort of reluctant caution that pained her, she scarcely knew why. Shegot up and went towards him, and they met full in the sunshine. 

"I came to be your cicerone. "

"Thank you, Madame. "

There was the click of wood striking against wood as Smain closed thegate. Androvsky turned quickly and looked behind him. His demeanour wasthat of a man whose nerves were tormenting him. Domini began to dreadtelling him of the presence of the priest, and, characteristically, didwithout hesitation what she feared to do. 

"This is the way, " she said. 

Then, as they turned into the shadow of the trees and began to walkbetween the rills of water, she added abruptly:

"Father Roubier is here already, so our party is complete. "

Androvsky stood still. 

"Father Roubier! You did not tell me he was coming. "

"I did not know it till five minutes ago. "

She stood still too, and looked at him. There was a flaming of distrustin his eyes, his lips were compressed, and his whole body betokenedhostility. 

"I did not understand. I thought Senor Anteoni would be alone here. "

"Father Roubier is a pleasant companion, sincere and simple. Everyonelikes him. "

"No doubt, Madame. But--the fact is I"--he hesitated, then added, almostwith violence--"I do not care for priests. "

"I am sorry. Still, for once--for an hour--you can surely----"

She did not finish the sentence. While she was speaking she felt thebanality of such phrases spoken to such a man, and suddenly changed toneand manner. 

"Monsieur Androvsky, " she said, laying one hand on his arm, "I knew youwould not like Father Roubier's being here. If I had known he was comingI should have told you in order that you might have kept away if youwished to. But now that you are here--now that Smain has let you in andthe Count and Father Roubier must know of it, I am sure you will stayand govern your dislike. You intend to turn back. I see that. Well, Iask you to stay. "

She was not thinking of herself, but of him. Instinct told her to teachhim the way to conceal his aversion. Retreat would proclaim it. 

"For yourself I ask you, " she added. "If you go, you tell them what youhave told me. You don't wish to do that. "

They looked at each other. Then, without a word, he walked on again. Asshe kept beside him she felt as if in that moment their acquaintanceshiphad sprung forward, like a thing that had been forcibly restrained andthat was now sharply released. They did not speak again till they saw, at the end of an alley, the Count and the priest standing togetherbeneath the jamelon tree. Bous-Bous ran forward barking, and Domini wasconscious that Androvsky braced himself up, like a fighter stepping intothe arena. Her keen sensitiveness of mind and body was so infectedby his secret impetuosity of feeling that it seemed to her as if hisencounter with the two men framed in the sunlight were a great eventwhich might be fraught with strange consequences. She almost held herbreath as she and Androvsky came down the path and the fierce sunraysreached out to light up their faces. 

Count Anteoni stepped forward to greet them. 

"Monsieur Androvsky--Count Anteoni, " she said. 

The hands of the two men met. She saw that Androvsky's was liftedreluctantly. 

"Welcome to my garden, " Count Anteoni said with his invariable easycourtesy. "Every traveller has to pay his tribute to my domain. I dareto exact that as the oldest European inhabitant of Beni-Mora. "

Androvsky said nothing. His eyes were on the priest. The Count noticedit, and added:

"Do you know Father Roubier?"

"We have often seen each other in the hotel, " Father Roubier said withhis usual straightforward simplicity. 

He held out his hand, but Androvsky bowed hastily and awkwardly and didnot seem to see it. Domini glanced at Count Anteoni, and surprised apiercing expression in his bright eyes. It died away at once, and hesaid:

"Let us go to the _salle-a-manger_. _Dejeuner_ will be ready, MissEnfilden. "

She joined him, concealing her reluctance to leave Androvsky with thepriest, and walked beside him down the path, preceded by Bous-Bous. 

"Is my _fete_ going to be a failure?" he murmured. 

She did not reply. Her heart was full of vexation, almost of bitterness. She felt angry with Count Anteoni, with Androvsky, with herself. Shealmost felt angry with poor Father Roubier. 

"Forgive me! do forgive me!" the Count whispered. "I meant no harm. "

She forced herself to smile, but the silence behind them, where the twomen were following, oppressed her. If only Androvsky would speak! He hadnot said one word since they were all together. Suddenly she turned herhead and said:

"Did you ever see such palms, Monsieur Androvsky? Aren't theymagnificent?"

Her voice was challenging, imperative. It commanded him to rousehimself, to speak, as a touch of the lash commands a horse to quickenhis pace. Androvsky raised his head, which had been sunk on his breastas he walked. 

"Palms!" he said confusedly. 

"Yes, they are wonderful. "

"You care for trees?" asked the Count, following Domini's lead andspeaking with a definite intention to force a conversation. 

"Yes, Monsieur, certainly. "

"I have some wonderful fellows here. After _dejeuner_ you must let meshow them to you. I spent years in collecting my children and teachingthem to live rightly in the desert. "

Very naturally, while he spoke, he had joined Androvsky, and now walkedon with him, pointing out the different varieties of trees. Domini wasconscious of a sense of relief and of a strong feeling of gratitudeto their host. Following upon the gratitude came a less pleasantconsciousness of Androvsky's lack of good breeding. He was certainly nota man of the world, whatever he might be. To-day, perhaps absurdly, shefelt responsible for him, and as if he owed it to her to bear himselfbravely and govern his dislikes if they clashed with the feelings ofhis companions. She longed hotly for him to make a good impression, and, when her eyes met Father Roubier's, was almost moved to ask his pardonfor Androvsky's rudeness. But the Father seemed unconscious of it, andbegan to speak about the splendour of the African vegetation. 

"Does not its luxuriance surprise you after England?" he said. 

"No, " she replied bluntly. "Ever since I have been in Africa I have feltthat I was in a land of passionate growth. "

"But--the desert?" he replied with a gesture towards the long flats ofthe Sahara, which were still visible between the trees. 

"I should find it there too, " she answered. "There, perhaps, most ofall. "

He looked at her with a gentle wonder. She did not explain that she wasno longer thinking of growth in Nature. 

The _salle-a-manger_ stood at the end of a broad avenue of palms not farfrom the villa. Two Arab servants were waiting on each side of the whitestep that led into an ante-room filled with divans and coffee-tables. Beyond was a lofty apartment with an arched roof, in the centre ofwhich was an oval table laid for breakfast, and decorated with masses oftrumpet-shaped scarlet flowers in silver vases. Behind each of the fourhigh-backed chairs stood an Arab motionless as a statue. Evidently theCount's _fete_ was to be attended by a good deal of ceremony. Dominifelt sorry, though not for herself. She had been accustomed to ceremonyall her life, and noticed it, as a rule, almost as little as the airshe breathed. But she feared that to Androvsky it would be novel andunpleasant. As they came into the shady room she saw him glance swiftlyat the walls covered with dark Persian hangings, at the servants intheir embroidered jackets, wide trousers, and snow-white turbans, atthe vivid flowers on the table, then at the tall windows, over whichflexible outside blinds, dull green in colour, were drawn; and it seemedto her that he was feeling like a trapped animal, full of a fury ofuneasiness. Father Roubier's unconscious serenity in the midst of aluxury to which he was quite unaccustomed emphasised Androvsky's secretagitation, which was no secret to Domini, and which she knew must beobvious to Count Anteoni. She began to wish ardently that she had letAndrovsky follow his impulse to go when he heard of Father Roubier'spresence. 

They sat down. She was on the Count's right hand, with Androvskyopposite to her and Father Roubier on her left. As they took theirplaces she and the Father said a silent grace and made the sign of theCross, and when she glanced up after doing so she saw Androvsky's handlifted to his forehead. For a moment she fancied that he had joinedin the tiny prayer, and was about to make the sacred sign, but as shelooked at him his hand fell heavily to the table. The glasses by hisplate jingled. 

"I only remembered this morning that this is a _jour maigre_, " saidCount Anteoni as they unfolded their napkins. "I am afraid, FatherRoubier, you will not be able to do full justice to my chef, Hamdane, although he has thought of you and done his best for you. But I hopeMiss Enfilden and--"

"I keep Friday, " Domini interrupted quietly. 

"Yes? Poor Hamdane!"

He looked in grave despair, but she knew that he was really pleased thatshe kept the fast day. 

"Anyhow, " he continued, "I hope that you, Monsieur Androvsky, will beable to join me in testing Hamdane's powers to the full. Or are youtoo----"

He did not continue, for Androvsky at once said, in a loud and firmvoice:

"I keep no fast days. "

The words sounded like a defiance flung at the two Catholics, and for amoment Domini thought that Father Roubier was going to treat them as achallenge, for he lifted his head and there was a flash of sudden firein his eyes. But he only said, turning to the Count:

"I think Mademoiselle and I shall find our little Ramadan a very easybusiness. I once breakfasted with you on a Friday--two years ago it was, I think--and I have not forgotten the banquet you gave me. "

Domini felt as if the priest had snubbed Androvsky, as a saint mightsnub, without knowing that he did so. She was angry with Androvsky, andyet she was full of pity for him. Why could he not meet courtesy withgraciousness? There was something almost inhuman in his demeanour. To-day he had returned to his worst self, to the man who had twicetreated her with brutal rudeness. 

"Do the Arabs really keep Ramadan strictly?" she asked, looking awayfrom Androvsky. 

"Very, " said Father Roubier. "Although, of course, I am not in sympathywith their religion, I have often been moved by their adherence to itsrules. There is something very grand in the human heart deliberatelytaking upon itself the yoke of discipline. "

"Islam--the very word means the surrender of the human will to the willof God, " said Count Anteoni. "That word and its meaning lie like theshadow of a commanding hand on the soul of every Arab, even of theabsinthe-drinking renegades one sees here and there who have caught thevices of their conquerors. In the greatest scoundrel that the Prophet'srobe covers there is an abiding and acute sense of necessary surrender. The Arabs, at any rate, do not buzz against their Creator, like midgesraging at the sun in whose beams they are dancing. "

"No, " assented the priest. "At least in that respect they are superiorto many who call themselves Christians. Their pride is immense, but itnever makes itself ridiculous. "

"You mean by trying to defy the Divine Will?" said Domini. 

"Exactly, Mademoiselle. "

She thought of her dead father. 

The servants stole round the table, handing various dishes noiselessly. One of them, at this moment, poured red wine into Androvsky's glass. Heuttered a low exclamation that sounded like the beginning of a protesthastily checked. 

"You prefer white wine?" said Count Anteoni. 

"No, thank you, Monsieur. "

He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it. 

"Are you a judge of wine?" added the Count. "That is made from my owngrapes. I have vineyards near Tunis. "

"It is excellent, " said Androvsky. 

Domini noticed that he spoke in a louder voice than usual, as if he weremaking a determined effort to throw off the uneasiness that evidentlyoppressed him. He ate heartily, choosing almost ostentatiously dishesin which there was meat. But everything that he did, even this eatingof meat, gave her the impression that he was--subtly, how she did notknow--defying not only the priest, but himself. Now and then she glancedacross at him, and when she did so he was always looking away fromher. After praising the wine he had relapsed into silence, and CountAnteoni--she thought moved by a very delicate sense of tact--did notdirectly address him again just then, but resumed the interruptedconversation about the Arabs, first explaining that the servantsunderstood no French. He discussed them with a minute knowledge thatevidently sprang from a very real affection, and presently she could nothelp alluding to this. 

"I think you love the Arabs far more than any Europeans, " she said. 

He fixed his bright eyes upon her, and she thought that just then theylooked brighter than ever before. 

"Why?" he asked quietly. 

"Do you know the sound that comes into the voice of a lover of childrenwhen it speaks of a child?"

"Ah!--the note of a deep indulgence?"

"I hear it in yours whenever you speak of the Arabs. "

She spoke half jestingly. For a moment he did not reply. Then he said tothe priest:

"You have lived long in Africa, Father. Have not you something of thesame feeling towards these children of the sun?"

"Yes, and I have noticed it in our dead Cardinal. "

"Cardinal Lavigerie. "

Androvsky bent over his plate. He seemed suddenly to withdraw his mindforcibly from this conversation in which he was taking no active part, as if he refused even to listen to it. 

"He is your hero, I know, " the Count said sympathetically. 

"He did a great deal for me. "

"And for Africa. And he was wise. "

"You mean in some special way?" Domini said. 

"Yes. He looked deep enough into the dark souls of the desert mento find out that his success with them must come chiefly through hisgoodness to their dark bodies. You aren't shocked, Father?"

"No, no. There is truth in that. "

But the priest assented rather sadly. 

"Mahomet thought too much of the body, " he added. 

Domini saw the Count compress his lips. Then he turned to Androvsky andsaid:

"Do you think so, Monsieur?"

It was a definite, a resolute attempt to draw his guest into theconversation. Androvsky could not ignore it. He looked up reluctantlyfrom his plate. His eyes met Domini's, but immediately travelled awayfrom them. 

"I doubt----" he said. 

He paused, laid his hands on the table, clasping its edge, and continuedfirmly, even with a sort of hard violence:

"I doubt if most good men, or men who want to be good, think enoughabout the body, consider it enough. I have thought that. I think itstill. "

As he finished he stared at the priest, almost menacingly. Then, as ifmoved by an after-thought, he added:

"As to Mahomet, I know very little about him. But perhaps he obtainedhis great influence by recognising that the bodies of men are of greatimportance, of tremendous--tremendous importance. "

Domini saw that the interest of Count Anteoni in his guest was suddenlyand vitally aroused by what he had just said, perhaps even more by hispeculiar way of saying it, as if it were forced from him by some secret, irresistible compulsion. And the Count's interest seemed to takehands with her interest, which had had a much longer existence. FatherRoubier, however, broke in with a slightly cold:

"It is a very dangerous thing, I think, to dwell upon the importance ofthe perishable. One runs the risk of detracting from the much greaterimportance of the imperishable. "

"Yet it's the starved wolves that devour the villages, " said Androvsky. 

For the first time Domini felt his Russian origin. There was a silence. Father Roubier looked straight before him, but Count Anteoni's eyes werefixed piercingly upon Androvsky. At last he said:

"May I ask, Monsieur, if you are a Russian?"

"My father was. But I have never set foot in Russia. "

"The soul that I find in the art, music, literature of your country is, to me, the most interesting soul in Europe, " the Count said with a ringof deep earnestness in his grating voice. 

Spoken as he spoke it, no compliment could have been more gracious, evenmoving. But Androvsky only replied abruptly:

"I'm afraid I know nothing of all that. "

Domini felt hot with a sort of shame, as at a close friend's publicdisplay of ignorance. She began to speak to the Count of Russian music, books, with an enthusiasm that was sincere. For she, too, had found inthe soul from the Steppes a meaning and a magic that had taken her soulprisoner. And suddenly, while she talked, she thought of the Desertas the burning brother of the frigid Steppes. Was it the wonder of theeternal flats that had spoken to her inmost heart sometimes in Londonconcert-rooms, in her room at night when she read, forgetting time, which spoke to her now more fiercely under the palms of Africa? At thethought something mystic seemed to stand in her enthusiasm. The mysteryof space floated about her. But she did not express her thought. CountAnteoni expressed it for her. 

"The Steppes and the Desert are akin, you know, " he said. "Despite theopposition of frost and fire. "

"Just what I was thinking!" she exclaimed. "That must be why--"

She stopped short. 

"Yes?" said the Count. 

Both Father Roubier and Androvsky looked at her with expectancy. But shedid not continue her sentence, and her failure to do so was covered, orat the least excused, by a diversion that secretly she blessed. At thismoment, from the ante-room, there came a sound of African music, bothsoft and barbarous. First there was only one reiterated liquid note, clear and glassy, a note that suggested night in a remote place. Then, beneath it, as foundation to it, rose a rustling sound as of a forestof reeds through which a breeze went rhythmically. Into this stole thebroken song of a thin instrument with a timbre rustic and antique asthe timbre of the oboe, but fainter, frailer. A twang of softly-pluckedstrings supported its wild and pathetic utterance, and presently thealmost stifled throb of a little tomtom that must have been placed at adistance. It was like a beating heart. 

The Count and his guests sat listening in silence. Domini began tofeel curiously expectant, yet she did not recognise the odd melody. Hersensation was that some other music must be coming which she had heardbefore, which had moved her deeply at some time in her life. She glancedat the Count and found him looking at her with a whimsical expression, as if he were a kind conspirator whose plot would soon be known. 

"What is it?" she asked in a low voice. 

He bent towards her. 

"Wait!" he whispered. "Listen!"

She saw Androvsky frown. His face was distorted by an expression ofpain, and she wondered if he, like some Europeans, found the barbarityof the desert music ugly and even distressing to the nerves. Whileshe wondered a voice began to sing, always accompanied by the fourinstruments. It was a contralto voice, but sounded like a youth's. 

"What is that song?" she asked under her breath. "Surely I must haveheard it!"

"You don't know?"

"Wait!"

She searched her heart. It seemed to her that she knew the song. At someperiod of her life she had certainly been deeply moved by it--but when?where? The voice died away, and was succeeded by a soft chorus singingmonotonously:

"Wurra-Wurra. "

Then it rose once more in a dreamy and reticent refrain, like the voiceof a soul communing with itself in the desert, above the instruments andthe murmuring chorus. 

"You remember?" whispered the Count. 

She moved her head in assent but did not speak. She could not speak. Itwas the song the Arab had sung as he turned into the shadow of the palmtrees, the song of the freed negroes of Touggourt:

 "No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. "

The priest leaned back in his chair. His dark eyes were cast down, andhis thin, sun-browned hands were folded together in a way that suggestedprayer. Did this desert song of the black men, children of God likehim as their song affirmed, stir his soul to some grave petition thatembraced the wants of all humanity?

Androvsky was sitting quite still. He was also looking down and the lidscovered his eyes. An expression of pain still lingered on his face, butit was less cruel, no longer tortured, but melancholy. And Domini, asshe listened, recalled the strange cry that had risen within her as theArab disappeared in the sunshine, the cry of the soul in life surroundedby mysteries, by the hands, the footfalls, the voices of hiddenthings--"What is going to happen to me here?" But that cry had risen inher, found words in her, only when confronted by the desert. Before ithad been perhaps hidden in the womb. Only then was it born. And now thedays had passed and the nights, and the song brought with it the cryonce more, the cry and suddenly something else, another voice that, veryfar away, seemed to be making answer to it. That answer she could nothear. The words of it were hidden in the womb as, once, the words of herintense question. Only she felt that an answer had been made. The futureknew, and had begun to try to tell her. She was on the very edge ofknowledge while she listened, but she could not step into the marvellousland. 

Presently Count Anteoni spoke to the priest. 

"You have heard this song, no doubt, Father?"

Father Roubier shook his head. 

"I don't think so, but I can never remember the Arab music"

"Perhaps you dislike it?"

"No, no. It is ugly in a way, but there seems a great deal of meaning init. In this song especially there is--one might almost call it beauty. "

"Wonderful beauty, " Domini said in a low voice, still listening to thesong. 

"The words are beautiful, " said the Count, this time addressing himselfto Androvsky. "I don't know them all, but they begin like this:

 "'The gazelle dies in the water, The fish dies in the air, And I die in the dunes of the desert sand For my love that is deep and sad. '

"And when the chorus sounds, as now"--and he made a gesture toward theinner room, in which the low murmur of " Wurra-Wurra" rose again, "thesinger reiterates always the same refrain:

 "'No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. '"

Almost as he spoke the contralto voice began to sing the refrain. Androvsky turned pale. There were drops of sweat on his forehead. Helifted his glass of wine to his lips and his hand trembled so that someof the wine was spilt upon the tablecloth. And, as once before, Dominifelt that what moved her deeply moved him even more deeply, whether inthe same way or differently she could not tell. The image of the taperand the torch recurred to her mind. She saw Androvsky with fire roundabout him. The violence of this man surely resembled the violence ofAfrica. There was something terrible about it, yet also something noble, for it suggested a male power, which might make for either good or evil, but which had nothing to do with littleness. For a moment Count Anteoniand the priest were dwarfed, as if they had come into the presence of agiant. 

The Arabs handed round fruit. And now the song died softly away. Onlythe instruments went on playing. The distant tomtom was surely thebeating of that heart into whose mysteries no other human heart couldlook. Its reiterated and dim throbbing affected Domini almost terribly. She was relieved, yet regretful, when at length it ceased. 

"Shall we go into the ante-room?" the Count said. "Coffee will bebrought there. "

"Oh, but--don't let us see them!" Domini exclaimed. 

"The musicians?"

She nodded. 

"You would rather not hear any more music?"

"If you don't mind!"

He gave an order in Arabic. One of the servants slipped away andreturned almost immediately. 

"Now we can go, " the Count said. "They have vanished. "

The priest sighed. It was evident that the music had moved him too. Asthey got up he said:

"Yes, there was beauty in that song and something more. Some of thesedesert poets can teach us to think. "

"A dangerous lesson, perhaps, " said the Count. "What do you say, Monsieur Androvsky?"

Androvsky was on his feet. His eyes were turned toward the door throughwhich the sound of the music had come. 

"I!" he answered. "I--Monsieur, I am afraid that to me this music meansvery little. I cannot judge of it. "

"But the words?" asked the Count with a certain pressure. 

"They do not seem to me to suggest much more than the music. "

The Count said no more. As she went into the outer room Domini feltangry, as she had felt angry in the garden at Sidi-Zerzour whenAndrovsky said:

"These native women do not interest me. I see nothing attractive inthem. "

For now, as then, she knew that he had lied. 

CHAPTER XI

Domini came into the ante-room alone. The three men had paused for amoment behind her, and the sound of a match struck reached her earsas she went listlessly forward to the door which was open to the broadgarden path, and stood looking out into the sunshine. Butterflies wereflitting here and there through the riot of gold, and she heard faintbird-notes from the shadows of the trees, echoed by the more distanttwitter of Larbi's flute. On the left, between the palms, she caughtglimpses of the desert and of the hard and brilliant mountains, and, as she stood there, she remembered her sensations on first entering thegarden and how soon she had learned to love it. It had always seemed toher a sunny paradise of peace until this moment. But now she felt as ifshe were compassed about by clouds. 

The vagrant movement of the butterflies irritated her eyes, the distantsound of the flute distressed her ears, and all the peace had gone. Onceagain this man destroyed the spell Nature had cast upon her. Becauseshe knew that he had lied, her joy in the garden, her deeper joy in thedesert that embraced it, were stricken. Yet why should he not lie? Whichof us does not lie about his feelings? Has reserve no right to armour?

She heard her companions entering the room and turned round. At thatmoment her heart was swept by an emotion almost of hatred to Androvsky. Because of it she smiled. A forced gaiety dawned in her. She sat down onone of the low divans, and, as she asked Count Anteoni for a cigaretteand lit it, she thought, "How shall I punish him?" That lie, not eventold to her and about so slight a matter, seemed to her an attack whichshe resented and must return. Not for a moment did she ask herself ifshe were reasonable. A voice within her said, "I will not be lied to, I will not even bear a lie told to another in my presence by this man. "And the voice was imperious. 

Count Anteoni remained beside her, smoking a cigar. Father Roubier tooka seat by the little table in front of her. But Androvsky went over tothe door she had just left, and stood, as she had, looking out into thesunshine. Bous-Bous followed him, and snuffed affectionately round hisfeet, trying to gain his attention. 

"My little dog seems very fond of your friend, " the priest said toDomini. 

"My friend!"

"Monsieur Androvsky. "

She lowered her voice. 

"He is only a travelling acquaintance. I know nothing of him. "

The priest looked gently surprised and Count Anteoni blew forth afragrant cloud of smoke. 

"He seems a remarkable man, " the priest said mildly. 

"Do you think so?"

She began to speak to Count Anteoni about some absurdity of Batouch, forcing her mind into a light and frivolous mood, and he echoed her tonewith a clever obedience for which secretly she blessed him. In a momentthey were laughing together with apparent merriment, and Father Roubiersmiled innocently at their light-heartedness, believing in it sincerely. But Androvsky suddenly turned around with a dark and morose countenance. 

"Come in out of the sunshine, " said the Count. "It is too strong. Trythis chair. Coffee will be--ah, here it is!"

Two servants appeared, carrying it. 

"Thank you, Monsieur, " Androvsky said with reluctant courtesy. 

He came towards them with determination and sat down, drawing forwardhis chair till he was facing Domini. Directly he was quiet Bous-Boussprang upon his knee and lay down hastily, blinking his eyes, which werealmost concealed by hair, and heaving a sigh which made the priest lookkindly at him, even while he said deprecatingly:

"Bous-Bous! Bous-Bous! Little rascal, little pig--down, down!"

"Oh, leave him, Monsieur!" muttered Androvsky. "It's all the same tome. "

"He really has no shame where his heart is concerned. "

"Arab!" said the Count. "He has learnt it in Beni-Mora. "

"Perhaps he has taken lessons from Larbi, " said Domini. "Hark! He isplaying to-day. For whom?"

"I never ask now, " said the Count. "The name changes so often. "

"Constancy is not an Arab fault?" Domini asked. 

"You say 'fault, ' Madame, " interposed the priest. 

"Yes, Father, " she returned with a light touch of conscious cynicism. "Surely in this world that which is apt to bring inevitable misery withit must be accounted a fault. "

"But can constancy do that?"

"Don't you think so, into a world of ceaseless change?"

"Then how shall we reckon truth in a world of lies?" asked the Count. "Is that a fault, too?"

"Ask Monsieur Androvsky, " said Domini, quickly. 

"I obey, " said the Count, looking over at his guest. 

"Ah, but I am sure I know, " Domini added. "I am sure you think truth athing we should all avoid in such a world as this. Don't you, Monsieur?"

"If you are sure, Madame, why ask me?" Androvsky replied. 

There was in his voice a sound that was startling. Suddenly the priestreached out his hand and lifted Bous-Bous on to his knee, and CountAnteoni very lightly and indifferently interposed. 

"Truth-telling among Arabs becomes a dire necessity to Europeans. Onecannot out-lie them, and it doesn't pay to run second to Orientals. Soone learns, with tears, to be sincere. Father Roubier is shocked by myapologia for my own blatant truthfulness. "

The priest laughed. 

"I live so little in what is called 'the world' that I'm afraid I'm veryready to take drollery for a serious expression of opinion. "

He stroked Bous-Bous's white back, and added, with a simple genialitythat seemed to spring rather from a desire to be kind than from anytemperamental source:

"But I hope I shall always be able to enjoy innocent fun. "

As he spoke his eyes rested on Androvsky's face, and suddenly he lookedgrave and put Bous-Bous gently down on the floor. 

"I'm afraid I must be going, " he said. 

"Already?" said his host. 

"I dare not allow myself too much idleness. If once I began to be idlein this climate I should become like an Arab and do nothing all day butsit in the sun. "

"As I do. Father, we meet very seldom, but whenever we do I feel myselfa cumberer of the earth. "

Domini had never before heard him speak with such humbleness. The priestflushed like a boy. 

"We each serve in our own way, " he said quickly. "The Arab who sits allday in the sun may be heard as a song of praise where He is. "

And then he took his leave. This time he did not extend his hand toAndrovsky, but only bowed to him, lifting his white helmet. As he wentaway in the sun with Bous-Bous the three he had left followed himwith their eyes. For Androvsky had turned his chair sideways, as ifinvoluntarily. 

"I shall learn to love Father Roubier, " Domini said. 

Androvsky moved his seat round again till his back was to the garden, and placed his broad hands palm downward on his knees. 

"Yes?" said the Count. 

"He is so transparently good, and he bears his great disappointment sobeautifully. "

"What great disappointment?"

"He longed to become a monk. "

Androvsky got up from his seat and walked back to the garden doorway. His restless demeanour and lowering expression destroyed all sense ofcalm and leisure. Count Anteoni looked after him, and then at Domini, with a sort of playful surprise. He was going to speak, but before thewords came Smain appeared, carrying reverently a large envelope coveredwith Arab writing. 

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" the Count said. 

"Of course. "

He took the letter, and at once a vivid expression of excitement shonein his eyes. When he had read it there was a glow upon his face as ifthe flames of a fire played over it. 

"Miss Enfilden, " he said, "will you think me very discourteous if Ileave you for a moment? The messenger who brought this has come from farand starts to-day on his return journey. He has come out of the south, three hundred kilometres away, from Beni-Hassan, a sacred village--asacred village. "

He repeated the last words, lowering his voice. 

"Of course go and see him. "

"And you?"

He glanced towards Androvsky, who was standing with his back to them. 

"Won't you show Monsieur Androvsky the garden?"

Hearing his name Androvsky turned, and the Count at once made hisexcuses to him and followed Smain towards the garden gate, carrying theletter that had come from Beni-Hassan in his hand. 

When he had gone Domini remained on the divan, and Androvsky by thedoor, with his eyes on the ground. She took another cigarette from thebox on the table beside her, struck a match and lit it carefully. Thenshe said:

"Do you care to see the garden?"

She spoke indifferently, coldly. The desire to show her Paradise to himhad died away, but the parting words of the Count prompted the question, and so she put it as to a stranger. 

"Thank you, Madame--yes, " he replied, as if with an effort. 

She got up, and they went out together on to the broad walk. 

"Which way do you want to go?" she asked. 

She saw him glance at her quickly, with anxiety in his eyes. 

"You know best where we should go, Madame. "

"I daresay you won't care about it. Probably you are not interested ingardens. It does not matter really which path we take. They are all verymuch alike. "

"I am sure they are all very beautiful. "

Suddenly he had become humble, anxious to please her. But now theviolent contrasts in him, unlike the violent contrasts of nature in thisland, exasperated her. She longed to be left alone. She felt ashamed ofAndrovsky, and also of herself; she condemned herself bitterly for theinterest she had taken in him, for her desire to put some pleasure intoa life she had deemed sad, for her curiosity about him, for her wishto share joy with him. She laughed at herself secretly for what she nowcalled her folly in having connected him imaginatively with the desert, whereas in reality he made the desert, as everything he approached, losein beauty and wonder. His was a destructive personality. She knew itnow. Why had she not realised it before? He was a man to put gall in thecup of pleasure, to create uneasiness, self-consciousness, constraintround about him, to call up spectres at the banquet of life. Well, inthe future she could avoid him. After to-day she need never have anymore intercourse with him. With that thought, that interior sense ofher perfect freedom in regard to this man, an abrupt, but always cold, content came to her, putting him a long way off where surely all that hethought and did was entirely indifferent to her. 

"Come along then, " she said. "We'll go this way. "

And she turned down an alley which led towards the home of the purpledog. She did not know at the moment that anything had influenced her tochoose that particular path, but very soon the sound of Larbi's flutegrew louder, and she guessed that in reality the music had attractedher. Androvsky walked beside her without a word. She felt that hewas not looking about him, not noticing anything, and all at once shestopped decisively. 

"Why should we take all this trouble?" she said bluntly. "I hatepretence and I thought I had travelled far away from it. But we are bothpretending. "

"Pretending, Madame?" he said in a startled voice. 

"Yes. I that I want to show you this garden, you that you want to seeit. I no longer wish to show it to you, and you have never wished to seeit. Let us cease to pretend. It is all my fault. I bothered you to comehere when you didn't want to come. You have taught me a lesson. I wasinclined to condemn you for it, to be angry with you. But why should Ibe? You were quite right. Freedom is my fetish. I set you free, MonsieurAndrovsky. Good-bye. "

As she spoke she felt that the air was clearing, the clouds were flying. Constraint at least was at an end. And she had really the sensation ofsetting a captive at liberty. She turned to leave him, but he said:

"Please, stop, Madame. "

"Why?"

"You have made a mistake. "

"In what?"

"I do want to see this garden. "

"Really? Well, then, you can wander through it. "

"I do not wish to see it alone. "

"Larbi shall guide you. For half a franc he will gladly give up hisserenading. "

"Madame, if you will not show me the garden I will not see it at all. Iwill go now and will never come into it again. I do not pretend. "

"Ah!" she said, and her voice was quite changed. "But you do worse. "

"Worse!"

"Yes. You lie in the face of Africa. "

She did not wish or mean to say it, and yet she had to say it. She knewit was monstrous that she should speak thus to him. What had his lies todo with her? She had been told a thousand, had heard a thousand told toothers. Her life had been passed in a world of which the words of thePsalmist, though uttered in haste, are a clear-cut description. Andshe had not thought she cared. Yet really she must have cared. For, inleaving this world, her soul had, as it were, fetched a long breath. Andnow, at the hint of a lie, it instinctively recoiled as from a gust ofair laden with some poisonous and suffocating vapour. 

"Forgive me, " she added. "I am a fool. Out here I do love truth. "

Androvsky dropped his eyes. His whole body expressed humiliation, andsomething that suggested to her despair. 

"Oh, you must think me mad to speak like this!" she exclaimed. "Ofcourse people must be allowed to arm themselves against the curiosityof others. I know that. The fact is I am under a spell here. I have beenliving for many, many years in the cold. I have been like a woman in aprison without any light, and--"

"You have been in a prison!" he said, lifting his head and looking ather eagerly. 

"I have been living in what is called the great world. "

"And you call that a prison?"

"Now that I am living in the greater world, really living at last. Ihave been in the heart of insincerity, and now I have come into theheart, the fiery heart of sincerity. It's there--there"--she pointedto the desert. "And it has intoxicated me; I think it has made meunreasonable. I expect everyone--not an Arab--to be as it is, and everylittle thing that isn't quite frank, every pretence, is like a horriblelittle hand tugging at me, as if trying to take me back to the prison Ihave left. I think, deep down, I have always loathed lies, but never asI have loathed them since I came here. It seems to me as if only in thedesert there is freedom for the body, and only in truth there is freedomfor the soul. "

She stopped, drew a long breath, and added:

"You must forgive me. I have worried you. I have made you do what youdidn't want to do. And then I have attacked you. It is unpardonable. "

"Show me the garden, Madame, " he said in a very low voice. 

Her outburst over, she felt a slight self-consciousness. She wonderedwhat he thought of her and became aware of her unconventionality. Hiscurious and persistent reticence made her frankness the more marked. Yet the painful sensation of oppression and exasperation had passed awayfrom her and she no longer thought of his personality as destructive. In obedience to his last words she walked on, and he kept heavily besideher, till they were in the deep shadows of the closely-growing trees andthe spell of the garden began to return upon her, banishing the thoughtof self. 

"Listen!" she said presently. 

Larbi's flute was very near. 

"He is always playing, " she whispered. 

"Who is he?"

"One of the gardeners. But he scarcely ever works. He is perpetually inlove. That is why he plays. "

"Is that a love-tune then?" Androvsky asked. 

"Yes. Do you think it sounds like one?"

"How should I know, Madame?"

He stood looking in the direction from which the music came, and now itseemed to hold him fascinated. After his question, which sounded to heralmost childlike, and which she did not answer, Domini glanced at hisattentive face, to which the green shadows lent a dimness that wasmysterious, at his tall figure, which always suggested to her bothweariness and strength, and remembered the passionate romance to whoseexistence she awoke when she first heard Larbi's flute. It was as ifa shutter, which had closed a window in the house of life, had beensuddenly drawn away, giving to her eyes the horizon of a new world. Was that shutter now drawn back for him? No doubt the supposition wasabsurd. Men of his emotional and virile type have travelled far in thatworld, to her mysterious, ere they reach his length of years. What wasextraordinary to her, in the thought of it alone, was doubtless quiteordinary to him, translated into act. Not ignorant, she was neverthelessa perfectly innocent woman, but her knowledge told her that no man ofAndrovsky's strength, power and passion is innocent at Androvsky's age. Yet his last dropped-out question was very deceptive. It had soundedabsolutely natural and might have come from a boy's pure lips. Again hemade her wonder. 

There was a garden bench close to where they were standing. "If you liketo listen for a moment we might sit down, " she said. 

He started. 

"Yes. Thank you. "

When they were sitting side by side, closely guarded by the gigantic figand chestnut trees which grew in this part of the garden, he added:

"Whom does he love?"

"No doubt one of those native women whom you consider utterly withoutattraction, " she answered with a faint touch of malice which made himredden. 

"But you come here every day?" he said. 

"I!"

"Yes. Has he ever seen you?"

"Larbi? Often. What has that to do with it?"

He did not reply. 

Odd and disconnected as Larbi's melodies were, they created anatmosphere of wild tenderness. Spontaneously they bubbled up out of theheart of the Eastern world and, when the player was invisible as now, suggested an ebon faun couched in hot sand at the foot of a palm treeand making music to listening sunbeams and amorous spirits of the waste. 

"Do you like it?" she said presently in an under voice. 

"Yes, Madame. And you?"

"I love it, but not as I love the song of the freed negroes. That is asong of all the secrets of humanity and of the desert too. And it doesnot try to tell them. It only says that they exist and that God knowsthem. But, I remember, you do not like that song. "

"Madame, " he answered slowly, and as if he were choosing his words, "Isee that you understood. The song did move me though I said not. But no, I do not like it. "

"Do you care to tell me why?"

"Such a song as that seems to me an--it is like an intrusion. There arethings that should be let alone. There are dark places that should beleft dark. "

"You mean that all human beings hold within them secrets, and that noallusion even should ever be made to those secrets?"

"Yes. "

"I understand. "

After a pause he said, anxiously, she thought:

"Am I right, Madame, or is my thought ridiculous?"

He asked it so simply that she felt touched. 

"I'm sure you could never be ridiculous, " she said quickly. "And perhapsyou are right. I don't know. That song makes me think and feel, and so Ilove it. Perhaps if you heard it alone--"

"Then I should hate it, " he interposed. 

His voice was like an uncontrolled inner voice speaking. 

"And not thought and feeling--" she began. 

But he interrupted her. 

"They make all the misery that exists in the world. "

"And all the happiness. "

"Do they?"

"They must. "

"Then you want to think deeply, to feel deeply?"

"Yes. I would rather be the central figure of a world-tragedy than diewithout having felt to the uttermost, even if it were sorrow. My wholenature revolts against the idea of being able to feel little or nothingreally. It seems to me that when we begin to feel acutely we begin togrow, like the palm tree rising towards the African sun. "

"I do not think you have ever been very unhappy, " he said. The sound ofhis voice as he said it made her suddenly feel as if it were true, as ifshe had never been utterly unhappy. Yet she had never been really happy. Africa had taught her that. 

"Perhaps not, " she answered. "But--some day--"

She stopped. 

"Yes, Madame?"

"Could one stay long in such a world as this and not be either intenselyhappy or intensely unhappy? I don't feel as if it would be possible. Fierceness and fire beat upon one day after day and--one must learn tofeel here. "

As she spoke a sensation of doubt, almost of apprehension, came to her. She was overtaken by a terror of the desert. For a moment it seemed toher that he was right, that it were better never to be the prey of anydeep emotion. 

"If one does not wish to feel one should never come to such a place asthis, " she added. 

And she longed to ask him why he was here, he, a man whose philosophytold him to avoid the heights and depths, to shun the ardours of natureand of life. 

"Or, having come, one should leave it. "

A sensation of lurking danger increased upon her, bringing with it thethought of flight. 

"One can always do that, " she said, looking at him. She saw fear in hiseyes, but it seemed to her that it was not fear of peril, but fear offlight. So strongly was this idea borne in upon her that she bluntlyexclaimed:

"Unless it is one's nature to face things, never to turn one's back. Isit yours, Monsieur Androvsky?"

"Fear could never drive me to leave Beni-Moni, " he answered. 

"Sometimes I think that the only virtue in us is courage, " she said, "that it includes all the others. I believe I could forgive everythingwhere I found absolute courage. "

Androvsky's eyes were lit up as if by a flicker of inward fire. 

"You might create the virtue you love, " he said hoarsely. 

They looked at each other for a moment. Did he mean that she mightcreate it in him?

Perhaps she would have asked, or perhaps he would have told her, but atthat moment something happened. Larbi stopped playing. In the last fewminutes they had both forgotten that he was playing, but when he ceasedthe garden changed. Something was withdrawn in which, without knowingit, they had been protecting themselves, and when the music faded theirarmour dropped away from them. With the complete silence came an alteredatmosphere, the tenderness of mysticism instead of the tenderness of awild humanity. The love of man seemed to depart out of the garden andanother love to enter it, as when God walked under the trees in the coolof the day. And they sat quite still, as if a common impulse muted theirlips. In the long silence that followed Domini thought of her mirage ofthe palm tree growing towards the African sun, feeling growing in theheart of a human being. But was it a worthy image? For the palm treerises high. It soars into the air. But presently it ceases to grow. There is nothing infinite in its growth. And the long, hot years passaway and there it stands, never nearer to the infinite gold of the sun. But in the intense feeling of a man or woman is there not infinitude? Isthere not a movement that is ceaseless till death comes to destroy--orto translate?

That was what she was thinking in the silence of the garden. AndAndrovsky? He sat beside her with his head bent, his hands hangingbetween his knees, his eyes gazing before him at the ordered tangleof the great trees. His lips were slightly parted, and on hisstrongly-marked face there was an expression as of emotional peace, asif the soul of the man were feeling deeply in calm. The restlessness, the violence that had made his demeanour so embarrassing duringand after the _dejeuner_ had vanished. He was a different man. Andpresently, noticing it, feeling his sensitive serenity, Domini seemedto see the great Mother at work about this child of hers, Nature at hertender task of pacification. The shared silence became to her likea song of thanksgiving, in which all the green things of the gardenjoined. And beyond them the desert lay listening, the Garden of Allahattentive to the voices of man's garden. She could hardly believe thatbut a few minutes before she had been full of irritation and bitterness, not free even from a touch of pride that was almost petty. But when sheremembered that it was so she realised the abysses and the heights ofwhich the heart is mingled, and an intense desire came to her to bealways upon the heights of her own heart. For there only was the lightof happiness. Never could she know joy if she forswore nobility. Nevercould she be at peace with the love within her--love of something thatwas not self, of something that seemed vaguer than God, as if it hadentered into God and made him Love--unless she mounted upwards duringher little span of life. Again, as before in this land, in the firstsunset, on the tower, on the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, Nature spoke to her intimate words of inspiration, laid upon herthe hands of healing, giving her powers she surely had not known orconceived of till now. And the passion that is the chiefest grace ofgoodness, making it the fire that purifies, as it is the littlesister of the poor that tends the suffering, the hungry, the gropingbeggar-world, stirred within her, like the child not yet born, but whosedestiny is with the angels. And she longed to make some great offeringat the altar on whose lowest step she stood, and she was filled, for thefirst time consciously, with woman's sacred desire for sacrifice. 

A soft step on the sand broke the silence and scattered her aspirations. Count Anteoni was coming towards them between the trees. The light ofhappiness was still upon his face and made him look much younger thanusual. His whole bearing, in its elasticity and buoyant courage, wasfull of anticipation. As he came up to them he said to Domini:

"Do you remember chiding me?"

"I!" she said. "For what?"

Androvsky sat up and the expression of serenity passed away from hisface. 

"For never galloping away into the sun. "

"Oh!--yes, I do remember. "

"Well, I am going to obey you. I am going to make a journey. "

"Into the desert?"

"Three hundred kilometers on horseback. I start to-morrow. "

She looked up at him with a new interest. He saw it and laughed, almostlike a boy. 

"Ah, your contempt for me is dying!"

"How can you speak of contempt?"

"But you were full of it. " He turned to Androvsky. "Miss Enfildenthought I could not sit a horse, Monsieur, unlike you. Forgive me forsaying that you are almost more dare-devil than the Arabs themselves. Isaw you the other day set your stallion at the bank of the river bed. Idid not think any horse could have done it, but you knew better. "

"I did not know at all, " said Androvsky. "I had not ridden for overtwenty years until that day. "

He spoke with a blunt determination which made Domini remember theirrecent conversation on truth-telling. 

"Dio mio!" said the Count, slowly, and looking at him with undisguisedwonder. "You must have a will and a frame of iron. "

"I am pretty strong. "

He spoke rather roughly. Since the Count had joined them Domini noticedthat Androvsky had become a different man. Once more he was on thedefensive. The Count did not seem to notice it. Perhaps he was tooradiant. 

"I hope I shall endure as well as you, Monsieur, " he said. "I go toBeni-Hassan to visit Sidi El Hadj Aissa, one of the mightiest maraboutsin the Sahara. In your Church, " he added, turning again to Domini, "hewould be a powerful Cardinal. "

She noticed the "your. " Evidently the Count was not a professingCatholic. Doubtless, like many modern Italians, he was a free-thinker inmatters of religion. 

"I am afraid I have never heard of him, " she said. "In which directiondoes Beni-Hassan lie?"

"To go there one takes the caravan route that the natives call the routeto Tombouctou. "

An eager look came into her face. 

"My road!" she said. 

"Yours?"

"The one I shall travel on. You remember, Monsieur Androvsky?"

"Yes, Madame. "

"Let me into your secret, " said the Count, laughingly, yet with interesttoo. 

"It is no secret. It is only that I love that route. It fascinates me, and I mean some day to make a desert journey along it. "

"What a pity that we cannot join forces, " the Count said. "I should feelit an honour to show the desert to one who has the reverence for it, theunderstanding of its spell, that you have. "

He spoke earnestly, paused, and then added:

"But I know well what you are thinking. "

"What is that?"

"That you will go to the desert alone. You are right. It is the onlyway, at any rate the first time. I went like that many years ago. "

She said nothing in assent, and Androvsky got up from the bench. 

"I must go, Monsieur. "

"Already! But have you seen the garden?"

"It is wonderful. Good-bye, Monsieur. Thank you. "

"But--let me see you to the gate. On Fridays----"

He was turning to Domini when she got up too. 

"Don't you distribute alms on Fridays?" she said. 

"How should you know it?"

"I have heard all about you. But is this the hour?"

"Yes. "

"Let me see the distribution. "

"And we will speed Monsieur Androvsky on his way at the same time. "

She noticed that there was no question in his mind of her going withAndrovsky. Did she mean to go with him? She had not decided yet. 

They walked towards the gate and were soon on the great sweep of sandbefore the villa. A murmur of many voices was audible outside in thedesert, nasal exclamations, loud guttural cries that sounded angry, thetwittering of flutes and the snarl of camels. 

"Do you hear my pensioners?" said the Count. "They are alwaysimpatient. "

There was the noise of a tomtom and of a whining shriek. 

"That is old Bel Cassem's announcement of his presence. He has beenliving on me for years, the old ruffian, ever since his right eyewas gouged out by his rival in the affections of the Marechale of thedancing-girls. Smain!"

He blew his silver whistle. Instantly Smain came out of the villacarrying a money-bag. The Count took it and weighed it in his hand, looking at Domini with the joyous expression still upon his face. 

"Have you ever made a thank-offering?" he said. 

"No. "

"That tells me something. Well, to-day I wish to make a thank-offeringto the desert. "

"What has it done for you?"

"Who knows? Who knows?"

He laughed aloud, almost like a boy. Androvsky glanced at him with asort of wondering envy. 

"And I want you to share in my little distribution, " he added. "Andyou, Monsieur, if you don't mind. There are moments when--Open the gate, Smain!"

His ardour was infectious and Domini felt stirred by it to a suddensense of the joy of life. She looked at Androvsky, to include him inthe rigour of gaiety which swept from the Count to her, and found himstaring apprehensively at the Count, who was now loosening the stringof the bag. Smain had reached the gate. He lifted the bar of wood andopened it. Instantly a crowd of dark faces and turbaned heads werethrust through the tall aperture, a multitude of dusky hands flutteredfrantically, and the cry of eager voices, saluting, begging, callingdown blessings, relating troubles, shrieking wants, proclaiming virtuesand necessities, rose into an almost deafening uproar. But not afoot was lifted over the lintel to press the sunlit sand. The Count'spensioners might be clamorous, but they knew what they might not do. Ashe saw them the wrinkles in his face deepened and his fingers quickenedto achieve their purpose. 

"My pensioners are very hungry to-day, and, as you see, they don't mindsaying so. Hark at Bel Cassem!"

The tomtom and the shriek that went with it made it a fierce crescendo. 

"That means he is starving--the old hypocrite! Aren't they like thewolves in your Russia, Monsieur? But we must feed them. We mustn't letthem devour our Beni-Mora. That's it!"

He threw the string on to the sand, plunged his hand into the bag andbrought it out full of copper coins. The mouths opened wider, the handswaved more frantically, and all the dark eyes gleamed with the light ofgreed. 

"Will you help me?" he said to Domini. 

"Of course. What fun!"

Her eyes were gleaming too, but with the dancing fires of a gay impulseof generosity which made her wish that the bag contained her money. Hefilled her hands with coins. 

"Choose whom you will. And now, Monsieur!"

For the moment he was so boyishly concentrated on the immediate presentthat he had ceased to observe whether the whim of others jumped withhis own. Otherwise he must have been struck by Androvsky's markeddiscomfort, which indeed almost amounted to agitation. The sight of thethrong of Arabs at the gateway, the clamour of their voices, evidentlyroused within him something akin to fear. He looked at them withdistaste, and had drawn back several steps upon the sand, and now, asthe Count held out to him a hand filled with money, he made no motionto take it, and half turned as if he thought of retreating into therecesses of the garden. 

"Here, Monsieur! here!" exclaimed the Count, with his eyes on the crowd, towards which Domini was walking with a sort of mischievous slowness, towhet those appetites already so voracious. 

Androvsky set his teeth and took the money, dropping one or two pieceson the ground. For a moment the Count seemed doubtful of his guest'sparticipation in his own lively mood. 

"Is this boring you?" he asked. "Because if so--"

"No, no, Monsieur, not at all! What am I to do?"

"Those hands will tell you. "

The clamour grew more exigent. 

"And when you want more come to me!"

Then he called out in Arabic, "Gently! Gently!" as the vehementscuffling seemed about to degenerate into actual fighting at Domini'sapproach, and hurried forward, followed more slowly by Androvsky. 

Smain, from whose velvety eyes the dreams were not banished by theuproar, stood languidly by the porter's tent, gazing at Androvsky. Something in the demeanour of the new visitor seemed to attract him. Domini, meanwhile, had reached the gateway. Gently, with a capriciousdeftness and all a woman's passion for personal choice, she dropped thebits of money into the hands belonging to the faces that attracted her, disregarding the bellowings of those passed over. The light from allthese gleaming eyes made her feel warm, the clamour that poured fromthese brown throats excited her. When her fingers were empty she touchedthe Count's arm eagerly. 

"More, more, please!"

"Ecco, Signora. "

He held out to her the bag. She plunged her hands into it and camenearer to the gate, both hands full of money and held high above herhead. The Arabs leapt up at her like dogs at a bone, and for a momentshe waited, laughing with all her heart. Then she made a movement tothrow the money over the heads of the near ones to the unfortunates whowere dancing and shrieking on the outskirts of the mob. But suddenly herhands dropped and she uttered a startled exclamation. 

The sand-diviner of the red bazaar, slipping like a reptile under thewaving arms and between the furious bodies of the beggars, stood upbefore her with a smile on his wounded face, stretched out to her hisemaciated hands with a fawning, yet half satirical, gesture of desire. 

CHAPTER XII

The money dropped from Domini's fingers and rolled upon the sand at theDiviner's feet. But though he had surely come to ask for alms, he tookno heed of it. While the Arabs round him fell upon their knees andfought like animals for the plunder, he stood gaping at Domini. Thesmile still flickered about his lips. His hand was still stretched out. 

Instinctively she had moved backwards. Something that was like a thrillof fear, mental, not physical, went through her, but she kept her eyessteadily on his, as if, despite the fear, she fought against him. 

The contest of the beggars had become so passionate that Count Anteoni'scommands were forgotten. Urged by the pressure from behind those inthe front scrambled or fell over the sacred threshold. The garden wasinvaded by a shrieking mob. Smain ran forward, and the autocrat thatdwelt in the Count side by side with the benefactor suddenly emerged. Heblew his whistle four times. At each call a stalwart Arab appeared. 

"Shut the gate!" he commanded sternly. 

The attendants furiously repulsed the mob, using their fists and feetwithout mercy. In the twinkling of an eye the sand was cleared and Smainhad his hand upon the door to shut it. But the Diviner stopped him witha gesture, and in a fawning yet imperious voice called out something tothe Count. 

The Count turned to Domini. 

"This is an interesting fellow. Would you like to know him?"

Her mind said no, yet her body assented. For she bowed her head. TheCount beckoned. The Diviner stepped stealthily on to the sand with anair of subtle triumph, and Smain swung forward the great leaf of palmwood. 

"Wait!" the Count cried, as if suddenly recollecting something. "Whereis Monsieur Androvsky?"

"Isn't he----?" Domini glanced round. "I don't know. "

He went quickly to the door and looked out. The Arabs, silent now andrespectful, crowded about him, salaaming. He smiled at them kindly, and spoke to one or two. They answered gravely. An old man with oneeye lifted his hand, in which was a tomtom of stretched goatskin, andpointed towards the oasis, rapidly moving his toothless jaws. The Countstepped back into the garden, dismissed his pensioners with a masterfulwave of the hand, and himself shut the door. 

"Monsieur Androvsky has gone--without saying good-bye, " he said. 

Again Domini felt ashamed for Androvsky. 

"I don't think he likes my pensioners, " the Count added, in amusedvoice, "or me. "

"I am sure--" Domini began. 

But he stopped her. 

"Miss Enfilden, in a world of lies I look to you for truth. "

His manner chafed her, but his voice had a ring of earnestness. Shesaid nothing. All this time the Diviner was standing on the sand, stillsmiling, but with downcast eyes. His thin body looked satirical andDomini felt a strong aversion from him, yet a strong interest in himtoo. Something in his appearance and manner suggested power and mysteryas well as cunning. The Count said some words to him in Arabic, andat once he walked forward and disappeared among the trees, going sosilently and smoothly that she seemed to watch a panther gliding intothe depths of a jungle where its prey lay hid. She looked at the Countinterrogatively. 

"He will wait in the _fumoir_. "

"Where we first met?"

"Yes. "

"What for?"

"For us, if you choose. "

"Tell me about him. I have seen him twice. He followed me with a bag ofsand. "

"He is a desert man. I don't know his tribe, but before he settled herehe was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of thesand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would supposesuch beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The sand tellshim secrets. "

"He says. Do you believe it?"

"Would you like to test it?"

"How?"

"By coming with me to the _fumoir_?"

She hesitated obviously. 

"Mind, " he added, "I do not press it. A word from me and he is gone. But you are fearless, and you have spoken already, will speak much moreintimately in the future, with the desert spirits. "

"How do you know that?"

"The 'much more intimately'?"

"Yes. "

"I do not know it, but--which is much more--I feel it. "

She was silent, looking towards the trees where the Diviner haddisappeared. Count Anteoni's boyish merriment had faded away. He lookedgrave, almost sad. 

"I am not afraid, " she said at last. "No, but--I will confess it--thereis something horrible about that man to me. I felt it the first timeI saw him. His eyes are too intelligent. They look diseased withintelligence. "

"Let me send him away. Smain!"

But she stopped him. Directly he made the suggestion she felt that shemust know more of this man. 

"No. Let us go to the _fumoir_. "

"Very well. Go, Smain!"

Smain went into the little tent by the gate, sat down on his haunchesand began to smell at a sprig of orange blossoms. Domini and the Countwalked into the darkness of the trees. 

"What is his name?" she asked. 

"Aloui. "

"Aloui. "

She repeated the word slowly. There was a reluctant and yet fascinatedsound in her voice. 

"There is melody in the name, " he said. 

"Yes. Has he--has he ever looked in the sand for you?"

"Once--a long time ago. "

"May I--dare I ask if he found truth there?"

"He found nothing for all the years that have passed since then. "

"Nothing!"

There was a sound of relief in her voice. 

"For those years. "

She glanced at him and saw that once again his face had lit up intoardour. 

"He found what is still to come?" she said. 

And he repeated:

"He found what is still to come. "

Then they walked on in silence till they saw the purple blossoms ofthe bougainvillea clinging to the white walls of the _fumoir_. Doministopped on the narrow path. 

"Is he in there?" she asked almost in a whisper. 

"No doubt. "

"Larbi was playing the first day I came here. "

"Yes. "

"I wish he was playing now. "

The silence seemed to her unnaturally intense. 

"Even his love must have repose. "

She went on a step or two till, but still from a distance, she couldlook over the low plaster wall beneath the nearest window space into thelittle room. 

"Yes, there he is, " she whispered. 

The Diviner was crouching on the floor with his back towards them andhis head bent down. Only his shoulders could be seen, covered with awhite gandoura. They moved perpetually but slightly. 

"What is he doing?"

"Speaking with his ancestor. "

"His ancestor?"

"The sand. Aloui!"

He called softly. The figure rose, without sound and instantly, and theface of the Diviner smiled at them through the purple flowers. AgainDomini had the sensation that her body was a glass box in which herthoughts, feelings and desires were ranged for this man's inspection;but she walked resolutely through the narrow doorway and sat down on oneof the divans. Count Anteoni followed. 

She now saw that in the centre of the room, on the ground, there wasa symmetrical pyramid of sand, and that the Diviner was gently foldingtogether a bag in his long and flexible fingers. 

"You see!" said the Count. 

She nodded, without speaking. The little sand heap held her eyes. Shestrove to think it absurd and the man who had shaken it out a charlatanof the desert, but she was really gripped by an odd feeling of awe, asif she were secretly expectant of some magical demonstration. 

The Diviner squatted down once more on his haunches, stretched out hisfingers above the sand heap, looked at her and smiled. 

"La vie de Madame--I see it in the sable--la vie de Madame dans le granddesert du Sahara. "

His eyes seemed to rout out the secrets from every corner of her being, and to scatter them upon the ground as the sand was scattered. 

"Dans le grand desert du Sahara, " Count Anteoni repeated, as if he lovedthe music of the words. "Then there is a desert life for Madame?"

The Diviner dropped his fingers on to the pyramid, lightly pressing thesand down and outward. He no longer looked at Domini. The searchingand the satire slipped away from his eyes and body. He seemed to haveforgotten the two watchers and to be concentrated upon the grains ofsand. Domini noticed that the tortured expression, which had come intohis face when she met him in the street and he stared into the bag, hadreturned to it. After pressing down the sand he spread the bag whichhad held it at Domini's feet, and deftly transferred the sand to it, scattering the grains loosely over the sacking, in a sort of pattern. Then, bending closely over them, he stared at them in silence for along time. His pock-marked face was set like stone. His emaciated hands, stretched out, rested above the grains like carven things. His bodyseemed entirely breathless in its absolute immobility. 

The Count stood in the doorway, still as he was, surrounded by themotionless purple flowers. Beyond, in their serried ranks, stood themotionless trees. No incense was burning in the little brazier to-day. This cloistered world seemed spell-bound. 

A low murmur at last broke the silence. It came from the Diviner. Hebegan to talk rapidly, but as if to himself, and as he talked he movedagain, broke up with his fingers the patterns in the sand, formed freshones; spirals, circles, snake-like lines, series of mounting dotsthat reminded Domini of spray flung by a fountain, curves, squares andoblongs. So swiftly was it done and undone that the sand seemed to beendowed with life, to be explaining itself in these patterns, to bepresenting deliberate glimpses of hitherto hidden truths. And always thevoice went on, and the eyes were downcast, and the body, save for themoving hands and arms, was absolutely motionless. 

Domini looked over the Diviner to Count Anteoni, who came gently forwardand sat down, bending his head to listen to the voice. 

"Is it Arabic?" she whispered. 

He nodded. 

"Can you understand it?"

"Not yet. Presently it will get slower, clearer. He always begins likethis. "

"Translate it for me. "

"Exactly as it is?"

"Exactly as it is. "

"Whatever it may be?"

"Whatever it may be. "

He glanced at the tortured face of the Diviner and looked grave. 

"Remember you have said I am fearless, " she said. 

He answered:

"Whatever it is you shall know it. "

Then they were silent again. Gradually the Diviner's voice grew clearer, the pace of its words less rapid, but always it sounded mysterious andinward, less like the voice of a man than the distant voice of a secret. 

"I can hear now, " whispered the Count. 

"What is he saying?"

"He is speaking about the desert. "

"Yes?"

"He sees a great storm. Wait a moment!"

The voice spoke for some seconds and ceased, and once again the Divinerremained absolutely motionless, with his hands extended above the grainslike carven things. 

"He sees a great sand-storm, one of the most terrible that has everburst over the Sahara. Everything is blotted out. The desert vanishes. Beni-Mora is hidden. It is day, yet there is a darkness like night. Inthis darkness he sees a train of camels waiting by a church. "

"A mosque?"

"No, a church. In the church there is a sound of music. The roar of thewind, the roar of the camels, mingles with the chanting and drowns it. He cannot hear it any more. It is as if the desert is angry and wishesto kill the music. In the church your life is beginning. "

"My life?"

"Your real life. He says that now you are fully born, that till nowthere has been a veil around your soul like the veil of the womb arounda child. "

"He says that!"

There was a sound of deep emotion in her voice. 

"That is all. The roar of the wind from the desert has silenced themusic in the church, and all is dark. "

The Diviner moved again, and formed fresh patterns in the sand withfeverish rapidity, and again began to speak swiftly. 

"He sees the train of camels that waited by the church starting on adesert journey. The storm has not abated. They pass through the oasisinto the desert. He sees them going towards the south. "

Domini leaned forward on the divan, looking at Count Anteoni above thebent body of the Diviner. 

"By what route?" she whispered. 

"By the route which the natives call the road to Tombouctou. "

"But--it is my journey!"

"Upon one of the camels, in a palanquin such as the great sheikhs use tocarry their women, there are two people, protected against the storm bycurtains. They are silent, listening to the roaring of the wind. One ofthem is you. "

"Two people!"

"Two people. "

"But--who is the other?"

"He cannot see. It is as if the blackness of the storm were deeper roundabout the other and hid the other from him. The caravan passes on and islost in the desolation and the storm. "

She said nothing, but looked down at the thin body of the Divinercrouched close to her knees. Was this pock-marked face the face ofa prophet? Did this skin and bone envelop the soul of a seer? She nolonger wished that Larbi was playing upon his flute or felt the silenceto be unnatural. For this man had filled it with the roar of the desertwind. And in the wind there struggled and was finally lost the sound ofvoices of her Faith chanting--what? The wind was too strong. The voiceswere too faint. She could not hear. 

Once more the Diviner stirred. For some minutes his fingers were busyin the sand. But now they moved more slowly and no words came from hislips. Domini and the Count bent low to watch what he was doing. Thelook of torture upon his face increased. It was terrible, and made uponDomini an indelible impression, for she could not help connecting itwith his vision of her future, and it suggested to her formless phantomsof despair. She looked into the sand, as if she, too, would be able tosee what he saw and had not told, looked till she began to feel almosthypnotised. The Diviner's hands trembled now as they made the patterns, and his breast heaved under his white robe. Presently he traced in thesand a triangle and began to speak. 

The Count bent down till his ear was almost at the Diviner's lips, and Domini held her breath. That caravan lost in the desolation of thedesert, in the storm and the darkness--where was it? What had been itsfate? Sweat ran down over the Diviner's face, and dropped upon hisrobe, upon his hands, upon the sand, making dark spots. And the voicewhispered on huskily till she was in a fever of impatience. She saw uponthe face of the Count the Diviner's tortured look reflected. Was it notalso on her face? A link surely bound them all together in this tinyroom, close circled by the tall trees and the intense silence. Shelooked at the triangle in the sand. It was very distinct, more distinctthan the other patterns had been. What did it represent? She searchedher mind, thinking of the desert, of her life there, of man's life inthe desert. Was it not tent-shaped? She saw it as a tent, as her tentpitched somewhere in the waste far from the habitations of men. Now thetrembling hands were still, the voice was still, but the sweat did notcease from dropping down upon the sand. 

"Tell me!" she murmured to the Count. 

He obeyed, seeming now to speak with an effort. 

"It is far away in the desert----"

He paused. 

"Yes? Yes?"

"Very far away in a sandy place. There are immense dunes, immense whitedunes of sand on every side, like mountains. Near at hand there is agleam of many fires. They are lit in the market-place of a desert city. Among the dunes, with camels picketed behind it, there is a tent----"

She pointed to the triangle traced upon the sand. 

"I knew it, " she whispered. "It is my tent. "

"He sees you there, as he saw you in the palanquin. But now it is nightand you are quite alone. You are not asleep. Something keeps you awake. You are excited. You go out of the tent upon the dunes and look towardsthe fires of the city. He hears the jackals howling all around you, andsees the skeletons of dead camels white under the moon. "

She shuddered in spite of herself. 

"There is something tremendous in your soul. He says it is as if all thedate palms of the desert bore their fruit together, and in all thedry places, where men and camels have died of thirst in bygone years, running springs burst forth, and as if the sand were covered withmillions of golden flowers big as the flower of the aloe. "

"But then it is joy, it must be joy!"

"He says it is great joy. "

"Then why does he look like that, breathe like that?"

She indicated the Diviner, who was trembling where he crouched, andbreathing heavily, and always sweating like one in agony. 

"There is more, " said the Count, slowly. 

"Tell me. "

"You stand alone upon the dunes and you look towards the city. He hearsthe tomtoms beating, and distant cries as if there were a fantasia. Thenhe sees a figure among the dunes coming towards you. "

"Who is it?" she asked. 

He did not answer. But she did not wish him to answer. She had spokenwithout meaning to speak. 

"You watch this figure. It comes to you, walking heavily. "

"Walking heavily?"

"That's what he says. The dates shrivel on the palms, the streams dryup, the flowers droop and die in the sand. In the city the tomtoms faintaway and the red fires fade away. All is dark and silent. And then hesees--"

"Wait!" Domini said almost sharply. 

He sat looking at her. She pressed her hands together. In her dark face, with its heavy eyebrows and strong, generous mouth, a contest showed, astruggle between some quick desire and some more sluggish but determinedreluctance. In a moment she spoke again. 

"I won't hear anything more, please. "

"But you said 'whatever it may be. '"

"Yes. But I won't hear anything more. "

She spoke very quietly, with determination. 

The Diviner was beginning to move his hands again, to make freshpatterns in the sand, to speak swiftly once more. 

"Shall I stop him?"

"Please. "

"Then would you mind going out into the garden? I will join you in amoment. Take care not to disturb him. "

She got up with precaution, held her skirts together with her hands, andslipped softly out on to the garden path. For a moment she was inclinedto wait there, to look back and see what was happening in the _fumoir_. But she resisted her inclination, and walked on slowly till she reachedthe bench where she had sat an hour before with Androvsky. There she satdown and waited. In a few minutes she saw the Count coming towards heralone. His face was very grave, but lightened with a slight smile whenhe saw her. 

"He has gone?" she asked. 

"Yes. "

He was about to sit beside her, but she said quickly:

"Would you mind going back to the jamelon tree?"

"Where we sat this morning?"

"Was it only--yes. "

"Certainly. "

"Oh; but you are going away to-morrow! You have a lot to do probably?"

"Nothing. My men will arrange everything. "

She got up, and they walked in silence till they saw once more theimmense spaces of the desert bathed in the afternoon sun. As Dominilooked at them again she knew that their wonder, their meaning, hadincreased for her. The steady crescendo that was beginning almost tofrighten her was maintained--the crescendo of the voice of the Sahara. To what tremendous demonstration was this crescendo tending, towhat ultimate glory or terror? She felt that her soul was as yet tooundeveloped to conceive. The Diviner had been right. There was a veilaround it, like the veil of the womb that hides the unborn child. 

Under the jamelon tree she sat down once more. 

"May--I light a cigar?" the Count asked. 

"Do. "

He struck a match, lit a cigar, and sat down on her left, by the gardenwall. 

"Tell me frankly, " he said. "Do you wish to talk or to be silent?"

"I wish to speak to you. "

"I am sorry now I asked you to test Aloui's powers. "

"Why?"

"Because I fear they made an unpleasant impression upon you. "

"That was not why I made you stop him. "

"No?"

"You don't understand me. I was not afraid. I can only say that, but Ican't give you my reason for stopping him. I wished to tell you that itwas not fear. "

"I believe--I know that you are fearless, " he said with an unusualwarmth. "You are sure that I don't understand you?"

"Remember the refrain of the Freed Negroes' song!"

"Ah, yes--those black fellows. But I know something of you, MissEnfilden--yes, I do. "

"I would rather you did--you and your garden. "

"And--some day--I should like you to know a little more of me. "

"Thank you. When will you come back?"

"I can't tell. But you are not leaving?"

"Not yet. "

The idea of leaving Beni-Mora troubled her heart strangely. 

"No, I am too happy here. "

"Are you really happy?"

"At any rate I am happier than I have ever been before. "

"You are on the verge. "

He was looking at her with eyes in which there was tenderness, butsuddenly they flashed fire, and he exclaimed:

"My desert land must not bring you despair. "

She was startled by his sudden vehemence. 

"What I would not hear!" she said. "You know it!"

"It is not my fault. I am ready to tell it to you. "

"No. But do you believe it? Do you believe that man can read the futurein the sand? How can it be?"

"How can a thousand things be? How can these desert men stand in fire, with their naked feet set on burning brands, with burning brands undertheir armpits, and not be burned? How can they pierce themselves withskewers and cut themselves with knives and no blood flow? But I told youthe first day I met you; the desert always makes me the same gift when Ireturn to it. "

"What gift?"

"The gift of belief. "

"Then you do believe in that man--Aloui?"

"Do you?"

"I can only say that it seemed to me as if it might be divination. If Ihad not felt that I should not have stopped it. I should have treated itas a game. "

"It impressed you as it impresses me. Well, for both of us the deserthas gifts. Let us accept them fearlessly. It is the will of Allah. "

She remembered her vision of the pale procession. Would she walk in itat last?

"You are as fatalistic as an Arab, " she said. 

"And you?"

"I!" she answered simply. "I believe that I am in the hands of God, andI know that perfect love can never harm me. "

After a moment he said, gently:

"Miss Enfilden, I want to ask something of you. "

"Yes?"

"Will you make a sacrifice? To-morrow I start at dawn. Will you be hereto wish me God speed on my journey?"

"Of course I will. "

"It will be good of you. I shall value it from you. And--and when--ifyou ever make your long journey on that road--the route to the south--Iwill wish you Allah's blessing in the Garden of Allah. "

He spoke with solemnity, almost with passion, and she felt the tearsvery near her eyes. Then they sat in silence, looking out over thedesert. 

And she heard its voices calling. 

CHAPTER XIII

On the following morning, before dawn, Domini awoke, stirred from sleepby her anxiety, persistent even in what seemed unconsciousness, tospeed Count Anteoni upon his desert journey. She did not know why hewas going, but she felt that some great issue in his life hung uponthe accomplishment of the purpose with which he set out, and withoutaffectation she ardently desired that accomplishment. As soon as sheawoke she lit a candle and glanced at her watch. She knew by the hourthat the dawn was near, and she got up at once and made her toilet. Shehad told Batouch to be at the hotel door before sunrise to accompany herto the garden, and she wondered if he were below. A stillness as of deepnight prevailed in the house, making her movements, while she dressed, seem unnaturally loud. When she put on her hat, and looked into theglass to see if it were just at the right angle, she thought her face, always white, was haggard. This departure made her a little sad. Itsuggested to her the instability of circumstance, the perpetual changethat occurs in life. The going of her kind host made her own going morepossible than before, even more likely. Some words from the Bible kepton running through her brain "Here have we no continuing city. " In thesilent darkness their cadence held an ineffable melancholy. Her mindheard them as the ear, in a pathetic moment, hears sometimes a distantstrain of music wailing like a phantom through the invisible. And theeverlasting journeying of all created things oppressed her heart. 

When she had buttoned her jacket and drawn on her gloves she went to theFrench window and pushed back the shutters. A wan semi-darkness lookedin upon her. Again she wondered whether Batouch had come. It seemed toher unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the world was upand purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a curtain forunconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the verandah andlooked over the parapet. She could see the white road, mysteriouslywhite, below. It was deserted. She leaned down. 

"Batouch!" she called softly. "Batouch!"

He might be hidden under the arcade, sleeping in his burnous. 

"Batouch! Batouch!"

No answer came. She stood by the parapet, waiting and looking down theroad. 

All the stars had faded, yet there was no suggestion of the sun. She faced an unrelenting austerity. For a moment she thought of thisatmosphere, this dense stillness, this gravity of vague and shadowytrees, as the environment of those who had erred, of the lost spirits ofmen who had died in mortal sin. 

Almost she expected to see the desperate shade of her dead father passbetween the black stems of the palm trees, vanish into the grey mantlethat wrapped the hidden world. 

"Batouch! Batouch!"

He was not there. That was certain. She resolved to set out alone andwent back into her bedroom to get her revolver. When she came out againwith it in her hand Androvsky was standing on the verandah justoutside her window. He took off his hat and looked from her face to therevolver. She was startled by his appearance, for she had not heard hisstep, and had been companioned by a sense of irreparable solitude. Thiswas the first time she had seen him since he vanished from the garden onthe previous day. 

"You are going out, Madame?" he said. 

"Yes. "

"Not alone?"

"I believe so. Unless I find Batouch below. "

She slipped the revolver into the pocket of the loose coat she wore. 

"But it is dark. "

"It will be day very soon. Look!"

She pointed towards the east, where a light, delicate and mysterious asthe distant lights in the opal, was gently pushing in the sky. 

"You ought not to go alone. "

"Unless Batouch is there I must. I have given a promise and I must keepit. There is no danger. "

He hesitated, looking at her with an anxious, almost a suspicious, expression. 

"Good-bye, Monsieur Androvsky. "

She went towards the staircase. He followed her quickly to the head ofit. 

"Don't trouble to come down with me. "

"If--if Batouch is not there--might not I guard you, Madame?" Sheremembered the Count's words and answered:

"Let me tell you where I am going. I am going to say good-bye to CountAnteoni before he starts for his desert journey. "

Androvsky stood there without a word. 

"Now, do you care to come if I don't find Batouch? Mind, I'm not theleast afraid. "

"Perhaps he is there--if you told him. " He muttered the words. Hiswhole manner had changed. Now he looked more than suspicious--cloudy andfierce. 

"Possibly. "

She began to descend the stairs. He did not follow her, but stoodlooking after her. When she reached the arcade it was deserted. Batouchhad forgotten or had overslept himself. She could have walked on underthe roof that was the floor of the verandah, but instead she stepped outinto the road. Androvsky was above her by the parapet. She glanced upand said:

"He is not here, but it is of no consequence. Dawn is breaking. _Aurevoir_!"

Slowly he took off his hat. As she went away down the road he washolding it in his hand, looking after her. 

"He does not like the Count, " she thought. 

At the corner she turned into the street where the sand-diviner hadhis bazaar, and as she neared his door she was aware of a certaintrepidation. She did not want to see those piercing eyes looking at herin the semi-darkness, and she hurried her steps. But her anxiety wasneedless. All the doors were shut, all the inhabitants doubtless wrappedin sleep. Yet, when she had gained the end of the street, she lookedback, half expecting to see an apparition of a thin figure, a torturedface, to hear a voice, like a goblin's voice, calling after her. Midwaydown the street there was a man coming slowly behind her. For a momentshe thought it was the Diviner in pursuit, but something in the gaitsoon showed her her mistake. There was a heaviness in the movementof this man quite unlike the lithe and serpentine agility of Aloui. Although she could not see the face, or even distinguish the costume inthe morning twilight, she knew it for Androvsky. From a distance he waswatching over her. She did not hesitate, but walked on quickly again. She did not wish him to know that she had seen him. When she came to thelong road that skirted the desert she met the breeze of dawn that blowsout of the east across the flats, and drank in its celestial purity. Between the palms, far away towards Sidi-Zerzour, above the long indigoline of the Sahara, there rose a curve of deep red gold. The sun wascoming up to take possession of his waiting world. She longed to rideout to meet him, to give him a passionate welcome in the sand, andthe opening words of the Egyptian "Adoration of the Sun by the PerfectSouls" came to her lips:

"Hommage a Toi. Dieu Soleil. Seigneur du Ciel, Roi sur la Terre! Lion duSoir! Grande Ame divine, vivante a toujours. "

Why had she not ordered her horse to ride a little way with CountAnteoni? She might have pretended that she was starting on her greatjourney. 

The red gold curve became a semi-circle of burnished glory resting uponthe deep blue, then a full circle that detached itself majestically andmounted calmly up the cloudless sky. A stream of light poured into theoasis, and Domini, who had paused for a moment in silent worship, wenton swiftly through the negro village which was all astir, and down thetrack to the white villa. 

She did not glance round again to see whether Androvsky was stillfollowing her, for, since the sun had come, she had the confidentsensation that he was no longer near. 

He had surely given her into the guardianship of the sun. 

The door of the garden stood wide open, and, as she entered, she sawthree magnificent horses prancing upon the sweep of sand in the midstof a little group of Arabs. Smain greeted her with graceful warmth andbegged her to follow him to the _fumoir_, where the Count was waitingfor her. 

"It is good of you!" the Count said, meeting her in the doorway. "Irelied on you, you see!"

Breakfast for two was scattered upon the little smoking-tables; coffee, eggs, rolls, fruit, sweetmeats. And everywhere sprigs of orange blossomfilled the cool air with delicate sweetness. 

"How delicious!" she exclaimed. "A breakfast here! But--no, not there!"

"Why not?"

"That is exactly where he was. "

"Aloui! How superstitious you are!"

He moved her table. She sat down near the doorway and poured out coffeefor them both. 

"You look workmanlike. "

She glanced at his riding-dress and long whip. Smoked glasses hungacross his chest by a thin cord. 

"I shall have some hard riding, but I'm tough, though you may not thinkit. I've covered many a league of my friend in bygone years. "

He tapped an eggshell smartly, and began to eat with appetite. 

"How gravely gay you are!" she said, lifting the steaming coffee to herlips. He smiled. 

"Yes. To-day I am happy, as a pious man is happy when after a longillness, he goes once more to church. "

"The desert seems to be everything to you. "

"I feel that I am going out to freedom, to more than freedom. " Hestretched out his arms above his head. 

"Yet you have stayed always in this garden all these days. "

"I was waiting for my summons, as you will wait for yours. "

"What summons could I have?"

"It will come!" he said with conviction. "It will come!" She was silent, thinking of the diviner's vision in the sand, of the caravan of camelsdisappearing in the storm towards the south. Presently she asked him:

"Are you ever coming back?"

He looked at her in surprise, then laughed. 

"Of course. What are you thinking?"

"That perhaps you will not come back, that perhaps the desert will keepyou. "

"And my garden?"

She looked out across the tiny sand-path and the running rill of waterto the great trees stirred by the cool breeze of dawn. 

"It would miss you. "

After a moment, during which his bright eyes followed hers, he said:

"Do you know, I have a great belief in the intuitions of good women?"

"Yes?"

"An almost fanatical belief. Will you answer me a question at once, without consideration, without any time for thought?"

"If you ask me to. "

"I do ask you. "

"Then----?"

"Do you see me in this garden any more?"

A voice answered:

"No. "

It was her own, yet it seemed another's voice, with which she hadnothing to do. 

A great feeling of sorrow swept over her as she heard it. 

"Do come back!" she said. 

The Count had got up. The brightness of his eyes was obscured. 

"If not here, we shall meet again, " he said slowly. 

"Where?"

"In the desert. "

"Did the Diviner--? No, don't tell me. "

She got up too. 

"It is time for you to start?"

"Nearly. "

A sort of constraint had settled over them. She felt it painfully for amoment. Did it proceed from something in his mind or in hers? She couldnot tell. They walked slowly down one of the little paths and presentlyfound themselves before the room in which sat the purple dog. 

"If I am never to come back I must say good-bye to him, " the Count said. 

"But you will come back. "

"That voice said 'No. '"

"It was a lying voice. "

"Perhaps. "

They looked in at the window and met the ferocious eyes of the dog. 

"And if I never come back will he bay the moon for his old master?" saidthe Count with a whimsical, yet sad, smile. "I put him here. And willthese trees, many of which I planted, whisper a regret? Absurd, isn'tit, Miss Enfilden? I never can feel that the growing things in my gardendo not know me as I know them. "

"Someone will regret you if--"

"Will you? Will you really?"

"Yes. "

"I believe it. "

He looked at her. She could see, by the expression of his eyes, that hewas on the point of saying something, but was held back by some fightingsensation, perhaps by some reserve. 

"What is it?"

"May I speak frankly to you without offence?" he asked. "I am reallyrather old, you know. "

"Do speak. "

"That guest of mine yesterday--"

"Monsieur Androvsky?"

"Yes. He interested me enormously, profoundly. "

"Really! Yet he was at his worst yesterday. "

"Perhaps that was why. At any rate, he interested me more than any man Ihave seen for years. But--" He paused, looking in at the little chamberwhere the dog kept guard. 

"But my interest was complicated by a feeling that I was face to facewith a human being who was at odds with life, with himself, even withhis Creator--a man who had done what the Arabs never do--defied Allah inAllah's garden. "

"Oh!"

She uttered a little exclamation of pain. It seemed to her that he wasgathering up and was expressing scattered, half formless thoughts ofhers. 

"You know, " he continued, looking more steadily into the room of thedog, "that in Algeria there is a floating population composed of manymixed elements. I could tell you strange stories of tragedies that haveoccurred in this land, even here in Beni-Mora, tragedies of violence, ofgreed, of--tragedies that were not brought about by Arabs. "

He turned suddenly and looked right into her eyes. 

"But why am I saying all this?" he suddenly exclaimed. "What is writtenis written, and such women as you are guarded. "

"Guarded? By whom?"

"By their own souls. "

"I am not afraid, " she said quietly. 

"Need you tell me that? Miss Enfilden, I scarcely know why I have saideven as little as I have said. For I am, as you know, a fatalist. Butcertain people, very few, so awaken our regard that they make us forgetour own convictions, and might even lead us to try to tamper with thedesigns of the Almighty. Whatever is to be for you, you will be able toendure. That I know. Why should I, or anyone, seek to know more for you?But still there are moments in which the bravest want a human hand tohelp them, a human voice to comfort them. In the desert, wherever I maybe--and I shall tell you--I am at your service. "

"Thank you, " she said simply. 

She gave him her hand. He held it almost as a father or a guardian mighthave held it. 

"And this garden is yours day and night--Smain knows. "

"Thank you, " she said again. 

The shrill whinnying of a horse came to them from a distance. Theirhands fell apart. Count Anteoni looked round him slowly at the greatcocoanut tree, at the shaggy grass of the lawn, at the tall bamboosand the drooping mulberry trees. She saw that he was taking a silentfarewell of them. 

"This was a waste, " he said at last with a half-stifled sigh. "I turnedit into a little Eden and now I am leaving it. "

"For a time. "

"And if it were for ever? Well, the great thing is to let the wastewithin one be turned into an Eden, if that is possible. And yet how manyhuman beings strive against the great Gardener. At any rate I will notbe one of them. "

"And I will not be one. "

"Shall we say good-bye here?"

"No. Let us say it from the wall, and let me see you ride away into thedesert. "

She had forgotten for the moment that his route was the road throughthe oasis. He did not remind her of it. It was easy to ride across thedesert and join the route where it came out from the last palms. 

"So be it. Will you go to the wall then?"

He touched her hand again and walked away towards the villa, slowly onthe pale silver of the sand. When his figure was hidden by the trunks ofthe trees Domini made her way to the wide parapet. She sat down on oneof the tiny seats cut in it, leaned her cheek in her hand and waited. The sun was gathering strength, but the air was still deliciously cool, almost cold, and the desert had not yet put on its aspect of fierydesolation. It looked dreamlike and romantic, not only in its distances, but near at hand. There must surely be dew, she fancied, in the Gardenof Allah. She could see no one travelling in it, only some far awaycamels grazing. In the dawn the desert was the home of the breeze, ofgentle sunbeams and of liberty. Presently she heard the noise ofhorses cantering near at hand, and Count Anteoni, followed by two Arabattendants, came round the bend of the wall and drew up beneath her. Herode on a high red Arab saddle, and a richly-ornamented gun was slung inan embroidered case behind him on the right-hand side. A broad and softbrown hat kept the sun from his forehead. The two attendants rode on afew paces and waited in the shadow of the wall. 

"Don't you wish you were going out?" he said. "Out into that?" And hepointed with his whip towards the dreamlike blue of the far horizon. Sheleaned over, looking down at him and at his horse, which fidgeted andarched his white neck and dropped foam from his black flexible lips. 

"No, " she answered after a moment of thought. "I must speak the truth, you know. "

"To me, always. "

"I feel that you were right, that my summons has not yet come to me. "

"And when it comes?"

"I shall obey it without fear, even if I go in the storm and thedarkness. "

He glanced at the radiant sky, at the golden beams slanting down uponthe palms. 

"The Coran says: 'The fate of every man have We bound about his neck. 'May yours be as serene, as beautiful, as a string of pearls. "

"But I have never cared to wear pearls, " she answered. 

"No? What are your stones?"

"Rubies. "

"Blood! No others?"

"Sapphires. "

"The sky at night. "

"And opals. "

"Fires gleaming across the white of moonlit dunes. Do you remember?"

"I remember. "

"And you do not ask me for the end of the Diviner's vision even now?"

"No. "

She hesitated for an instant. Then she added:

"I will tell you why. It seemed to me that there was another's fate init as well as my own, and that to hear would be to intrude, perhaps, upon another's secrets. "

"That was your reason?"

"My only reason. " And then she added, repeating consciously Androvsky'swords: "I think there are things that should be let alone. "

"Perhaps you are right. "

A stronger breath of the cool wind came over the flats, and all the palmtrees rustled. Through the garden there was a delicate stir of life. 

"My children are murmuring farewell, " said the Count. "I hear them. Itis time! Good-bye, Miss Enfilden--my friend, if I may call you so. May Allah have you in his keeping, and when your summons comes, obeyit--alone. "

As he said the last word his grating voice dropped to a deep note ofearnest, almost solemn, gravity. Then he lifted his hat, touched hishorse with his heel, and galloped away into the sun. 

Domini watched the three riders till they were only specks on thesurface of the desert. Then they became one with it, and were lost inthe dreamlike radiance of the morning. But she did not move. She satwith her eyes fixed up on the blue horizon. A great loneliness hadentered into her spirit. Till Count Anteoni had gone she did not realisehow much she had become accustomed to his friendship, how near theirsympathies had been. But directly those tiny, moving specks became onewith the desert she knew that a gap had opened in her life. It might besmall, but it seemed dark and deep. For the first time the desert, whichshe had hitherto regarded as a giver, had taken something from her. Andnow, as she sat looking at it, while the sun grew stronger and the lightmore brilliant, while the mountains gradually assumed a harsher aspect, and the details of things, in the dawn so delicately clear, became, as it were, more piercing in their sharpness, she realised a new andterrible aspect of it. That which has the power to bestow has anotherpower. She had seen the great procession of those who had received giftsof the desert's hands. Would she some day, or in the night when the skywas like a sapphire, see the procession of those from whom the deserthad taken away perhaps their dreams, perhaps their hopes, perhaps evenall that they passionately loved and had desperately clung to?

And in which of the two processions would she walk?

She got up with a sigh. The garden had become tragic to her for themoment, full of a brooding melancholy. As she turned to leave it sheresolved to go to the priest. She had never yet entered his house. Justthen she wanted to speak to someone with whom she could be as a littlechild, to whom she could liberate some part of her spirit simply, certain of a simple, yet not foolish, reception of it by one to whom shecould look up. She desired to be not with the friend so much as withthe spiritual director. Something was alive within her, something ofdistress, almost of apprehension, which needed the soothing hand, not ofhuman love, but of religion. 

When she reached the priest's house Beni-Mora was astir with a pleasantbustle of life. The military note pealed through its symphony. Spahiswere galloping along the white roads. Tirailleurs went by bearingdespatches. Zouaves stood under the palms, staring calmly at themorning, their sunburned hands loosely clasped upon muskets whose buttsrested in the sand. But Domini scarcely noticed the brilliant gaiety ofthe life about her. She was preoccupied, even sad. Yet, as she enteredthe little garden of the priest, and tapped gently at his door, asensation of hope sprang up in her heart, born of the sustaining powerof her religion. 

An Arab boy answered her knock, said that the Father was in and led herat once to a small, plainly-furnished room, with whitewashed walls, anda window opening on to an enclosure at the back, where several largepalm trees reared their tufted heads above the smoothly-raked sand. Ina moment the priest came in, smiling with pleasure and holding out hishands in welcome. 

"Father, " she said at once, "I am come to have a little talk with you. Have you a few moments to give me?"

"Sit down, my child, " he said. 

He drew forward a straw chair for her and took one opposite. 

"You are not in trouble?"

"I don't know why I should be, but----"

She was silent for a moment. Then she said:

"I want to tell you a little about my life. "

He looked at her kindly without a word. 

His eyes were an invitation for her to speak, and, without furtherinvitation, in as few and simple words as possible, she told him whyshe had come to Beni-Mora, and something of her parents' tragedy and itseffect upon her. 

"I wanted to renew my heart, to find myself, " she said. "My life hasbeen cold, careless. I never lost my faith, but I almost forgot that Ihad it. I made little use of it. I let it rust. "

"Many do that, but a time comes when they feel that the great weaponwith which alone we can fight the sorrows and dangers of the world mustbe kept bright, or it may fail us in the hour of need. "

"Yes. "

"And this is an hour of need for you. But, indeed, is there ever an hourthat is not?"

"I feel to-day, I----"

She stopped, suddenly conscious of the vagueness of her apprehension. It made her position difficult, speech hard for her. She felt that shewanted something, yet scarcely knew what, or exactly why she had come. 

"I have been saying good-bye to Count Anteoni, " she resumed. "He hasgone on a desert journey. "

"For long?"

"I don't know, but I feel that it will be. "

"He comes and goes very suddenly. Often he is here and I do not evenknow it. "

"He is a strange man, but I think he is a good man. "

As she spoke about him she began to realise that something in him hadroused the desire in her to come to the priest. 

"And he sees far, " she added. 

She looked steadily at the priest, who was waiting quietly to hear more. She was glad he did not trouble her mind just then by trying to help herto go on, to be explicit. 

"I came here to find peace, " she continued. "And I thought I had foundit. I thought so till to-day. "

"We only find peace in one place, and only there by our own willaccording with God's. "

"You mean within ourselves. "

"Is it not so?"

"Yes. Then I was foolish to travel in search of it. "

"I would not say that. Place assists the heart, I think, and the way oflife. I thought so once. "

"When you wished to be a monk?"

A deep sadness came into his eyes. 

"Yes, " he said. "And even now I find it very difficult to say, 'It wasnot thy will, and so it is not mine. ' But would you care to tell me ifanything has occurred recently to trouble you?"

"Something has occurred, Father. "

More excitement came into her face and manner. 

"Do you think, " she went on, "that it is right to try to avoid what lifeseems to be bringing to one, to seek shelter from--from the storm? Don'tmonks do that? Please forgive me if--"

"Sincerity will not hurt me, " he interrupted quietly. "If it did Ishould indeed be unworthy of my calling. Perhaps it is not right forall. Perhaps that is why I am here instead of--"

"Ah, but I remember, you wanted to be one of the _freres armes_. "

"That was my first hope. But you"--very simply he turned from histroubles to hers--"you are hesitating, are you not, between twocourses?"

"I scarcely know. But I want you to tell me. Ought we not always tothink of others more than of ourselves?"

"So long as we take care not to put ourselves in too great danger. Thesoul should be brave, but not foolhardy. "

His voice had changed, had become stronger, even a little stern. 

"There are risks that no good Christian ought to run: it is notcowardice, it is wisdom that avoids the Evil One. I have known peoplewho seemed almost to think it was their mission to convert the fallenangels. They confused their powers with the powers that belong to Godonly. "

"Yes, but--it is so difficult to--if a human being were possessed by thedevil, would not you try--would you not go near to that person?"

"If I had prayed, and been told that any power was given me to do whatChrist did. "

"To cast out--yes, I know. But sometimes that power is given--even towomen. "

"Perhaps especially to them. I think the devil has more fear of a goodmother than of many saints. "

Domini realised almost with agony in that moment how her own soul hadbeen stripped of a precious armour. A feeling of bitter helplessnesstook possession of her, and of contempt for what she now suddenly lookedupon as foolish pride. The priest saw that his words had hurt her, yethe did not just then try to pour balm upon the wound. 

"You came to me to-day as to a spiritual director, did you not?" heasked. 

"Yes, Father. "

"Yet you do not wish to be frank with me. Isn't that true?"

There was a piercing look in the eyes he fixed upon her. 

"Yes, " she answered bravely. 

"Why? Cannot you--at least will not you tell me?"

A similar reason to that which had caused her to refuse to hear what theDiviner had seen in the sand caused her now to answer:

"There is something I cannot say. I am sure I am right not to say it. "

"Do you wish me to speak frankly to you, my child?"

"Yes, you may. "

"You have told me enough of your past life to make me feel sure that forsome time to come you ought to be very careful in regard to your faith. By the mercy of God you have been preserved from the greatest of alldangers--the danger of losing your belief in the teachings of the onlytrue Church. You have come here to renew your faith which, not killed, has been stricken, reduced, may I not say? to a sort of invalidism. Areyou sure you are in a condition yet to help"--he hesitated obviously, then slowly--"others? There are periods in which one cannot do whatone may be able to do in the far future. The convalescent who is justtottering in the new attempt to walk is not wise enough to lend an armto another. To do so may seem nobly unselfish, but is it not folly?And then, my child, we ought to be scrupulously aware what is ourreal motive for wishing to assist another. Is it of God, or is it ofourselves? Is it a personal desire to increase a perhaps unworthy, aworldly happiness? Egoism is a parent of many children, and often theydo not recognise their father. "

Just for a moment Domini felt a heat of anger rise within her. She didnot express it, and did not know that she had shown a sign of it tillshe heard Father Roubier say:

"If you knew how often I have found that what for a moment I believedto be my noblest aspirations had sprung from a tiny, hidden seed ofegoism!"

At once her anger died away. 

"That is terribly true, " she said. "Of us all, I mean. "

She got up. 

"You are going?"

"Yes. I want to think something out. You have made me want to. I must doit. Perhaps I'll come again. "

"Do. I want to help you if I can. "

There was such a heartfelt sound in his voice that impulsively she heldout her hand. 

"I know you do. Perhaps you will be able to. "

But even as she said the last words doubt crept into her mind, even intoher voice. 

The priest came to his gate to see Domini off, and directly she hadleft him she noticed that Androvsky was under the arcade and had beena witness of their parting. As she went past him and into the hotel shesaw that he looked greatly disturbed and excited. His face was lit up bythe now fiery glare of the sun, and when, in passing, she nodded tohim, and he took off his hat, he cast at her a glance that was like anaccusation. As soon as she gained the verandah she heard his heavy stepupon the stair. For a moment she hesitated. Should she go into her roomand so avoid him, or remain and let him speak to her? She knew that hewas following her with that purpose. Her mind was almost instantly madeup. She crossed the verandah and sat down in the low chair that wasalways placed outside her French window. Androvsky followed her andstood beside her. He did not say anything for a moment, nor did she. Then he spoke with a sort of passionate attempt to sound careless andindifferent. 

"Monsieur Anteoni has gone, I suppose, Madame?"

"Yes, he has gone. I reached the garden safely, you see. "

"Batouch came later. He was much ashamed when he found you had gone. Ibelieve he is afraid, and is hiding himself till your anger shall havepassed away. "

She laughed. 

"Batouch could not easily make me angry. I am not like you, MonsieurAndrovsky. "

Her sudden challenge startled him, as she had meant it should. He movedquickly, as at an unexpected touch. 

"I, Madame?"

"Yes; I think you are very often angry. I think you are angry now. "

His face was flooded with red. 

"Why should I be angry?" he stammered, like a man completely takenaback. 

"How can I tell? But, as I came in just now, you looked at me as if youwanted to punish me. "

"I--I am afraid--it seems that my face says a great deal that--that--"

"Your lips would not choose to say. Well, it does. Why are you angrywith me?" She gazed at him mercilessly, studying the trouble of hisface. The combative part of her nature had been roused by the glancehe had cast at her. What right had he, had any man, to look at her likethat?

Her blunt directness lashed him back into the firmness he had lost. She felt in a moment that there was a fighting capacity in him equal, perhaps superior, to her own. 

"When I saw you come from the priest's house, Madame, I felt as if youhad been there speaking about me--about my conduct of yesterday. "

"Indeed! Why should I do that?"

"I thought as you had kindly wished me to come--"

He stopped. 

"Well?" she said, in rather a hard voice. 

"Madame, I don't know what I thought, what I think--only I cannot bearthat you should apologise for any conduct of mine. Indeed, I cannot bearit. "

He looked fearfully excited and moved two or three steps away, thenreturned. 

"Were you doing that?" he asked. "Were you, Madame?"

"I never mentioned your name to Father Roubier, nor did he to me, " sheanswered. 

For a moment he looked relieved, then a sudden suspicion seemed tostrike him. 

"But without mentioning my name?" he said. 

"You wish to accuse me of quibbling, of insincerity, then!" sheexclaimed with a heat almost equal to his own. 

"No, Madame, no! Madame, I--I have suffered much. I am suspicious ofeverybody. Forgive me, forgive me!"

He spoke almost with distraction. In his manner there was somethingdesperate. 

"I am sure you have suffered, " she said more gently, yet with a certaininflexibility at which she herself wondered, yet which she could notcontrol. "You will always suffer if you cannot govern yourself. You willmake people dislike you, be suspicious of you. "

"Suspicious! Who is suspicious of me?" he asked sharply. "Who has anyright to be suspicious of me?"

She looked up and fancied that, for an instant, she saw something asugly as terror in his eyes. 

"Surely you know that people don't ask permission to be suspicious oftheir fellow-men?" she said. 

"No one here has any right to consider me or my actions, " he said, fierceness blazing out of him. "I am a free man, and can do as I will. No one has any right--no one!"

Domini felt as if the words were meant for her, as if he had struckher. She was so angry that she did not trust herself to speak, andinstinctively she put her hand up to her breast, as a woman might whohad received a blow. She touched something small and hard that washidden beneath her gown. It was the little wooden crucifix Androvsky hadthrown into the stream at Sidi-Zerzour. As she realised that her angerdied. She was humbled and ashamed. What was her religion if, at a word, she could be stirred to such a feeling of passion?

"I, at least, am not suspicious of you, " she said, choosing the verywords that were most difficult for her to say just then. "And FatherRoubier--if you included him--is too fine-hearted to cherish unworthysuspicions of anyone. "

She got up. Her voice was full of a subdued, but strong, emotion. 

"Oh, Monsieur Androvsky!" she said. "Do go over and see him. Makefriends with him. Never mind yesterday. I want you to be friends withhim, with everyone here. Let us make Beni-Mora a place of peace and goodwill. "

Then she went across the verandah quickly to her room, and passed in, closing the window behind her. 

_Dejeuner_ was brought into her sitting-room. She ate it in solitude, and late in the afternoon she went out on the verandah. She had madeup her mind to spend an hour in the church. She had told Father Roubierthat she wanted to think something out. Since she had left him theburden upon her mind had become heavier, and she longed to be alone inthe twilight near the altar. Perhaps she might be able to cast down theburden there. In the verandah she stood for a moment and thought howwonderful was the difference between dawn and sunset in this land. Thegardens, that had looked like a place of departed and unhappy spiritswhen she rose that day, were now bathed in the luminous rays of thedeclining sun, were alive with the softly-calling voices of children, quivered with romance, with a dreamlike, golden charm. The stillnessof the evening was intense, enclosing the children's voices, whichpresently died away; but while she was marvelling at it she wasdisturbed by a sharp noise of knocking. She looked in the direction fromwhich it came and saw Androvsky standing before the priest's door. Asshe looked, the door was opened by the Arab boy and Androvsky went in. 

Then she did not think of the gardens any more. With a radiantexpression in her eyes she went down and crossed over to the church. Itwas empty. She went softly to a _prie-dieu_ near the altar, knelt downand covered her eyes with her hands. 

At first she did not pray, or even think consciously, but just rested inthe attitude which always seems to bring humanity nearest its God. And, almost immediately, she began to feel a quietude of spirit, asif something delicate descended upon her, and lay lightly about her, shrouding her from the troubles of the world. How sweet it was to havethe faith that brings with it such tender protection, to have the trustthat keeps alive through the swift passage of the years the spirit ofthe little child. How sweet it was to be able to rest. There was at thismoment a sensation of deep joy within her. It grew in the silence ofthe church, and, as it grew, brought with it presently a growingconsciousness of the lives beyond those walls, of other spirits capableof suffering, of conflict, and of peace, not far away; till she knewthat this present blessing of happiness came to her, not only fromthe scarce-realised thought of God, but also from the scarce-realisedthought of man. 

Close by, divided from her only by a little masonry, a few feet of sand, a few palm trees, Androvsky was with the priest. 

Still kneeling, with her face between her hands, Domini began to thinkand pray. The memory of her petition to Notre Dame de la Garde came backto her. Before she knew Africa she had prayed for men wandering, andperhaps unhappy, there, for men whom she would probably never see again, would never know. And now that she was growing familiar with this land, divined something of its wonders and its dangers, she prayed for a manin it whom she did not know, who was very near to her making a sacrificeof his prejudices, perhaps of his fears, at her desire. She prayed forAndrovsky without words, making of her feelings of gratitude to him aprayer, and presently, in the darkness framed by her hands, she seemedto see Liberty once more, as in the shadows of the dancing-house, standing beside a man who prayed far out in the glory of the desert. Thestorm, spoken of by the Diviner, did not always rage. It was stilled tohear his prayer. And the darkness had fled, and the light drew near tolisten. She pressed her face more strongly against her hands, and beganto think more definitely. 

Was this interview with the priest the first step taken by Androvskytowards the gift the desert held for him?

He must surely be a man who hated religion, or thought he hated it. 

Perhaps he looked upon it as a chain, instead of as the hammer thatstrikes away the fetters from the slave. 

Yet he had worn a crucifix. 

She lifted her head, put her hand into her breast, and drew out thecrucifix. What was its history? She wondered as she looked at it. Hadsomeone who loved him given it to him, someone, perhaps, who grievedat his hatred of holiness, and who fancied that this very humble symbolmight one day, as the humble symbols sometimes do, prove itself a littleguide towards shining truth? Had a woman given it to him?

She laid the cross down on the edge of the _prie-dieu_. 

There was red fire gleaming now on the windows of the church. Sherealised the pageant that was marching up the west, the passion of theworld as well as the purity which lay beyond the world. Her mind wasdisturbed. She glanced from the red radiance on the glass to the dullbrown wood of the cross. Blood and agony had made it the mystical symbolthat it was--blood and agony. 

She had something to think out. That burden was still upon her mind, and now again she felt its weight, a weight that her interview with thepriest had not lifted. For she had not been able to be quite frank withthe priest. Something had held her back from absolute sincerity, and sohe had not spoken quite plainly all that was in his mind. His words hadbeen a little vague, yet she had understood the meaning that lay behindthem. 

Really, he had warned her against Androvsky. There were two men of verydifferent types. One was unworldly as a child. The other knew the world. Neither of them had any acquaintance with Androvsky's history, and bothhad warned her. It was instinct then that had spoken in them, tellingthem that he was a man to be shunned, perhaps feared. And her owninstinct? What had it said? What did it say?

For a long time she remained in the church. But she could not thinkclearly, reason calmly, or even pray passionately. For a vagueness hadcome into her mind like the vagueness of twilight that filled the spacebeneath the starry roof, softening the crudeness of the ornaments, thegarish colours of the plaster saints. It seemed to her that her thoughtsand feelings lost their outlines, that she watched them fading like theshrouded forms of Arabs fading in the tunnels of Mimosa. But as theyvanished surely they whispered, "That which is written is written. "

The mosques of Islam echoed these words, and surely this little churchthat bravely stood among them. 

"That which is written is written. "

Domini rose from her knees, hid the wooden cross once more in herbreast, and went out into the evening. 

As she left the church door something occurred which struck thevagueness from her. She came upon Androvsky and the priest. They werestanding together at the latter's gate, which he was in the act ofopening to an accompaniment of joyous barking from Bous-Bous. Both menlooked strongly expressive, as if both had been making an effort of somekind. She stopped in the twilight to speak to them. 

"Monsieur Androvsky has kindly been paying me a visit, " said FatherRoubier. 

"I am glad, " Domini said. "We ought all to be friends here. "

There was a perceptible pause. Then Androvsky lifted his hat. 

"Good-evening, Madame, " he said. "Good-evening, Father. " And he walkedaway quickly. 

The priest looked after him and sighed profoundly. 

"Oh, Madame!" he exclaimed, as if impelled to liberate his mind tosomeone, "what is the matter with that man? What is the matter?"

He stared fixedly into the twilight after Androvsky's retreating form. 

"With Monsieur Androvsky?"

She spoke quietly, but her mind was full of apprehension, and she lookedsearchingly at the priest. 

"Yes. What can it be?"

"But--I don't understand. "

"Why did he come to see me?"

"I asked him to come. "

She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that shemust speak the truth. 

"You asked him!"

"Yes. I wanted you to be friends--and I thought perhaps you might----"

"Yes?"

"I wanted you to be friends. " She repeated it almost stubbornly. 

"I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being, "exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. "And yet I could not lethim go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him toremain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it wasas if we were in a great tragedy. What is he? What can he be?" (He stilllooked down the road. )

"I don't know. I know nothing. He is a man travelling, as other mentravel. "

"Oh, no!"

"What do you mean, Father?"

"I mean that other travellers are not like this man. "

He leaned his thin hands heavily on the gate, and she saw, by theexpression of his eyes, that he was going to say something startling. 

"Madame, " he said, lowering his voice, "I did not speak quite franklyto you this afternoon. You may, or you may not, have understood what Imeant. But now I will speak plainly. As a priest I warn you, I warn youmost solemnly, not to make friends with this man. "

There was a silence, then Domini said:

"Please give me your reason for this warning. "

"That I can't do. "

"Because you have no reason, or because it is not one you care to tellme?"

"I have no reason to give. My reason is my instinct. I know nothing ofthis man--I pity him. I shall pray for him. He needs prayers, yes, heneeds them. But you are a woman out here alone. You have spoken to me ofyourself, and I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestlyto break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky. "

"Do you mean that you think him evil?"

"I don't know whether he is evil, I don't know what he is. "

"I know he is not evil. "

The priest looked at her, wondering. 

"You know--how?"

"My instinct, " she said, coming a step nearer, and putting her hand, too, on the gate near his. "Why should we desert him?"

"Desert him, Madame!"

Father Roubier's voice sounded amazed. 

"Yes. You say he needs prayers. I know it. Father, are not the firstprayers, the truest, those that go most swiftly to Heaven--acts?"

The priest did not reply for a moment. He looked at her and seemed to bethinking deeply. 

"Why did you send Monsieur Androvsky to me this afternoon?" he said atlast abruptly. 

"I knew you were a good man, and I fancied if you became friends youmight help him. "

His face softened. 

"A good man, " he said. "Ah!" He shook his head sadly, with a sound thatwas like a little pathetic laugh. "I--a good man! And I allow an almostinvincible personal feeling to conquer my inward sense of right! Madame, come into the garden for a moment. "

He opened the gate, she passed in, and he led her round the house to theenclosure at the back, where they could talk in greater privacy. Then hecontinued:

"You are right, Madame. I am here to try to do God's work, and sometimesit is better to act for a human being, perhaps, even than to pray forhim. I will tell you that I feel an almost invincible repugnance toMonsieur Androvsky, a repugnance that is almost stronger than my willto hold it in check. " He shivered slightly. "But, with God's help, I'llconquer that. If he stays on here I'll try to be his friend. I'll do allI can. If he is unhappy, far away from good, perhaps--I say it humbly, Madame, I assure you--I might help him. But"--and here his face andmanner changed, became firmer, more dominating--"you are not a priest, and--"

"No, only a woman, " she said, interrupting him. 

Something in her voice arrested him. There was a long silence in whichthey paced slowly up and down on the sand between the palm trees. Thetwilight was dying into night. Already the tomtoms were throbbing in thestreet of the dancers, and the shriek of the distant pipes was faintlyheard. At last the priest spoke again. 

"Madame, " he said, "when you came to me this afternoon there wassomething that you could not tell me. "

"Yes. "

"Had it anything to do with Monsieur Androvsky?"

"I meant to ask you to advise me about myself. "

"My advice to you was and is--be strong but not too foolhardy. "

"Believe me I will try not to be foolhardy. But you said something elsetoo, something about women. Don't you remember?"

She stopped, took his hands impulsively and pressed them. 

"Father, I've scarcely ever been of any use all my life. I've scarcelyever tried to be. Nothing within me said, 'You could be, ' and if it hadI was so dulled by routine and sorrow that I don't think I shouldhave heard it. But here it is different. I am not dulled. I can hear. And--suppose I can be of use for the first time! You wouldn't say to me, 'Don't try!' You couldn't say that?"

He stood holding her hands and looking into her face for a moment. Thenhe said, half-humorously, half-sadly:

"My child, perhaps you know your own strength best. Perhaps your safestspiritual director is your own heart. Who knows? But whether it be so ornot you will not take advice from me. "

She knew that was true now and, for a moment, felt almost ashamed. 

"Forgive me, " she said. "But--it is strange, and may seem to youridiculous or even wrong--ever since I have been here I have felt as ifeverything that happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it had tohappen. And I feel that, too, about the future. "

"Count Anteoni's fatalism!" the priest said with a touch of impatientirritation. "I know. It is the guiding spirit of this land. And you tooare going to be led by it. Take care! You have come to a land of fire, and I think you are made of fire. "

For a moment she saw a fanatical expression in his eyes. She thought ofit as the look of the monk crushed down within his soul. He opened hislips again, as if to pour forth upon her a torrent of burning words. Butthe look died away, and they parted quietly like two good friends. Yet, as she went to the hotel, she knew that Father Roubier could not giveher the kind of help she wanted, and she even fancied that perhaps nopriest could. Her heart was in a turmoil, and she seemed to be in themidst of a crowd. 

Batouch was at the door, looking elaborately contrite and ready withhis lie. He had been seized with fever in the night, in token whereof heheld up hands which began to shake like wind-swept leaves. Only now hadhe been able to drag himself from his quilt and, still afflicted as hewas, to creep to his honoured patron and crave her pardon. Domini gaveit with an abstracted carelessness that evidently hurt his pride, andwas passing into the hotel when he said:

"Irena is going to marry Hadj, Madame. "

Since the fracas at the dancing-house both the dancer and her victim hadbeen under lock and key. 

"To marry her after she tried to kill him!" said Domini. 

"Yes, Madame. He loves her as the palm tree loves the sun. He will takeher to his room, and she will wear a veil, and work for him and never goout any more. "

"What! She will live like the Arab women?"

"Of course, Madame. But there is a very nice terrace on the roof outsideHadj's room, and Hadj will permit her to take the air there, in theevening or when it is hot. "

"She must love Hadj very much. "

"She does, or why should she try to kill him?"

So that was an African love--a knife-thrust and a taking of the veil!The thought of it added a further complication to the disorder that wasin her mind. 

"I will see you after dinner, Batouch, " she said. 

She felt that she must do something, go somewhere that night. She couldnot remain quiet. 

Batouch drew himself up and threw out his broad chest. His air gaveplace to importance, and, as he leaned against the white pillar of thearcade, folded his ample burnous round him, and glanced up at the sky hesaw, in fancy, a five-franc piece glittering in the chariot of the moon. 

The priest did not come to dinner that night, but Androvsky was alreadyat his table when Domini came into the _salle-a-manger_. He got up fromhis seat and bowed formally, but did not speak. Remembering his outburstof the morning she realised the suspicion which her second interviewwith the priest had probably created in his mind, and now she was notfree from a feeling of discomfort that almost resembled guilt. For nowshe had been led to discuss Androvsky with Father Roubier, and had itnot been almost an apology when she said, "I know he is not evil"? Onceor twice during dinner, when her eyes met Androvsky's for a moment, sheimagined that he must know why she had been at the priest's house, thatanger was steadily increasing in him. 

He was a man who hated to be observed, to be criticised. Hissensitiveness was altogether abnormal, and made her wonder afresh wherehis previous life had been passed. It must surely have been a verysheltered existence. Contact with the world blunts the fine edge of ourfeeling with regard to others' opinion of us. In the world men learn tobe heedless of the everlasting buzz of comment that attends their goingsout and their comings in. But Androvsky was like a youth, alive to thetiniest whisper, set on fire by a glance. To such a nature life inthe world must be perpetual torture. She thought of him with a sorrowthat--strangely in her--was not tinged with contempt. That whichmanifested by another man would certainly have moved her to impatience, if not to wrath, in this man woke other sensations--curiosity, pity, terror. 

Yes--terror. To-night she knew that. The long day, begun in thesemidarkness before the dawn and ending in the semidarkness of thetwilight, had, with its events that would have seemed to anotherordinary and trivial enough, carried her forward a stage on an emotionalpilgrimage. The half-veiled warnings of Count Anteoni and of the priest, followed by the latter's almost passionately abrupt plain speaking, had not been without effect. To-night something of Europe and herlife there, with its civilised experience and drastic training in themanagement of woman's relations with humanity in general, crept backunder the palm trees and the brilliant stars of Africa; and despite thefatalism condemned by Father Roubier, she was more conscious than shehad hitherto been of how others--the outside world--would be likelyto regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. She stood, as it were, andlooked on at the events in which she herself had been and was involved, and in that moment she was first aware of a thrill of something akin toterror, as if, perhaps, without knowing it, she had been moving amida great darkness, as if perhaps a great darkness were approaching. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend;as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads and distinguishedfor an instant in an oblique lightning flash; as Vanderdecken passingin the hurricane and throwing a blood-red illumination from the sailsof his haunted ship; as the everlasting climber of the Brocken, as theshrouded Arab of the Eastern legend, who announced coming disaster tothe wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum among thedunes. 

And with Count Anteoni and the priest she set another figure, that ofthe sand-diviner, whose tortured face had suggested a man looking on afate that was terrible. Had not he, too, warned her? Had not the warningbeen threefold, been given to her by the world, the Church, and theunder-world--the world beneath the veil?

She met Androvsky's eyes. He was getting up to leave the room. Hismovement caught her away from things visionary, but not from worldlythings. She still looked on herself moving amid these events at whichher world would laugh or wonder, and perhaps for the first time in herlife she was uneasily self-conscious because of the self that watchedherself, as if that self held something coldly satirical that mocked ather and marvelled. 

CHAPTER XIV

"What shall I do to-night?"

Alone in the now empty _salle-a-manger_ Domini asked herself thequestion. She was restless, terribly restless in mind, and wanteddistraction. The idea of going to her room, of reading, even of sittingquietly in the verandah, was intolerable to her. She longed for action, swiftness, excitement, the help of outside things, of that exterior lifewhich she had told Count Anteoni she had begun to see as a mirage. Hadshe been in a city she would have gone to a theatre to witness sometremendous drama, or to hear some passionate or terrible opera. Beni-Mora might have been a place of many and strange tragedies, wouldbe no doubt again, but it offered at this moment little to satisfy hermood. The dances of the Cafes Maures, the songs of the smokers ofthe keef, the long histories of the story-tellers between the lightedcandles--she wanted none of these, and, for a moment, she wished shewere in London, Paris, any great capital that spent itself to suitthe changing moods of men. With a sigh she got up and went out to theArcade. Batouch joined her immediately. 

"What can I do to-night, Batouch?" she said. 

"There are the femmes mauresques, " he began. 

"No, no. "

"Would Madame like to hear the story-teller?"

"No. I should not understand him. "

"I can explain to Madame. "

"No. "

She stepped out into the road. 

"There will be a moon to-night, won't there?" she said, looking up atthe starry sky. 

"Yes, Madame, later. "

"What time will it rise?"

"Between nine and ten. "

She stood in the road, thinking. It had occurred to her that she hadnever seen moonrise in the desert. 

"And now it is"--she looked at her watch--"only eight. "

"Does Madame wish to see the moon come up pouring upon the palms--"

"Don't talk so much, Batouch, " she said brusquely. 

To-night the easy and luscious imaginings of the poet worried her likethe cry of a mosquito. His presence even disturbed her. Yet what couldshe do without him? After a pause she said:

"Can one go into the desert at night?"

"On foot, Madame? It would be dangerous. One cannot tell what may be inthe desert by night. "

These words made her long to go. They had a charm, a violence perhaps, of the unknown. 

"One might ride, " she said. "Why not? Who could hurt us if we weremounted and armed?"

"Madame is brave as the panther in the forests of the Djurdjurah. "

"And you, Batouch? Aren't you brave?"

"Madame, I am afraid of nothing. " He did not say it boastfully, likeHadj, but calmly, almost loftily. 

"Well, we are neither of us afraid. Let us ride out on the Tombouctouroad and see the moon rise. I'll go and put on my habit. "

"Madame should take her revolver. "

"Of course. Bring the horses round at nine. "

When she had put on her habit it was only a few minutes after eight. Shelonged to be in the saddle, going at full speed up the long, white roadbetween the palms. Physical movement was necessary to her, and she beganto pace up and down the verandah quickly. She wished she had ordered thehorses at once, or that she could do something definite to fill up thetime till they came. As she turned at the end of the verandah she sawa white form approaching her; when it drew near she recognised Hadj, looking self-conscious and mischievous, but a little triumphant too. Atthis moment she was glad to see him. He received her congratulations onhis recovery and approaching marriage with a sort of skittish gaiety, but she soon discovered that he had come with a money-making reason. Having seen his cousin safely off the premises, it had evidentlyoccurred to him to turn an honest penny. And pennies were now speciallyneedful to him in view of married life. 

"Does Madame wish to see something strange and wonderful to-night?" heasked, after a moment, looking at her sideways out of the corners of hiswicked eyes, which, as Domini could see, were swift to read characterand mood. 

"I am going out riding. "

He looked astonished. 

"In the night?"

"Yes. Batouch has gone to fetch the horses. "

Hadj's face became a mask of sulkiness. 

"If Madame goes out with Batouch she will be killed. There are robbersin the desert, and Batouch is afraid of--"

"Could we see the strange and wonderful thing in an hour?" sheinterrupted. 

The gay and skittish expression returned instantly to his face. 

"Yes, Madame. "

"What is it?"

He shook his head and made an artful gesture with his hand in the air. 

"Madame shall see. "

His long eyes were full of mystery, and he moved towards the staircase. 

"Come, Madame. "

Domini laughed and followed him. She felt as if she were playing a game, yet her curiosity was roused. They went softly down and slipped out ofthe hotel like children fearing to be caught. 

"Batouch will be angry. There will be white foam on his lips, " whisperedHadj, dropping his chin and chuckling low in his throat. "This way, Madame. "

He led her quickly across the gardens to the Rue Berthe, and down anumber of small streets, till they reached a white house before which, on a hump, three palm trees grew from one trunk. Beyond was wasteground, and further away a stretch of sand and low dunes lost in thedarkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Domini looked at the house andat Hadj, and wondered if it would be foolish to enter. 

"What is it?" she asked again. 

But he only replied, "Madame will see!" and struck his flat hand uponthe door. It was opened a little way, and a broad face covered withlittle humps and dents showed, the thick lips parted and mutteringquickly. Then the face was withdrawn, the door opened wider, and Hadjbeckoned to Domini to go in. After a moment's hesitation she did so, andfound herself in a small interior court, with a tiled floor, pillars, and high up a gallery of carved wood, from which, doubtless, dwelling-rooms opened. In the court, upon cushions, were seated fourvacant-looking men, with bare arms and legs and long matted hair, beforea brazier, from which rose a sharply pungent perfume. Two of these menwere very young, with pale, ascetic faces and weary eyes. They lookedlike young priests of the Sahara. At a short distance, upon a redpillow, sat a tiny boy of about three years old, dressed in yellow andgreen. When Domini and Hadj came into the court no one looked at themexcept the child, who stared with slowly-rolling, solemn eyes, slightlyshifting on the pillow. Hadj beckoned to Domini to seat herself uponsome rugs between the pillars, sat down beside her and began to makea cigarette. Complete silence prevailed. The four men stared at thebrazier, holding their nostrils over the incense fumes which rose fromit in airy spirals. The child continued to stare at Domini. Hadj lit hiscigarette. And time rolled on. 

Domini had desired violence, and had been conveyed into a dumbness ofmystery, that fell upon her turmoil of spirit like a blow. What struckher as especially strange and unnatural was the fact that the men withwhom she was sitting in the dim court of this lonely house had notlooked at her, did not appear to know that she was there. Hadj hadcaught the aroma of their meditations with the perfume of the incense, for his eyes had lost their mischief and become gloomily profound, asif they stared on bygone centuries or watched a far-off future. Eventhe child began to look elderly, and worn as with fastings and withwatchings. As the fumes perpetually ascended from the red-hot coals ofthe brazier the sharp smell of the perfume grew stronger. There was init something provocative and exciting that was like a sound, andDomini marvelled that the four men who crouched over it and drank it inperpetually could be unaffected by its influence when she, who wasat some distance from it, felt dawning on her desires of movement, of action, almost a physical necessity to get up and do somethingextraordinary, absurd or passionate, such as she had never done ordreamed of till this moment. 

A low growl like that of a wild beast broke the silence. Domini did notknow at first whence it came. She stared at the four men, but they wereall gazing vacantly into the brazier, their naked arms dropping to thefloor. She glanced at Hadj. He was delicately taking a cigarette paperfrom a little case. The child--no, it was absurd even to think of achild emitting such a sound. 

Someone growled again more fiercely, and this time Domini saw that itwas the palest of the ascetic-looking youths. He shook back his longhair, rose to his feet with a bound, and moving into the centre of thecourt gazed ferociously at his companions. As if in obedience to theglance, two of them stretched their arms backwards, found two tomtoms, and began to beat them loudly and monotonously. The young ascetic bowedto the tomtoms, dropping his lower jaw and jumping on his bare feet. Hebowed again as if saluting a fetish, and again and again. Ceaselessly hebowed to the tomtoms, always jumping softly from the pavement. His longhair fell over his face and back upon his shoulders with a monotonousregularity that imitated the tomtoms, as if he strove to mould his lifein accord with the fetish to which he offered adoration. Flecks of foamappeared upon his lips, and the asceticism in his eyes changed to abestial glare. His whole body was involved in a long and snake-likeundulation, above which his hair flew to and fro. Presently the secondyouth, moving reverently like a priest about the altar, stole to acorner and returned with a large and curved sheet of glass. Withoutlooking at Domini he came to her and placed it in her hands. When thedancer saw the glass he stood still, growled again long and furiously, threw himself on his knees before Domini, licked his lips, then, abruptly thrusting forward his face, set his teeth in the sheetof glass, bit a large piece off, crunched it up with a loud noise, swallowed it with a gulp, and growled for more. She fed him again, whilethe tomtoms went on roaring, and the child in its red pillow watchedwith its weary eyes. And when he was full fed, only a fragment of glassremained between her fingers, he fell upon the ground and lay like onein a trance. 

Then the second youth bowed to the tomtoms, leaping gently on thepavement, foamed at the mouth, growled, snuffed up the incense fumes, shook his long mane, and placed his naked feet in the red-hot coals ofthe brazier. He plucked out a coal and rolled his tongue round it. Heplaced red coals under his bare armpits and kept them there, pressinghis arms against his sides. He held a coal, like a monocle, in his eyesocket against his eye. And all the time he leaped and bowed and foamed, undulating his body like a snake. The child looked on with a stillgravity, and the tomtoms never ceased. From the gallery above paintedfaces peered down, but Domini did not see them. Her attention was takencaptive by the young priests of the Sahara. For so she called them inher mind, realising that there were religious fanatics whose half-crazydevotion seemed to lift them above the ordinary dangers to the body. Oneof the musicians now took his turn, throwing his tomtom to the eaterof glass, who had wakened from his trance. He bowed and leaped; thrustspikes behind his eyes, through his cheeks, his lips, his arms; drove along nail into his head with a wooden hammer; stood upon the sharp edgeof an upturned sword blade. With the spikes protruding from his face inall directions, and his eyes bulging out from them like balls, he spunin a maze of hair, barking like a dog. The child regarded him with astill attention, and the incense fumes were cloudy in the court. Thenthe last of the four men sprang up in the midst of a more passionateuproar from the tomtoms. He wore a filthy burnous, and, with a shriek, he plunged his hand into its hood and threw some squirming things uponthe floor. They began to run, rearing stiff tails into the air. He sankdown, blew upon them, caught them, letting them set their tail weaponsin his fingers, and lifting them thus, imbedded, high above the floor. Then again he put them down, breathed upon each one, drew a circleround each with his forefinger. His face had suddenly become intense, hypnotic. The scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, eachin its place within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; andtheir master bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, andbowed again, undulating his body in a maze of hair. 

Domini felt as if she, like the scorpions, had been mesmerised. She, too, was surely bound in a circle, breathed upon by some arrogantbreath of fanaticism, commanded by some horrid power. She looked at thescorpions and felt a sort of pity for them. From time to time the bowingfanatic glanced at them through his hair out of the corners of his eyes, licked his lips, shook his shoulders, and uttered a long howl, thrillingwith the note of greed. The tomtoms pulsed faster and faster, louder andlouder, and all the men began to sing a fierce chant, the song surelyof desert souls driven crazy by religion. One of the scorpions movedslightly, reared its tail, began to run. Instantly, as if at a signal, the dancer fell upon his knees, bent down his head, seized it in histeeth, munched it and swallowed it. At the same moment with the uproarof the tomtoms there mingled a loud knocking on the door. 

Hadj's lips curled back from his pointed teeth and he looked dangerous. 

"It is Batouch!" he snarled. 

Domini got up. Without a word, turning her back upon the court, she madeher way out, still hearing the howl of the scorpion-eater, the roar ofthe tomtoms, and the knocking on the door. Hadj followed her quickly, protesting. At the door was the man with the pitted white face and thethick lips. When he saw her he held out his hand. She gave him somemoney, he opened the door, and she came out into the night by the triplepalm tree. Batouch stood there looking furious, with the bridles oftwo horses across his arm. He began to speak in Arabic to Hadj, butshe stopped him with an imperious gesture, gave Hadj his fee, and in amoment was in the saddle and cantering away into the dark. She heard thegallop of Batouch's horse coming up behind her and turned her head. 

"Batouch, " she said, "you are the smartest"--she used the word_chic_--"Arab here. Do you know what is the fashion in London when alady rides out with the attendant who guards her--the really smart thingto do?"

She was playing on his vanity. He responded with a ready smile. 

"No, Madame. "

"The attendant rides at a short distance behind her, so that no one cancome up near her without his knowledge. "

Batouch fell back, and Domini cantered on, congratulating herself on thesuccess of her expedient. 

She passed through the village, full of strolling white figures, lightsand the sound of music, and was soon at the end of the long, straightroad that was significant to her as no other road had ever been. Eachtime she saw it, stretching on till it was lost in the serried massesof the palms, her imagination was stirred by a longing to wander throughbarbaric lands, by a nomad feeling that was almost irresistible. Thisroad was a track of fate to her. When she was on it she had a strangesensation as if she changed, developed, drew near to some ideal. Itinfluenced her as one person may influence another. Now for the firsttime she was on it in the night, riding on the crowded shadows ofits palms. She drew rein and went more slowly. She had a desire to benoiseless. 

In the obscurity the thickets of the palms looked more exotic than inthe light of day. There was no motion in them. Each tree stood like adelicately carven thing, silhouetted against the remote purple of thevoid. In the profound firmament the stars burned with a tremulous ardourthey never show in northern skies. The mystery of this African nightrose not from vaporous veils and the long movement of winds, but wasbreathed out by clearness, brightness, stillness. It was the deepest ofall mystery--the mystery of vastness and of peace. 

No one was on the road. The sound of the horse's feet were sharplydistinct in the night. On all sides, but far off, the guard dogs werebarking by the hidden homes of men. The air was warm as in a hothouse, but light and faintly impregnated with perfume shed surely by themystical garments of night as she glided on with Domini towards thedesert. From the blackness of the palms there came sometimes thin notesof the birds of night, the whizzing noise of insects, the glassy pipe ofa frog in the reeds by a pool behind a hot brown wall. 

She rode through one of the villages of old Beni-Mora, silent, unlighted, with empty streets and closed cafes maures, touched her horsewith the whip, and cantered on at a quicker pace. As she drew near tothe desert her desire to be in it increased. There was some coarsegrass here. The palm trees grew less thickly. She heard more clearly thebarking of the Kabyle dogs, and knew that tents were not far off. Now, between the trunks of the trees, she saw the twinkling of distant fires, and the sound of running water fell on her ears, mingling with thepersistent noise of the insects, and the faint cries of the birds andfrogs. In front, where the road came out from the shadows of the lasttrees, lay a vast dimness, not wholly unlike another starless sky, stretched beneath the starry sky in which the moon had not yet risen. She set her horse at a gallop and came into the desert, rushing throughthe dark. 

"Madame! Madame!"

Batouch's voice was calling her. She galloped faster, like one inflight. Her horse's feet padded over sand almost as softly as a camel's. The vast dimness was surely coming to meet her, to take her to itselfin the night. But suddenly Batouch rode furiously up beside her, hisburnous flying out behind him over his red saddle. 

"Madame, we must not go further, we must keep near the oasis. "

"Why?"

"It is not safe at night in the desert, and besides--"

His horse plunged and nearly rocketed against hers. She pulled in. Hiscompany took away her desire to keep on. 

"Besides?"

Leaning over his saddle peak he said, mysteriously:

"Besides, Madame, someone has been following us all the way fromBeni-Mora. "

"Who?"

"A horseman. I have heard the beat of the hoofs on the hard road. OnceI stopped and turned, but I could see nothing, and then I could hearnothing. He, too, had stopped. But when I rode on again soon I heard himonce more. Someone found out we were going and has come after us. "

She looked back into the violet night without speaking. She heard nosound of a horse, saw nothing but the dim track and the faint, shadowyblackness where the palms began. Then she put her hand into the pocketof her saddle and silently held up a tiny revolver. 

"I know, but there might be more than one. I am not afraid, but ifanything happens to Madame no one will ever take me as a guide anymore. "

She smiled for a moment, but the smile died away, and again she lookedinto the night. She was not afraid physically, but she was conscious ofa certain uneasiness. The day had been long and troubled, and had leftits mark upon her. Restlessness had driven her forth into the darkness, and behind the restlessness there was a hint of the terror of which shehad been aware when she was left alone in the _salle-a-manger_. Was itnot that vague terror which, shaking the restlessness, had sent herto the white house by the triple palm tree, had brought her now to thedesert? she asked herself, while she listened, and the hidden horsemanof whom Batouch had spoken became in her imagination one with thelegendary victims of fate; with the Jew by the cross roads, the marinerbeating ever about the rock-bound shores of the world, the climber inthe witches' Sabbath, the phantom Arab in the sand. Still holding herrevolver, she turned her horse and rode slowly towards the distantfires, from which came the barking of the dogs. At some hundreds ofyards from them she paused. 

"I shall stay here, " she said to Batouch. "Where does the moon rise?"

He stretched his arm towards the desert, which sloped gently, almostimperceptibly, towards the east. 

"Ride back a little way towards the oasis. The horseman was behind us. If he is still following you will meet him. Don't go far. Do as I tellyou, Batouch. "

With obvious reluctance he obeyed her. She saw him pull up his horse ata distance where he had her just in sight. Then she turned so thatshe could not see him and looked towards the desert and the east. Therevolver seemed unnaturally heavy in her hand. She glanced at it for amoment and listened with intensity for the beat of horse's hoofs, andher wakeful imagination created a sound that was non-existent in herears. With it she heard a gallop that was spectral as the gallop of theblack horses which carried Mephistopheles and Faust to the abyss. Itdied away almost at once, and she knew it for an imagination. To-nightshe was peopling the desert with phantoms. Even the fires of the nomadswere as the fires that flicker in an abode of witches, the shadows thatpassed before them were as goblins that had come up out of the sand tohold revel in the moonlight. Were they, too, waiting for a signal fromthe sky?

At the thought of the moon she drew up the reins that had been lyingloosely on her horse's neck and rode some paces forward and away fromthe fires, still holding the revolver in her hand. Of what use wouldit be against the spectres of the Sahara? The Jew would face it withoutfear. Why not the horseman of Batouch? She dropped it into the pocket ofthe saddle. 

Far away in the east the darkness of the sky was slowly fading into aluminous mystery that rose from the underworld, a mystery that at firstwas faint and tremulous, pale with a pallor of silver and primrose, butthat deepened slowly into a live and ardent gold against which a groupof three palm trees detached themselves from the desert like messengerssent forth by it to give a salutation to the moon. They were jet blackagainst the gold, distinct though very distant. The night, and the vastplain from which they rose, lent them a significance that was unearthly. Their long, thin stems and drooping, feathery leaves were living andpathetic as the night thoughts of a woman who has suffered, but whoturns, with a gesture of longing that will not be denied, to theluminance that dwells at the heart of the world. And those black palmsagainst the gold, that stillness of darkness and light in immensity, banished Domini's faint sense of horror. The spectres faded away. Shefixed her eyes on the palms. 

Now all the notes of the living things that do not sleep by night, butmake music by reedy pools, in underwood, among the blades of grass andalong the banks of streams, were audible to her again, filling her mindwith the mystery of existence. The glassy note of the frogs was likea falling of something small and pointed upon a sheet of crystal. Thewhirs of the insects suggested a ceaselessly active mentality. The faintcries of the birds dropped down like jewels slipping from the trees. And suddenly she felt that she was as nothing in the vastness and thecomplication of the night. Even the passion that she knew lay, like adark and silent flood, within her soul, a flood that, once released fromits boundaries, had surely the power to rush irresistibly forward tosubmerge old landmarks and change the face of a world--even that seemedto lose its depth for a moment, to be shallow as the first ripple ofa tide upon the sand. And she forgot that the first ripple has all theocean behind it. 

Red deepened and glowed in the gold behind the three palms, and theupper rim of the round moon, red too as blood, crept about the desert. Domini, leaning forward with one hand upon her horse's warm neck, watched until the full circle was poised for a moment on the horizon, holding the palms in its frame of fire. She had never seen a moon lookso immense and so vivid as this moon that came up into the night like aportent, fierce yet serene, moon of a barbaric world, such as might haveshone upon Herod when he heard the voice of the Baptist in his dungeon, or upon the wife of Pilate when in a dream she was troubled. Itsuggested to her the powerful watcher of tragic events fraught with longchains of consequence that would last on through centuries, as it turnedits blood-red gaze upon the desert, upon the palms, upon her, and, leaning upon her horse's neck, she too--like Pilate's wife--fell intoa sort of strange and troubled dream for a moment, full of strong, yetghastly, light and of shapes that flitted across a background of fire. 

In it she saw the priest with a fanatical look of warning in his eyes, Count Anteoni beneath the trees of his garden, the perfume-seller inhis dark bazaar, Irena with her long throat exposed and her thinarms drooping, the sand-diviner spreading forth his hands, Androvskygalloping upon a horse as if pursued. This last vision returned againand again. As the moon rose a stream of light that seemed tragic fellacross the desert and was woven mysteriously into the light of herwaking dream. The three palms looked larger. She fancied that she sawthem growing, becoming monstrous as they stood in the very centre ofthe path of the nocturnal glory, and suddenly she remembered her thoughtwhen she sat with Androvsky in the garden, that feeling grew in humanhearts like palms rising in the desert. But these palms were tragic andaspired towards the blood-red moon. Suddenly she was seized with afear of feeling, of the growth of an intense sensation within her, andrealised, with an almost feverish vividness, the impotence of a soulcaught in the grip of a great passion, swayed hither and thither, ledinto strange paths, along the edges, perhaps into depths of immeasurableabysses. She had said to Androvsky that she would rather be the centreof a world tragedy than die without having felt to the uttermost even ifit were sorrow. Was that not the speech of a mad woman, or at least ofa woman who was so ignorant of the life of feeling that her words wereidle and ridiculous? Again she felt desperately that she did not knowherself, and this lack of the most essential of all knowledge reducedher for a moment to a bitterness of despair that seemed worse than thebitterness of death. The vastness of the desert appalled her. The redmoon held within its circle all the blood of the martyrs, of life, ofideals. She shivered in the saddle. Her nature seemed to shrink andquiver, and a cry for protection rose within her, the cry of the womanwho cannot face life alone, who must find a protector, and who mustcling to a strong arm, who needs man as the world needs God. 

Then again it seemed to her that she saw Androvsky galloping upon ahorse as if pursued. 

Moved by a desire to do something to combat this strange despair, born of the moonrise and the night, she sat erect in her saddle, andresolutely looked at the desert, striving to get away from herself ina hard contemplation of the details that surrounded her, the outwardthings that were coming each moment into clearer view. She gazedsteadily towards the palms that sharply cut the moonlight. As she did sosomething black moved away from them, as if it had been part of themand now detached itself with the intention of approaching her along thetrack. At first it was merely a moving blot, formless and small, butas it drew nearer she saw that it was a horseman riding slowly, perhapsstealthily, across the sand. She glanced behind her, and saw Batouch notfar off, and the fires of the nomads. Then she turned again to watch thehorseman. He came steadily forward. 

"Madame!"

It was the voice of Batouch. 

"Stay where you are!" she called out to him. 

She heard the soft sound of the horse's feet and could see the attitudeof its rider. He was leaning forward as if searching the night. She rodeto meet him, and they came to each other in the path of the light shehad thought tragic. 

"You followed me?"

"I cannot see you go out alone into the desert at night, " Androvskyreplied. 

"But you have no right to follow me. "

"I cannot let harm come to you, Madame. "

She was silent. A moment before she had been longing for a protector. One had come to her, the man whom she had been setting with thoselegendary figures who have saddened and appalled the imagination of men. She looked at the dark figure of Androvsky leaning forward on thehorse whose feet were set on the path of the moon, and she did not knowwhether she felt confidence in him or fear of him. All that the priesthad said rose up in her mind, all that Count Anteoni had hinted and thathad been visible in the face of the sand-diviner. This man had followedher into the night as a guardian. Did she need someone, something, toguard her from him? A faint horror was still upon her. Perhaps he knewit and resented it, for he drew himself upright on his horse and spokeagain, with a decision that was rare in him. 

"Let me send Batouch back to Beni-Mora, Madame. "

"Why?" she asked, in a low voice that was full of hesitation. 

"You do not need him now. "

He was looking at her with a defiant, a challenging expression that washis answer to her expression of vague distrust and apprehension. 

"How do you know that?"

He did not answer the question, but only said:

"It is better here without him. May I send him away, Madame?"

She bent her head. Androvsky rode off and she saw him speaking toBatouch, who shook his head as if in contradiction. 

"Batouch!" she called out. "You can ride back to Beni-Mora. We shallfollow directly. "

The poet cantered forward. 

"Madame, it is not safe. "

The sound of his voice made Domini suddenly know what she had not beensure of before--that she wished to be alone with Androvsky. 

"Go, Batouch!" she said. "I tell you to go. "

Batouch turned his horse without a word, and disappeared into thedarkness of the distant palms. 

When they were alone together Domini and Androvsky sat silent on theirhorses for some minutes. Their faces were turned towards the desert, which was now luminous beneath the moon. Its loneliness was overpoweringin the night, and made speech at first an impossibility, and eventhought difficult. At last Androvsky said:

"Madame, why did you look at me like that just now, as if you--as if youhesitated to remain alone with me?"

Suddenly she resolved to tell him of her oppression of the night. Shefelt as if to do so would relieve her of something that was like a painat her heart. 

"Has it never occurred to you that we are strangers to each other?" shesaid. "That we know nothing of each other's lives? What do you know ofme or I of you?"

He shifted in his saddle and moved the reins from one hand to the other, but said nothing. 

"Would it seem strange to you if I did hesitate--if even now--"

"Yes, " he interrupted violently, "it would seem strange to me. "

"Why?"

"You would rely on an Arab and not rely upon me, " he said with intensebitterness. 

"I did not say so. "

"Yet at first you wished to keep Batouch. "

"Yes. "

"Then----"

"Batouch is my attendant. "

"And I? Perhaps I am nothing but a man whom you distrust; whom--whomothers tell you to think ill of. "

"I judge for myself. "

"But if others speak ill of me?"

"It would not influence me----for long. "

She added the last words after a pause. She wished to be strictlytruthful, and to-night she was not sure that the words of the priest hadmade no impression upon her. 

"For long!" he repeated. Then he said abruptly, "The priest hates me. "

"No. "

"And Count Anteoni?"

"You interested Count Anteoni greatly. "

"Interested him!"

His voice sounded intensely suspicious in the night. 

"Don't you wish to interest anyone? It seems to me that to beuninteresting is to live eternally alone in a sunless desert. "

"I wish--I should like to think that I--" He stopped, then said, with asort of ashamed determination: "Could I ever interest you, Madame?"

"Yes, " she answered quietly. 

"But you would rather be protected by an Arab than by me. The priesthas--"

"To-night I do not seem to be myself, " she said, interrupting him. "Perhaps there is some physical reason. I got up very early, and--don'tyou ever feel oppressed, suspicious, doubtful of life, people, yourself, everything, without apparent reason? Don't you know what it is to havenightmare without sleeping?"

"I! But you are different. "

"To-night I have felt--I do feel as if there were tragedy near me, perhaps coming towards me, " she said simply, "and I am oppressed, I amalmost afraid. "

When she had said it she felt happier, as if a burden she carried weresuddenly lighter. As he did not speak she glanced at him. The moon rayslit up his face. It looked ghastly, drawn and old, so changed that shescarcely recognised it and felt, for a moment, as if she were with astranger. She looked away quickly, wondering if what she had seen wasmerely some strange effect of the moon, or whether Androvsky was reallyaltered for a moment by the action of some terrible grief, one of thosesudden sorrows that rush upon a man from the hidden depths of his natureand tear his soul, till his whole being is lacerated and he feels asif his soul were flesh and were streaming with the blood from mortalwounds. The silence between them was long. In it she presently heard areiterated noise that sounded like struggle and pain made audible. Itwas Androvsky's breathing. In the soft and exquisite air of the deserthe was gasping like a man shut up in a cellar. She looked again towardshim, startled. As she did so he turned his horse sideways and rode awaya few paces. Then he pulled up his horse. He was now merely a blackshape upon the moonlight, motionless and inaudible. She could not takeher eyes from this shape. Its blackness suggested to her the blacknessof a gulf. Her memory still heard that sound of deep-drawn breathingor gasping, heard it and quivered beneath it as a tender-hearted personquivers seeing a helpless creature being ill-used. She hesitated fora moment, and then, carried away by an irresistible impulse to try tosoothe this extremity of pain which she was unable to understand, sherode up to Androvsky. When she reached him she did not know what she hadmeant to say or do. She felt suddenly impotent and intrusive, and evenhorribly shy. But before she had time for speech or action he turnedto her and said, lifting up his hands with the reins in them and thendropping them down heavily upon his horse's neck:

"Madame, I wanted to tell you that to-morrow I----" He stopped. 

"Yes?" she said. 

He turned his head away from her till she could not see his face. 

"To-morrow I am leaving Beni-Mora. "

"To-morrow!" she said. 

She did not feel the horse under her, the reins in her hand. She did notsee the desert or the moon. Though she was looking at Androvsky she nolonger perceived him. At the sound of his words it seemed to her as ifall outside things she had ever known had foundered, like a shipwhose bottom is ripped up by a razor-edged rock, as if with them hadfoundered, too, all things within herself: thoughts, feelings, eventhe bodily powers that were of the essence of her life; sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight, the capacity of movement and of deliberaterepose. Nothing seemed to remain except the knowledge that she was stillalive and had spoken. 

"Yes, to-morrow I shall go away. "

His face was still turned from her, and his voice sounded as if it spoketo someone at a distance, someone who could hear as man cannot hear. 

"To-morrow, " she repeated. 

She knew she had spoken again, but it did not seem to her as if she hadheard herself speak. She looked at her hands holding the reins, knewthat she looked at them, yet felt as if she were not seeing them whileshe did so. The moonlit desert was surely flickering round her, and awayto the horizon in waves that were caused by the disappearance of thatship which had suddenly foundered with all its countless lives. And sheknew of the movement of these waves as the soul of one of the drowned, already released from the body, might know of the movement on thesurface of the sea beneath which its body was hidden. 

But the soul was evidently nothing without the body, or, at most, merelya continuance of power to know that all which had been was no more. Allwhich had been was no more. 

At last her mind began to work again, and those words went throughit with persistence. She thought of the fascination of Africa, thatenormous, overpowering fascination which had taken possession of herbody and spirit. What had become of it? What had become of the romanceof the palm gardens, of the brown villages, of the red mountains, of thewhite town with its lights, its white figures, its throbbing music? Andthe mystical attraction of the desert--where was it now? Its voice, thathad called her persistently, was suddenly silent. Its hand, that hadbeen laid upon her, was removed. She looked at it in the moonlight andit was no longer the desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances fullof a music of summons, spaces, peopled with spirits from the sun. Itwas only a barren waste of dried-up matter, arid, featureless, desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had died. 

She heard the dogs barking by the tents of the nomads and the noises ofthe insects, but still she did not feel the horse underneath her. Yetshe was gradually recovering her powers, and their recovery brought withit sharp, physical pain, such as is felt by a person who has been nearlydrowned and is restored from unconsciousness. 

Androvsky turned round. She saw his eyes fastened upon her, andinstantly pride awoke in her, and, with pride, her whole self. 

She felt her horse under her, the reins in her hands, the stirrup at herfoot. She moved in her saddle. The blood tingled in her veins fiercely, bitterly, as if it had become suddenly acrid. She felt as if her facewere scarlet, as if her whole body flushed, and as if the flush could beseen by her companion. For a moment she was clothed from head to footin a fiery garment of shame. But she faced Androvsky with calm eyes, andher lips smiled. 

"You are tired of it?" she said. 

"I never meant to stay long, " he answered, looking down. 

"There is not very much to do here. Shall we ride back to the villagenow?"

She turned her horse, and as she did so cast one more glance at thethree palm trees that stood far out on the path of the moon. They lookedlike three malignant fates lifting up their hands in malediction. For amoment she shivered in the saddle. Then she touched her horse with thewhip and turned her eyes away. Androvsky followed her and rode by herside in silence. 

To gain the oasis they passed near to the tents of the nomads, whosefires were dying out. The guard dogs were barking furiously, andstraining at the cords which fastened them to the tent pegs, by theshort hedges of brushwood that sheltered the doors of filthy rags. TheArabs were all within, no doubt huddled up on the ground asleep. Onetent was pitched alone, at a considerable distance from the others, andunder the first palms of the oasis. A fire smouldered before it, castinga flickering gleam of light upon something dark which lay upon theground between it and the tent. Tied to the tent was a large white dog, which was not barking, but which was howling as if in agony of fear. Before Domini and Androvsky drew near to this tent the howling of thedog reached them and startled them. There was in it a note that seemedhumanly expressive, as if it were a person trying to scream out wordsbut unable to from horror. Both of them instinctively pulled up theirhorses, listened, then rode forward. When they reached the tent they sawthe dark thing lying by the fire. 

"What is it?" Domini whispered. 

"An Arab asleep, I suppose, " Androvsky answered, staring at themotionless object. 

"But the dog----" She looked at the white shape leaping franticallyagainst the tent. "Are you sure?"

"It must be. Look, it is wrapped in rags and the head is covered. "

"I don't know. "

She stared at it. The howling of the dog grew louder, as if it werestraining every nerve to tell them something dreadful. 

"Do you mind getting off and seeing what it is? I'll hold the horse. "

He swung himself out of the saddle. She caught his rein and watched himgo forward to the thing that lay by the fire, bend down over it, touchit, recoil from it, then--as if with a determined effort--kneel downbeside it on the ground and take the rags that covered it in his hands. After a moment of contemplation of what they had hidden he dropped therags--or rather threw them from him with a violent gesture--got up andcame back to Domini, and looked at her without speaking. She bent down. 

"I'll tell you, " she said. "I'll tell you what it is. It's a deadwoman. "

It seemed to her as if the dark thing lying by the fire was herself. 

"Yes, " he said. "It's a woman who has been strangled. "

"Poor woman!" she said. "Poor--poor woman!"

And it seemed to her as if she said it of herself. 

CHAPTER XV

Lying in bed in the dark that night Domini heard the church clock chimethe hours. She was not restless, though she was wakeful. Indeed, shefelt like a woman to whom an injection of morphia had been administered, as if she never wished to move again. She lay there counting the minutesthat made the passing hours, counting them calmly, with an inexorableand almost cold self-possession. The process presently becamemechanical, and she was able, at the same time, to dwell upon the eventsthat had followed upon the discovery of the murdered woman by the tent:Androvsky's pulling aside of the door of the tent to find it empty, their short ride to the encampment close by, their rousing up of thesleeping Arabs within, filthy nomads clothed in patched garments, unveiled women with wrinkled, staring faces and huge plaits of falsehair and amulets. From the tents the strange figures had streamed forthinto the light of the moon and the fading fires, gesticulating, talkingloudly, furiously, in an uncouth language that was unintelligible toher. Led by Androvsky they had come to the corpse, while the air wasrent by the frantic barking of all the guard dogs and the howling of thedog that had been a witness of the murder. Then in the night had risenthe shrill wailing of the women, a wailing that seemed to pierce thestars and shudder out to the remotest confines of the desert, and inthe cold white radiance of the moon a savage vision of grief had beenpresented to her eyes: naked arms gesticulating as if they strove tosummon vengeance from heaven, claw-like hands casting earth upon theheads from which dangled Fatma hands, chains of tarnished silver andlumps of coral that reminded her of congealed blood, bodies that swayedand writhed as if stricken with convulsions or rent by seven devils. She remembered how strange had seemed to her the vast calm, thevast silence, that encompassed this noisy outburst of humanity, howinflexible had looked the enormous moon, how unsympathetic the brightlyshining stars, how feverish and irritable the flickering illumination ofthe flames that spurted up and fainted away like things still living butin the agonies of death. 

Then had followed her silent ride back to Beni-Mora with Androvsky alongthe straight road which had always fascinated her spirit of adventure. They had ridden slowly, without looking at each other, withoutexchanging a word. She had felt dry and weary, like an old woman who hadpassed through a long life of suffering and emerged into a region whereany acute feeling is unable to exist, as at a certain altitude from theearth human life can no longer exist. The beat of the horses' hoofs uponthe road had sounded hard, as her heart felt, cold as the temperatureof her mind. Her body, which usually swayed to her horse's slightestmovement, was rigid in the saddle. She recollected that once, when herhorse stumbled, she had thrilled with an abrupt anger that was almostferocious, and had lifted her whip to lash it. But the hand had slippeddown nervelessly, and she had fallen again into her frigid reverie. 

When they reached the hotel she had dropped to the ground, heavily, andheavily had ascended the steps of the verandah, followed by Androvsky. Without turning to him or bidding him good-night she had gone toher room. She had not acted with intentional rudeness orindifference--indeed, she had felt incapable of an intention. Simply, she had forgotten, for the first time perhaps in her life, an ordinaryact of courtesy, as an old person sometimes forgets you are there andwithdraws into himself. Androvsky had said nothing, had not tried toattract her attention to himself. She had heard his steps die away onthe verandah. Then, mechanically, she had undressed and got into bed, where she was now mechanically counting the passing moments. 

Presently she became aware of her own stillness and connected it withthe stillness of the dead woman, by the tent. She lay, as it were, watching her own corpse as a Catholic keeps vigil beside a body that hasnot yet been put into the grave. But in this chamber of death there wereno flowers, no lighted candles, no lips that moved in prayer. Shehad gone to bed without praying. She remembered that now, but withindifference. Dead people do not pray. The living pray for them. Buteven the watcher could not pray. Another hour struck in the belfry ofthe church. She listened to the chime and left off counting the moments, and this act of cessation made more perfect the peace of the dead woman. 

When the sun rose her sensation of death passed away, leaving behind it, however, a lethargy of mind and body such as she had never known beforethe previous night. Suzanne, coming in to call her, exclaimed:

"Mam'selle is ill?"

"No. Why should I be ill?"

"Mam'selle looks so strange, " the maid said, regarding her with roundand curious eyes. "As if--"

She hesitated. 

"Give me my tea, " Domini said. 

When she was drinking it she asked:

"Do you know at what time the train leaves Beni-Mora--the passengertrain?"

"Yes, Mam'selle. There is only one in the day. It goes soon aftertwelve. Monsieur Helmuth told me. "

"Oh!"

"What gown will--?"

"Any gown--the white linen one I had on yesterday. "

"Yes, Mam'selle. "

"No, not that. Any other gown. Is it to be hot?"

"Very hot, Mam'selle. There is not a cloud in the sky. "

"How strange!" Domini said, in a low voice that Suzanne did not hear. When she was up and dressed she said:

"I am going out to Count Anteoni's garden. I think I'll--yes, I'll takea book with me. "

She went into her little salon and looked at the volumes scattered aboutthere, some books of devotion, travel, books on sport, Rossetti's andNewman's poems, some French novels, and the novels of Jane Austen, ofwhich, oddly, considering her nature, she was very fond. For the firsttime in her life they struck her as shrivelled, petty chronicles ofshrivelled, bloodless, artificial lives. She turned back into herbedroom, took up the little white volume of the _Imitation_, which layalways near her bed, and went out into the verandah. She looked neitherto right nor left, but at once descended the staircase and took her wayalong the arcade. 

When she reached the gate of the garden she hesitated before knockingupon it. The sight of the villa, the arches, the white walls andclustering trees she knew so well hurt her so frightfully, sounexpectedly, that she felt frightened and sick, and as if she must goaway quickly to some place which she had never seen, and which couldcall up no reminiscences in her mind. 

Perhaps she would have gone into the oasis, or along the path thatskirted the river bed, had not Smain softly opened the gate and come outto meet her, holding a great velvety rose in his slim hand. 

He gave it to her without a word, smiling languidly with eyes in whichthe sun seemed caught and turned to glittering darkness, and as she tookit and moved it in her fingers, looking at the wine-coloured petals onwhich lay tiny drops of water gleaming with thin and silvery lights, sheremembered her first visit to the garden, and the mysterious enchantmentthat had floated out to her through the gate from the golden vistas andthe dusky shadows of the trees, the feeling of romantic expectation thathad stirred within her as she stepped on to the sand and saw before herthe winding ways disappearing into dimness between the rills edged bythe pink geraniums. 

How long ago that seemed, like a remembrance of early childhood in theheart of one who is old. 

Now that the gate was open she resolved to go into the garden. She mightas well be there as elsewhere. She stepped in, holding the rose in herhand. One of the drops of water slipped from an outer petal and fellupon the sand. She thought of it as a tear. The rose was weeping, buther eyes were dry. She touched the rose with her lips. 

To-day the garden was like a stranger to her, but a stranger with whomshe had once--long, long ago--been intimate, whom she had trusted, andby whom she had been betrayed. She looked at it and knew that she hadthought it beautiful and loved it. From its recesses had come to hertroops of dreams. The leaves of its trees had touched her as with tenderhands. The waters of its rills had whispered to her of the hidden thingsthat lie in the breast of joy. The golden rays that played through itsscented alleys had played, too, through the shadows of her heart, makinga warmth and light there that seemed to come from heaven. She knew thisas one knows of the apparent humanity that greeted one's own humanity inthe friend who is a friend no longer, and she sickened at it as at thethought of remembered intimacy with one proved treacherous. There seemedto her nothing ridiculous in this personification of the garden, asthere had formerly seemed to her nothing ridiculous in her thought ofthe desert as a being; but the fact that she did thus instinctivelypersonify the nature that surrounded her gave to the garden in her eyesan aspect that was hostile and even threatening, as if she faced a lovenow changed to hate, a cold and inimical watchfulness that knew too muchabout her, to which she had once told all her happy secrets and murmuredall her hopes. She did not hate the garden, but she felt as if shefeared it. The movements of its leaves conveyed to her uneasiness. Thehidden places, which once had been to her retreats peopled with tranquilblessings, were now become ambushes in which lay lurking enemies. 

Yet she did not leave it, for to-day something seemed to tell her thatit was meant that she should suffer, and she bowed in spirit to thedecree. 

She went on slowly till she reached the _fumoir_. She entered it and satdown. 

She had not seen any of the gardeners or heard the note of a flute. The day was very still. She looked at the narrow doorway and rememberedexactly the attitude in which Count Anteoni had stood during their firstinterview, holding a trailing branch of the bougainvillea in his hand. She saw him as a shadow that the desert had taken. Glancing down at thecarpet sand she imagined the figure of the sand-diviner crouching thereand recalled his prophecy, and directly she did this she knew that shehad believed in it. She had believed that one day she would ride, outinto the desert in a storm, and that with her, enclosed in the curtainsof a palanquin, there would be a companion. The Diviner had not toldher who would be this companion. Darkness was about him rendering himinvisible to the eyes of the seer. But her heart had told her. She hadseen the other figure in the palanquin. It was a man. It was Androvsky. 

She had believed that she would go out into the desert with Androvsky, with this traveller of whose history, of whose soul, she knew nothing. Some inherent fatalism within her had told her so. And now----?

The darkness of the shade beneath the trees in this inmost recess of thegarden fell upon her like the darkness of that storm in which the desertwas blotted out, and it was fearful to her because she felt that shemust travel in the storm alone. Till now she had been very much alonein life and had realised that such solitude was dreary, that in itdevelopment was difficult, and that it checked the steps of the pilgrimwho should go upward to the heights of life. But never till now had shefelt the fierce tragedy of solitude, the utter terror of it. As she satin the _fumoir_, looking down on the smoothly-raked sand, she said toherself that till this moment she had never had any idea of the meaningof solitude. It was the desert within a human soul, but the desertwithout the sun. And she knew this because at last she loved. The darkand silent flood of passion that lay within her had been released fromits boundaries, the old landmarks were swept away for ever, the face ofthe world was changed. 

She loved Androvsky. Everything in her loved him; all that she had been, all that she was, all that she could ever be loved him; that which wasphysical in her, that which was spiritual, the brain, the heart, thesoul, body and flame burning within it--all that made her the wonderthat is woman, loved him. She was love for Androvsky. It seemed to herthat she was nothing else, had never been anything else. The past yearswere nothing, the pain by which she was stricken when her mother fled, by which she was tormented when her father died blaspheming, werenothing. There was no room in her for anything but love of Androvsky. Atthis moment even her love of God seemed to have been expelled from her. Afterwards she remembered that. She did not think of it now. For herthere was a universe with but one figure in it--Androvsky. She wasunconscious of herself except as love for him. She was unconscious ofany Creative Power to whom she owed the fact that he was there to beloved by her. She was passion, and he was that to which passion flowed. 

The world was the stream and the sea. 

As she sat there with her hands folded on her knees, her eyes bent down, and the purple flowers all about her, she felt simplified and cleansed, as if a mass of little things had been swept from her, leaving spacefor the great thing that henceforth must for ever dwell within her anddominate her life. The burning shame of which she had been conscious onthe previous night, when Androvsky told her of his approaching departureand she was stricken as by a lightning flash, had died away from herutterly. She remembered it with wonder. How should she be ashamed oflove? She thought that it would be impossible to her to be ashamed, evenif Androvsky knew all that she knew. Just then the immense truth of herfeeling conquered everything else, made every other thing seem false, and she said to herself that of truth she did not know how to beashamed. But with the knowledge of the immense truth of her love camethe knowledge of the immense sorrow that might, that must, dwell side byside with it. 

Suddenly she moved. She lifted her eyes from the sand and looked outinto the garden. Besides this truth within her there was one other thingin the world that was true. Androvsky was going away. While she satthere the moments were passing. They were making the hours that werebent upon destruction. She was sitting in the garden now and Androvskywas close by. A little time would pass noiselessly. She would be sittingthere and Androvsky would be far away, gone from the desert, gone out ofher life no doubt for ever. And the garden would not have changed. Eachtree would stand in its place, each flower would still give forth itsscent. The breeze would go on travelling through the lacework of thebranches, the streams slipping between the sandy walls of the rills. The inexorable sun would shine, and the desert would whisper in its bluedistances of the unseen things that always dwell beyond. And Androvskywould be gone. Their short intercourse, so full of pain, uneasiness, reserve, so fragmentary, so troubled by abrupt violences, by ignorance, by a sense of horror even on the one side, and by an almost constantsuspicion on the other, would have come to an end. 

She was stunned by the thought, and looked round her as if she expectedinanimate Nature to take up arms for her against this fate. Yet she didnot for a moment think of taking up arms herself. She had left the hotelwithout trying to see Androvsky. She did not intend to return to it tillhe was gone. The idea of seeking him never came into her mind. There isan intensity of feeling that generates action, but there is a greaterintensity of feeling that renders action impossible, the feeling thatseems to turn a human being into a shell of stone within which burn allthe fires of creation. Domini knew that she would not move out of the_fumoir_ till the train was creeping along the river-bed on its way fromBeni-Mora. 

She had laid down the _Imitation_ upon the seat by her side, and now shetook it up. The sight of its familiar pages made her think for the firsttime, "Do I love God any more?" And immediately afterwards camethe thought: "Have I ever loved him?" The knowledge of her love forAndrovsky, for this body that she had seen, for this soul that she hadseen through the body like a flame through glass, made her believe justthen that if she had ever thought--and certainly she had thought--thatshe loved a being whom she had never seen, never even imaginativelyprojected, she had deceived herself. The act of faith was notimpossible, but the act of love for the object on which that faith wasconcentrated now seemed to her impossible. For her body, that remainedpassive, was full of a riot, a fury of life. The flesh that had sleptwas awakened and knew itself. And she could no longer feel that shecould love that which her flesh could not touch, that which could nottouch her flesh. And she said to herself, without terror, even withoutregret, "I do not love, I never have loved, God. "

She looked into the book:

"Unspeakable, indeed, is the sweetness of thy contemplation, which thoubestowest on them that love thee. "

The sweetness of thy contemplation! She remembered Androvsky's facelooking at her out of the heart of the sun as they met for the firsttime in the blue country. In that moment she put him consciously inthe place of God, and there was nothing within her to say, "You arecommitting mortal sin. "

She looked into the book once more and her eyes fell upon the wordswhich she had read on her first morning in Beni-Mora:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it isnot disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mountethupwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth thecry of this voice. "

She had always loved these words and thought them the most beautiful inthe book, but now they came to her with the newness of the first springmorning that ever dawned upon the world. The depth of them was laid bareto her, and, with that depth, the depth of her own heart. The paralysisof anguish passed from her. She no longer looked to Nature as onedumbly seeking help. For they led her to herself, and made her lookinto herself and her own love and know it. "When frightened it isnot disturbed--it securely passeth through all. " That was absolutelytrue--true as her love. She looked down into her love, and she saw therethe face of God, but thought she saw the face of human love only. Andit was so beautiful and so strong that even the tears upon it gave hercourage, and she said to herself: "Nothing matters, nothing can matterso long as I have this love within me. He is going away, but I am notsad, for I am going with him--my love, all that I am--that is going withhim, will always be with him. "

Just then it seemed to her that if she had seen Androvsky lying deadbefore her on the sand she could not have felt unhappy. Nothing could doharm to a great love. It was the one permanent, eternally vital thing, clad in an armour of fire that no weapon could pierce, free of allterror from outside things because it held its safety within its ownheart, everlastingly enough, perfectly, flawlessly complete for and initself. For that moment fear left her, restlessness left her. Anyonelooking in upon her from the garden would have looked in upon a great, calm happiness. 

Presently there came a step upon the sand of the garden walks. A man, going slowly, with a sort of passionate reluctance, as if somethingimmensely strong was trying to hold him back, but was conquered withdifficulty by something still stronger that drove him on, came out ofthe fierce sunshine into the shadow of the garden, and began to searchits silent recesses. It was Androvsky. He looked bowed and old andguilty. The two lines near his mouth were deep. His lips were working. His thin cheeks had fallen in like the cheeks of a man devoured by awasting illness, and the strong tinge of sunburn on them seemed to bebut an imperfect mark to a pallor that, fully visible, would have beenmore terrible than that of a corpse. In his eyes there was a fixedexpression of ferocious grief that seemed mingled with ferocious anger, as if he were suffering from some dreadful misery, and cursed himselfbecause he suffered, as a man may curse himself for doing a thing thathe chooses to do but need not do. Such an expression may sometimes beseen in the eyes of those who are resisting a great temptation. 

He began to search the garden, furtively but minutely. Sometimes hehesitated. Sometimes he stood still. Then he turned back and went alittle way towards the wide sweep of sand that was bathed in sunlightwhere the villa stood. Then with more determination, and walkingfaster, he again made his way through the shadows that slept beneaththe densely-growing trees. As he passed between them he several timesstretched out trembling hands, broke off branches and threw them on thesand, treading on them heavily and crushing them down below the surface. Once he spoke to himself in a low voice that shook as if with difficultydominating sobs that were rising in his throat. 

"_De profundis_--" he said. "_De profundis_--_de profundis_--"

His voice died away. He took hold of one hand with the other and went onsilently. 

Presently he made his way at last towards the _fumoir_ in which Dominiwas still sitting, with one hand resting on the open page whose wordshad lit up the darkness in her spirit. He came to it so softly that shedid not hear his step. He saw her, stood quite still under the trees, and looked at her for a long time. As he did so his face changed till heseemed to become another man. The ferocity of grief and anger faded fromhis eyes, which were filled with an expression of profound wonder, thenof flickering uncertainty, then of hard, manly resolution--a fightingexpression that was full of sex and passion. The guilty, furtive lookwhich had been stamped upon all his features, specially upon hislips, vanished. Suddenly he became younger in appearance. His figurestraightened itself. His hands ceased from trembling. He moved away fromthe trees, and went to the doorway of the _fumoir_. 

Domini looked up, saw him, and got up quietly, clasping her fingersround the little book. 

Androvsky stood just beyond the doorway, took off his hat, kept it inhis hand, and said:

"I came here to say good-bye. "

He made a movement as if to come into the _fumoir_, but she stopped itby coming at once to the opening. She felt that she could not speak tohim enclosed within walls, under a roof. He drew back, and she came outand stood beside him on the sand. 

"Did you know I should come?" he said. 

She noticed that he had ceased to call her "Madame, " and also that therewas in his voice a sound she had not heard in it before, a note of newself-possession that suggested a spirit concentrating itself and awareof its own strength to act. 

"No, " she answered. 

"Were you coming back to the hotel this morning?" he asked. 

"No. "

He was silent for a moment. Then he said slowly:

"Then--then you did not wish--you did not mean to see me again before Iwent?"

"It was not that. I came to the garden--I had to come--I had to bealone. "

"You want to be alone?" he said. "You want to be alone?"

Already the strength was dying out of his voice and face, and the olduneasiness was waking up in him. A dreadful expression of pain came intohis eyes. 

"Was that why you--you looked so happy?" he said in a harsh, tremblingvoice. 

"When?"

"I stood for a long while looking at you when you were in there"--hepointed to the _fumoir_--"and your face was happy--your face was happy. "

"Yes, I know. "

"You will be happy alone?--alone in the desert?"

When he said that she felt suddenly the agony of the waterless spaces, the agony of the unpeopled wastes. Her whole spirit shrank and quivered, all the great joy of her love died within her. A moment before she hadstood upon the heights of her heart. Now she shrank into its deepest, blackest abysses. She looked at him and said nothing. 

"You will not be happy alone. "

His voice no longer trembled. He caught hold of her left hand, awkwardly, nervously, but held it strongly with his close to his side, and went on speaking. 

"Nobody is happy alone. Nothing is--men and women--children--animals. " Abird flew across the shadowy space under the trees, followed by anotherbird; he pointed to them; they disappeared. "The birds, too, they musthave companionship. Everything wants a companion. "

"Yes. "

"But then--you will stay here alone in the desert?"

"What else can I do?" she said. 

"And that journey, " he went on, still holding her hand fast against hisside, "Your journey into the desert--you will take it alone?"

"What else can I do?" she repeated in a lower voice. 

It seemed to her that he was deliberately pressing her down into theuttermost darkness. 

"You will not go. "

"Yes, I shall go. "

She spoke with conviction. Even in that moment--most of all in thatmoment--she knew that she would obey the summons of the desert. 

"I--I shall never know the desert, " he said. "I thought--it seemed to methat I, too, should go out into it. I have wanted to go. You have mademe want to go. "

"I?"

"Yes. Once you said to me that peace must dwell out there. It was on thetower the--the first time you ever spoke to me. "

"I remember. "

"I wondered--I often wonder why you spoke to me. "

She knew he was looking at her with intensity, but she kept her eyes onthe sand. There was something in them that she felt he must not see, alight that had just come into them as she realised that already, on thetower before she even knew him, she had loved him. It was that love, already born in her heart but as yet unconscious of its own existence, which had so strangely increased for her the magic of the Africanevening when she watched it with him. But before--suddenly she knew thatshe had loved Androvsky from the beginning, from the moment when hisface looked at her as if out of the heart of the sun. That was why herentry into the desert had been full of such extraordinary significance. This man and the desert were, had always been, as one in her mind. Never had she thought of the one without the other. Never had she beenmysteriously called by the desert without hearing as a far-off echo thevoice of Androvsky, or been drawn onward by the mystical summons of theblue distances without being drawn onward, too, by the mystical summonsof the heart to which her own responded. The link between the manand the desert was indissoluble. She could not conceive of its beingsevered, and as she realised this, she realised also something thatturned her whole nature into flame. 

She could not conceive of Androvsky's not loving her, of his not havingloved her from the moment when he saw her in the sun. To him, too, thedesert had made a revelation--the revelation of her face, and of thesoul behind it looking through it. In the flames of the sun, as theywent into the desert, the flames of their two spirits had been blended. She knew that certainly and for ever. Then how could it be possible thatAndrovsky should not go out with her into the desert?

"Why did you speak to me?" he said. 

"We came into the desert together, " she answered simply. "We had to knoweach other. "

"And now--now--we have to say----"

His voice ceased. Far away there was the thin sound of a chime. Dominihad never before heard the church bell in the garden, and now she feltas if she heard it, not with her ears, but with her spirit. As she heardshe felt Androvsky's hand, which had been hot upon hers, turn cold. Helet her hand go, and again she was stricken by the horrible sound shehad heard the previous night in the desert, when he turned his horseand rode away with her. And now, as then, he turned away from her insilence, but she knew that this time he was leaving her, that thismovement was his final good-bye. With his head bowed down he took a fewsteps. He was near to a turning of the path. She watched him, knowingthat within less than a moment she would be watching only the trees andthe sand. She gazed at the bent figure, calling up all her faculties, crying out to herself passionately, desperately, "Remember it--rememberit as it is--there--before you--just as it is--for ever. " As it reachedthe turning, in the distance of the garden rose the twitter of the fluteof Larbi. Androvsky stopped, stood still with his back turned towardsher. And Larbi, hidden and far off, showered out his little notes ofAfrican love, of love in the desert where the sun is everlasting, andthe passion of man is hot as the sun, where Liberty reigns, lifting hercymbals that are as spheres of fire, and the footsteps of Freedom areheard upon the sand, treading towards the south. 

Larbi played--played on and on, untiring as the love that blossomed withthe world, but that will not die when the world dies. 

Then Androvsky came back quickly till he reached the place where Dominiwas standing. He put his hands on her shoulders. Then he sank down onthe sand, letting his hands slip down over her breast and along herwhole body till they clasped themselves round her knees. He pressed hisface into her dress against her knees. 

"I love you, " he said. "I love you but don't listen to me--you mustn'thear it--you mustn't. But I must say it. I can't--I can't go till I sayit. I love you--I love you. "

She heard him sobbing against her knees, and the sound was as the soundof strength made audible. She put her hands against his temples. 

"I am listening, " she said. "I must hear it. "

He looked up, rose to his feet, put his hands behind her shoulders, heldher, and set his lips on hers, pressing his whole body against hers. 

"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it. I love you--Ilove you. "

The two birds they had seen flew back beneath the trees, turned in anairy circle, rose above the trees into the blue sky, and, side by side, winged their way out of the garden to the desert. 

BOOK IV. THE JOURNEY

CHAPTER XVI

In the evening before the day of Domini's marriage with Androvsky therewas a strange sunset, which attracted even the attention and roused thecomment of the Arabs. The day had been calm and beautiful, one of themost lovely days of the North African spring, and Batouch, resting fromthe triumphant labour of superintending the final preparations for along desert journey, augured a morning of Paradise for the departurealong the straight road that led at last to Tombouctou. But as theradiant afternoon drew to its end there came into the blue sky awhiteness that suggested a heaven turning pale in the contemplation ofsome act that was piteous and terrible. And under this blanching heaventhe desert, and all things and people of the oasis of Beni-Mora, assumedan aspect of apprehension, as if they felt themselves to be in thethrall of some power whose omnipotence they could not question and whosepurpose they feared. This whiteness was shot, at the hour of sunset, with streaks of sulphur yellow and dappled with small, ribbed cloudstinged with yellow-green, a bitter and cruel shade of green thatdistressed the eyes as a merciless light distresses them, but thesecolours quickly faded, and again the whiteness prevailed for a briefspace of time before the heavy falling of a darkness unpierced by stars. With this darkness came a faint moaning of hollow wind from the desert, a lamentable murmur that shuddered over the great spaces, crept amongthe palms and the flat-roofed houses, and died away at the foot of thebrown mountains beyond the Hammam Salahine. The succeeding silence, short and intense, was like a sound of fear, like the cry of a voicelifted up in protest against the approach of an unknown, but dreaded, fate. Then the wind came again with a stronger moaning and a lengthenedlife, not yet forceful, not yet with all its powers, but more tenacious, more acquainted with itself and the deeds that it might do when thenight was black among the vast sands which were its birth-place, amongthe crouching plains and the trembling palm groves that would be itsbattle-ground. 

Batouch looked grave as he listened to the wind and the creaking of thepalm stems one against another. Sand came upon his face. He pulled thehood of his burnous over his turban and across his cheeks, covered hismouth with a fold of his haik and stared into the blackness, like ananimal in search of something his instinct has detected approaching froma distance. 

Ali was beside him in the doorway of the Cafe Maure, a slim Arab boy, bronze-coloured and serious as an idol, who was a troubadour of theSahara, singer of "Janat" and many lovesongs, player of the guitarbacked with sand tortoise and faced with stretched goatskin. Behind themswung an oil lamp fastened to a beam of palm, and the red ashes glowedin the coffee niche and shed a ray upon the shelf of small white cupswith faint designs of gold. In a corner, his black face and arms faintlyrelieved against the wall, an old negro crouched, gazing into vacancywith bulging eyes, and beating with a curved palm stem upon an ovaldrum, whose murmur was deep and hollow as the murmur of the wind, andseemed indeed its echo prisoned within the room and striving to escape. 

"There is sand on my eyelids, " said Batouch. "It is bad for to-morrow. When Allah sends the sands we should cover the face and play the ladies'game within the cafe, we should not travel on the road towards thesouth. "

Ali said nothing, but drew up his haik over his mouth and nose, andlooked into the night, folding his thin hands in his burnous. 

"Achmed will sleep in the Bordj of Arba, " continued Batouch in a low, murmuring voice, as if speaking to himself. "And the beasts will bein the court. Nothing can remain outside, for there will be a greaterroaring of the wind at Arba. Can it be the will of Allah that we rest inthe tents to-morrow?"

Ali made no answer. The wind had suddenly died down. 

The sand grains came no more against their eyelids and the folds oftheir haiks. Behind them the negro's drum gave out monotonously its echoof the wind, filling the silence of the night. 

"Whatever Allah sends, " Batouch went on softly after a pause, "Madamewill go. She is brave as the lion. There is no jackal in Madame. Irenais not more brave than she is. But Madame will never wear the veil fora man's sake. She will not wear the veil, but she could give aknife-thrust if he were to look at another woman as he has looked ather, as he will look at her to-morrow. She is proud as a Touareg andthere is fierceness in her. But he will never look at another woman ashe will look at her to-morrow. The Roumi is not as we are. "

The wind came back to join its sound with the drum, imprisoning the twoArabs in a muttering circle. 

"They will not care, " said Batouch. "They will go out into the stormwithout fear. "

The sand pattered more sharply on his eyelids. He drew back into thecafe. Ali followed him, and they squatted down side by side upon theground and looked before them seriously. The noise of the wind increasedtill it nearly drowned the noise of the negro's drum. Presently theone-eyed owner of the cafe brought them two cups of coffee, setting thecups near their stockinged feet. They rolled two cigarettes and smokedin silence, sipping the coffee from time to time. Then Ali began toglance towards the negro. Half shutting his eyes, and assuming a languidexpression that was almost sickly, he stretched his lips in a smile, gently moving his head from side to side. Batouch watched him. Presentlyhe opened his lips and began to sing:

 "The love of women is like a date that is golden in the sun, That is golden-- The love of women is like a gazelle that comes to drink-- To drink at the water springs-- The love of women is like the nargileh, and like the dust of the keef That is mingled with tobacco and with honey. Put the reed between thy lips, O loving man! And draw dreams from the haschish that is the love of women! Janat! Janat! Janat!"

The wind grew louder and sand was blown along the cafe floor and aboutthe coffee-cups. 

 "The love of women is like the rose of the Caid's garden That is full of silver tears-- The love of women is like the first day of the spring When the children play at Cora-- The love of women is like the Derbouka that has been warmed at the fire And gives out a sweet sound. Take it in thy hands, O loving man! And sing to the Derbouka that is the love of women. Janat! Janat! Janat!"

In the doorway, where the lamp swung from the beam, a man in Europeandress stood still to listen. The wind wailed behind him and stirred hisclothes. His eyes shone in the faint light with a fierceness of emotionin which there was a joy that was almost terrible, but in which thereseemed also to be something that was troubled. When the song died away, and only the voices of the wind and the drum spoke to the darkness, hedisappeared into the night. The Arabs did not see him. 

"Janat! Janat! Janat!"

The night drew on and the storm increased. All the doors of the houseswere closely shut. Upon the roofs the guard dogs crouched, shiveringand whining, against the earthen parapets. The camels groaned in thefondouks, and the tufted heads of the palms swayed like the waves of thesea. And the Sahara seemed to be lifting up its voice in a summons thatwas tremendous as a summons to Judgment. 

Domini had always known that the desert would summon her. She heard itssummons now in the night without fear. The roaring of the tempest wassweet in her ears as the sound of the Derbouka to the loving man of thesands. It accorded with the fire that lit up the cloud of passion inher heart. Its wildness marched in step with a marching wildness inher veins and pulses. For her gipsy blood was astir to-night, and therecklessness of the boy in her seemed to clamour with the storm. Thesound of the wind was as the sound of the clashing cymbals of Liberty, calling her to the adventure that love would glorify, to the far-awaylife that love would make perfect, to the untrodden paths of the sunof which she had dreamed in the shadows, and on which she would set herfeet at last with the comrade of her soul. 

To-morrow her life would begin, her real life, the life of which menand women dream as the prisoner dreams of freedom. And she was glad, she thanked God, that her past years had been empty of joy, that in heryouth she had been robbed of youth's pleasures. She thanked God that shehad come to maturity without knowing love. It seemed to her that to lovein early life was almost pitiful, was a catastrophe, an experience forwhich the soul was not ready, and so could not appreciate at its fulland wonderful value. She thought of it as of a child being taken awayfrom the world to Paradise without having known the pain of existence inthe world, and at that moment she worshipped suffering. Every tear thatshe had ever shed she loved, every weary hour, every despondent thought, every cruel disappointment. She called around her the congregation ofher past sorrows, and she blessed them and bade them depart from her forever. 

As she heard the roaring of the wind she smiled. The Sahara wasfulfilling the words of the Diviner. To-morrow she and Androvsky wouldgo out into the storm and the darkness together. The train of camelswould be lost in the desolation of the desert. And the people ofBeni-Mora would see it vanish, and, perhaps, would pity those who werehidden by the curtains of the palanquin. They would pity her as Suzannepitied her, openly, with eyes that were tragic. She laughed aloud. 

It was late in the night. Midnight had sounded yet she did not go tobed. She feared to sleep, to lose the consciousness of her joy of theglory which had come into her life. She was a miser of the golden hoursof this black and howling night. To sleep would be to be robbed. Asplendid avarice in her rebelled against the thought of sleep. 

Was Androvsky sleeping? She wondered and longed to know. 

To-night she was fully aware for the first time of the inherentfearlessness of her character, which was made perfect at last by herperfect love. Alone, she had always had courage. Even in her mostlistless hours she had never been a craven. But now she felt thecompleteness of a nature clothed in armour that rendered it impregnable. It was a strange thing that man should have the power to put thefinishing touch to God's work, that religion should stoop to be ahandmaid to faith in a human being, but she did not think it strange. Everything in life seemed to her to be in perfect accord because herheart was in perfect accord with another heart. 

And she welcomed the storm. She even welcomed something else that cameto her now in the storm: the memory of the sand-diviner's torturedface as he gazed down, reading her fate in the sand. For what was anuntroubled fate? Surely a life that crept along the hollows and had noimpulse to call it to the heights. Knowing the flawless perfection ofher armour she had a wild longing to prove it. She wished that thereshould be assaults upon her love, because she knew she could resistthem one and all, and she wished to have the keen joy of resisting them. There is a health of body so keen and vital that it desires combat. Thesoul sometimes knows a precisely similar health and is filled with asimilar desire. 

"Put my love to the proof, O God!" was Domini's last prayer that nightwhen the storm was at its wildest. "Put my love to the uttermost proofthat he may know it, as he can never know it otherwise. "

And she fell asleep at length, peacefully, in the tumult of the night, feeling that God had heard her prayer. 

The dawn came struggling like an exhausted pilgrim through the windydark, pale and faint, with no courage, it seemed, to grow bravelyinto day. As if with the sedulous effort of something weary but ofunconquered will, it slowly lit up Beni-Mora with a feeble light thatflickered in a cloud of whirling sand, revealing the desolation of analmost featureless void. The village, the whole oasis, was penetrated bya passionate fog that instead of brooding heavily, phlegmatically, overthe face of life and nature travelled like a demented thing bent uponinstant destruction, and coming thus cloudily to be more free for crime. It was an emissary of the desert, propelled with irresistible force fromthe farthest recess of the dunes, and the desert itself seemed to behurrying behind it as if to spy upon the doing of its deeds. 

As the sea in a great storm rages against the land, ferocious that landshould be, so the desert now raged against the oasis that ventured toexist in its bosom. Every palm tree was the victim of its wrath, everyrunning rill, every habitation of man. Along the tunnels of mimosait went like a foaming tide through a cavern, roaring towards themountains. It returned and swept about the narrow streets, eddying atthe corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which the painteddancing-girls were cowering, cold under their pigments and their heavyjewels, their red hands trembling and clasping one another, clamouringabout the minarets of the mosques on which the frightened doves weresheltering, shaking the fences that shut in the gazelles in theirpleasaunce, tearing at the great statue of the Cardinal that faced itresolutely, holding up the double cross as if to exorcise it, batteringupon the tall, white tower on whose summit Domini had first spoken withAndrovsky, raging through the alleys of Count Anteoni's garden, thearcades of his villa, the window-spaces of the _fumoir_, from whosewalls it tore down frantically the purple petals of the bougainvilleaand dashed them, like enemies defeated, upon the quivering paths whichwere made of its own body. 

Everywhere in the oasis it came with a lust to kill, but surely itsdeepest enmity was concentrated upon the Catholic Church. 

There, despite the tempest, people were huddled, drawn together not somuch by the ceremony that was to take place within as by the desire tosee the departure of an unusual caravan. In every desert centre news ispropagated with a rapidity seldom equalled in the home of civilisation. It runs from mouth to mouth like fire along straw. And Batouch, in hisglory, had not been slow to speak of the wonders prepared under hissuperintendence to make complete the desert journey of his mistress andAndrovsky. The main part of the camp had already gone forward, and musthave reached Arba, the first halting stage outside Beni-Mora; tents, thehorses for the Roumis, the mules to carry necessary baggage, the cookingutensils and the guard dogs. But the Roumis themselves were to departfrom the church on camel-back directly the marriage was accomplished. Domini, who had a native hatred of everything that savoured ofostentation, had wished for a tiny expedition, and would gladly havegone out into the desert with but one tent, Batouch and a servant to dothe cooking. But the journey was to be long and indefinite, an aimlesswandering through the land of liberty towards the south, without fixedpurpose or time of returning. She knew nothing of what was necessary forsuch a journey, and tired of ceaseless argument, and too much occupiedwith joy to burden herself with detail, at last let Batouch have hisway. 

"I leave it to you, Batouch, " she said. "But, remember, as few peopleand beasts as possible. And as you say we must have camels for certainparts of the journey, we will travel the first stage on camel-back. "

Consciously she helped to fulfil the prediction of the Diviner, and thenshe left Batouch free. 

Now outside the church, shrouded closely in hoods and haiks, grey andbrown bundles with staring eyes, the desert men were huddled against thechurch wall in the wind. Hadj was there, and Smain, sheltering in hisburnous roses from Count Anteoni's garden. Larbi had come with his fluteand the perfume-seller from his black bazaar. For Domini had boughtperfumes from him on her last day in Beni-Mora. Most of Count Anteoni'sgardeners had assembled. They looked upon the Roumi lady, who rodemagnificently, but who could dream as they dreamed, too, as a friend. Had she not haunted the alleys where they worked and idled till they hadlearned to expect her, and to miss her when she did not come? And withthose whom Domini knew were assembled their friends, and their friends'friends, men of Beni-Mora, men from the near oasis, and also manyof those desert wanderers who drift in daily out of the sands to thecentres of buying and selling, barter their goods for the goods of theSouth, or sell their loads of dates for money, and, having enjoyed thedissipation of the cafes and of the dancing-houses, drift away againinto the pathless wastes which are their home. 

Few of the French population had ventured out, and the church itself wasalmost deserted when the hour for the wedding drew nigh. 

The priest came from his little house, bending forward against the wind, his eyes partially protected from the driving sand by blue spectacles. His face, which was habitually grave, to-day looked sad and stern, like the face of a man about to perform a task that was against hisinclination, even perhaps against his conscience. He glanced at thewaiting Arabs and hastened into the church, taking off his spectaclesas he did so, and wiping his eyes, which were red from the action ofthe sand-grains, with a silk pocket-handkerchief. When he reached thesacristy he shut himself into it alone for a moment. He sat down ona chair and, leaning his arms upon the wooden table that stood in thecentre of the room, bent forward and stared before him at the wallopposite, listening to the howling of the wind. 

Father Roubier had an almost passionate affection for his little churchof Beni-Mora. So long and ardently had he prayed and taught in it, sooften had he passed the twilight hours in it alone wrapped in religiousreveries, or searching his conscience for the shadows of sinfulthoughts, that it had become to him as a friend, and more than a friend. He thought of it sometimes as his confessor and sometimes as his child. Its stones were to him as flesh and blood, its altars as lips thatwhispered consolation in answer to his prayers. The figures of itssaints were heavenly companions. In its ugliness he perceived onlybeauty, in its tawdriness only the graces that are sweet offerings toGod. The love that, had he not been a priest, he might have given toa woman he poured forth upon his church, and with it that other lovewhich, had it been the design of his Heavenly Father, would have fittedhim for the ascetic, yet impassioned, life of an ardent and devotedmonk. To defend this consecrated building against outrage he would, without hesitation, have given his last drop of blood. And now he was toperform in it an act against which his whole nature revolted; he wasto join indissolubly the lives of these two strangers who had come toBeni-Mora--Domini Enfilden and Boris Androvsky. He was to put on thesurplice and white stole, to say the solemn and irreparable "Ego Jungo, "to sprinkle the ring with holy water and bless it. 

As he sat there alone, listening to the howling of the storm outside, hewent mentally through the coming ceremony. He thought of the wonderfulgrace and beauty of the prayers of benediction, and it seemed to himthat to pronounce them with his lips, while his nature revolted againsthis own utterance, was to perform a shameful act, was to offer an insultto this little church he loved. 

Yet how could he help performing this act? He knew that he would do it. Within a few minutes he would be standing before the altar, he would belooking into the faces of this man and woman whose love he was calledupon to consecrate. He would consecrate it, and they would go out fromhim into the desert man and wife. They would be lost to his sight in thetown. 

His eye fell upon a silver crucifix that was hanging upon the wall infront of him. He was not a very imaginative man, not a man given tofancies, a dreamer of dreams more real to him than life, or a seer ofvisions. But to-day he was stirred, and perhaps the unwonted turmoil ofhis mind acted subtly upon his nervous system. Afterward he felt certainthat it must have been so, for in no other way could he account for afantasy that beset him at this moment. 

As he looked at the crucifix there came against the church a morefurious beating of the wind, and it seemed to him that the Christ uponthe crucifix shuddered. 

He saw it shudder. He started, leaned across the table and stared at thecrucifix with eyes that were full of an amazement that was mingled withhorror. Then he got up, crossed the room and touched the crucifix withhis finger. As he did so, the acolyte, whose duty it was to help himto robe, knocked at the sacristy door. The sharp noise recalled him tohimself. He knew that for the first time in his life he had been theslave of an optical delusion. He knew it, and yet he could not banishthe feeling that God himself was averse from the act that he was onthe point of committing in this church that confronted Islam, that Godhimself shuddered as surely even He, the Creator, must shudder at someof the actions of his creatures. And this feeling added immensely to thedistress of the priest's mind. In performing this ceremony he nowhad the dreadful sensation that he was putting himself into directantagonism with God. His instinctive horror of Androvsky had never beenso great as it was to-day. In vain he had striven to conquer it, to drawnear to this man who roused all the repulsion of his nature. His effortshad been useless. He had prayed to be given the sympathy for this manthat the true Christian ought to feel towards every human being, eventhe most degraded. But he felt that his prayers had not been answered. With every day his antipathy for Androvsky increased. Yet he wasentirely unable to ground it upon any definite fact in Androvsky'scharacter. He did not know that character. The man was as much a mysteryto him as on the day when they first met. And to this living mysteryfrom which his soul recoiled he was about to consign, with all thebeautiful and solemn blessings of his Church, a woman whose characterhe respected, whose innate purity, strength and nobility he had quicklydivined, and no less quickly learned to love. 

It was a bitter, even a horrible, moment to him. 

The little acolyte, a French boy, son of the postmaster of Beni-Mora, was startled by the sight of the Father's face when he opened thesacristy door. He had never before seen such an expression of almostharsh pain in those usually kind eyes, and he drew back from thethreshold like one afraid. His movement recalled the priest to a sharpconsciousness of the necessities of the moment, and with a strong efforthe conquered his pain sufficiently to conceal all outward expression ofit. He smiled gently at the little boy and said:

"Is it time?"

The child looked reassured. 

"Yes, Father. "

He came into the sacristy and went towards the cupboard where thevestments were kept, passing the silver crucifix. As he did so heglanced at it. He opened the cupboard, then stood for a moment and againturned his eyes to the Christ. The Father watched him. 

"What are you looking at, Paul?" he asked. 

"Nothing, Father, " the boy replied, with a sudden expression ofreluctance that was almost obstinate. 

And he began to take the priest's robes out of the cupboard. 

Just then the wind wailed again furiously about the church, and thecrucifix fell down upon the floor of the sacristy. 

The priest started forward, picked it up, and stood with it in hishand. He glanced at the wall, and saw at once that the nail to which thecrucifix had been fastened had come out of its hole. A flake of plasterhad been detached, perhaps some days ago, and the hole had become toolarge to retain the nail. The explanation of the matter was perfect, simple and comprehensible. Yet the priest felt as if a catastrophe hadjust taken place. As he stared at the cross he heard a little noise nearhim. The acolyte was crying. 

"Why, Paul, what's the matter?" he said. 

"Why did it do that?" exclaimed the boy, as if alarmed. "Why did it dothat?"

"Perhaps it was the wind. Everything is shaking. Come, come, my child, there is nothing to be afraid of. "

He laid the crucifix on the table. Paul dried his eyes with his fists. 

"I don't like to-day, " he said. "I don't like to-day. "

The priest patted him on the shoulder. 

"The weather has upset you, " he said, smiling. 

But the nervous behaviour of the child deepened strangely his own senseof apprehension. When he had robed he waited for the arrival of thebride and bridegroom. There was to be no mass, and no music except theWedding March, which the harmonium player, a Marseillais employed in thedate-packing trade, insisted on performing to do honour to MademoiselleEnfilden, who had taken such an interest in the music of the church. Androvsky, as the priest had ascertained, had been brought up in theCatholic religion, but, when questioned, he had said quietly that he wasno longer a practising Catholic and that he never went to confession. Under these circumstances it was not possible to have a nuptial mass. The service would be short and plain, and the priest was glad that thiswas so. Presently the harmonium player came in. 

"I may play my loudest to-day, Father, " he said, "but no one will hearme. "

He laughed, settled the pin--Joan of Arc's face in metal--in his azureblue necktie, and added:

"Nom d'un chien, the wind's a cruel wedding guest!"

The priest nodded without speaking. 

"Would you believe, Father, " the man continued, "that Mademoiselle andher husband are going to start for Arba from the church door in all thisstorm! Batouch is getting the palanquin on to the camel. How they willever--"

"Hush!" said the priest, holding up a warning finger. 

This idle chatter displeased him in the church, but he had anotherreason for wishing to stop the conversation. It renewed his dread tohear of the projected journey, and made him see, as in a shadowy vision, Domini Enfilden's figure disappearing into the windy desolation of thedesert protected by the living mystery he hated. Yes, at this moment, heno longer denied it to himself. There was something in Androvsky thathe actually hated with his whole soul, hated even in his church, at thevery threshold of the altar where stood the tabernacle containing thesacred Host. As he thoroughly realised this for a moment he was shockedat himself, recoiled mentally from his own feeling. But then somethingwithin him seemed to rise up and say, "Perhaps it is because you arenear to the Host that you hate this man. Perhaps you are right to hatehim when he draws nigh to the body of Christ. "

Nevertheless when, some minutes later, he stood within the altar railsand saw the face of Domini, he was conscious of another thought, thatcame through his mind, dark with doubt, like a ray of gold: "Can I beright in hating what this good woman--this woman whose confession I havereceived, whose heart I know--can I be right in hating what she loves, in fearing what she trusts, in secretly condemning what she openlyenthrones?" And almost in despite of himself he felt reassured for aninstant, even happy in the thought of what he was about to do. 

Domini's face at all times suggested strength. The mental and emotionalpower of her were forcibly expressed, too, through her tall andathletic body, which was full of easy grace, but full, too, of well-knitfirmness. To-day she looked not unlike a splendid Amazon who could havebeen a splendid nun had she entered into religion. As she stood there byAndrovsky, simply dressed for the wild journey that was before her, theslight hint in her personality of a Spartan youth, that stamped her witha very definite originality, was blended with, even transfigured by, awomanliness so intense as to be almost fierce, a womanliness that hadthe fervour, the glowing vigour of a glory that had suddenly becomefully aware of itself, and of all the deeds that it could not onlyconceive, but do. She was triumph embodied in the flesh, not the triumphthat is a school-bully, but that spreads wings, conscious at last thatthe human being has kinship with the angels, and need not, shouldnot, wait for death to seek bravely their comradeship. She was lovetriumphant, woman utterly fearless because instinctively aware that shewas fulflling her divine mission. 

As he gazed at her the priest had a strange thought--of how Christ'sface must have looked when he said, "Lazarus, come forth!"

Androvsky stood by her, but the priest did not look at him. 

The wind roared round the church, the narrow windows rattled, andthe clouds of sand driven against them made a pattering as of fingerstapping frantically upon the glass. The buff-coloured curtains trembled, and the dusty pink ribands tied round the ropes of the chandeliersshook incessantly to and fro, as if striving to escape and to join themultitudes of torn and disfigured things that were swept through spaceby the breath of the storm. Beyond the windows, vaguely seen at momentsthrough the clouds of sand, the outlines of the palm leaves wavered, descended, rose, darted from side to side, like hands of the demented. 

Suzanne, who was one of the witnesses, trembled, and moved her full lipsnervously. She disapproved utterly of her mistress' wedding, and stillmore of a honeymoon in the desert. For herself she did not care, veryshortly she was going to marry Monsieur Helmuth, the important person inlivery who accompanied the hotel omnibus to the station, and meanwhileshe was to remain at Beni-Mora under the chaperonage of Madame Armande, the proprietor of the hotel. But it shocked her that a mistress of hers, and a member of the English aristocracy, should be married in a costumesuitable for a camel ride, and should start off to go to _le Bon Dieu_alone knew where, shut up in a palanquin like any black woman coveredwith lumps of coral and bracelets like handcuffs. 

The other witnesses were the mayor of Beni-Mora, a middle-aged doctor, who wore the conventional evening-dress of French ceremony, andlooked as if the wind had made him as sleepy as a bear on the point ofhibernating, and the son of Madame Armande, a lively young man, with abullet head and eager, black eyes. The latter took a keen interestin the ceremony, but the mayor blinked pathetically, and occasionallyrubbed his large hooked nose as if imploring it to keep his whole personfrom drooping down into a heavy doze. 

The priest, speaking in a conventional voice that was strangelyinexpressive of his inward emotion, asked Androvsky and Domini whetherthey would take each other for wife and husband, and listened to theirreplies. Androvsky's voice sounded to him hard and cold as ice when itreplied, and suddenly he thought of the storm as raging in some northernland over snowbound wastes whose scanty trees were leafless. ButDomini's voice was clear, and warm as the sun that would shine againover the desert when the storm was past. The mayor, constraining himselfto keep awake a little longer, gave Domini away, while Suzanne droppedtears into a pocket-handkerchief edged with rose-coloured frilling, thegift of Monsieur Helmuth. Then, when the troth had been plighted in themidst of a more passionate roaring of the wind, the priest, conquering aterrible inward reluctance that beset him despite his endeavour to feeldetached and formal, merely a priest engaged in a ceremony that it washis office to carry out, but in which he had no personal interest, spokethe fateful words:

"_Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium in nomine Patris et Filii et SpiritusSancti. Amen_. "

He said this without looking at the man and woman who stood before him, the man on the right hand and the woman on the left, but when he liftedhis hand to sprinkle them with holy water he could not forbear glancingat them, and he saw Domini as a shining radiance, but Androvsky as athing of stone. With a movement that seemed to the priest sinister inits oppressed deliberation, Androvsky placed gold and silver upon thebook and the marriage ring. 

The priest spoke again, slowly, in the uproar of the wind, afterblessing the ring:

"_Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini_. "

After the reply the "_Domine, exaudi orationem meam_, " the "_Etclamor_, " the "_Dominus vobiscum_, " and the "_Et cum spiritu tuo_, " the"_Oremus_, " and the prayer following, he sprinkled the ring with holywater in the form of a cross and gave it to Androvsky to give with goldand silver to Domini. Androvsky took the ring, repeated the formula, "With this ring, " etc. , then still, as it seemed to the priest, withthe same sinister deliberation, placed it on the thumb of the bride'suncovered hand, saying, "_In the name of the Father_, " then on hersecond finger, saying, "_Of the Son_, " then on her third finger, saying, "_Of the Holy Ghost_, " then on her fourth finger. But at this moment, when he should have said "_Amen_, " there was a long pause of silence. During it--why he did not know--the priest found himself thinking of thesaying of St. Isidore of Seville that the ring of marriage is left onthe fourth finger of the bride's hand because that finger contains avein directly connected with the heart. 

"_Amen_. "

Androvsky had spoken. The priest started, and went on with the"_Confirma, hoc, Deus_. " And from this point until the "_Per ChristumDominum nostrum, Amen_, " which, since there was no Mass, closed theceremony, he felt more master of himself and his emotions than atany time previously during this day. A sensation of finality, of theirrevocable, came to him. He said within himself, "This matter haspassed out of my hands into the hands of God. " And in the midst of theviolence of the storm a calm stole upon his spirit. "God knows best!" hesaid within himself. "God knows best!"

Those words and the state of feeling that was linked with them were andhad always been to him as mighty protecting arms that uplifted him abovethe beating waves of the sea of life. The Wedding March sounded when thepriest bade good-bye to the husband and wife whom he had made one. Hewas able to do it tranquilly. He even pressed Androvsky's hand. 

"Be good to her, " he said. "She is--she is a good woman. "

To his surprise Androvsky suddenly wrung his hand almost passionately, and the priest saw that there were tears in his eyes. 

That night the priest prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in thedesert. 

When Domini and Androvsky came out from the church they saw vaguelya camel lying down before the door, bending its head and snarlingfiercely. Upon its back was a palanquin of dark-red stuff, with a roofof stuff stretched upon strong, curved sticks, and curtains which couldbe drawn or undrawn at pleasure. The desert men crowded about it likeeager phantoms in the wind, half seen in the driving mist of sand. Clinging to Androvsky's arm, Domini struggled forward to the camel. Asshe did so, Smain, unfolding for an instant his burnous, pressed intoher hands his mass of roses. She thanked him with a smile he scarcelysaw and a word that was borne away upon the wind. At Larbi's lips shesaw the little flute and his thick fingers fluttering upon the holes. She knew that he was playing his love-song for her, but she could nothear it except in her heart. The perfume-seller sprinkled her gravelywith essence, and for a moment she felt as if she were again in his darkbazaar, and seemed to catch among the voices of the storm the sound ofmen muttering prayers to Allah as in the mosque of Sidi-Zazan. 

Then she was in the palanquin with Androvsky close beside her. 

At this moment Batouch took hold of the curtains of the palanquin todraw them close, but she put out her hand and stopped him. She wanted tosee the last of the church, of the tormented gardens she had learnt tolove. 

He looked astonished, but yielded to her gesture, and told thecamel-driver to make the animal rise to its feet. The driver took hisstick and plied it, crying out, "A-ah! A-ah!" The camel turned itshead towards him, showing its teeth, and snarling with a sort of drearypassion. 

"A-ah!" shouted the driver. "A-ah! A-ah!"

The camel began to get up. 

As it did so, from the shrouded group of desert men one started forwardto the palanquin, throwing off his burnous and gesticulating withthin naked arms, as if about to commit some violent act. It was thesand-diviner. Made fantastic and unreal by the whirling sand grains, Domini saw his lean face pitted with small-pox; his eyes, blazing withan intelligence that was demoniacal, fixed upon her; the long wound thatstretched from his cheek to his forehead. The pleading that had beenmingled with the almost tyrannical command of his demeanour had vanishednow. He looked ferocious, arbitrary, like a savage of genius full ofsome frightful message of warning or rebuke. As the camel rose hecried aloud some words in Arabic. Domini heard his voice, but could notunderstand the words. Laying his hands on the stuff of the palanquin heshouted again, then took away his hands and shook them above his headtowards the desert, still staring at Domini with his fanatical eyes. 

The wind shrieked, the sand grains whirled in spirals about his body, the camel began to move away from the church slowly towards the village. 

"A-ah!" cried the camel-driver. "A-ah!"

In the storm his call sounded like a wail of despair. 

CHAPTER XVII

As the voice of the Diviner fainted away on the wind, and the vision ofhis wounded face and piercing eyes was lost in the whirling sand grains, Androvsky stretched out his hand and drew together the heavy curtainsof the palanquin. The world was shut out. They were alone for the firsttime as man and wife; moving deliberately on this beast they could notsee, but whose slow and monotonous gait swung them gently to and fro, out from the last traces of civilisation into the life of the sands. With each soft step the camel took they went a little farther fromBeni-Mora, came a little nearer to that liberty of which Dominisometimes dreamed, to the smiling eyes and the lifted spheres of fire. 

She shut her eyes now. She did not want to see her husband or to touchhis hand. She did not want to speak. She only wanted to feel in theuttermost depths of her spirit this movement, steady and persistent, towards the goal of her earthly desires, to realise absolutely themarvellous truth that after years of lovelessness, and a dreaminess morebenumbing than acute misery, happiness more intense than any she hadbeen able to conceive of in her moments of greatest yearning was beingpoured into her heart, that she was being taken to the place where shewould be with the one human being whose presence blotted out even thememory of the false world and gave to her the true. And whereas inthe dead years she had sometimes been afraid of feeling too much theemptiness and the desolation of her life, she was now afraid of feelingtoo little its fulness and its splendour, was afraid of some day lookingback to this superb moment of her earthly fate, and being conscious thatshe had not grasped its meaning till it was gone, that she had done thatmost terrible of all things--realised that she had been happy tothe limits of her capacity for happiness only when her happiness wasnumbered with the past. 

But could that ever be? Was Time, such Time as this, not Eternity? Couldsuch earthly things as this intense joy ever have been and no longerbe? It seemed to her that it could not be so. She felt like one who heldEternity's hand, and went out with that great guide into the endlessnessof supreme perfection. For her, just then, the Creator's scheme wasrounded to a flawless circle. All things fell into order, stars and men, the silent growing things, the seas, the mountains and the plains, fell into order like a vast choir to obey the command of the canticle:

"Benedicite, omnia opera!"

"Bless ye the Lord!" The roaring of the wind about the palanquin becamethe dominant voice of this choir in Domini's ears. 

"Bless ye the Lord!" It was obedient, not as the slave, but as the freewill is obedient, as her heart, which joined its voice with this windof the desert was obedient, because it gloriously chose with all itspowers, passions, aspirations to be so. The real obedience is only lovefulfilling its last desire, and this great song was the fulfilling ofthe last desire of all created things. Domini knew that she did notrealise the joy of this moment of her life now when she felt no longerthat she was a woman, but only that she was a living praise wingingupward to God. 

A warm, strong hand clasped hers. She opened her eyes. In the dimtwilight of the palanquin she saw the darkness of Androvsky's tallfigure sitting in the crouched attitude rendered necessary by thepeculiar seat, and swaying slightly to the movement of the camel. Thelight was so obscure that she could not see his eyes or clearly discernhis features, but she felt that he was gazing at her shadowy figure, that his mind was passionately at work. Had he, too, been silentlypraising God for his happiness, and was he now wishing the body to joinin the soul's delight?

She left her hand in his passively. The sense of her womanhood, lost fora moment in the ecstasy of worship, had returned to her, but with anew and tremendous meaning which seemed to change her nature. Androvskyforcibly pressed her hand with his, let it go, then pressed it again, repeating the action with a regularity that seemed suggested by someguidance. She imagined him pressing her hand each time his heart pulsed. She did not want to return the pressure. As she felt his hand thusclosing and unclosing over hers, she was conscious that she, who intheir intercourse had played a dominant part, who had even deliberatelybrought about that intercourse by her action on the tower, now longed tobe passive and, forgetting her own power and the strength and force ofher nature, to lose herself in the greater strength and force of thisman to whom she had given herself. Never before had she wished to beanything but strong. Nor did she desire weakness now, but only that hisnature should rise above hers with eagle's wings, that when she lookedup she should see him, never when she looked down. She thought that tosee him below her would kill her, and she opened her lips to say so. Butsomething in the windy darkness kept her silent. The heavy curtains ofthe palanquin shook perpetually, and the tall wooden rods on which theywere slung creaked, making a small, incessant noise like a complaining, which joined itself with the more distant but louder noise made by theleaves of the thousands of palm trees dashed furiously together. Frombehind came the groaning of one of the camels, borne on the gusts ofthe wind, and faint sounds of the calling voices of the Arabs whoaccompanied them. It was not a time to speak. 

She wondered where they were, in what part of the oasis, whetherthey had yet gained the beginning of the great route which had alwaysfascinated her, and which was now the road to the goal of all herearthly desires. But there was nothing to tell her. She travelled in aworld of dimness and the roar of wind, and in this obscurity and uproar, combined with perpetual though slight motion, she lost all count oftime. She had no idea how long it was since she had come out of thechurch door with Androvsky. At first she thought it was only a fewminutes, and that the camels must be just coming to the statue of theCardinal. Then she thought that it might be an hour, even more; thatCount Anteoni's garden was long since left behind, and that theywere passing, perhaps, along the narrow streets of the village of oldBeni-Mora, and nearing the edge of the oasis. But even in this confusionof mind she felt that something would tell her when the last palms hadvanished in the sand mist and the caravan came out into the desert. The sound of the wind would surely be different when they met it on theimmense flats, where there was nothing to break its fury. Or even if itwere not different, she felt that she would know, that the desert wouldsurely speak to her in the moment when, at last, it took her to itself. It could not be that they would be taken by the desert and she notknow it. But she wanted Androvsky to know it too. For she felt that themoment when the desert took them, man and wife, would be a great momentin their lives, greater even than that in which they met as they cameinto the blue country. And she set herself to listen, with a passionateexpectation, with an attention so close and determined that it thrilledher body, and even affected her muscles. 

What she was listening for was a rising of the wind, a crescendo of itsvoice. She was anticipating a triumphant cry from the Sahara, unlimitedpower made audible in a sound like the blowing of the clarion of thesands. 

Androvsky's hand was still on hers, but now it did not move as ifobeying the pulsations of his heart. It held hers closely, warmly, andsent his strength to her, and presently, for an instant, taking her mindfrom the desert, she lost herself in the mystery and the wonder of humancompanionship. She realised that the touch of Androvsky's hand on hersaltered for her herself, and the whole universe as it was presented toher, as she observed and felt it. Nothing remained as it was when he didnot touch her. There was something stupefying in the thought, somethingalmost terrible. The wonder that is alive in the tiny things of love, and that makes tremendously important their presence in, or absencefrom, a woman's life, took hold on her completely for the first time, and set her forever in a changed world, a world in which a greatknowledge ruled instead of a great ignorance. With the consciousnessof exactly what Androvsky's touch meant to her came a multipleconsciousness of a thousand other things, all connected with him and herconsecrated relation to him. She quivered with understanding. Allthe gates of her soul were being opened, and the white light ofcomprehension of those things which make life splendid and fruitful waspouring in upon her. Within the dim, contained space of the palanquin, that was slowly carried onward through the passion of the storm, therewas an effulgence of unseen glory that grew in splendour moment bymoment. A woman was being born of a woman, woman who knew herself ofwoman who did not know herself, woman who henceforth would divinely loveher womanhood of woman who had often wondered why she had been createdwoman. 

The words muttered by the man of the sand in Count Anteoni's garden werecoming true. In the church of Beni-Mora the life of Domini had begunmore really than when her mother strove in the pains of childbirth andher first faint cry answered the voice of the world's light when itspoke to her. 

Slowly the caravan moved on. The camel-drivers sang low under the foldsof their haiks those mysterious songs of the East that seem the songsof heat and solitude. Batouch, smothered in his burnous, his large headsunk upon his chest, slumbered like a potentate relieved from cares ofState. Till Arba was reached his duty was accomplished. Ali, perchedbehind him on the camel, stared into the dimness with eyes steady andremote as those of a vulture of the desert. The houses of Beni-Morafaded in the mist of the sand, the statue of the Cardinal holding thedouble cross, the tower of the hotel, the shuddering trees of CountAnteoni's garden. Along the white blue which was the road the camelspainfully advanced, urged by the cries and the sticks of the runningdrivers. Presently the brown buildings of old Beni-Mora came partiallyinto sight, peeping here and there through the flying sands and thefrantic palm leaves. The desert was at hand. 

Ali began to sing, breathing his song into the back of Batouch's hood. 

 "The love of women is like the holiday song that the boy sings gaily In the sunny garden-- The love of women is like the little moon, the little happy moon In the last night of Ramadan. The love of women is like the great silence that steals at dusk To kiss the scented blossoms of the orange tree. Sit thee down beneath the orange tree, O loving man! That thou mayst know the kiss that tells the love of women. 

"Janat! Janat! Janat!"

Batouch stirred uneasily, pulled his hood from his eyes and looked intothe storm gravely. Then he shifted on the camel's hump and said to Ali:

"How shall we get to Arba? The wind is like all the Touaregs going tobattle. And when we leave the oasis----"

"The wind is going down, Batouch-ben-Brahim, " responded Ali, calmly. "This evening the Roumis can lie in the tents. "

Batouch's thick lips curled with sarcasm. He spat into the wind, blewhis nose in his burnous, and answered:

"You are a child, and can sing a pretty song, but--"

Ali pointed with his delicate hand towards the south. 

"Do you not see the light in the sky?"

Batouch stared before him, and perceived that there was in truth alifting of the darkness beyond, a whiteness growing where the desertlay. 

"As we come into the desert the wind will fall, " said Ali; and again hebegan to sing to himself:

"Janat! Janat! Janat!"

Domini could not see the light in the south, and no premonition warnedher of any coming abatement of the storm. Once more she had begun tolisten to the roaring of the wind and to wait for the larger voice ofthe desert, for the triumphant clarion of the sands that would announceto her her entry with Androvsky into the life of the wastes. Again shepersonified the Sahara, but now more vividly than ever before. In theobscurity she seemed to see it far away, like a great heroic figure, waiting for her and her passion, waiting in a region of gold and silkenairs at the back of the tempest to crown her life with a joy wide as itsdreamlike spaces, to teach her mind the inner truths that lie beyond thecrowded ways of men and to open her heart to the most profound messagesof Nature. 

She listened, holding Androvsky's hand, and she felt that he waslistening too, with an intensity strong as her own, or stronger. Presently his hand closed upon hers more tightly, almost hurting herphysically. As it did so she glanced up, but not at him, and noticedthat the curtains of the palanquin were fluttering less fiercely. Once, for an instant, they were almost still. Then again they moved as iftugged by invisible hands; then were almost still once more. At the sametime the wind's voice sank in her ears like a music dropping downwardin a hollow place. It rose, but swiftly sank a second time to a softerhush, and she perceived in the curtained enclosure a faintly growinglight which enabled her to see, for the first time since she had leftthe church, her husband's features. He was looking at her with anexpression of anticipation in which there was awe, and she realised thatin her expectation of the welcome of the desert she had been mistaken. She had listened for the sounding of a clarion, but she was to begreeted by a still, small voice. She understood the awe in her husband'seyes and shared it. And she knew at once, with a sudden thrill ofrapture, that in the scheme of things there are blessings and nobilitiesundreamed of by man and that must always come upon him with a gloriousshock of surprise, showing him the poor faultiness of what he hadthought perhaps his most magnificent imaginings. Elisha sought for theLord in the fire and in the whirlwind; but in the still, small voiceonward came the Lord. 

Incomparably more wonderful than what she had waited for seemed to hernow this sudden falling of the storm, this mystical voice that came tothem out of the heart of the sands telling them that they were passingat last into the arms of the Sahara. The wind sank rapidly. The lightgrew in the palanquin. From without the voices of the camel-drivers andof Batouch and Ali talking together reached their ears distinctly. Yetthey remained silent. It seemed as if they feared by speech to breakthe spell of the calm that was flowing around them, as if they feared tointerrupt the murmur of the desert. Domini now returned the gaze of herhusband. She could not take her eyes from his, for she wished him toread all the joy that was in her heart; she wished him to penetrate herthoughts, to understand her desires, to be at one with the woman who hadbeen born on the eve of the passing of the wind. With the coming of thismystic calm was coming surely something else. The silence was bringingwith it the fusing of two natures. The desert in this moment was drawingtogether two souls into a union which Time and Death would have no powerto destroy. Presently the wind completely died away, only a faint breezefluttered the curtains of the palanquin, and the light that penetratedbetween them here and there was no longer white, but sparkled with atiny dust of gold. Then Androvsky moved to open the curtains, and Dominispoke for the first time since their marriage. 

"Wait, " she said in a low voice. 

He dropped his hand obediently, and looked at her with inquiry in hiseyes. 

"Don't let us look till we are far out, " she said, "far away fromBeni-Mora. "

He made no answer, but she saw that he understood all that was in herheart. He leaned a little nearer to her and stretched out his arm as ifto put it round her. But he did not put it round her, and she knew why. He was husbanding his great joy as she had husbanded the dark hours ofthe previous night that to her were golden. And that unfinished action, that impulse unfulfilled, showed her more clearly the depths of hispassion for her even than had the desperate clasp of his hands abouther knees in the garden. That which he did not do now was the greatestassertion possible of all that he would do in the life that was beforethem, and made her feel how entirely she belonged to him. Somethingwithin her trembled like a poor child before whom is suddenly set theprospect of a day of perfect happiness. She thought of the ending ofthis day, of the coming of the evening. Always the darkness had partedthem; at the ending of this day it would unite them. In Androvsky'seyes she read her thought of the darkness reflected, reflected and yetchanged, transmuted by sex. It was as if at that moment she read thesame story written in two ways--by a woman and by a man, as if she sawEden, not only as Eve saw it, but as Adam. 

A long time passed, but they did not feel it to be long. When theircamel halted they unclasped their hands slowly like sleepers reluctantlyawaking. 

They heard Batouch's voice outside the palanquin. 

"Madame!" he called. "Madame!"

"What is it?" asked Domini, stifling a sigh. 

"Madame should draw the curtains. We are halfway to Arba. It is time for_dejeuner_. I will make the camel of Madame lie down. "

A loud "A-a-ah!" rose up, followed by a fierce groaning from the camel, and a lethargic, yet violent, movement that threw them forward andbackward. They sank. A hand from without pulled back the curtains andlight streamed over them. They set their feet in sand, stood up, andlooked about them. 

Already they were far out in the desert, though not yet beyond the limitof the range of red mountains, which stretched forward upon their leftbut at no great distance beyond them ended in the sands. The camels werelying down in a faintly defined track which was bordered upon eitherside by the plain covered with little humps of sandy soil on which grewdusty shrub. Above them was a sky of faint blue, heavy with banks ofclouds towards the east, and over their heads dressed in wispy veilsof vaporous white, through which the blue peered in sections that grewlarger as they looked. Towards the south, where Arba lay on a low hillof earth, without grass or trees, beyond a mound covered thickly withtamarisk bushes, which was a feeding-place for immense herds of camels, the blue was clear and the light of the sun intense. A delicate breezetravelled about them, stirring the bushes and the robes of the Arabs, who were throwing back their hoods, and uncovering their mouths, andsmiling at them, but seriously, as Arabs alone can smile. Beside themstood two white and yellow guard dogs, blinking and looking weary. 

For a moment they stood still, blinking too, almost like the dogs. The change to this immensity and light from the narrow darkness of thepalanquin overwhelmed their senses. They said nothing, but only staredsilently. Then Domini, with a large gesture, stretched her arms aboveher head, drawing a deep breath which ended in a little, almost sobbing, laugh of exultation. 

"Out of prison, " she said disconnectedly. "Out of prison--into this!"Suddenly she turned upon Androvsky and caught his arm, and twined bothof her arms round it with a strong confidence that was careless ofeverything in the intensity of its happiness. 

"All my life I've been in prison, " she said. "You've unlocked thedoor!" And then, as suddenly as she had caught his arm, she let it go. Something surged up in her, making her almost afraid; or, if not that, confused. It was as if her nature were a horse taking the bit betweenits teeth preparatory to a tremendous gallop. Whither? She did not know. She was intoxicated by the growing light, the sharp, delicious air, thehuge spaces around her, the solitude with this man who held her soulsurely in his hands. She had always connected him with the desert. Nowhe was hers into the desert, and the desert was hers with him. But wasit possible? Could such a fate have been held in reserve for her? Shescarcely dared even to try to realise the meaning of her situation, lest at a breath it should be changed. Just then she felt that if sheventured to weigh and measure her wonderful gift Androvsky would falldead at her feet and the desert be folded together like a scroll. 

"There is Beni-Mora, Madame, " said Batouch. 

She was glad he spoke to her, turned and followed with her eyes hispointing hand. Far off she saw a green darkness of palms, and above it awhite tower, small, from here, as the tower of a castle of dolls. 

"The tower!" she said to Androvsky. "We first spoke in it. We must bidit good-bye. "

She made a gesture of farewell towards it. Androvsky watched themovement of her hand. She noticed now that she made no movement that hedid not observe with a sort of passionate attention. The desert did notexist for him. She saw that in his eyes. He did not look towards thetower even when she repeated:

"We must--we owe it that. "

Batouch and Ali were busy spreading a cloth upon the sand, making itfirm with little stones, taking out food, plates, knives, glasses, bottles from a great basket slung on one of the camels. They moveddeftly, seriously intent upon their task. The camel-drivers wereloosening the cords that bound the loads upon their beasts, who roaredvenomously, opening their mouths, showing long decayed teeth, andturning their heads from side to side with a serpentine movement. Dominiand Androvsky were not watched for a moment. 

"Why won't you look? Why won't you say good-bye?" she asked, comingnearer to him on the sand softly, with a woman's longing to hear himexplain what she understood. 

"What do I care for it, or the palms, or the sky, or the desert?" heanswered almost savagely. "What can I care? If you were mine behindiron bars in that prison you spoke of--don't you think it's enough forme--too much--a cup running over?"

And he added some words under his breath, words she could not hear. 

"Not even the desert!" she said with a catch in her voice. 

"It's all in you. Everything's in you--everything that brought ustogether, that we've watched and wanted together. "

"But then, " she said, and now her voice was very quiet, "am I peace foryou?"

"Peace!" said Androvsky. 

"Yes. Don't you remember once I said that there must be peace in thedesert. Then is it in me--for you?"

"Peace!" he repeated. "To-day I can't think of peace, or want it. Don'tyou ask too much of me! Let me live to-day, live as only a man canwho--let me live with all that is in me to-day--Domini. Men ask to diein peace. Oh, Domini--Domini!"

His expression was like arms that crushed her, lips that pressed hermouth, a heart that beat on hers. 

"Madame est servie!" cried Batouch in a merry voice. 

His mistress did not seem to hear him. He cried again:

"Madame est servie!"

Then Domini turned round and came to the first meal in the sand. Twocushions lay beside the cloth upon an Arab quilt of white, red, andorange colour. Upon the cloth, in vases of rough pottery, stained withdesigns in purple, were arranged the roses brought by Smain from CountAnteoni's garden. 

"Our wedding breakfast!" Domini said under her breath. 

She felt just then as if she were living in a wonderful romance. 

They sat down side by side and ate with a good appetite, served byBatouch and Ali. Now and then a pale yellow butterfly, yellow as thesand, flitted by them. Small yellow birds with crested heads ran swiftlyamong the scrub, or flew low over the flats. In the sky the vapoursgathered themselves together and moved slowly away towards the east, leaving the blue above their heads unflecked with white. With eachmoment the heat of the sun grew more intense. The wind had gone. It wasdifficult to believe that it had ever roared over the desert. A littleway from them the camel-drivers squatted beside the beasts, eating flatloaves of yellow bread, and talking together in low, guttural voices. The guard dogs roamed round them, uneasily hungry. In the distance, before a tent of patched rags, a woman, scantily clad in bright redcotton, was suckling a child and staring at the caravan. 

Domini and Androvsky scarcely spoke as they ate. Once she said:

"Do you realise that this is a wedding breakfast?"

She was thinking of the many wedding receptions she had attended inLondon, of crowds of smartly-dressed women staring enviously attiaras, and sets of jewels arranged in cases upon tables, of brides andbridegrooms, looking flushed and anxious, standing under canopies offlowers and forcing their tired lips into smiles as they replied tostereotyped congratulations, while detectives--poorly disguised asgentlemen--hovered in the back-ground to see that none of the presentsmysteriously disappeared. Her presents were the velvety roses in theearthen vases, the breezes of the desert, the sand humps, the yellowbutterflies, the silence that lay around like a blessing pronouncedby the God who made the still places where souls can learn to knowthemselves and their great destiny. 

"A wedding breakfast, " Androvsky said. 

"Yes. But perhaps you have never been to one. "

"Never. "

"Then you can't love this one as much as I do. "

"Much more, " he answered. 

She looked at him, remembering how often in the past, when she had beenfeeling intensely, she had it borne in upon her that he was feeling evenmore intensely than herself. But could that be possible now?

"Do you think, " she said, "that it is possible for you, who have neverlived in cities, to love this land as I love it?"

Androvsky moved on his cushion and leaned down till his elbow touchedthe sand. Lying thus, with his chin in his hand, and his eyes fixed uponher, he answered:

"But it is not the land I am loving. "

His absolute concentration upon her made her think that, perhaps, hemisunderstood her meaning in speaking of the desert, her joy in it. She longed to explain how he and the desert were linked together inher heart, and she dropped her hand upon his left hand, which lay palmdownwards in the warm sand. 

"I love this land, " she began, "because I found you in it, because Ifeel----"

She stopped. 

"Yes, Domini?" he said. 

"No, not now. I can't tell you. There's too much light. "

"Domini, " he repeated. 

Then they were silent once more, thinking of how the darkness would cometo them at Arba. 

In the late afternoon they drew near to the Bordj, moving along adifficult route full of deep ruts and holes, and bordered on either sideby bushes so tall that they looked almost like trees. Here, tended byArabs who stared gravely at the strangers in the palanquin, were grazingimmense herds of camels. Above the bushes to the horizon on either sideof the way appeared the serpentine necks flexibly moving to and fro, now bending deliberately towards the dusty twigs, now stretched straightforward as if in patient search for some solace of the camel's fate thatlay in the remoteness of the desert. Baby camels, many of them onlya few days old, yet already vowed to the eternal pilgrimages of thewastes, with mild faces and long, disobedient-looking legs, ran fromthe caravan, nervously seeking their morose mothers, who cast upon themglances that seemed expressive of a disdainful pity. In front, beyond awatercourse, now dried up, rose the low hill on which stood the Bordj, a huge, square building, with two square towers pierced with loopholes. From a distance it resembled a fort threatening the desert inmagnificent isolation. Its towers were black against the clear lemon ofthe failing sunlight. Pigeons, that looked also black, flew perpetuallyabout them, and the telegraph posts, that bordered the way at regularintervals on the left, made a diminishing series of black vertical linessharply cutting the yellow till they were lost to sight in the south. To Domini these posts were like pointing fingers beckoning her onward tothe farthest distances of the sun. Drugged by the long journey over theflats, and the unceasing caress of the air, that was like an importunatelover ever unsatisfied, she watched from the height on which she wasperched this evening scene of roaming, feeding animals, staring nomads, monotonous herbage and vague, surely-retreating mountains, with quiet, dreamy eyes. Everything which she saw seemed to her beautiful, a littleremote and a little fantastic. The slow movement of the camels, theswifter movements of the circling pigeons about the square towers onthe hill, the motionless, or gently-gliding, Arabs with their clubs heldslantwise, the telegraph poles, one smaller than the other, diminishingtill--as if magically--they disappeared in the lemon that was growinginto gold, were woven together for her by the shuttle of the desertinto a softly brilliant tapestry--one of those tapestries that is likea legend struck to sleep as the Beauty in her palace. As they began tomount the hill, and the radiance of the sky increased, this impressionfaded, for the life that centred round the Bordj was vivid, thoughsparse in comparison with the eddying life of towns, and had that airof peculiar concentration which may be noted in pictures representing ahalt in the desert. 

No longer did the strongly-built Bordj seem to Domini like a fortthreatening the oncomer, but like a stalwart host welcoming him, a hostwho kept open house in this treeless desolation that yet had, for her, no feature that was desolate. It was earth-coloured, built of stone, andhad in the middle of the facade that faced them an immense hospitabledoorway with a white arch above it. This doorway gave a partial view ofa vast courtyard, in which animals and people were moving to and fro. Round about, under the sheltering shadow of the windowless wall, weremany Arabs, some squatting on their haunches, some standing upright withtheir backs against the stone, some moving from one group to another, gesticulating and talking vivaciously. Boys were playing a game withstones set in an ordered series of small holes scooped by their fingersin the dust. A negro crossed the flat space before the Bordj carrying onhis head a huge earthen vase to the well near by, where a crowd of blackdonkeys, just relieved of their loads of brushwood, was being watered. From the south two Spahis were riding in on white horses, their scarletcloaks floating out over their saddles; and from the west, moving slowlyto a wailing sound of indistinct music, a faint beating of tomtoms, wasapproaching a large caravan in a cloud of dust which floated back fromit and melted away into the radiance of the sunset. 

When they gained the great open space before the building they werebathed in the soft golden light, in which all these figures of Africans, and all these animals, looked mysterious and beautiful, and full of thatimmeasurable significance which the desert sheds upon those who move init, specially at dawn or at sundown. From the plateau they dominated thewhole of the plain they had traversed as far as Beni-Mora, which on themorrow would fade into the blue horizon. Its thousands of palms madea darkness in the gold, and still the tower of the hotel was faintlyvisible, pointing like a needle towards the sky. The range of mountainsshowed their rosy flanks in the distance. They, too, on the morrow wouldbe lost in the desert spaces, the last outposts of the world of hilland valley, of stream and sea. Only in the deceptive dream of the miragewould they appear once more, looming in a pearl-coloured shaking veillike a fluid on the edge of some visionary lagune. 

Domini was glad that on this first night of their journey they couldstill see Beni-Mora, the place where they had found each other and beengiven to each other by the Church. As the camel stopped before the greatdoorway of the Bordj she turned in the palanquin and looked down uponthe desert, motioning to the camel-driver to leave the beast for amoment. She put her arm through Androvsky's and made his eyes followhers across the vast spaces made magical by the sinking sun to thatdarkness of distant palms which, to her, would be a sacred place forever. And as they looked in silence all that Beni-Mora meant to her cameupon her. She saw again the garden hushed in the heat of noon. She sawAndrovsky at her feet on the sand. She heard the chiming church bell andthe twitter of Larbi's flute. The dark blue of trees was as the heart ofthe world to her and as the heart of life. It had seen the birth of hersoul and given to her another newborn soul. There was a pathos inseeing it fade like a thing sinking down till it became one with theimmeasurable sands, and at that moment she said to herself, "When shallI see Beni-Mora again--and how?" She looked at Androvsky, met his eyes, and thought: "When I see it again how different I shall be! How I shallbe changed!" And in the sunset she seemed to be saying a mute good-byeto one who was fading with Beni-Mora. 

As soon as they had got off the camel and were standing in the groupof staring Arabs, Batouch begged them to come to their tents, wheretea would be ready. He led them round the angle of the wall towards thewest, and there, pitched in the full radiance of the sunset, with a widespace of hard earth gleaming with gypse around it, was a white tent. Before it, in the open air, was stretched a handsome Arab carpet, and onthis carpet were set a folding table and two folding chairs. The tableheld a japanned tray with tea-cups, a milk jug and plates of biscuitsand by it, in an attitude that looked deliberately picturesque stoodOuardi, the youth selected by Batouch to fill the office of butler inthe desert. 

Ouardi smiled a broad welcome as they approached, and having made surethat his pose had been admired, retired to the cook's abode to fetch theteapot, while Batouch invited Domini and Androvsky to inspect the tentprepared for them. Domini assented with a dropped-out word. She stillfelt in a dream. But Androvsky, after casting towards the tent doora glance that was full of a sort of fierce shyness, moved away a fewsteps, and stood at the edge of the hill looking down upon the incomingcaravan, whose music was now plainly audible in the stillness of thewaste. 

Domini went into the tent that was to be their home for many weeks, alone. And she was glad just then that she was alone. For she too, likeAndrovsky, felt a sort of exquisite trouble moving, like a wave, in herheart. On some pretext, but only after an expression of admiration, shegot rid of Batouch. Then she stood and looked round. 

From the big tent opened a smaller one, which was to serve Androvsky asa dressing-room and both of them as a baggage room. She did not go intothat, but saw, with one glance of soft inquiry, the two small, low beds, the strips of gay carpet, the dressing-table, the stand and the two canechairs which furnished the sleeping-tent. Then she looked back to theaperture. In the distance, standing alone at the edge of the hill, shesaw Androvsky, bathed in the sunset, looking out over the hidden desertfrom which rose the wild sound of African music, steadily growinglouder. It seemed to her as if he must be gazing at the plains ofheaven, so magically brilliant and tender, so pellucidly clear anddelicate was the atmosphere and the colour of the sky. She saw no otherform, only his, in this poem of light, in this wide world of the sinkingsun. And the music seemed to be about his feet, to rise from the sandand throb in its breast. 

At that moment the figure of Liberty, which she had seen in the shadowsof the dancing-house, came in at the tent door and laid, for the firsttime, her lips on Domini's. That kiss was surely the consecration ofthe life of the sands. But to-day there had been another consecration. Domini had a sudden impulse to link the two consecrations together. 

She drew from her breast the wooden crucifix Androvsky had thrown intothe stream at Sidi-Zerzour, and, softly going to one of the beds, shepinned the crucifix above it on the canvas of the tent. Then she turnedand went out into the glory of the sunset to meet the fierce music thatwas rising from the desert. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Night had fallen over the desert, a clear purple night, starry butwithout a moon. Around the Bordj, and before a Cafe Maure built of brownearth and palm-wood, opposite to it, the Arabs who were halting to sleepat Arba on their journeys to and from Beni-Mora were huddled, sippingcoffee, playing dominoes by the faint light of an oil lamp, smokingcigarettes and long pipes of keef. Within the court of the Bordj themules were feeding tranquilly in rows. The camels roamed the plainamong the tamarisk bushes, watched over by shrouded shadowy guardianssleepless as they were. The mountains, the palms of Beni-Mora, were lostin the darkness that lay over the desert. 

On the low hill, at some distance beyond the white tent of Domini andAndrovsky, the obscurity was lit up fiercely by the blaze of a hugefire of brushwood, the flames of which towered up towards the stars, flickering this way and that as the breeze took them, and casting a wildillumination upon the wild faces of the rejoicing desert men who weregathered about it, telling stories of the wastes, singing songs thatwere melancholy and remote to Western ears, even though they hymnedpast victories over the infidels, or passionate ecstasies of love in thegolden regions of the sun. The steam from bowls of cous-cous and stewsof mutton and vegetables curled up to join the thin smoke that made alight curtain about this fantasia, and from time to time, with a shrillcry of exultation, a half-naked form, all gleaming eyes and teeth andpolished bronze-hued limbs, rushed out of the blackness beyond the fire, leaped through the tongues of flame and vanished like a spectre into theembrace of the night. 

All the members of the caravan, presided over by Batouch in glory, werecelebrating the wedding night of their master and mistress. 

Domini and Androvsky had already visited them by their bonfire, hadreceived their compliments, watched the sword dance and the dance ofthe clubs, touched with their lips, or pretended to touch, the stem of akeef, listened to a marriage song warbled by Ali to the accompanimentof a flute and little drums, and applauded Ouardi's agility in leapingthrough the flames. Then, with many good-nights, pressures of the hand, and auguries for the morrow, they had gone away into the cool darkness, silently towards their tent. 

They walked slowly, a little apart from each other. Domini looked up atthe stars and saw among them the star of Liberty. Androvsky looked ather and saw all the stars in her face. When they reached the tent doorthey stopped on the warm earth. A lamp was lit within, casting a softlight on the simple furniture and on the whiteness of the two beds, above one of which Domini imagined, though from without she could notsee, the wooden crucifix Androvsky had once worn in his breast. 

"Shall we stay here a little?" Domini said in a low voice. "Out here?"There was a long pause. Then Androvsky answered:

"Yes. Let us feel it all--all. Let us feel it to the full. "

He caught hold of her hand with a sort of tender roughness and twinedhis fingers between hers, pressing his palm against hers. 

"Don't let us miss anything to-night, " he said. "All my life isto-night. I've had no life yet. To-morrow--who knows whether we shallbe dead to-morrow? Who knows? But we're alive to-night, flesh and blood, heart and soul. And there's nothing here, there can be nothing here totake our life from us, the life of our love to-night. For we're out inthe desert, we're right away from anyone, everything. We're in the greatfreedom. Aren't we, Domini? Aren't we?"

"Yes, " she said. "Yes. "

He took her other hand in the same way. He was facing her, and he heldhis hands against his heart with hers in them, then pressed her handsagainst her heart, then drew them back again to his. 

"Then let us realise it. Let us forget our prison. Let us forgeteverything, everything that we ever knew before Beni-Mora, Domini. It'sdead, absolutely dead, unless we make it live by thinking. And that'smad, crazy. Thought's the great madness. Domini, have you forgotteneverything before we knew each other?"

"Yes, " she said. "Now--but only now. You've made me forget it all. "

There was a deep breathing under her voice. He held up her hands to hisshoulders and looked closely into her eyes, as if he were trying to sendall himself into her through those doors of the soul opened to seeinghim. And now, in this moment, she felt that her fierce desire wasrealised, that he was rising above her on eagle's wings. And as on thenight before the wedding she had blessed all the sorrows of her life, now she blessed silently all the long silence of Androvsky, allhis strange reticence, his uncouthness, his avoidance of her in thebeginning of their acquaintance. That which had made her pain by being, now made her joy by having been and being no more. The hidden man wasrushing forth to her at last in his love. She seemed to hear in thenight the crash of a great obstacle, and the voice of the flood ofwaters that had broken it down at length and were escaping into liberty. His silence of the past now made his speech intensely beautiful andwonderful to her. She wanted to hear the waters more intensely, moreintensely. 

"Speak to me, " she said. "You've spoken so little. Do you know howlittle? Tell me all you are. Till now I've only felt all you are. Andthat's so much, but not enough for a woman--not enough. I've taken you, but now--give me all I've taken. Give--keep on giving and giving. Fromto-night to receive will be my life. Long ago I've given all I had toyou. Give to me, give me everything. You know I've given all. "

"All?" he said, and there was a throb in his deep voice, as if someintense feeling rose from the depths of him and shook it. 

"Yes, all, " she whispered. "Already--and long ago--that day in thegarden. When I--when I put my hands against your forehead--do youremember? I gave you all, for ever. "

And as she spoke she bent down her face with a sort of proud submissionand put her forehead against his heart. 

The purity in her voice and in her quiet, simple action dazzled him likea flame shining suddenly in his eyes out of blackness. And he, too, inthat moment saw far up above him the beating of an eagle's wings. Toeach one the other seemed to be on high, and as both looked up that wastheir true marriage. 

"I felt it, " he said, touching her hair with his lips. "I felt it inyour hands. When you touched me that day it was as if you were giving methe world and the stars. It frightened me to receive so much. I felt asif I had no place to put my gift in. "

"Did your heart seem so small?" she said. 

"You make everything I have and am seem small--and yet great. What doesit mean?"

"That you are great, as I am, because we love. No one is small wholoves. No one is poor, no one is bad, who loves. Love burns up evil. It's the angel that destroys. "

Her words seemed to send through his whole body a quivering joy. He tookher face between his hands and lifted it from his heart. 

"Is that true? Is that true?" he said. "I've--I've tried to think that. If you know how I've tried. "

"And don't you know it is true?"

"I don't feel as if I knew anything that you do not tell me to-night. Idon't feel as if I have, or am, anything but what you give me, make meto-night. Can you understand that? Can you understand what you are tome? That you are everything, that I have nothing else, that I have neverhad anything else in all these years that I have lived and that I haveforgotten? Can you understand it? You said just now 'Speak to me, tellme all you are. ' That's what I am, all I am, a man you have made a man. You, Domini--you have made me a man, you have created me. "

She was silent. The intensity with which he spoke, the intensity of hiseyes while he was speaking, made her hear those rushing waters as if shewere being swept away by them. 

"And you?" he said. "You?"

"I?"

"This afternoon in the desert, when we were in the sand looking atBeni-Mora, you began to tell me something and then you stopped. And yousaid, 'I can't tell you. There's too much light. ' Now the sun has gone. "

"Yes. But--but I want to listen to you. I want----"

She stopped. In the distance, by the great fire where the Arabs wereassembled, there rose a sound of music which arrested her attention. Aliwas singing, holding in his hand a brand from the fire like a torch. Shehad heard him sing before, and had loved the timbre of his voice, butonly now did she realise when she had first heard him and who he was. Itwas he who, hidden from her, had sung the song of the freed negroes ofTouggourt in the gardens of Count Anteoni that day when she had beenangry with Androvsky and had afterwards been reconciled with him. Andshe knew now it was he, because, once more hidden from her--for againstthe curtain of darkness she only saw the flame from the torch he heldand moved rhythmically to the burden of his song--he was singing itagain. Androvsky, when she ceased to speak, suddenly put his arms roundher, as if he were afraid of her escaping from him in her silence, andthey stood thus at the tent door listening:

 "The gazelle dies in the water, The fish dies in the air, And I die in the dunes of the desert sand For my love that is deep and sad. "

The chorus of hidden men by the fire rose in a low murmur that was likethe whisper of the desert in the night. Then the contralto voice of Alicame to Domini and Androvsky again, but very faintly, from the distancewhere the flaming torch was moving:

 "No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. "

When the voice died away for a moment Domini whispered the refrain. Thenshe said:

"But is it true? Can it be true for us to-night?"

Androvsky did not reply. 

"I don't think it is true, " she added. "You know--don't you?"

The voice of Ali rose again, and his torch flickered on the soft windof the night. Its movement was slow and eerie. It seemed like his voicemade visible, a voice of flame in the blackness of the world. Theywatched it. Presently she said once more:

"You know what is in my heart--don't you?"

"Do I?" he said. "All?"

"All. My heart is full of one thing--quite full. "

"Then I know. "

"And, " she hesitated, then added, "and yours?"

"Mine too. "

"I know all that is in it then?"

She still spoke questioningly. He did not reply, but held her moreclosely, with a grasp that was feverish in its intensity. 

"Do you remember, " she went on, "in the garden what you said about thatsong?"

"No. "

"You have forgotten?"

"I told you, " he said, "I mean to forget everything. "

"Everything before we came to Beni-Mora?"

"And more. Everything before you put your hands against my forehead, Domini. Your touch blotted out the past. "

"Even the past at Beni-Mora?"

"Yes, even that. There are many things I did and left undone, manythings I said and never said that--I have forgotten--I have forgottenfor ever. "

There was a sternness in his voice now, a fiery intention. 

"I understand, " she said. "I have forgotten them too, but not somethings. "

"Which?"

"Not that night when you took me out of the dancing-house, not ourride to Sidi-Zerzour, not--there are things I shall remember. When I amdying, after I am dead, I shall remember them. "

The song faded away. The torch was still, then fell downwards and becameone with the fire. Then Androvsky drew Domini down beside him on to thewarm earth before the tent door, and held her hand in his against theearth. 

"Feel it, " he said. "It's our home, it's our liberty. Does it feel aliveto you?"

"Yes. "

"As if it had pulses, like the pulses in our hearts, and knew what weknow?"

"Yes. Mother Earth--I never understood what that meant till to-night. "

"We are beginning to understand together. Who can understand anythingalone?"

He kept her hand always in his pressed against the desert as againsta heart. They both thought of it as a heart that was full of love andprotection for them, of understanding of them. Going back to their wordsbefore the song of Ali, he said:

"Love burns up evil, then love can never be evil. "

"Not the act of loving. "

"Or what it leads to, " he said. 

And again there was a sort of sternness in his voice, as if he wereinsisting on something, were bent on conquering some reluctance, or somevoice contradicting. 

"I know that you are right, " he added. 

She did not speak, but--why she did not know--her thought went to thewooden crucifix fastened in the canvas of the tent close by, and for amoment she felt a faint creeping sadness in her. But he pressed her handmore closely, and she was conscious only of these two warmths---of hishand above her hand and of the desert beneath it. Her whole life seemedset in a glory of fire, in a heat that was life-giving, that dominatedher and evoked at the same time all of power that was in her, causingher dormant fires, physical and spiritual, to blaze up as if they weresheltered and fanned. The thought of the crucifix faded. It was as ifthe fire destroyed it and it became ashes--then nothing. She fixed hereyes on the distant fire of the Arabs, which was beginning to die downslowly as the night grew deeper. 

"I have doubted many things, " he said. "I've been afraid. "

"You!" she said. 

"Yes. You know it. "

"How can I? Haven't I forgotten everything--since that day in thegarden?"

He drew up her hand and put it against his heart. 

"I'm jealous of the desert even, " he whispered. "I won't let you touchit any more tonight. "

He looked into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the distantfire, steadily, with an intense eagerness. 

"Why do you do that?" he said. 

"To-night I like to look at fire, " she answered. 

"Tell me why. "

"It is as if I looked at you, at all that there is in you that you havenever said, never been able to say to me, all that you never can say tome but that I know all the same. "

"But, " he said, "that fire is----"

He did not finish the sentence, but put up his hand and turned her facetill she was looking, not at the fire, but at him. 

"It is not like me, " he said. "Men made it, and--it's a fire that cansink into ashes. "

An expression of sudden exaltation shone in her eyes. 

"And God made you, " she said. "And put into you the spark that iseternal. "

And now again she thought, she dared, she loved to think of the crucifixand of the moment when he would see it in the tent. 

"And God made you love me, " she said. "What is it?"

Androvsky had moved suddenly, as if he were going to get up from thewarm ground. 

"Did you--?"

"No, " he said in a low voice. "Go on, Domini. Speak to me. "

He sat still. 

A sudden longing came to her to know if to-night he were feeling asshe was the sacredness of their relation to each other. Never had theyspoken intimately of religion or of the mysteries that lie beyond andaround human life. Once or twice, when she had been about to open herheart to him, to let him understand her deep sense of the things unseen, something had checked her, something in him. It was as if he had divinedher intention and had subtly turned her from it, without speech, merelyby the force of his inward determination that she should not breakthrough his reserve. But to-night, with his hand on hers and the starrydarkness above them, with the waste stretching around them, and thecool air that was like the breath of liberty upon their faces, she wasunconscious of any secret, combative force in him. It was impossible toher to think there could have been any combat, however inward, howeversubtle, between them. Surely if it were ever permitted to two natures tobe in perfect accord theirs were in perfect accord to-night. 

"I never felt the presence of God in His world so keenly as I feel itto-night, " she went on, drawing a little closer to him. "Even in thechurch to-day He seemed farther away than tonight. But somehow--onehas these thoughts without knowing why--I have always believed that thefarther I went into the desert the nearer I should come to God. "

Androvsky moved again. The clasp of his hand on hers loosened, but hedid not take his hand away. 

"Why should--what should make you think that?" he asked slowly. 

"Don't you know what the Arabs call the desert?"

"No. What do they call it?"

"The Garden of Allah. "

"The Garden of Allah!" he repeated. 

There was a sound like fear in his voice. Even her great joy did notprevent her from noticing it, and she remembered, with a thrill of pain, where and under what circumstances she had first heard the Arab's namefor the desert. 

Could it be that this man she loved was secretly afraid of something inthe desert, some influence, some--? Her thought stopped short, like athing confused. 

"Don't you think it a very beautiful name?" she asked, with an almostfierce longing to be reassured, to be made to know that he, like her, loved the thought that God was specially near to those who travelled inthis land of solitude. 

"Is it beautiful?"

"To me it is. It makes me feel as if in the desert I were speciallywatched over and protected, even as if I were specially loved there. "

Suddenly Androvsky put his arm round her and strained her to him. 

"By me! By me!" he said. "Think of me to-night, only of me, as I thinkonly of you. "

He spoke as if he were jealous even of her thought of God, as if he didnot understand that it was the very intensity of her love for him thatmade her, even in the midst of the passion of the body, connecttheir love of each other with God's love of them. In her heart thisoverpowering human love which, in the garden, when first she realisedit fully, had seemed to leave no room in her for love of God, now in themoment when it was close to absolute satisfaction seemed almost to beone with her love of God. Perhaps no man could understand how, in agood woman, the two streams of the human love which implies the intensedesire of the flesh, and the mystical love which is absolutely purgedof that desire, can flow the one into the other and mingle their waters. She tried to think that, and then she ceased to try. Everything wasforgotten as his arms held her fast in the night, everything except thisgreat force of human love which was like iron, and yet soft about her, which was giving and wanting, which was concentrated upon her to theexclusion of all else, plunging the universe in darkness and setting herin light. 

"There is nothing for me to-night but you, " he said, crushing her in hisarms. "The desert is your garden. To me it has always been your garden, only that, put here for you, and for me because you love me--but for meonly because of that. "

The Arabs' fire was rapidly dying down. 

"When it goes out, when it goes out!" Androvsky whispered it her ear. 

His breath stirred the thick tresses of her hair. 

"Let us watch it!" he whispered. 

She pressed his hand but did not reply. She could not speak any more. At last the something wild and lawless, the something that was more thanpassionate, that was hot and even savage in her nature, had risen up inits full force to face a similar force in him, which insistently calledit and which it answered without shame. 

"It is dying, " Androvsky said. "It is dying. Look how small the circleof the flame is, how the darkness is creeping up about it! Domini--doyou see?"

She pressed his hand again. 

"Do you long for the darkness?" he asked. "Do you, Domini? The desertis sending it. The desert is sending it for you, and for me because youlove me. "

A log in the fire, charred by the flames, broke in two. Part of it felldown into the heart of the fire, which sent up a long tongue of red goldflame. 

"That is like us, " he said. "Like us together in the darkness. "

She felt his body trembling, as if the vehemence of the spirit confinedwithin it shook it. In the night the breeze slightly increased, makingthe flame of the lamp behind them in the tent flicker. And the breezewas like a message, brought to them from the desert by some envoy inthe darkness, telling them not to be afraid of their wonderful gift offreedom with each other, but to take it open-handed, open-hearted, withthe great courage of joy. 

"Domini, did you feel that gust of the wind? It carried away a cloud ofsparks from the fire and brought them a little way towards us. Did yousee? Fire wandering on the wind through the night calling to the firethat is in us. Wasn't it beautiful? Everything is beautiful to-night. There were never such stars before. "

She looked up at them. Often she had watched the stars, and known thevague longings, the almost terrible aspirations they wake in theirwatchers. But to her also they looked different to-night, nearer to theearth, she thought, brighter, more living than ever before, like strangetenderness made visible, peopling the night with an unconquerablesympathy. The vast firmament was surely intent upon their happiness. Again the breeze came to them across the waste, cool and breathing ofthe dryness of the sands. Not far away a jackal laughed. After a pauseit was answered by another jackal at a distance. The voices of thesedesert beasts brought home to Domini with an intimacy not felt by herbefore the exquisite remoteness of their situation, and the shrill, discordant noise, rising and falling with a sort of melancholy andsneering mirth, mingled with bitterness, was like a delicate music inher ears. 

"Hark!" Androvsky whispered. 

The first jackal laughed once more, was answered again. A third beast, evidently much farther off, lifted up a faint voice like a dismal echo. Then there was silence. 

"You loved that, Domini. It was like the calling of freedom to you--andto me. We've found freedom; we've found it. Let us feel it. Let us takehold of it. It is the only thing, the only thing. But you can't knowthat as I do, Domini. "

Again she was conscious that his intensity surpassed hers, and theconsciousness, instead of saddening or vexing, made her thrill with joy. 

"I am maddened by this freedom, " he said; "maddened by it, Domini. Ican't help--I can't--"

He laid his lips upon hers in a desperate caress that almost suffocatedher. Then he took his lips away from her lips and kissed her throat, holding her head back against his shoulder. She shut her eyes. He wasindeed teaching her to forget. Even the memory of the day in the gardenwhen she heard the church bell chime and the sound of Larbi's flute wentfrom her. She remembered nothing any more. The past was lost or laid insleep by the spell of sensation. Her nature galloped like an Arab horseacross the sands towards the sun, towards the fire that sheds warmthafar but that devours all that draws near to it. At that moment sheconnected Androvsky with the tremendous fires eternally blazing inthe sun. She had a desire that he should hurt her in the passionateintensity of his love for her. Her nature, which till now had been everready to spring into hostility at an accidental touch, which had shrunkinstinctively from physical contact with other human beings, melted, wasutterly transformed. She felt that she was now the opposite of all thatshe had been--more woman than any other woman who had ever lived. What had been an almost cold strength in her went to increase thecompleteness of this yielding to one stronger than herself. What hadseemed boyish and almost hard in her died away utterly under the embraceof this fierce manhood. 

"Domini, " he spoke, whispering while he kissed her, "Domini, the fire'sgone out. It's dark. "

He lifted her a little in his arms, still kissing her. 

"Domini, it's dark, it's dark. "

He lifted her more. She stood up, with his arms about her, lookingtowards where the fire had been. She put her hands against his face andsoftly pressed it back from hers, but with a touch that was a caress. Heyielded to her at once. 

"Look!" he said. "Do you love the darkness? Tell me--tell me that youlove it. "

She let her hand glide over his cheek in answer. 

"Look at it. Love it. All the desert is in it, and our love in thedesert. Let us stay in the desert, let us stay in it for ever--for ever. It is your garden--yours. It has brought us everything, Domini. "

He took her hand and pressed it again and again over his cheeklingeringly. Then, abruptly, he dropped it. 

"Come!" he said. "Domini. "

And he drew her in through the tent door almost violently. 

A stronger gust of the night wind followed them. Androvsky took his armsslowly from Domini and turned to let down the flap of the tent. While hewas doing this she stood quite still. The flame of the lamp flickered, throwing its light now here, now there, uneasily. She saw the crucifixlit up for an instant and the white bed beneath it. The wind stirredher dark hair and was cold about her neck. But the warmth there met anddefied it. In that brief moment, while Androvsky was fastening the tent, she seemed to live through centuries of intense and complicated emotion. When the light flickered over the crucifix she felt as if she couldspend her life in passionate adoration at its foot; but when she did notsee it, and the wind, coming in from the desert through the tent door, where she heard the movement of Androvsky, stirred in her hair, she feltreckless, wayward, savage--and something more. A cry rose in her thatwas like the cry of a stranger, who yet was of her and in her, and fromwhom she would not part. 

Again the lamp flame flickered upon the crucifix. Quickly, while she sawthe crucifix plainly, she went forward to the bed and fell on her kneesby it, bending down her face upon its whiteness. 

When Androvsky had fastened the tent door he turned round and saw herkneeling. He stood quite still as if petrified, staring at her. Then, as the flame, now sheltered from the wind, burned steadily, he saw thecrucifix. He started as if someone had struck him, hesitated, then, witha look of fierce and concentrated resolution on his face, went swiftlyto the crucifix and pulled it from the canvas roughly. He held it in hishand for an instant, then moved to the tent door and stooped to unfastenthe cords that held it to the pegs, evidently with the intention ofthrowing the crucifix out into the night. But he did not unfastenthe cords. Something--some sudden change of feeling, some secret andpowerful reluctance--checked him. He thrust the crucifix into hispocket. Then, returning to where Domini was kneeling, he put his armsround her and drew her to her feet. 

She did not resist him. Still holding her in his arms he blew out thelamp. 

CHAPTER XIX

The Arabs have a saying, "In the desert one forgets everything, oneremembers nothing any more. "

To Domini it sometimes seemed the truest of all the true and beautifulsayings of the East. Only three weeks had passed away since the firsthalt at Arba, yet already her life at Beni-Mora was faint in her mindas the dream of a distant past. Taken by the vast solitudes, journeyingwithout definite aim from one oasis to another through empty regionsbathed in eternal sunshine, camping often in the midst of the sandby one of the wells sunk for the nomads by the French engineers, strengthened perpetually, yet perpetually soothed, by airs that weresoft and cool, as if mingled of silk and snow, they lived surely in adesert dream with only a dream behind them. They had become as one withthe nomads, whose home is the moving tent, whose hearthstone is theyellow sand of the dunes, whose God is liberty. 

Domini loved this life with a love which had already become a passion. All that she had imagined that the desert might be to her she found thatit was. In its so-called monotony she discovered eternal interest. Ofold she had thought the sea the most wonderful thing in Nature. In thedesert she seemed to possess the sea with something added to it, acalm, a completeness, a mystical tenderness, a passionate serenity. Shethought of the sea as a soul striving to fulfil its noblest aspirations, to be the splendid thing it knew how to dream of. But she thought ofthe desert as a soul that need strive no more, having attained. And she, like the Arabs, called it always in her heart the Garden of Allah. Forin this wonderful calm, bright as the child's idea of heaven; clear asa crystal with a sunbeam caught in it, silent as a prayer that willbe answered silently, God seemed to draw very near to His wanderingchildren. In the desert was the still, small voice, and the still, smallvoice was the Lord. 

Often at dawn or sundown, when, perhaps in the distance of the sands, or near at hand beneath the shade of the palms of some oasis by awaterspring, she watched the desert men in their patched rags, withtheir lean, bronzed faces and eagle eyes turned towards Mecca, bowingtheir heads in prayer to the soil that the sun made hot, she rememberedCount Anteoni's words, "I like to see men praying in the desert, " andshe understood with all her heart and soul why. For the life of thedesert was the most perfect liberty that could be found on earth, and tosee men thus worshipping in liberty set before her a vision of free willupon the heights. When she thought of the world she had known and left, of the men who would always live in it and know no other world, she wassaddened for a moment. Could she ever find elsewhere such joy as she hadfound in the simple and unfettered life of the wastes? Could she everexchange this life for another life, even with Androvsky?

One day she spoke to him of her intense joy in the wandering fate, andthe pain that came to her whenever she thought of exchanging it for alife of civilisation in the midst of fixed groups of men. 

They had halted for the noonday rest at a place called Sidi-Hamdam, andin the afternoon were going to ride on to a Bordj called Mogar, wherethey meant to stay two or three days, as Batouch had told them it wasa good halting place, and near to haunts of the gazelle. The tents hadalready gone forward, and Domini and Androvsky were lying upon a rugspread on the sand, in the shadow of the grey wall of a traveller'shouse beside a well. Behind them their horses were tethered to aniron ring in the wall. Batouch and Ali were in the court of the house, talking to the Arab guardian who dwelt there, but their voices were notaudible by the well, and absolute silence reigned, the intense yetlight silence that is in the desert at noontide, when the sun is atthe zenith, when the nomad sleeps under his low-pitched tent, and thegardeners in the oasis cease even from pretending to work among thepalms. From before the well the ground sank to a plain of pale greysand, which stretched away to a village hard in aspect, as if carved outof bronze and all in one piece. In the centre of it rose a mosque witha minaret and a number of cupolas, faintly gilded and shining modestlyunder the fierce rays of the sun. 

At the foot of the village the ground was white with saltpetre, whichresembled a covering of new-fallen snow. To right and left of it wereisolated groups of palms growing in threes and fours, like trees thathad formed themselves into cliques and set careful barriers of sandbetween themselves and their despised brethren. Here and there on thegrey sand dark patches showed where nomads had pitched their tents. Butthere was no movement of human life. No camels were visible. No guarddogs barked. The noon held all things in its golden grip. 

"Boris!" Domini said, breaking a long silence. 

"Yes, Domini?"

He turned towards her on the rug, stretching his long, thin body lazilyas if in supreme physical contentment. 

"You know that saying of the Arabs about forgetting everything in thedesert?"

"Yes, Domini, I know it. "

"How long shall we stay in this world of forgetfulness?"

He lifted himself up on his elbow quickly, and fixed his eyes on hers. 

"How long!"

"Yes. "

"But--do you wish to leave it? Are you tired of it?"

There was a note of sharp anxiety in his voice. 

"I don't answer such a question, " she said, smiling at him. 

"Ah, then, why do you try to frighten me?"

She put her hand in his. 

"How burnt you are!" she said. "You are like an Arab of the South. "

"Let me become more like one. There's health here. "

"And peace, perfect peace. "

He said nothing. He was looking down now at the sand. 

She laid her lips on his warm brown hand. 

"There's all I want here, " she added. 

"Let us stay here. "

"But some day we must go back, mustn't we?"

"Why?"

"Can anything be lifelong--even our honeymoon?"

"Suppose we choose that it shall be?"

"Can we choose such a thing? Is anybody allowed to choose to live alwaysquite happily without duties? Sometimes I wonder. I love this wanderinglife so much, I am so happy in it, that I sometimes think it cannot lastmuch longer. "

He began to sift the sand through his fingers swiftly. 

"Duties?" he said in a low voice. 

"Yes. Oughtn't we to do something presently, something besides beinghappy?"

"What do you mean, Domini?"

"I hardly know, I don't know. You tell me. "

There was an urging in her voice, as if she wanted, almost demanded, something of him. 

"You mean that a man must do some work in his life if he is to keephimself a man, " he said, not as if he were asking a question. 

He spoke reluctantly but firmly. 

"You know, " he added, "that I have worked hard all my life, hard like alabourer. "

"Yes, I know, " she said. 

She stroked his hand, that was worn and rough, and spoke eloquently ofmanual toil it had accomplished in the past. 

"I know. Before we were married, that day when we sat in the garden, youtold me your life and I told you mine. How different they have been!"

"Yes, " he said. 

He lit a cigar and watched the smoke curling up into the gold of thesunlit atmosphere. 

"Mine in the midst of the world and yours so far away from it. I oftenimagine that little place, El Krori, the garden, your brother, yourtwin-brother Stephen, that one-eyed Arab servant--what was his name?"

"El Magin. "

"Yes, El Magin, who taught you to play Cora and to sing Arab songs, andto eat cous-cous with your fingers. I can almost see Father Andre, from whom you learnt to love the Classics, and who talked to you ofphilosophy. He's dead too, isn't he, like your mother?"

"I don't know whether Pere Andre is dead. I have lost sight of him, "Androvsky said. 

He still looked steadily at the rings of smoke curling up into thegolden air. There was in his voice a sound of embarrassment. She guessedthat it came from the consciousness of the pain he must have causedthe good priest who had loved him when he ceased from practising thereligion in which he had been brought up. Even to her he never spokefrankly on religious subjects, but she knew that he had been baptised aCatholic and been educated for a time by priests. She knew, too, thathe was no longer a practising Catholic, and that, for some reason, hedreaded any intimacy with priests. He never spoke against them. He hadscarcely ever spoken of them to her. But she remembered his words in thegarden, "I do not care for priests. " She remembered, too, his actionin the tunnel on the day of his arrival in Beni-Mora. And the reticencethat they both preserved on the subject of religion, and its reason, were the only causes of regret in this desert dream of hers. Even thisregret, too, often faded in hope. For in the desert, the Garden ofAllah, she had it borne in upon her that Androvsky would discover whathe must surely secretly be seeking--the truth that each man must findfor himself, truth for him of the eventual existence in which themysteries of this present existence will be made plain, and of the Powerthat has fashioned all things. 

And she was able to hope in silence, as women do for the men they love. 

"Don't think I do not realise that you have worked, " she went on aftera pause. "You told me how you always cultivated the land yourself, evenwhen you were still a boy, that you directed the Spanish labourers inthe vineyards, that--you have earned a long holiday. But should it lastfor ever?"

"You are right. Well, let us take an oasis; let us become palm gardenerslike that Frenchman at Meskoutine. "

"And build ourselves an African house, white, with a terrace roof. "

"And sell our dates. We can give employment to the Arabs. We can choosethe poorest. We can improve their lives. After all, if we owe a debt toanyone it is to them, to the desert. Let us pay our debt to the desertmen and live in the desert. "

"It would be an ideal life, " she said with her eyes shining on his. 

"And a possible life. Let us live it. I could not bear to leave thedesert. Where should we go?"

"Where should we go!" she repeated. 

She was still looking at him, but now the expression of her eyes hadquite changed. They had become grave, and examined him seriously with asort of deep inquiry. He sat upon the Arab rug, leaning his back againstthe wall of the traveller's house. 

"Why do you look at me like that, Domini?" he asked with a suddenstirring of something that was like uneasiness. 

"I! I was wondering what you would like, what other life would suityou. "

"Yes?" he said quickly. "Yes?"

"It's very strange, Boris, but I cannot connect you with anything butthe desert, or see you anywhere but in the desert. I cannot even imagineyou among your vines in Tunisia. "

"They were not altogether mine, " he corrected, still with a certainexcitement which he evidently endeavoured to repress. "I--I had theright, the duty of cultivating the land. "

"Well, however it was, you were always at work; you were responsible, weren't you?"

"Yes. "

"I can't see you even in the vineyards or the wheat-fields. Isn't itstrange?"

She was always looking at him with the same deep and whollyunselfconscious inquiry. 

"And as to London, Paris--"

Suddenly she burst into a little laugh and her gravity vanished. 

"I think you would hate them, " she said. "And they--they wouldn't likeyou because they wouldn't understand you. "

"Let us buy our oasis, " he said abruptly. "Build our African house, sellour dates and remain in the desert. I hear Batouch. It must be time toride on to Mogar. Batouch! Batouch!"

Batouch came from the courtyard of the house wiping the remains of acous-cous from his languid lips. 

"Untie the horses, " said Androvsky. 

"But, Monsieur, it is still too hot to travel. Look! No one is stirring. All the village is asleep. "

He waved his enormous hand, with henna-tinted nails, towards the distanttown, carved surely out of one huge piece of bronze. 

"Untie the horses. There are gazelle in the plain near Mogar. Didn't youtell me?"

"Yes, Monsieur, but--"

"We'll get there early and go out after them at sunset. Now, Domini. "

They rode away in the burning heat of the noon towards the southwestacross the vast plains of grey sand, followed at a short distance byBatouch and Ali. 

"Monsieur is mad to start in the noon, " grumbled Batouch. "But Monsieuris not like Madame. He may live in the desert till he is old and hishair is grey as the sand, but he will never be an Arab in his heart. "

"Why, Batouch-ben-Brahim?"

"He cannot rest. To Madame the desert gives its calm, but to Monsieur--"He did not finish his sentence. In front Domini and Androvsky had puttheir horses to a gallop. The sand flew up in a thin cloud around them. 

"Nom d'un chien!" said Batouch, who, in unpoetical moments, occasionallyindulged in the expletives of the French infidels who were his country'srulers. "What is there in the mind of Monsieur which makes him ride asif he fled from an enemy?"

"I know not, but he goes like a hare before the sloughi, Batouch-benBrahim, " answered Ali, gravely. 

Then they sent their horses on in chase of the cloud of sand towards thesouthwest. 

About four in the afternoon they reached the camp at Mogar. 

As they rode in slowly, for their horses were tired and streaming withheat after their long canter across the sands, both Domini and Androvskywere struck by the novelty of this halting-place, which was quite unlikeanything they had yet seen. The ground rose gently but continuously fora considerable time before they saw in the distance the pitched tentswith the dark forms of the camels and mules. Here they were out of thesands, and upon hard, sterile soil covered with small stones embeddedin the earth. Beyond the tents they could see nothing but the sky, which was now covered with small, ribbed grey clouds, sad-coloured andautumnal, and a lonely tower built of stone, which rose from the wasteat about two hundred yards from the tents to the east. Although theycould see so little, however, they were impressed with a sensation thatthey were on the edge of some vast vision, of some grandiose effect ofNature, that would bring to them a new and astonishing knowledge of thedesert. Perhaps it was the sight of the distant tower pointing tothe grey clouds that stirred in them this almost excited feeling ofexpectation. 

"It is like a watch-tower, " Domini said, pointing with her whip. "Butwho could live in such a place, far from any oasis?"

"And what can it overlook?" said Androvsky. "This is the nearest horizonline we have seen since we came into the desert. "

"Yes, but----"

She glanced at him as they put their horses into a gentle canter. Thenshe added:

"You, too, feel that we are coming to something tremendous, don't you?"

Her horse whinnied shrilly. Domini stroked his foam-flecked neck withher hand. 

"Abou is as full of anticipation as we are, " she said. Androvsky waslooking towards the tower. 

"That was built for French soldiers, " he said. A moment afterwards headded:

"I wonder why Batouch chose this place for us to camp in?"

There was a faint sound as of irritation in his voice. 

"Perhaps we shall know in a minute, " Domini answered. They cantered on. Their horses' hoofs rang with a hard sound on the stony ground. 

"It's inhospitable here, " Androvsky said. She looked at him in surprise. 

"I never knew you to take a dislike to any halting-place before, " shesaid. "What's the matter, Boris?"

He smiled at her, but almost immediately his face was clouded by theshadow of a gloom that seemed to respond to the gloom of the sky. And hefixed his eyes again upon the tower. 

"I like a far horizon, " he answered. "And there's no sun to-day. "

"I suppose even in the desert we cannot have it always, " she said. Andin her voice, too, there was a touch of melancholy, as if she had caughthis mood. A minute later she added:

"I feel exactly as if I were on a hill top and were coming to a view ofthe sea. "

Almost as she spoke they cantered in among the tents of the attendants, and reined in their horses at the edge of a slope that was almost aprecipice. Then they sat still in their saddles, gazing. 

They had been living for weeks in the midst of vastness, and had becomeaccustomed to see stretched out around them immense tracts of landmelting away into far blue distances, but this view from Mogar made themcatch their breath and stiffed their pulses. 

It was gigantic. There was even something unnatural in its appearanceof immensity, as if it were, perhaps, deceptive, and existed in theirvision of it only. So, surely, might look a plain to one who had takenhaschish, which enlarges, makes monstrous and threateningly terrific. Domini had a feeling that no human eyes could really see such infinitetracts of land and water as those she seemed to be seeing at thismoment. For there was water here, in the midst of the desert. Infiniteexpanses of sea met infinite plains of snow. Or so it seemed to bothof them. And the sea was grey and calm as a winter sea, breathing itsplaint along a winter land. From it, here and there, rose islets whoselow cliffs were a deep red like the red of sandstone, a sad colour thatsuggests tragedy, islets that looked desolate, and as if no life hadever been upon them, or could be. Back from the snowy plains stretchedsand dunes of the palest primrose colour, sand dunes innumerable, myriads and myriads of them, rising and falling, rising and falling, till they were lost in the grey distance of this silent world. In theforeground, at their horses' feet, wound from the hill summit a broadtrack faintly marked in the deep sand, and flanked by huge dunes shaped, by the action of the winds, into grotesque semblances of monsters, leviathans, beasts with prodigious humps, sphinxes, whales. This trackwas presently lost in the blanched plains. Far away, immeasurably far, sea and snow blended and faded into the cloudy grey. Above the neardunes two desert eagles were slowly wheeling in a weary flight, occasionally sinking towards the sand, then rising again towards theclouds. And the track was strewn with the bleached bones of camels thathad perished, or that had been slaughtered, on some long desert march. 

To the left of them the solitary tower commanded this terrific visionof desolation, seemed to watch it steadily, yet furtively, with its tinyloophole eyes. 

"We have come into winter, " Domini murmured. 

She looked at the white of the camels' bones, of the plains, at the greywhite of the sky, at the yellow pallor of the dunes. 

"How wonderful! How terrible!" she said. 

She drew her horse to one side, a little nearer to Androvsky's. 

"Does the Russian in you greet this land?" she asked him. 

He did not reply. He seemed to be held in thrall by the sad immensitybefore them. 

"I realise here what it must be to die in the desert, to be killed byit--by hunger, by thirst in it, " she said presently, speaking, as if toherself, and looking out over the mirage sea, the mirage snow. "This isthe first time I have really felt the terror of the desert. "

Her horse drooped its head till its nose nearly touched the earth, andshook itself in a long shiver. She shivered too, as if constrained toecho an animal's distress. 

"Things have died here, " Androvsky said, speaking at last in a low voiceand pointing with his long-lashed whip towards the camels' skeletons. "Come, Domini, the horses are tired. "

He cast another glance at the tower, and they dismounted by their tent, which was pitched at the very edge of the steep slope that sank down tothe beast-like shapes of the near dunes. 

An hour later Domini said to Androvsky:

"You won't go after gazelle this evening surely?"

They had been having coffee in the tent and had just finished. Androvskygot up from his chair and went to the tent door. The grey of the sky waspierced by a gleaming shaft from the sun. 

"Do you mind if I go?" he said, turning towards her after a glance tothe desert. 

"No, but aren't you tired?"

He shook his head. 

"I couldn't ride, and now I can ride. I couldn't shoot, and I'm justbeginning--"

"Go, " she said quickly. "Besides, we want gazelle for dinner, Batouchsays, though I don't suppose we should starve without it. " She came tothe tent door and stood beside him, and he put his arm around her. 

"If I were alone here, Boris, " she said, leaning against his shoulder, "I believe I should feel horribly sad to-day. "

"Shall I stay?"

He pressed her against him. 

"No. I shall know you are coming back. Oh, how extraordinary it is tothink we lived so many years without knowing of each other's existence, that we lived alone. Were you ever happy?"

He hesitated before he replied. 

"I sometimes thought I was. "

"But do you think now you ever really were?"

"I don't know--perhaps in a lonely sort of way. "

"You can never be happy in that way now?"

He said nothing, but, after a moment, he kissed her long and hard, andas if he wanted to draw her being into his through the door of his lips. 

"Good-bye, " he said, releasing her. "I shall be back directly aftersundown. "

"Yes. Don't wait for the dark down there. If you were lost in thedunes!"

She pointed to the distant sand hills rising and falling monotonously tothe horizon. 

"If you are not back in good time, " she said, "I shall stand by thetower and wave a brand from the fire. "

"Why by the tower?"

"The ground is highest by the tower. "

She watched him ride away on a mule, with two Arabs carrying guns. Theywent towards the plains of saltpetre that looked like snow beside thesea that was only a mirage. Then she turned back into the tent, tookup a volume of Fromentin's, and sat down in a folding-chair at the tentdoor. She read a little, but it was difficult to read with the miragebeneath her. Perpetually her eyes were attracted from the book to itsmystery and plaintive sadness, that was like the sadness of somethingunearthly, of a spirit that did not move but that suffered. She did notput away the book, but presently she laid it down on her knees, open, and sat gazing. Androvsky had disappeared with the Arabs into some foldof the sands. The sun-ray had vanished with him. Without Androvsky andthe sun--she still connected them together, and knew she would for ever. 

The melancholy of this desert scene was increased for her till it becameoppressive and lay upon her like a heavy weight. She was not a womaninclined to any morbid imaginings. Indeed, all that was morbid rousedin her an instinctive disgust. But the sudden greyness of the weather, coming after weeks of ardent sunshine, and combined with the fantasticdesolation of the landscape, which was half real and half unreal, turnedher for the moment towards a dreariness of spirit that was rare in her. 

She realised suddenly, as she looked and did not see Androvsky even as ablack and moving speck upon the plain; what the desert would seem to herwithout him, even in sunshine, the awfulness of the desolation of it, the horror of its distances. And realising this she also realised theuncertainty of the human life in connection with any other human life. To be dependent on another is to double the sum of the terrors ofuncertainty. She had done that. 

If the immeasurable sands took Androvsky and never gave him back to her!What would she do?

She gazed at the mirage sea with its dim red islands, and at the sadwhite plains along its edge. 

Winter--she would be plunged in eternal winter. And each human lifehangs on a thread. All deep love, all consuming passion, holds a greatfear within the circle of a great glory. To-day the fear within thecircle of her glory seemed to grow. But she suddenly realised that sheought to dominate it, to confine it--as it were--to its original andpermanent proportions. 

She got up, came out upon the edge of the hill, and walked along itslowly towards the tower. 

Outside, freed from the shadow of the tent, she felt less oppressed, though still melancholy, and even slightly apprehensive, as if sometrouble were coming to her and were near at hand. Mentally she had madethe tower the limit of her walk, and therefore when she reached it shestood still. 

It was a squat, square tower, strongly constructed, with loopholes inthe four sides, and now that she was by it she saw built out at the backof it a low house with small shuttered windows and a narrow courtyardfor mules. No doubt Androvsky was right and French soldiers had oncebeen here to work the optic telegraph. She thought of the recruits andof Marseilles, of Notre Dame de la Garde, the Mother of God, lookingtowards Africa. Such recruits came to live in such strange houses asthis tower lost in the desert and now abandoned. She glanced at theshuttered windows and turned back towards the tent; but something in thesituation of the tower--perhaps the fact that it was set on the highestpoint of the ground--attracted her, and she presently made Batouch bringher out some rugs and ensconced herself under its shadow, facing themirage sea. 

How long she sat there she did not know. Mirage hypnotises theimaginative and suggests to them dreams strange and ethereal, sadsometimes, as itself. How long she might have sat there dreaming, but for an interruption, she knew still less. It was towards evening, however, but before evening had fallen, that a weary and travel-stainedparty of three French soldiers, Zouaves, and an officer rode slowly upthe sandy track from the dunes. They were mounted on mules, and carriedtheir small baggage with them on two led mules. When they reached thetop of the hill they turned to the right and came towards the tower. Theofficer was a little in advance of his men. He was a smart-looking, fairman of perhaps thirty-two, with blonde moustaches, blue eyes with blondelashes, and hair very much the colour of the sand dunes. His face wasbright red, burnt, as a fair delicate skin burns, by the sun. His eyes, although protected by large sun spectacles, were inflamed. The skin waspeeling from his nose. His hair was full of sand, and he rode leaningforward over his animal's neck, holding the reins loosely in his hands, that seemed nerveless from fatigue. Yet he looked smart and well-breddespite his evident exhaustion, as if on parade he would be a dashingofficer. It was evident that both he and his men were riding in fromsome tremendous journey. The latter looked dog-tired, scarcely human intheir collapse. They kept on their mules with difficulty, shaking thisway and that like sacks, with their unshaven chins wagging loosely upand down. But as they saw the tower they began to sing in chorus halfunder their breath, and leaning their broad hands on the necks of thebeasts for support they looked with a sort of haggard eagerness in itsdirection. 

Domini was roused from her contemplation of the mirage and the daydreamsit suggested by the approach of this small cavalcade. The officer wasalmost upon her ere she heard the clatter of his mule among the stones. She looked up, startled, and he looked down, even more surprised, apparently, to see a lady ensconced at the foot of the tower. Hisastonishment and exhaustion did not, however, get the better of hisinstinctive good breeding, and sitting straight up in the saddle he tookoff his sun helmet and asked Domini's pardon for disturbing her. 

"But this is my home for the night, Madame, " he added, at the same timedrawing a key from the pocket of his loose trousers. "And I'm thankfulto reach it. _Ma foi_! there have been several moments in the last dayswhen I never thought to see Mogar. "

Slowly he swung himself off his mule and stood up, catching on to thesaddle with one hand. 

"F-f-f-f!" he said, pursing his lips. "I can hardly stand. Excuse me, Madame. "

Domini had got up. 

"You are tired out, " she said, looking at him and his men, who had nowcome up, with interest. 

"Pretty well indeed. We have been three days lost in the great dunesin a sand-storm, and hit the track here just as we were preparing fora--well, a great event. "

"A great event?" said Domini. 

"The last in a man's life, Madame. "

He spoke simply, even with a light touch of humour that was almostcynical, but she felt beneath his words and manner a solemnity and athankfulness that attracted and moved her. 

"Those terrible dunes!" she said. 

And, turning, she looked out over them. 

There was no sunset, but the deepening of the grey into a dimness thatseemed to have blackness behind it, the more ghastly hue of the whiteplains of saltpetre, and the fading of the mirage sea, whose islands nowlooked no longer red, but dull brown specks in a pale mist, hinted atthe rapid falling of night. 

"My husband is out in them, " she added. 

"Your husband, Madame!"

He looked at her rather narrowly, shifted from one leg to the other asif trying his strength, then added:

"Not far, though, I suppose. For I see you have a camp here. "

"He has only gone after gazelle. "

As she said the last word she saw one of the soldiers, a mere boy, lickhis lips and give a sort of tragic wink at his companions. A suddenthought struck her. 

"Don't think me impertinent, Monsieur, but--what about provisions inyour tower?"

"Oh, as to that, Madame, we shall do well enough. Here, open the door, Marelle!"

And he gave the key to a soldier, who wearily dismounted and thrust itinto the door of the tower. 

"But after three days in the dunes! Your provisions must be exhaustedunless you've been able to replenish them. "

"You are too good, Madame. We shall manage a cous-cous. "

"And wine? Have you any wine?"

She glanced again at the exhausted soldiers covered with sand and sawthat their eyes were fixed upon her and were shining eagerly. All the"good fellow" in her nature rose up. 

"You must let me send you some, " she said. "We have plenty. "

She thought of some bottles of champagne they had brought with them andnever opened. 

"In the desert we are all comrades, " she added, as if speaking to thesoldiers. 

They looked at her with an open adoration which lit up their tiredfaces. 

"Madame, " said the officer, "you are much too good; but I accept youroffer as frankly as you have made it. A little wine will be a godsend tous to-night. Thank you, Madame. "

The soldiers looked as if they were going to cheer. 

"I'll go to the camp--"

"Cannot one of the men go for you, Madame? You were sitting here. Pray, do not let us disturb you. "

"But night is falling and I shall have to go back in a moment. "

While they had been speaking the darkness had rapidly increased. Shelooked towards the distant dunes and no longer saw them. At once hermind went to Androvsky. Why had he not returned? She thought of thesignal. From the camp, behind their sleeping-tent, rose the flames of anewly-made fire. 

"If one of your men can go and tell Batouch--Batouch--to come to me hereI shall be grateful, " she answered. "And I want him to bring me a bigbrand from the fire over there. "

She saw wonder dawning in the eyes fixed upon her, and smiled. 

"I want to signal to my husband, " she said, "and this is the highestpoint. He will see it best if I stand here. "

"Go, Marelle, ask for Batouch, and be sure you bring the brand from thefire. "

The man saluted and rode off with alacrity. The thought of wine hadinfused a gaiety into him and his companions. 

"Now, Monsieur, don't stand on ceremony, " Domini said to the officer. "Go in and make your toilet. You are longing to, I know. "

"I am longing to look a little more decent--now, Madame, " he saidgallantly, and gazing at her with a sparkle of admiration in hisinflamed eyes. "You will let me return in a moment to escort you to thecamp. "

"Thank you. "

"Will you permit me--my name is De Trevignac. "

"And mine is Madame Androvsky. "

"Russian!" the officer said. "The alliance in the desert! Vive laRussie!"

She laughed. 

"That is for my husband, for I am English. "

"Vive l'Angleterre!" he said. 

The two soldier echoed his words impulsively, lifting up in thegathering darkness hoarse voices. 

"Vive l'Angleterre!"

"Thank you, thank you, " she said. "Now, Monsieur, please don't let mekeep you. "

"I shall be back directly, " the officer replied. 

And he turned and went into the tower, while the soldiers rode round tothe court, tugging at the cords of the led mules. 

Domini waited for the return of Marelle. Her mood had changed. A glow ofcordial humanity chased away her melancholy. The hostess that lurks inevery woman--that housewife-hostess sense which goes hand-in-hand withthe mother sense--was alive in her. She was keenly anxious to play thegood fairy simply, unostentatiously, to these exhausted men who had cometo Mogar out of the jaws of Death, to see their weary faces shine underthe influence of repose and good cheer. But the tower looked desolate. The camp was gayer, cosier. Suddenly she resolved to invite them all todine in the camp that night. 

Marelle returned with Batouch. She saw them from a distance comingthrough the darkness with blazing torches in their hands. When they cameto her she said:

"Batouch, I want you to order dinner in camp for the soldiers. "

A broad and radiant smile irradiated the blunt Breton features ofMarelle. 

"And Monsieur the officer will dine with me and Monsieur. Give us allyou can. Perhaps there will be some gazelle. "

She saw him opening his lips to say that the dinner would be poor andstopped him. 

"You are to open some of the champagne--the Pommery. We will drink toall safe returns. Now, give me the brand and go and tell the cook. "

As he took his torch and disappeared into the darkness De Trevignaccame out from the tower. He still looked exhausted and walked with somedifficulty, but he had washed the sand from his face with water from theartesian well behind the tower, changed his uniform, brushed the sandfrom his yellow hair, and put on a smart gold-laced cap instead of hissun-helmet. The spectacles were gone from his eyes, and between his lipswas a large Havana--his last, kept by him among the dunes as a possiblesolace in the dreadful hour of death. 

"Monsieur de Trevignac, I want you to dine with us in campto-night--only to dine. We won't keep you from your bed one moment afterthe coffee and the cognac. You must seal the triple alliance--France, Russia, England--in some champagne. "

She had spoken gaily, cordially. She added more gravely:

"One doesn't escape from death among the dunes every day. Will youcome?"

She held out her hand frankly, as a man might to another man. He pressedit as a man presses a woman's hand when he is feeling very soft andtender. 

"Madame, what can I say, but that you are too good to us poor fellowsand that you will find it very difficult to get rid of us, for we shallbe so happy in your camp that we shall forget all about our tower. "

"That's settled then. "

With the brand in her hand she walked to the edge of the hill. DeTrevignac followed her. He had taken the other brand from Marelle. Theystood side by side, overlooking the immense desolation that was nowalmost hidden in the night. 

"You are going to signal to your husband, Madame?"

"Yes. "

"Let me do it for you. See, I have the other brand!"

"Thank you--but I will do it. "

In the light of the flame that leaped up as if striving to touch herface he saw a light in her eyes that he understood, and he drooped historch towards the earth while she lifted hers on high and waved it inthe blackness. 

He watched her. The tall, strong, but exquisitely supple figure, theuplifted arm with the torch sending forth a long tongue of golden flame, the ardent and unconscious pose, that set before him a warm passionateheart calling to another heart without shame, made him think of heras some Goddess of the Sahara. He had let his torch droop towards theearth, but, as she waved hers, he had an irresistible impulse to joinher in the action she made heroic and superb. And presently he liftedhis torch, too, and waved it beside hers in the night. 

She smiled at him in the flames. 

"He must see them surely, " she said. 

From below, in the distance of the desert, there rose a loud cry in astrong man's voice. 

"Aha!" she exclaimed. 

She called out in return in a warm, powerful voice. The man's voiceanswered, nearer. She dropped her brand to the earth. 

"Monsieur, you will come then--in half an hour?"

"Madame, with the most heartfelt pleasure. But let me accompany--"

"No, I am quite safe. And bring your men with you. We'll make the bestfeast we can for them. And there's enough champagne for all. "

Then she went away quickly, eagerly, into the darkness. 

"To be her husband!" murmured De Trevignac. "Lucky--lucky fellow!" Andhe dropped his brand beside hers on the ground, and stood watching thetwo flames mingle. 

"Lucky--lucky fellow!" he said again aloud. "I wonder what he's like. "

CHAPTER XX

When Domini reached the camp she found it in a bustle. Batouch, resignedto the inevitable, had put the cook upon his mettle. Ouardi was alreadyto be seen with a bottle of Pommery in each hand, and was only preventedfrom instantly uncorking them by the representations of his mistressand an elaborate exposition of the peculiar and evanescent virtues ofchampagne. Ali was humming a mysterious song about a lovesick camel-man, with which he intended to make glad the hearts of the assembly when thehalting time was over. And the dining-table was already set for three. 

When Androvsky rode in with the Arabs Domini met him at the edge of thehill. 

"You saw my signal, Boris?"

"Yes--"

He was going to say more, when she interrupted him eagerly. 

"Have you any gazelle? Ah----"

Across the mule of one of the Arabs she saw a body drooping, a delicatehead with thin, pointed horns, tiny legs with exquisite little feet thatmoved as the mule moved. 

"We shall want it to-night. Take it quickly to the cook's tent, Ahmed. "Androvsky got off his mule. 

"There's a light in the tower!" he said, looking at her and thendropping his eyes. 

"Yes. "

"And I saw two signals. There were two brands being waved together. "

"To-night, we have comrades in the desert. "

"Comrades!" he said. 

His voice sounded startled. 

"Men who have escaped from a horrible death in the dunes. "

"Arabs?"

"French. "

Quickly she told him her story. He listened in silence. When she hadfinished he said nothing. But she saw him look at the dining-table laidfor three and his expression was dark and gloomy. 

"Boris, you don't mind!" she said in surprise. "Surely you would notrefuse hospitality to these poor fellows!"

She put her hand through his arm and pressed it. 

"Have I done wrong? But I know I haven't!"

"Wrong! How could you do that?"

He seemed to make an effort, to conquer something within him. 

"It's I who am wrong, Domini. The truth is, I can't bear our happinessto be intruded upon even for a night. I want to be alone with you. Thislife of ours in the desert has made me desperately selfish. I want to bealone, quite alone, with you. "

"It's that! How glad I am!"

She laid her cheek against his arm. 

"Then, " he said, "that other signal?"

"Monsieur de Trevignac gave it. "

Androvsky took his arm from hers abruptly. 

"Monsieur de Trevignac!" he said. "Monsieur de Trevignac?"

He stood as if in deep and anxious thought. 

"Yes, the officer. That's his name. What is it, Boris?"

"Nothing. "

There was a sound of voices approaching the camp in the darkness. Theywere speaking French. 

"I must, " said Androvsky, "I must----"

He made an uncertain movement, as if to go towards the dunes, checkedit, and went hurriedly into the dressing-tent. As he disappeared DeTrevignac came into the camp with his men. Batouch conducted the latterwith all ceremony towards the fire which burned before the tents ofthe attendants, and, for the moment, Domini was left alone with DeTrevignac. 

"My husband is coming directly, " she said. "He was late in returning, but he brought gazelle. Now you must sit down at once. "

She led the way to the dining-tent. De Trevignac glanced at the tablelaid for three with an eager anticipation which he was far too naturalto try to conceal. 

"Madame, " he said, "if I disgrace myself to-night, if I eat like an ogrein a fairy tale, will you forgive me?"

"I will not forgive you if you don't. "

She spoke gaily, made him sit down in a folding-chair, and insistedon putting a soft cushion at his back. Her manner was cheerful, almosteagerly kind and full of a camaraderie rare in a woman, yet he noticed achange in her since they stood together waving the brands by the tower. And he said to himself:

"The husband--perhaps he's not so pleased at my appearance. I wonder howlong they've been married?"

And he felt his curiosity to see "Monsieur Androvsky" deepen. 

While they waited for him Domini made De Trevignac tell her the story ofhis terrible adventure in the dunes. He did so simply, like a soldier, without exaggeration. When he had finished she said:

"You thought death was certain then?"

"Quite certain, Madame. "

She looked at him earnestly. 

"To have faced a death like that in utter desolation, utter loneliness, must make life seem very different afterwards. "

"Yes, Madame. But I did not feel utterly alone. "

"Your men!"

"No, Madame. "

After a pause he added, simply:

"My mother is a devout Catholic, Madame. I am her only child, and--shetaught me long ago that in any peril one is never quite alone. "

Domini's heart warmed to him. She loved this trust in God so franklyshown by a soldier, member of an African regiment, in this wild land. She loved this brave reliance on the unseen in the midst of the terrorof the seen. Before they spoke again Androvsky crossed the dark spacebetween the tents and came slowly into the circle of the lamplight. 

De Trevignac got up from his chair, and Domini introduced the two men. As they bowed each shot a swift glance at the other. Then Androvskylooked down, and two vertical lines appeared on his high forehead abovehis eyebrows. They gave to his face a sudden look of acute distress. DeTrevignac thanked him for his proffered hospitality with the ease of aman of the world, assuming that the kind invitation to him and to hismen came from the husband as well as from the wife. When he had finishedspeaking, Androvsky, without looking up, said, in a voice that soundedto Domini new, as if he had deliberately assumed it:

"I am glad, Monsieur. We found gazelle, and so I hope--I hope you willhave a fairly good dinner. "

The words could scarcely have been more ordinary, but the way in whichthey were uttered was so strange, sounded indeed so forced, and sounnatural, that both De Trevignac and Domini looked at the speaker insurprise. There was a pause. Then Batouch and Ouardi came in with thesoup. 

"Come!" Domini said. "Let us begin. Monsieur de Trevignac, will you sithere on my right?"

They sat down. The two men were opposite to each other at the ends ofthe small table, with a lamp between them. Domini faced the tent door, and could see in the distance the tents of the attendants lit up by theblaze of the fire, and the forms of the French soldiers sitting at theirtable close to it, with the Arabs clustering round them. Sounds of loudconversation and occasional roars of laughter, that was almost childishin its frank lack of all restraint, told her that one feast was asuccess. She looked at her companions and made a sudden resolve--almostfierce--that the other, over which she was presiding, should be asuccess, too. But why was Androvsky so strange with other men? Why didhe seem to become almost a different human being directly he was broughtinto any close contact with his kind? Was it shyness? Had he a profoundhatred of all society? She remembered Count Anteoni's luncheon andthe distress Androvsky had caused her by his cold embarrassment, hisunwillingness to join in conversation on that occasion. But then hewas only her friend. Now he was her husband. She longed for him to showhimself at his best. That he was not a man of the world she knew. Had henot told her of his simple upbringing in El Kreir, a remote village ofTunisia, by a mother who had been left in poverty after the death ofhis father, a Russian who had come to Africa to make a fortune byvine-growing, and who had had his hopes blasted by three years ofdrought and by the visitation of the dreaded phylloxera? Had he not toldher of his own hard work on the rich uplands among the Spanish workmen, of how he had toiled early and late in all kinds of weather, not forhimself, but for a company that drew a fortune from the land and gavehim a bare livelihood? Till she met him he had never travelled--he hadnever seen almost anything of life. A legacy from a relative had at lastenabled him to have some freedom and to gratify a man's natural tastefor change. And, strangely, perhaps, he had come first to the desert. She could not--she did not--expect him to show the sort of easycultivation that a man acquires only by long contact with all sorts andconditions of men and women. But she knew that he was not only full offire and feeling--a man with a great temperament, but also that he was aman who had found time to study, whose mind was not empty. He was a manwho had thought profoundly. She knew this, although even with her, evenin the great intimacy that is born of a great mutual passion, she knewhim for a man of naturally deep reserve, who could not perhaps speak allhis thoughts to anyone, even to the woman he loved. And knowing this, she felt a fighting temper rise up in her. She resolved to use her willupon this man who loved her, to force him to show his best side to theguest who had come to them out of the terror of the dunes. She would beobstinate for him. 

Her lips went down a little at the corners. De Trevignac glanced at herabove his soup-plate, and then at Androvsky. He was a man who hadseen much of society, and who divined at once the gulf that must haveseparated the kind of life led in the past by his hostess from thekind of life led by his host. Such gulfs, he knew, are bridged withdifficulty. In this case a great love must have been the bridge. Hisinterest in these two people, encountered by him in the desolation ofthe wastes, and when all his emotions had been roused by the nearnessof peril, would have been deep in any case. But there was something thatmade it extraordinary, something connected with Androvsky. It seemed tohim that he had seen, perhaps known Androvsky at some time in his life. Yet Androvsky's face was not familiar to him. He could not yet tell fromwhat he drew this impression, but it was strong. He searched his memory. 

Just at first fatigue was heavy upon him, but the hot soup, the firstglass of wine revived him. When Domini, full of her secret obstinacy, began to talk gaily he was soon able easily to take his part, and tojoin her in her effort to include Androvsky in the conversation. Thecheerful noise of the camp came to them from without. 

"I'm afraid my men are lifting up their voices rather loudly, " said DeTrevignac. 

"We like it, " said Domini. "Don't we, Boris?"

There was a long peal of laughter from the distance. As it died awayBatouch's peculiar guttural chuckle, which had something negroid init, was audible, prolonging itself in a loneliness that spoke hispertinacious sense of humour. 

"Certainly, " said Androvsky, still in the same strained and unnaturalvoice which had surprised Domini when she introduced the two men. "Weare accustomed to gaiety round the camp fire. "

"You are making a long stay in the desert, Monsieur?" asked DeTrevignac. 

"I hope so, Monsieur. It depends on my--it depends on Madame Androvsky. "

"Why didn't he say 'my wife'?" thought De Trevignac. And again hesearched his memory. "Had he ever met this man? If so, where?"

"I should like to stay in the desert for ever, " Domini said quickly, with a long look at her husband. 

"I should not, Madame, " De Trevignac said. 

"I understand. The desert has shown you its terrors. "

"Indeed it has. "

"But to us it has only shown its enchantment. Hasn't it?" She spoke toAndrovsky. After a pause he replied:

"Yes. "

The word, when it came, sounded like a lie. 

For the first time since her marriage Domini felt a cold, like a cold ofice about her heart. Was it possible that Androvsky had not shared herjoy in the desert? Had she been alone in her happiness? For a moment shesat like one stunned by a blow. Then knowledge, reason, spoke in her. She knew of Androvsky's happiness with her, knew it absolutely. Thereare some things in which a woman cannot be deceived. When Androvskywas with her he wanted no other human being. Nothing could take thatcertainty from her. 

"Of course, " she said, recovered, "there are places in the desert inwhich melancholy seems to brood, in which one has a sense of the terrorsof the wastes. Mogar, I think, is one of them, perhaps the only one wehave been in yet. This evening, when I was sitting under the tower, evenI"--and as she said "even I" she smiled happily at Androvsky--"knew someforebodings. "

"Forebodings?" Androvsky said quickly. "Why should you--?" He broke off. 

"Not of coming misfortune, I hope, Madame?" said De Trevignac in a voicethat was now irresistibly cheerful. 

He was helping himself to some gazelle, which sent forth an appetisingodour, and Ouardi was proudly pouring out for him the first glass ofblithely winking champagne. 

"I hardly know, but everything looked sad and strange; I began to thinkabout the uncertainties of life. "

Domini and De Trevignac were sipping their champagne. Ouardi came behindAndrovsky to fill his glass. 

"Non! non!" he said, putting his hand over it and shaking his head. 

De Trevignac started. 

Ouardi looked at Domini and made a distressed grimace, pointing with abrown finger at the glass. 

"Oh, Boris! you must drink champagne to-night!" she exclaimed. 

"I would rather not, " he answered. "I am not accustomed to it. "

"But to drink our guest's health after his escape from death!"

Androvsky took his hand from the glass and Ouardi filled it with wine. 

Then Domini raised her glass and drank to De Trevignac. Androvskyfollowed her example, but without geniality, and when he put his lipsto the wine he scarcely tasted it. Then he put the glass down and toldOuardi to give him red wine. And during the rest of the evening he drankno more champagne. He also ate very little, much less than usual, for inthe desert they both had the appetites of hunters. 

After thanking them cordially for drinking his health, De Trevignacsaid:

"I was nearly experiencing the certainty of death. But was it Mogar thatturned you to such thoughts, Madame?"

"I think so. There is something sad, even portentous about it. "

She looked towards the tent door, imagining the immense desolation thatwas hidden in the darkness outside, the white plains, the mirage sea, the sand dunes like monsters, the bleached bones of the dead camels withthe eagles hovering above them. 

"Don't you think so, Boris? Don't you think it looks like a place inwhich--like a tragic place, a place in which tragedies ought to occur?"

"It is not places that make tragedies, " he said, "or at least they maketragedies far more seldom than the people in them. "

He stopped, seemed to make an effort to throw off his taciturnity, and suddenly to be able to throw it off, at least partially. For hecontinued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with acertain dominating force. 

"If people would use their wills they need not be influenced by place, they need not be governed by a thousand things, by memories, by fears, by fancies--yes, even by fancies that are the merest shadows, but out ofwhich they make phantoms. Half the terrors and miseries of life lie onlyin the minds of men. They even cause the very tragedies they would avoidby expecting them. "

He said the last words with a sort of strong contempt--then, morequietly, he added:

"You, Domini, why should you feel the uncertainty of life, especiallyat Mogar? You need not. You can choose not to. Life is the same in itschances here as everywhere?"

"But you, " she answered--"did you not feel a tragic influence when wearrived here? Do you remember how you looked at the tower?"

"The tower!" he said, with a quick glance at De Trevignac. "I--whyshould I look at the tower?"

"I don't know, but you did, almost as if you were afraid of it. "

"My tower!" said De Trevignac. 

Another roar of laughter reached them from the camp fire. It made Dominismile in sympathy, but De Trevignac and Androvsky looked at each otherfor a moment, the one with a sort of earnest inquiry, the other withhostility, or what seemed hostility, across the circle of lamplight thatlay between them. 

"A tower rising in the desert emphasises the desolation. I suppose thatwas it, " Androvsky said, as the laugh died down into Batouch's throatychuckle. "It suggests lonely people watching. "

"For something that never comes, or something terrible that comes, " DeTrevignac said. 

As he spoke the last words Androvsky moved uneasily in his chair, andlooked out towards the camp, as if he longed to get up and go into theopen air, as if the tent roof above his head oppressed him. 

Trevignac turned to Domini. 

"In this case, Madame, you were the lonely watcher, and I was thesomething terrible that came. "

She laughed. While she laughed De Trevignac noticed that Androvskylooked at her with a sort of sad intentness, not reproachful orwondering, as an older person might look at a child playing at the edgeof some great gulf into which a false step would precipitate it. Hestrove to interpret this strange look, so obviously born in the face ofhis host in connection with himself. It seemed to him that he must havemet Androvsky, and that Androvsky knew it, knew--what he did not yetknow--where it was and when. It seemed to him, too, that Androvskythought of him as the "something terrible" that had come to this womanwho sat between them out of the desert. 

But how could it be?

A profound curiosity was roused in him and he mentally cursed histreacherous memory--if it were treacherous. For possibly he might bemistaken. He had perhaps never met his host before, and this strangemanner of his might be due to some inexplicable cause, or perhaps tosome cause explicable and even commonplace. This Monsieur Androvskymight be a very jealous man, who had taken this woman away into thedesert to monopolise her, and who resented even the chance intrusion ofa stranger. De Trevignac knew life and the strange passions of men, knewthat there are Europeans with the Arab temperament, who secretly longthat their women should wear the veil and live secluded in the harem. Androvsky might be one of these. 

When she had laughed Domini said:

"On the contrary, Monsieur, you have turned my thoughts into a happiercurrent by your coming. "

"How so?"

"You made me think of what are called the little things of life that aremore to us women than to you men, I suppose. "

"Ah, " he said. "This food, this wine, this chair with a cushion, thisgay light--Madame, they are not little things I have to be grateful for. When I think of the dunes they seem to me--they seem--"

Suddenly he stopped. His gay voice was choked. She saw that there weretears in his blue eyes, which were fixed on her with an expression ofardent gratitude. He cleared his throat. 

"Monsieur, " he said to Androvsky, "you will not think me presuming on anacquaintance formed in the desert if I say that till the end of my lifeI--and my men--can only think of Madame as of the good Goddess of thedesolate Sahara!"

He did not know how Androvsky would take this remark, he did notcare. For the moment in his impulsive nature there was room only foradmiration of the woman and, gratitude for her frank kindness. Androvskysaid:

"Thank you, Monsieur. "

He spoke with an intensity, even a fervour, that were startling. Forthe first time since they had been together his voice was absolutelynatural, his manner was absolutely unconstrained, he showed himself ashe was, a man on fire with love for the woman who had given herself tohim, and who received a warm word of praise of her as a gift made tohimself. De Trevignac no longer wondered that Domini was his wife. Thosethree words, and the way they were spoken, gave him the man and what hemight be in a woman's life. Domini looked at her husband silently. Itseemed to her as if her heart were flooded with light, as if desolateMogar were the Garden of Eden before the angel came. When they spokeagain it was on some indifferent topic. But from that moment the mealwent more merrily. Androvsky seemed to lose his strange uneasiness. DeTrevignac met him more than half-way. Something of the gaiety round thecamp fire had entered into the tent. A chain of sympathy had been forgedbetween these three people. Possibly, a touch might break it, but forthe moment it seemed strong. 

At the end of the dinner Domini got up. 

"We have no formalities in the desert, " she said. "But I'm going toleave you together for a moment. Give Monsieur de Trevignac a cigar, Boris. Coffee is coming directly. "

She went out towards the camp fire. She wanted to leave the men togetherto seal their good fellowship. Her husband's change from taciturnity tocordiality had enchanted her. Happiness was dancing within her. She feltgay as a child. Between the fire and the tent she met Ouardi carrying atray. On it were a coffee-pot, cups, little glasses and a tall bottle ofa peculiar shape with a very thin neck and bulging sides. 

"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching it with her finger. 

"That is an African liqueur, Madame, that you have never tasted. Batouchtold me to bring it in honour of Monsieur the officer. They call it--"

"Another surprise of Batouch's!" she interrupted gaily. "Take it in!Monsieur the officer will think we have quite a cellar in the desert. "

He went on, and she stood for a few minutes looking at the blaze of thefire, and at the faces lit up by it, French and Arab. The happy soldierswere singing a French song with a chorus for the delectation of theArabs, who swayed to and fro, wagging their heads and smiling in aneffort to show appreciation of the barbarous music of the Roumis. Dreary, terrible Mogar and its influences were being defied by thewanderers halting in it. She thought of Androvsky's words about thehuman will overcoming the influence of place, and a sudden desirecame to her to go as far as the tower where she had felt sad andapprehensive, to stand in its shadow for an instant and to revel in herhappiness. 

She yielded to the impulse, walked to the tower, and stood there facingthe darkness which hid the dunes, the white plains, the phantom sea, seeing them in her mind, and radiantly defying them. Then she began toreturn to the camp, walking lightly, as happy people walk. When she hadgone a very short way she heard someone coming towards her. It was toodark to see who it was. She could only hear the steps among the stones. They were hasty. They passed her and stopped behind her at the tower. She wondered who it was, and supposed it must be one of the soldierscome to fetch something, or perhaps tired and hastening to bed. 

As she drew near to the camp she saw the lamplight shining in the tent, where doubtless De Trevignac and Androvsky were smoking and talkingin frank good fellowship. It was like a bright star, she thought, thatgleam of light that shone out of her home, the brightest of all thestars of Africa. She went towards it. As she drew near she expected tohear the voices of the two men, but she heard nothing. Nor did she seethe blackness of their forms in the circle of the light. Perhaps theyhad gone out to join the soldiers and the Arabs round the fire. Shehastened on, came to the tent, entered it, and was confronted by herhusband, who was standing back in an angle formed by the canvas, inthe shadow, alone. On the floor near him lay a quantity of fragments ofglass. 

"Boris!" she said. "Where is Monsieur de Trevignac?"

"Gone, " replied Androvsky in a loud, firm voice. 

She looked up at him. His face was grim and powerful, hard like the faceof a fighting man. 

"Gone already? Why?"

"He's tired out. He told me to make his excuses to you. "

"But----"

She saw in the table the coffee cups. Two of them were full of coffee. The third, hers, was clean. 

"But he hasn't drunk his coffee!" she said. 

She was astonished and showed it. She could not understand a man who haddisplayed such warm, even touching, appreciation of her kindness leavingher without a word, taking the opportunity of her momentary absence todisappear, to shirk away--for she put it like that to herself. 

"No--he did not want coffee. "

"But was anything the matter?"

She looked down at the broken glass, and saw stains upon the groundamong the fragments. 

"What's this?" she said. "Oh, the African liqueur!"

Suddenly Androvsky put his arm round her with an iron grip, and led heraway out of the tent. They crossed the space to the sleeping-tent insilence. She felt governed, and as if she must yield to his will, butshe also felt confused, even almost alarmed mentally. The sleeping-tentwas dark. When they reached it Androvsky took his arm from her, and sheheard him searching for the matches. She was in the tent door and couldsee that there was a light in the tower. De Trevignac must be therealready. No doubt it was he who had passed her in the night when she wasreturning to the camp. Androvsky struck a match and lit a candle. Thenhe came to the tent door and saw her looking at the light in the tower. 

"Come in, Domini, " he said, taking her by the hand, and speaking gently, but still with a firmness that hinted at command. 

She obeyed, and he quickly let down the flap of canvas, and shut out thenight. 

"What is it, Boris?" she asked. 

She was standing by one of the beds. 

"What has happened?"

"Why--happened?"

"I don't understand. Why did Monsieur de Trevignac go away so suddenly?"

"Domini, do you care whether he is here or gone? Do you care?" He sat onthe edge of the bed and drew her down beside him. 

"Do you want anyone to be with us, to break in upon our lives? Aren't wehappier alone?"

"Boris!" she said, "you--did you let him see that you wanted him to go?"

It occurred to her suddenly that Androvsky, in his lack of worldlyknowledge, might perhaps have shown their guest that he secretlyresented the intrusion of a stranger upon them even for one evening, andthat De Trevignac, being a sensitive man, had been hurt and had abruptlygone away. Her social sense revolted at this idea. 

"You didn't let him see that, Boris!" she exclaimed. "After his escapefrom death! It would have been inhuman. "

"Perhaps my love for you might even make me that, Domini. And if itdid--if you knew why I was inhuman--would you blame me for it? Would youhate me for it?"

There was a strong excitement dawning in him. It recalled to her thefirst night in the desert when they sat together on the ground andwatched the waning of the fire. 

"Could you--could you hate me for anything, Domini?" he said. "Tellme--could you?"

His face was close to hers. She looked at him with her long, steadyeyes, that had truth written in their dark fire. 

"No, " she answered. "I could never hate you--now. "

"Not if--not if I had done you harm? Not if I had done you a wrong?"

"Could you ever do me a wrong?" she asked. 

She sat, looking at him as if in deep thought, for a moment. 

"I could almost as easily believe that God could, " she said at lastsimply. 

"Then you--you have perfect trust in me?"

"But--have you ever thought I had not?" she asked. There was wonder inher voice. 

"But I have given my life to you, " she added still with wonder. "I amhere in the desert with you. What more can I give? What more can I do?"

He put his arms about her and drew her head down on his shoulder. 

"Nothing, nothing. You have given, you have done everything--too much, too much. I feel myself below you, I know myself below you--far, fardown. "

"How can you say that? I couldn't have loved you if it were so. " Shespoke with complete conviction. 

"Perhaps, " he said, in a low voice, "perhaps women never realise whattheir love can do. It might--it might--"

"What, Boris?"

"It might do what Christ did--go down into hell to preach to the--to thespirits in prison. "

His voice had dropped almost to a murmur. With one hand on her cheek hekept her face pressed down upon his shoulder so that she could not seehis face. 

"It might do that, Domini. "

"Boris, " she said, almost whispering too, for his words and mannerfilled her with a sort of awe, "I want you to tell me something. "

"What is it?"

"Are you quite happy with me here in the desert? If you are I want youto tell me that you are. Remember--I shall believe you. "

"No other human being could ever give me the happiness you give me. "

"But--"

He interrupted her. 

"No other human being ever has. Till I met you I had no conception ofthe happiness there is in the world for man and woman who love eachother. "

"Then you are happy?"

"Don't I seem so?"

She did not reply. She was searching her heart for the answer--searchingit with an almost terrible sincerity. He waited for her answer, sittingquite still. His hand was always against her face. After what seemed tohim an eternity she said:

"Boris!"

"Yes. "

"Why did you say that about a woman's love being able even to go downinto hell to preach to the spirits in prison?"

He did not answer. His hand seemed to her to lie more heavily on hercheek. 

"I--I am not sure that you are quite happy with me, " she said. 

She spoke like one who reverenced truth, even though it slew her. Therewas a note of agony in her voice. 

"Hush!" he said. "Hush, Domini!"

They were both silent. Beyond the canvas of the tent that shut out fromthem the camp they heard a sound of music. Drums were being beaten. TheAfrican pipe was wailing. Then the voice of Ali rose in the song of the"Freed Negroes":

 "No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. "

At that moment Domini felt that the words were true--horribly true. 

"Boris, " she said. "Do you hear?"

"Hush, Domini. "

"I think there is something in your heart that sometimes makes you sadeven with me. I think perhaps I partly guess what it is. "

He took his hand away from her face, his arm from her shoulder, but shecaught hold of him, and her arm was strong like a man's. 

"Boris, you are with me, you are close to me, but do you sometimes feelfar away from God?"

He did not answer. 

"I don't know; I oughtn't to ask, perhaps. I don't ask--no, I don't. But, if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right--here in thedesert. For the desert is the Garden of Allah. And, Boris--put out thelight. "

He extinguished the candle with his hand. 

"You feel, perhaps, that you can't pray honestly now, but some day youmay be able to. You will be able to. I know it. Before I knew I lovedyou I saw you--praying in the desert. "

"I!" he whispered. "You saw me praying in the desert!"

It seemed to her that he was afraid. She pressed him more closely withher arms. 

"It was that night in the dancing-house. I seemed to see a crowd ofpeople to whom the desert had given gifts, and to you it had given thegift of prayer. I saw you far out in the desert praying. "

She heard his hard breathing, felt it against her cheek. 

"If--if it is that, Boris, don't despair. It may come. Keep thecrucifix. I am sure you have it. And I always pray for you. "

They sat for a long while in the dark, but they did not speak again thatnight. 

Domini did not sleep, and very early in the morning, just as dawn wasbeginning, she stole out of the tent, shutting down the canvas flapbehind her. 

It was cold outside--cold almost as in a northern winter. The wind ofthe morning, that blew to her across the wavelike dunes and the whiteplains, seemed impregnated with ice. The sky was a pallid grey. The campwas sleeping. What had been a fire, all red and gold and leaping beauty, was now a circle of ashes, grey as the sky. She stood on the edge of thehill and looked towards the tower. 

As she did so, from the house behind it came a string of mules, pickingtheir way among the stones over the hard earth. De Trevignac and his menwere already departing from Mogar. 

They came towards her slowly. They had to pass her to reach the track bywhich they were going on to the north and civilisation. She stood to seethem pass. 

When they were quite near De Trevignac, who was riding, with his headbent down on his chest, muffled in a heavy cloak, looked up and saw her. She nodded to him. He sat up and saluted. For a moment she thoughtthat he was going on without stopping to speak to her. She saw that hehesitated what to do. Then he pulled up his mule and prepared to getoff. 

"No, don't, Monsieur, " she said. 

She held out her hand. 

"Good-bye, " she added. 

He took her hand, then signed to his men to ride on. When they hadpassed, saluting her, he let her hand go. He had not spoken a word. Hisface, burned scarlet by the sun, had a look of exhaustion on it, butalso another look--of horror, she thought, as if in his soul he wasrecoiling from her. His inflamed blue eyes watched her, as if in asearch that was intense. She stood beside the mule in amazement. Shecould hardly believe that this was the man who had thanked her, withtears in his eyes, for her hospitality the night before. "Good-bye, "he said, speaking at last, coldly. She saw him glance at the tent fromwhich she had come. The horror in his face surely deepened. "Goodbye, Madame, " he repeated. "Thank you for your hospitality. " He pulled up therein to ride on. The mule moved a step or two. Then suddenly he checkedit and turned in the saddle. "Madame!" he said. "Madame!"

She came up to him. It seemed to her that he was going to say somethingof tremendous importance to her. His lips, blistered by the sun, openedto speak. But he only looked again towards the tent in which Androvskywas still sleeping, then at her. 

A long moment passed. 

Then De Trevignac, as if moved by an irresistable impulse, leaned fromthe saddle and made over Domini the sign of the cross. His hand droppeddown against the mule's side, and without another word, or look, he rodeaway to the north, following his men. 

CHAPTER XXI

That same day, to the surprise of Batouch, they left Mogar. To bothDomini and Androvsky it seemed a tragic place, a place where the desertshowed them a countenance that was menacing. 

They moved on towards the south, wandering aimlessly through the warmregions of the sun. Then, as the spring drew into summer, and the heatbecame daily more intense, they turned again northwards, and on anevening in May pitched their camp on the outskirts of the Sahara city ofAmara. 

This city, although situated in the northern part of the desert, wascalled by the Arabs "The belly of the Sahara, " and also "The City ofScorpions. " It lay in the midst of a vast region of soft and shiftingsand that suggested a white sea, in which the oasis of date palms, atthe edge of which the city stood, was a green island. From the south, whence the wanderers came, the desert sloped gently upwards for a longdistance, perhaps half a day's march, and many kilometres before thecity was reached, the minarets of its mosques were visible, pointingto the brilliant blue sky that arched the whiteness of the sands. Roundabout the city, on every side, great sand-hills rose like rampartserected by Nature to guard it from the assaults of enemies. These hillswere black with the tents of desert tribes, which, from far off, lookedlike multitudes of flies that had settled on the sands. The palms of theoasis, which stretched northwards from the city, could not be seen fromthe south till the city was reached, and in late spring this region wasa strange and barbarous pageant of blue and white and gold; crude inits intensity, fierce in its crudity, almost terrible in its blazingsplendour that was like the Splendour about the portals of the sun. 

Domini and Androvsky rode towards Amara at a foot's pace, lookingtowards its distant towers. A quivering silence lay around them, yet already they seemed to hear the cries of the voices of a greatmultitude, to be aware of the movement of thronging crowds of men. Thiswas the first Sahara city they had drawn near to, and their minds werefull of memories of the stories of Batouch, told to them by the campfire at night in the uninhabited places which, till now, had been theirhome: stories of the wealthy date merchants who trafficked here anddwelt in Oriental palaces, poor in aspect as seen from the dark andnarrow streets, or zgags, in which they were situated, but within fullof the splendours of Eastern luxury; of the Jew moneylenders who livedapart in their own quarter, rapacious as wolves, hoarding theirgains, and practising the rites of their ancient and--according to theArabs--detestable religion; of the marabouts, or sacred men, reveredby the Mohammedans, who rode on white horses through the public ways, followed by adoring fanatics who sought to touch their garments andamulets, and demanded importunately miraculous blessings at theirhands--the hedgehog's foot to protect their women in the peril ofchildbirth; the scroll, covered with verses of the Koran and enclosedin a sheaf of leather, that banishes ill dreams at night and stays theuncertain feet of the sleep-walker; the camel's skull that brings fruitto the palm trees; the red coral that stops the flow of blood from aknife-wound--of the dancing-girls glittering in an armour of goldenpieces, their heads tied with purple and red and yellow handkerchiefsof silk, crowned with great bars of solid gold and tufted with ostrichfeathers; of the dwarfs and jugglers who by night perform in themarketplace, contending for custom with the sorceresses who tell thefates from shells gathered by mirage seas; with the snake-charmers--whoare immune from the poison of serpents and the acrobats who come fromfar-off Persia and Arabia to spread their carpets in the shadow of theAgha's dwelling and delight the eyes of negro and Kabyle, of Soudaneseand Touareg with their feats of strength; of the haschish smokers who, assembled by night in an underground house whose ceiling and walls wereblack as ebony, gave themselves up to day-dreams of shifting glory, inwhich the things of earth and the joys and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous orfairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through whichthe Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even inBaghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which thepalms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams were glidingsilver. 

Often they had smiled over Batouch's opulent descriptions of the marvelsof Ain-Amara, which they suspected to be very far away from the reality, and yet, nevertheless, when they saw the minarets soaring above thesands to the brassy heaven, it seemed to them both as if, perhaps, theymight be true. The place looked intensely barbaric. The approach to itwas grandiose. 

Wide as the sands had been, they seemed to widen out into a greaterimmensity of arid pallor before the city gates as yet unseen. Thestretch of blue above looked vaster here, the horizons more remote, theradiance of the sun more vivid, more inexorable. Nature surely expandedas if in an effort to hold her arm against some tremendous spectacle setin its bosom by the activity of men, who were strong and ardent asthe giants of old, who had powers and a passion for employing thempersistently not known in any other region of the earth. The immensityof Mogar brought sadness to the mind. The immensity of Ain-Amara broughtexcitement. Even at this distance from it, when its minarets were stilllike shadowy fingers of an unlifted hand, Androvsky and Domini wereconscious of influences streaming forth from its battlements over thesloping sands like a procession that welcomed them to a new phase ofdesert life. 

"And people talk of the monotony of the Sahara!" Domini said speakingout of their mutual thought. "Everything is here, Boris; you've neverdrawn near to London. Long before you reach the first suburbs you feelLondon like a great influence brooding over the fields and the woods. Here you feel Amara in the same way brooding over the sands. It's as ifthe sands were full of voices. Doesn't it excite you?"

"Yes, " he said. "But"--and he turned in his saddle and looked back--"Ifeel as if the solitudes were safer. "

"We can return to them. "

"Yes. "

"We are splendidly free. There's nothing to prevent us leaving Amaratomorrow. "

"Isn't there?" he answered, fixing his eyes upon the minarets. 

"What can there be?"

"Who knows?"

"What do you mean, Boris? Are you superstitious? But you reject theinfluence of place. Don't you remember--at Mogar?"

At the mention of the name his face clouded and she was sorry she hadspoken it. Since they had left the hill above the mirage sea they hadscarcely ever alluded to their night there. They had never once talkedof the dinner in camp with De Trevignac and his men, or renewed theirconversation in the tent on the subject of religion. But since that day, since her words about Androvsky's lack of perfect happiness even withher far out in the freedom of the desert, Domini had been consciousthat, despite their great love for each other, their mutual passion forthe solitude in which it grew each day more deep and more engrossing, wrapping their lives in fire and leading them on to the inner abodes ofsacred understanding, there was at moments a barrier between them. 

At first she had striven not to recognise its existence. She hadstriven to be blind. But she was essentially a brave woman and an almostfanatical lover of truth for its own sake, thinking that what is calledan ugly truth is less ugly than the loveliest lie. To deny truth is toplay the coward. She could not long do that. And so she quickly learnedto face this truth with steady eyes and an unflinching heart. 

At moments Androvsky retreated from her, his mind became remote--more, his heart was far from her, and, in its distant place, was suffering. Ofthat she was assured. 

But she was assured, too, that she stood to him for perfection in humancompanionship. A woman's love is, perhaps, the only true divining rod. Domini knew instinctively where lay the troubled waters, what troubledthem in their subterranean dwelling. She was certain that Androvsky wasat peace with her but not with himself. She had said to him in the tentthat she thought he sometimes felt far away from God. The convictiongrew in her that even the satisfaction of his great human love was notenough for his nature. He demanded, sometimes imperiously, not only thepeace that can be understood gloriously, but also that other peace whichpasseth understanding. And because he had it not he suffered. 

In the Garden of Allah he felt a loneliness even though she was withhim, and he could not speak with her of this loneliness. That was thebarrier between them, she thought. 

She prayed for him: in the tent by night, in the desert under theburning sky by day. When the muezzin cried from the minaret of sometiny village lost in the desolation of the wastes, turning to the north, south, east and west, and the Mussulmans bowed their shaved heads, facing towards Mecca, she prayed to the Catholics' God, whom she felt tobe the God, too, of all the devout, of all the religions of the world, and to the Mother of God, looking towards Africa. She prayed that thisman whom she loved, and who she believed was seeking, might find. Andshe felt that there was a strength, a passion in her prayers, whichcould not be rejected. She felt that some day Allah would show himselfin his garden to the wanderer there. She dared to feel that because shedared to believe in the endless mercy of God. And when that moment cameshe felt, too, that their love--hers and his--for each other would becrowned. Beautiful and intense as it was it still lacked something. Itneeded to be encircled by the protecting love of a God in whom they bothbelieved in the same way, and to whom they both were equally near. While she felt close to this love and he far from it they were not quitetogether. 

There were moments in which she was troubled, even sad, but they passed. For she had a great courage, a great confidence. The hope that dwellslike a flame in the purity of prayer comforted her. 

"I love the solitudes, " he said. "I love to have you to myself. "

"If we lived always in the greatest city of the world it would make nodifference, " she said quietly. "You know that, Boris. "

He bent over from his saddle and clasped her hand in his, and they rodethus up the great slope of the sands, with their horses close together. 

The minarets of the city grew more distinct. They dominated the waste asthe thought of Allah dominates the Mohammedan world. Presently, far awayon the left, Domini and Androvsky saw hills of sand, clearly definedlike small mountains delicately shaped. On the summits of these hillswere Arab villages of the hue of bronze gleaming in the sun. No treesstood near them. But beyond them, much farther off, was the long greenline of the palms of a large oasis. Between them and the riders movedslowly towards the minarets dark things that looked like serpentswrithing through the sands. These were caravans coming into the cityfrom long journeys. Here and there, dotted about in the immensity, weresolitary horsemen, camels in twos and threes, small troops ofdonkeys. And all the things that moved went towards the minarets as ifirresistibly drawn onwards by some strong influence that sucked them infrom the solitudes of the whirlpool of human life. 

Again Domini thought of the approach to London, and of the dominion ofgreat cities, those octopus monsters created by men, whose tentaclesare strong to seize and stronger still to keep. She was infected byAndrovsky's dread of a changed life, and through her excitement, thatpulsed with interest and curiosity, she felt a faint thrill of somethingthat was like fear. 

"Boris, " she said, "I feel as if your thoughts were being conveyed to meby your touch. Perhaps the solitudes are best. "

By a simultaneous impulse they pulled in their horses and listened. Sounds came to them over the sands, thin and remote. They could not tellwhat they were, but they knew that they heard something which suggestedthe distant presence of life. 

"What is it?" said Domini. 

"I don't know, but I hear something. It travels to us from theminarets. "

They both leaned forward on their horses' necks, holding each other'shand. 

"I feel the tumult of men, " Androvsky said presently. 

"And I. But it seems as if no men could have elected to build a cityhere. "

"Here in the 'Belly of the desert, '" he said, quoting the Arabs' namefor Amara. 

"Boris"--she spoke in a more eager voice, clasping his handstrongly--"you remember the _fumoir_ in Count Anteoni's garden. Theplace where it stood was the very heart of the garden. "

"Yes. "

"We understood each other there. "

He pressed her hand without speaking. 

"Amara seems to me the heart of the Garden of Allah. Perhaps--perhaps weshall----"

She paused. Her eyes were fixed upon his face. 

"What, Domini?" he asked. 

He looked expectant, but anxious, and watched her, but with eyes thatseemed ready to look away from her at a word. 

"Perhaps we shall understand each other even better there. "

He looked down at the white sand. 

"Better!" he repeated. "Could we do that?"

She did not answer. The far-off villages gleamed mysteriously on theirlittle mountains, like unreal things that might fade away as castlesfade in the fire. The sky above the minarets was changing in colourslowly. Its blue was being invaded by a green that was a sister colour. A curious light, that seemed to rise from below rather than to descendfrom above, was transmuting the whiteness of the sands. A lemonyellow crept through them, but they still looked cold and strange, and immeasurably vast. Domini fancied that the silence of the desertdeepened so that, in it, they might hear the voices of Amara moredistinctly. 

"You know, " she said, "when one looks out over the desert from a height, as we did from the tower of Beni-Mora, it seems to call one. There'sa voice in the blue distance that seems to say, 'Come to me! I amhere--hidden in my retreat, beyond the blue, and beyond the mirage, andbeyond the farthest verge!'"

"Yes, I know. "

"I have always felt, when we travelled in the desert, that the callingthing, the soul of the desert, retreated as I advanced, and stillsummoned me onward but always from an infinite distance. "

"And I too, Domini. "

"Now I don't feel that. I feel as if now we were coming near to thevoice, as if we should reach it at Amara, as if there it would tell usits secret. "

"Imagination!" he said. 

But he spoke seriously, almost mystically. His voice was at odds withthe word it said. She noticed that and was sure that he was secretlysharing her sensation. She even suspected that he had perhaps felt itfirst. 

"Let us ride on, " he said. "Do you see the change in the light? Doyou see the green in the sky? It is cooler, too. This is the wind ofevening. "

Their hands fell apart and they rode slowly on, up the long slope of thesands. 

Presently they saw that they had come out of the trackless waste andthat though still a long way from the city they were riding on a desertroad which had been trodden by multitudes of feet. There were manyfootprints here. On either side were low banks of sand, beaten into arough symmetry by implements of men, and shallow trenches through whichno water ran. In front of them they saw the numerous caravans, now moredistinct, converging from left and right slowly to this great isle ofthe desert which stretched in a straight line to the minarets. 

"We are on a highway, " Domini said. 

Androvsky sighed. 

"I feel already as if we were in the midst of a crowd, " he answered. 

"Our love for peace oughtn't to make us hate our fellowmen!" she said. "Come, Boris, let us chase away our selfish mood!"

She spoke in a more cheerful voice and drew her rein a little tighter. Her horse quickened its pace. 

"And think how our stay at Amara will make us love the solitudes when wereturn to them again. Contrast is the salt of life. "

"You speak as if you didn't believe what you are saying. "

She laughed. 

"If I were ever inclined to tell you a lie, " she said, "I should notdare to. Your mind penetrates mine too deeply. "

"You could not tell me a lie. "

"Do you hear the dogs barking?" she said, after a moment. "They areamong those tents that are like flies on the sands around the city. Thatis the tribe of the Ouled Nails I suppose. Batouch says they camp here. What multitudes of tents! Those are the suburbs of Amara. I would ratherlive in them than in the suburbs of London. Oh, how far away we are, asif we were at the end of the world!"

Either her last words, or her previous change of manner to a lightercheerfulness, almost a briskness, seemed to rouse Androvsky to a greaterconfidence, even to anticipation of possible pleasure. 

"Yes. After all it is only the desert men who are here. Amara is theirMetropolis, and in it we shall only see their life. "

His horse plunged. He had touched it sharply with his heel. 

"I believe you hate the thought of civilisation, " she exclaimed. 

"And you?"

"I never think of it. I feel almost as if I had never known it, andcould never know it. "

"Why should you? You love the wilds. "

"They make my whole nature leap. Even when I was a child it was so. I remember once reading _Maud_. In it I came upon a passage--I can'tremember it well, but it was about the red man--"

She thought for a moment, looking towards the city. 

"I don't know how it is quite, " she murmured. "'When the red manlaughs by his cedar tree, and the red man's babe leaps beyond thesea'--something like that. But I know that it made my heart beat, andthat I felt as if I had wings and were spreading them to fly away tothe most remote places of the earth. And now I have spread my wings, and--it's glorious. Come, Boris!"

They put their horses to a canter, and soon drew near to the caravans. They had sent Batouch and Ali, who generally accompanied them, on withthe rest of the camp. Both had many friends in Amara, and were eager tobe there. It was obvious that they and all the attendants, servants andcamel-men, thought of it as the provincial Frenchman thinks of Paris, asa place of all worldly wonders and delights. Batouch was to meet themat the entrance to the city, and when they had seen the marvels of itsmarket-place was to conduct them to the tents which would be pitched onthe sand-hills outside. 

Their horses pulled as if they, too, longed for a spell of city lifeafter the life of the wastes, and Domini's excitement grew. She feltvivid animal spirits boiling up within her, the sane and healthy sensethat welcomes a big manifestation of the ceaseless enterprise and keenactivity of a brotherhood of men. The loaded camels, the half-nakedrunning drivers, the dogs sensitively sniffing, as if enticing smellsfrom the city already reached their nostrils, the chattering desertmerchants discussing coming gains, the wealthy and richly-dressed Arabs, mounted on fine horses, and staring with eyes that glittered up thebroad track in search of welcoming friends, were sympathetic to hermood. Amara was sucking them all in together from the solitary places asquiet waters are sucked into the turmoils of a mill-race. Althoughstill out in the sands they were already in the midst of a noise oflife flowing to meet the roar of life that rose up at the feet of theminarets, which now looked tall and majestic in the growing beauty ofthe sunset. 

They passed the caravans one by one, and came on to the crest of thelong sand slope just as the sky above the city was flushing with abright geranium red. The track from here was level to the city wall, and was no longer soft with sand. A broad, hard road rang beneath theirhorses' hoofs, startling them with a music that was like a voice ofcivilised life. Before them, under the red sky, they saw a dark blue ofdistant houses, towers, and great round cupolas glittering like gold. Forests of palm trees lay behind, the giant date palms for which Amarawas famous. To the left stretched the sands dotted with gleaming Arabvillages, to the right again the sands covered with hundreds of tentsamong which quantities of figures moved lively like ants, black on theyellow, arched by the sky that was alive with lurid colour, red fadinginto gold, gold into primrose, primrose into green, green into the bluethat still told of the fading day. And to this multi-coloured sky, fromthe barbaric city and the immense sands in which it was set, rose agreat chorus of life; voices of men and beasts, cries of naked childrenplaying Cora on the sand-hills, of mothers to straying infants, shrilllaughter of unveiled girls wantonly gay, the calls of men, the barkingof multitudes of dogs, --the guard dogs of the nomads that are neversilent night or day, --the roaring of hundreds of camels now beingunloaded for the night, the gibbering of the mad beggars who roamperpetually on the outskirts of the encampments like wolves seeking whatthey may devour, the braying of donkeys, the whinnying of horses. Andbeneath these voices of living things, foundation of their uprisingvitality, pulsed barbarous music, the throbbing tomtoms that are forever heard in the lands of the sun, fetish music that suggests fatalism, and the grand monotony of the enormous spaces, and the crude passionthat repeats itself, and the untiring, sultry loves and the untired, sultry languors of the children of the sun. 

The silence of the sands, which Domini and Androvsky had known andloved, was merged in the tumult of the sands. The one had been mystical, laying the soul to rest. The other was provocative, calling the soul towake. At this moment the sands themselves seemed to stir with life andto cry aloud with voices. 

"The very sky is barbarous to-night!" Domini exclaimed. "Did you eversee such colour, Boris?"

"Over the minarets it is like a great wound, " he answered. 

"No wonder men are careless of human life in such a land as this. Allthe wildness of the world seems to be concentrated here. Amara is likethe desert city of some tremendous dream. It looks wicked and unearthly, but how superb!"

"Look at those cupolas!" he said. "Are there really Oriental palaceshere? Has Batouch told us the truth for once?"

"Or less than the truth? I could believe anything of Amara at thismoment. What hundreds of camels! They remind me of Arba, our firsthalting-place. " She looked at him and he at her. 

"How long ago that seems!" she said. 

"A thousand years ago. "

They both had a memory of a great silence, in the midst of this growingtumult in which the sky seemed now to take its part, calling with thevoices of its fierce colours, with the voices of the fires that burdenedit in the west. 

"Silence joined us, Domini, " Androvsky said. 

"Yes. Perhaps silence is the most beautiful voice in the world. "

Far off, along the great white road, they saw two horsemen galloping tomeet them from the city, one dressed in brilliant saffron yellow, theother in the palest blue, both crowned with large and snowy turbans. 

"Who can they be?" said Domini, as they drew near. "They look like twoprinces of the Sahara. "

Then she broke into a merry laugh. 

"Batouch! and Ali!" she exclaimed. 

The servants galloped up then, without slackening speed deftly wheeledtheir horses in a narrow circle, and were beside them, going with them, one on the right hand, the other on the left. 

"Bravo!" Domini cried, delighted at this feat of horsemanship. "But whathave you been doing? You are transformed!"

"Madame, we have been to the Bain Maure, " replied Batouch, calmly, swelling out his broad chest under his yellow jacket laced with gold. "We have had our heads shaved till they are smooth and beautiful aspolished ivory. We have been to the perfumer"--he leaned confidentiallytowards her, exhaling a pungent odour of amber--"to the tailor, tothe baboosh bazaar!"--he kicked out a foot cased in a slipper that wasbright almost as a gold piece--"to him who sells the cherchia. " He shookhis head till the spangled muslin that flowed about it trembled. "Is itnot right that your servants should do you honour in the city?"

"Perfectly right, " she answered with a careful seriousness. "I am proudof you both. "

"And Monsieur?" asked Ali, speaking in his turn. 

Androvsky withdrew his eyes from the city, which was now near at hand. 

"Splendid!" he said, but as if attending to the Arabs with difficulty. "You are splendid. "

As they came towards the old wall which partially surrounds Amara, andwhich rises from a deep natural moat of sand, they saw that the groundimmediately before the city which, from a distance, had looked almostfiat, was in reality broken up into a series of wavelike dunes, somesmall with depressions like deep crevices between them, others largewith summits like plateaux. These dunes were of a sharp lemon yellowin the evening light, a yellow that was cold in its clearness, almostsetting the teeth on edge. They went away into great rolling slopes ofsand on which the camps of the nomads and the Ouled Nails were pitched, some near to, some distant from, the city, but they themselves weresolitary. No tents were pitched close to the city, under the shadow ofits wall. As Androvsky spoke, Domini exclaimed:

"Boris---look! That is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen!"

She put her hand on his arm. He obeyed her eyes and looked to his right, to the small lemon-yellow dunes that were close to them. At perhaps ahundred yards from the road was a dune that ran parallel with it. Thefire of the sinking sun caught its smooth crest, and above this crest, moving languidly towards the city, were visible the heads and busts ofthree women, the lower halves of whose bodies were concealed by thesand of the farther side of the dune. They were dancing-girls. On theirheads, piled high with gorgeous handkerchiefs, were golden crowns whichglittered in the sun-rays, and tufts of scarlet feathers. Their ovalfaces, covered with paint, were partially concealed by long strings ofgold coins, which flowed from their crowns down over their large breastsand disappeared towards their waists, which were hidden by the sand. Their dresses were of scarlet, apple-green and purple silks, partiallycovered by floating shawls of spangled muslin. Beneath their crowns andhandkerchiefs burgeoned forth plaits of false hair decorated with coraland silver ornaments. Their hands, which they held high, gesticulatingabove the crest of the dune, were painted blood red. 

These busts and heads glided slowly along in the setting sun, andpresently sank down and vanished into some depression of the dunes. Foran instant one blood-red hand was visible alone, waving a signal abovethe sand to someone unseen. Its fingers fluttered like the wings of astartled bird. Then it, too, vanished, and the sharply-cold lemon yellowof the dunes stretched in vivid loneliness beneath the evening sky. 

To both of them this brief vision of women in the sand brought homethe solitude of the desert and the barbarity of the life it held, theascetism of this supreme manifestation of Nature and the animal passionwhich fructifies in its heart. 

"Do you know what that made me think of, Boris?" Domini said, as thered hand with its swiftly-moving fingers disappeared. "You'll smile, perhaps, and I scarcely know why. It made me think of the Devil in amonastery. "

Androvsky did not smile. Nor did he answer. She felt sure that he, too, had been strongly affected by that glimpse of Sahara life. His silencegave Batouch an opportunity of pouring forth upon them a flood ofpoetical description of the dancing-girls of Amara, all of whom heseemed to know as intimate friends. Before he ceased they came into thecity. 

The road was still majestically broad. They looked with interest at thefirst houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they were metby the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote of Amara. The house on the left was European, built of white stone, clean, attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of plastersupporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows withgreen blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the floorof which lay a smart rug glowing with gay colours; that on the right, before which the sand lay deep as if drifted there by some recentwind of the waste, was African and barbarous, an immense and ramblingbuilding of brown earth, brushwood and palm, windowless, with aflat-terraced roof, upon which were piled many strange-looking objectslike things collapsed, red and dark green, with fringes and rosettes, and tall sticks of palm pointing vaguely to the sky. 

"Why, these are like our palanquin!" Domini said. 

"They are the palanquins of the dancing-girls, Madame, " said Batouch. "That is the cafe of the dancers, and that"--he pointed to the neathouse opposite--"is the house of Monsieur the Aumonier of Amara. "

"Aumonier, " said Androvsky, sharply. "Here!"

He paused, then added more quietly:

"What should he do here?"

"But, Monsieur, he is for the French officers. "

"There are French officers?"

"Yes, Monsieur, four or five, and the commandant. They live in thepalace with the cupolas. "

"I forgot, " Androvsky said to Domini. "We are not out of the sphere ofFrench influence. This place looks so remote and so barbarous that Iimagined it given over entirely to the desert men. "

"We need not see the French, " she said. "We shall be encamped outside inthe sand. "

"And we need not stay here long, " he said quickly. 

"Boris, " she asked him, half in jest, half in earnest, "shall we buy adesert island to live in?"

"Let us buy an oasis, " he said. "That would be the perf--the safest lifefor us. "

"The safest?"

"The safest for our happiness. Domini, I have a horror of the world!" Hesaid the last words with a strong, almost fierce, emphasis. 

"Had you it always, or only since we have been married?"

"I--perhaps it was born in me, perhaps it is part of me. Who knows?"

He had relapsed into a gravity that was heavy with gloom, and lookedabout him with eyes that seemed to wish to reject all that offereditself to their sight. 

"I want the desert and you in it, " he said. "The lonely desert, withyou. "

"And nothing else?"

"I want that. I cannot have that taken from me. "

He looked about him quickly from side to side as they rode up thestreet, as if he were a scout sent in advance of an army and suspectedambushes. His manner reminded her of the way he had looked towards thetower as they rode into Mogar. And he had connected that tower with theFrench. She remembered his saying to her that it must have been builtfor French soldiers. As they rode into Mogar he had dreaded something inMogar. The strange incident with De Trevignac had followed. She had putit from her mind as a matter of small, or no, importance, had resolutelyforgotten it, had been able to forget it in their dream of desert lifeand desert passion. But the entry into a city for the moment destroyedthe dreamlike atmosphere woven by the desert, recalled her town sense, that quick-wittedness, that sharpness of apprehension and swiftness ofobservation which are bred in those who have long been accustomed toa life in the midst of crowds and movement, and changing scenes andpassing fashions. Suddenly she seemed to herself to be reading Androvskywith an almost merciless penetration, which yet she could not check. Hehad dreaded something in Mogar. He dreaded something here in Amara. Anunusual incident--for the coming of a stranger into their lives out oftheir desolation of the sand was unusual--had followed close upon thefirst dread. Would another such incident follow upon this second dread?And of what was this dread born?

Batouch drew her attention to the fact that they were coming to themarketplace, and to the curious crowds of people who were swarming outof the tortuous, narrow streets into the main thoroughfare to watch thempass, or to accompany them, running beside their horses. She divinedat once, by the passionate curiosity their entry aroused, that he hadmisspent his leisure in spreading through the city lying reports oftheir immense importance and fabulous riches. 

"Batouch, " she said, "you have been talking about us. "

"No, Madame, I merely said that Madame is a great lady in her own land, and that Monsieur--"

"I forbid you ever to speak about me, Batouch, " said Androvsky, brusquely. 

He seemed worried by the clamour of the increasing mob that surroundedthem. Children in long robes like night-gowns skipped before them, calling out in shrill voices. Old beggars, with diseased eyes anddeformed limbs, laid filthy hands upon their bridles and demanded alms. Impudent boys, like bronze statuettes suddenly endowed with a furyof life, progressed backwards to keep them full in view, shoutinginformation at them and proclaiming their own transcendent virtuesas guides. Lithe desert men, almost naked, but with carefully-coveredheads, strode beside them, keeping pace with the horses, saying nothing, but watching them with a bright intentness that seemed to hint atunutterable designs. And towards them, through the air that seemed heavyand almost suffocating now that they were among buildings, and throughclouds of buzzing flies, came the noise of the larger tumult of themarket-place. 

Looking over the heads of the throng Domini saw the wide road openingout into a great space, with the first palms of the oasis throngingon the left, and a cluster of buildings, many with small cupolas, likedown-turned white cups, on the right. On the farther side of this space, which was black with people clad for the most in dingy garments, was anarcade jutting out from a number of hovel-like houses, and to the rightof them, where the market-place, making a wide sweep, continued up hilland was hidden from her view, was the end of the great building whosegilded cupolas they had seen as they rode in from the desert, risingabove the city with the minarets of its mosques. 

The flies buzzed furiously about the horses' heads and flanks, and thepeople buzzed more furiously, like larger flies, about the riders. Itseemed to Domini as if the whole city was intent upon her and Androvsky, was observing them, considering them, wondering about them, was full ofa thousand intentions all connected with them. 

When they gained the market-place the noise and the watchful curiositymade a violent crescendo. It happened to be market day and, although thesun was setting, buying and selling were not yet over. On the hot earthover which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the white sandgrains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy colours onwhich were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy ornaments forwomen, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of bright redleather, slippers, weapons--many jewelled and gilt, or rich withpatterns in silver--pyramids of the cords of camels' hair that bind theturbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all the coloursof the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered with golden andsilver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of henna to dye thefinger-nails of the faithful, innumerable comestibles, vegetables, corn, red butcher's meat thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellowcakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers--which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelmingeven than that produced by haschish--musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, andplaits of false hair. 

The sellers squatted on the ground, their brown and hairy legs crossed, calmly gazing before them, or, with frenzied voices and gestures, driving bargains with the buyers, who moved to and fro, treadingcarelessly among the merchandise. The tellers of fates glided throughthe press, fingering the amulets that hung upon their hearts. Conjurorsproclaimed the merits of their miracles, bawling in the faces of thecurious. Dwarfs went to and fro, dressed in bright colours with greenand yellow turbans on their enormous heads, tapping with long staves, and relating their deformities. Water-sellers sounded their gongs. Before pyramids of oranges and dates, neatly arranged in patterns, sat boys crying in shrill voices the luscious virtues of their fruits. Idiots, with blear eyes and protending under-lips, gibbered and whined. Dogs barked. Bakers hurried along with trays of loaves upon their heads. From the low and smoky arcades to right and left came the reiteratedgrunt of negroes pounding coffee. A fanatic was roaring out his prayers. Arabs in scarlet and blue cloaks passed by to the Bain Maure, underwhose white and blue archway lounged the Kabyle masseurs with folded, muscular arms. A marabout, black as a coal, rode on a white horsetowards the great mosque, followed by his servant on foot. 

Native soldiers went by to the Kasba on the height, or strolled downtowards the Cafes Maures smoking cigarettes. Circles of grave men bentover card games, dominoes and draughts--called by the Arabs the Ladies'Game. Khodjas made their way with dignity towards the Bureau Arabe. Veiled women, fat and lethargic, jingling with ornaments, waddledthrough the arches of the arcades, carrying in their painted andperspiring hands blocks of sweetmeats which drew the flies. Childrenplayed in the dust by little heaps of refuse, which they stirred up intoclouds with their dancing, naked feet. In front, as if from the firstpalms of the oasis, rose the roar of beaten drums from the negroes'quarter, and from the hill-top at the feet of the minarets came thefierce and piteous noise that is the _leit-motif_ of the desert, themultitudinous complaining of camels dominating all other sounds. 

As Domini and Androvsky rode into this whirlpool of humanity, abovewhich the sky was red like a great wound, it flowed and eddied roundthem, making them its centre. The arrival of a stranger-woman was arare, if not an unparalleled, event in Amara, and Batouch had been verybusy in spreading the fame of his mistress. 

"Madame should dismount, " said Batouch. "Ali will take the horses, andI will escort Madame and Monsieur up the hill to the place of thefountain. Shabah will be there to greet Madame. "

"What an uproar!" Domini exclaimed, half laughing, half confused. "Whoon earth is Shabah?"

"Shabah is the Caid of Amara, " replied Batouch with dignity. "Thegreatest man of the city. He awaits Madame by the fountain. " Domini casta glance at Androvsky. 

"Well?" she said. 

He shrugged his shoulders like a man who thinks strife useless and themoment come for giving in to Fate. 

"The monster has opened his jaws for us, " he said, forcing a laugh. "We had better walk in, I suppose. But--O Domini!--the silence of thewastes!"

"We shall know it again. This is only for the moment. We shall have allits joy again. "

"Who knows?" he said, as he had said when they were riding up the sandslope. "Who knows?"

Then they got off their horses and were taken by the crowd. 

CHAPTER XXII

The tumult of Amara waked up in Domini the town-sense that had beenslumbering. All that seemed to confuse, to daze, to repel Androvsky, even to inspire him with fear, the noise of the teeming crowds, theirperpetual movement, their contact, startled her into a vividness of lifeand apprehension of its various meanings, that sent a thrill throughher. And the thrill was musical with happiness. To the sad a greatvision of human life brings sadness because they read into the heartsof others their own misery. But to the happy such a vision bringsexultation, for everywhere they find dancing reflections of their ownjoy. Domini had lived much in crowds, but always she had been activelyunhappy, or at least coldly dreary in them. Now, for the first time, shewas surrounded by masses of fellow-beings in her splendid contentment. And the effect of this return, as it were, to something like theformer material conditions of her life, with the mental and affectionalconditions of it transformed by joy, was striking even to herself. Suddenly she realised to the full her own humanity, and the livingwarmth of sympathy that is fanned into flame in a human heart by thepresence of human life with its hopes, desires, fears, passions, joys, that leap to the eye. Instead of hating this fierce change from solitudewith the man she loved to a crowd with the man she loved she rejoiced init. Androvsky was the cause of both her joys, joy in the waste and joyin Amara, but while he shared the one he did not share the other. 

This did not surprise her because of the conditions in which he hadlived. He was country-bred and had always dwelt far from towns. She wasreturning to an old experience--old, for the London crowd and thecrowd of Amara were both crowds of men, however different--with a mindtransformed by happiness. To him the experience was new. Somethingwithin her told her that it was necessary, that it had been ordainedbecause he needed it. The recalled town-sense, with its sharpnessof observation, persisted. As she rode in to Amara she had seemed toherself to be reading Androvsky with an almost merciless penetrationwhich yet she could not check. Now she did not wish to check it, for thepenetration that is founded on perfect love can only yield good fruit. It seemed to her that she was allowed to see clearly for Androvsky whathe could not see himself, almost as the mother sees for the child. Thiscontact with the crowds of Amara was, she thought, one of the gifts thedesert made to him. He did not like it. He wished to reject it. But hewas mistaken. For the moment his vision was clouded, as our vision forourselves so often is. She realised this, and, for the first time sincethe marriage service at Beni-Mora, perhaps seemed to be selfish. Sheopposed his wish. Hitherto there had never been any sort of contestbetween them. Their desires, like their hearts, had been in accord. Nowthere was not a contest, for Androvsky yielded to Domini's preference, when she expressed it, with a quickness that set his passion before herin a new and beautiful light. But she knew that, for the moment, theywere not in accord. He hated and dreaded what she encountered with avivid sensation of sympathy and joy. 

She felt that there was something morbid in his horror of the crowd, andthe same strength of her nature said to her, "Uproot it!"

Their camp was pitched on the sand-hills, to the north of the city nearthe French and Arab cemeteries. They reached it only when darkness wasfalling, going out of the city on foot by the great wall of dressedstone which enclosed the Kasba of the native soldiers, and ascendingand descending various slopes of deep sand, over which the airs of nightblew with a peculiar thin freshness that renewed Domini's sense of beingat the end of the world. Everything here whispered the same message, said, "We are the denizens of far-away. "

In their walk to the camp they were accompanied by a little procession. Shabah, the Caid of Amara, a shortish man whose immense dignity madehim almost gigantic, insisted upon attending them to the tents, with hisyoung brother, a pretty, libertine boy of sixteen, the brother's tutor, an Arab black as a negro but without the negro's look of having beenfreshly oiled, and two attendants. To them joined himself the Caid ofthe Nomads, a swarthy potentate who not only looked, but actually was, immense, his four servants, and his uncle, a venerable person likea shepherd king. These worthies surrounded Domini and Androvsky, andbehind streamed the curious, the envious, the greedy and the desultoryArabs, who follow in the trail of every stranger, hopeful of the crumbsthat are said to fall from the rich man's table. Shabah spoke Frenchand led the conversation, which was devoted chiefly to his conditionof health. Some years before an attempt had been made upon his life bypoison, and since that time, as he himself expressed it, his stomachhad been "perturbed as a guard dog in the night when robbers areapproaching. " All efforts to console or to inspire him with hope offuture cure were met with a stern hopelessness, a brusque certainty ofperpetual suffering. The idea that his stomach could again know peaceevidently shocked and distressed him, and as they all waded togetherthrough the sand, pioneered by the glorified Batouch, Domini wasobliged to yield to his emphatic despair, and to join with him in hisappreciation of the perpetual indigestion which set him apart from therest of the world like some God within a shrine. The skittish boy, hisbrother, who wore kid gloves, cast at her sly glances of admirationwhich asked for a return. The black tutor grinned. And the Caid of theNomads punctuated their progress with loud grunts of heavy satisfaction, occasionally making use of Batouch as interpreter to express his hopesthat they would visit his palace in the town, and devour a cous-cous onhis carpet. 

When they came to the tents it was necessary to entertain thesepersonages with coffee, and they finally departed promising a speedyreturn, and full of invitations, which were cordially accepted byBatouch on his employer's behalf before either Domini or Androvsky hadtime to say a word. 

As the _cortege_ disappeared over the sands towards the city Dominiburst into a little laugh, and drew Androvsky out to the tent door tosee them go. 

"Society in the sands!" she exclaimed gaily. "Boris, this is a newexperience. Look at our guests making their way to their palaces!"

Slowly the potentates progressed across the white dunes towards thecity. Shabah wore a long red cloak. His brother was in pink and gold, with white billowing trousers. The Caid of the Nomads was in green. They all moved with a large and conscious majesty, surrounded by theirobsequious attendants. Above them the purple sky showed a bright eveningstar. Near it was visible the delicate silhouette of the young moon. Scattered over the waste rose many koubbahs, grey in the white, withcupolas of gypse. Hundreds of dogs were barking in the distance. To theleft, on the vast, rolling slopes of sand, glared the innumerable fireskindled before the tents of the Ouled Nails. Before the sleeping tentrose the minarets and the gilded cupolas of the city which it dominatedfrom its mountain of sand. Behind it was the blanched immensity of theplain, of the lonely desert from which Domini and Androvsky had cometo face this barbaric stir of life. And the city was full of music, oftomtoms throbbing, of bugles blowing in the Kasba, of pipes shriekingfrom hidden dwellings, and of the faint but multitudinous voices of men, carried to them on their desolate and treeless height by the frail windof night that seemed a white wind, twin-brother of the sands. 

"Let us go a step or two towards the city, Boris, " Domini said, as theirguests sank magnificently down into a fold of the dunes. 

"Towards the city!" he answered. "Why not--?" He glanced behind him tothe vacant, noiseless sands. 

She set her impulse against his for the first time. 

"No, this is our town life, our Sahara season. Let us give ourselves toit. The loneliness will be its antidote some day. "

"Very well, Domini, " he answered. 

They went a little way towards the city, and stood still in the sand atthe edge of their height. 

"Listen, Boris! Isn't it strange in the night all this barbaric music?It excites me. "

"You are glad to be here. "

She heard the note of disappointment in his voice, but did not respondto it. 

"And look at all those fires, hundreds of them in the sand!"

"Yes, " he said, "it is wonderful, but the solitudes are best. This isnot the heart of the desert, this is what the Arabs call it, 'The bellyof the Desert. ' In the heart of the desert there is silence. "

She thought of the falling of the wind when the Sahara took them, andknew that her love of the silence was intense. Nevertheless, to-nightthe other part of her was in the ascendant. She wanted him to share it. He did not. Could she provoke him to share it?

"Yet, as we rode in, I had a feeling that the heart of the desert washere, " she said. "You know I said so. "

"Do you say so still?"

"The heart, Boris, is the centre of life, isn't it?"

He was silent. She felt his inner feeling fighting hers. 

"To-night, " she said, putting her arm through his, and looking towardsthe city. "I feel a tremendous sympathy with human life such as I neverfelt before. Boris, it comes to me from you. Yes, it does. It is bornof my love for you, and seems to link me, and you with me, to all thesestrangers, to all men and women, to everything that lives. It is as ifI was not quite human before, and my love for you had made me completelyhuman, had done something to me that even--even my love for God had notbeen able to do. "

She lowered her voice at the last words. After a moment she added:

"Perhaps in isolation, even with you, I could not come to completeness. Perhaps you could not in isolation even with me. Boris, I think it'sgood for us to be in the midst of life for a time. "

"You wish to remain here, Domini?"

"Yes, for a time. "

The fatalistic feeling that had sometimes come upon her in this landentered into her at this moment. She felt, "It is written that we are toremain here. "

"Let us remain here, Domini, " he said quietly. 

The note of disappointment had gone out of his voice, deliberatelybanished from it by his love for her, but she seemed to hear it, nevertheless, echoing far down in his soul. At that moment she loved himlike a woman he had made a lover, but also like a woman he had made amother by becoming a child. 

"Thank you, Boris, " she answered very quietly. "You are good to me. "

"You are good to me, " he said, remembering the last words of FatherRoubier. "How can I be anything else?"

Directly he had spoken the words his body trembled violently. 

"Boris, what is it?" she exclaimed, startled. 

He took his arm away from hers. 

"These--these noises of the city in the night coming across thesand-hills are extraordinary. I have become so used to silence thatperhaps they get upon my nerves. I shall grow accustomed to thempresently. "

He turned towards the tents, and she went with him. It seemed to herthat he had evaded her question, that he had not wished to answer it, and the sense sharply awakened in her by a return to life near a citymade her probe for the reason of this. She did not find it, but in hermental search she found herself presently at Mogar. It seemed to herthat the same sort of uneasiness which had beset her husband at Mogarbeset him now more fiercely at Amara, that, as he had just said, hisnerves were being tortured by something. But it could not be the noisesfrom the city. 

After dinner Batouch came to the tent to suggest that they should godown with him into the city. Domini, feeling certain that Androvskywould not wish to go, at once refused, alleging that she was tired. Batouch then asked Androvsky to go with him, and, to Domini'sastonishment, he said that if she did not mind his leaving her for ashort time he would like a stroll. 

"Perhaps, " he said to her, as Batouch and he were starting, "perhaps itwill make me more completely human; perhaps there is something still tobe done that even you, Domini, have not accomplished. "

She knew he was alluding to her words before dinner. He stood looking ather with a slight smile that did not suggest happiness, then added:

"That link you spoke of between us and these strangers"--he made agesture towards the city--"I ought perhaps to feel it more strongly thanI do. I--I will try to feel it. "

Then he turned away, and went with Batouch across the sand-hills, walking heavily. 

As Domini watched him going she felt chilled, because there wassomething in his manner, in his smile, that seemed for the moment to setthem apart from each other, something she did not understand. 

Soon Androvsky disappeared in a fold of the sands as he had disappearedin a fold of the sands at Mogar, not long before De Trevignac came. She thought of Mogar once more, steadily, reviewing mentally--with therenewed sharpness of intellect that had returned to her, brought bycontact with the city--all that had passed there, as she never reviewedit before. 

It had been a strange episode. 

She began to walk slowly up and down on the sand before the tent. Ouardicame to walk with her, but she sent him away. Before doing so, however, something moved her to ask him:

"That African liqueur, Ouardi--you remember that you brought to the tentat Mogar--have we any more of it?"

"The monk's liqueur, Madame?"

"What do you mean--monk's liqueur?"

"It was invented by a monk, Madame, and is sold by the monks ofEl-Largani. "

"Oh! Have we any more of it?"

"There is another bottle, Madame, but I should not dare to bring itif----"

He paused. 

"If what, Ouardi?"

"If Monsieur were there. "

Domini was on the point of asking him why, but she checked herself andtold him to leave her. Then she walked up and down once more onthe sand. She was thinking now of the broken glass on the ground atAndrovsky's feet when she found him alone in the tent after De Trevignachad gone. Ouardi's words made her wonder whether this liqueur, broughtto celebrate De Trevignac's presence in the camp, had turned theconversation upon the subject of the religious orders; whether Androvskyhad perhaps said something against them which had offended De Trevignac, a staunch Catholic; whether there had been a quarrel between the twomen on the subject of religion. It was possible. She remembered DeTrevignac's strange, almost mystical, gesture in the dawn, following hislook of horror towards the tent where her husband lay sleeping. 

To-night her mind--her whole nature--felt terribly alive. 

She tried to think no more of Mogar, but her thoughts centred round it, linked it with this great city, whose lights shone in the distance belowher, whose music came to her from afar over the silence of the sands. 

Mogar and Amara; what had they to do with one another? Leagues of desertdivided them. One was a desolation, the other was crowded with men. Whatlinked them together in her mind?

Androvsky's fear of both--that was the link. She kept on thinking of theglance he had cast at the watch-tower, to which Trevignac had been eventhen approaching, although they knew it not. De Trevignac! She walkedfaster on the sand, to and fro before the tent. Why had he looked at thetent in which Androvsky slept with horror? Was it because Androvsky haddenounced the religion that he reverenced and loved? Could it have beenthat? But then--did Androvsky actively hate religion? Perhaps he hatedit, and concealed his hatred from her because he knew it would causeher pain. Yet she had sometimes felt as if he were seeking, perhapswith fear, perhaps with ignorance, perhaps with uncertainty, but stillseeking to draw near to God. That was why she had been able to hopefor him, why she had not been more troubled by his loss of the faith inwhich he had been brought up, and to which she belonged heart and soul. Could she have been wrong in her feeling--deceived? There were men inthe world, she knew, who denied the existence of a God, and bitterlyridiculed all faith. She remembered the blasphemies of her father. Hadshe married a man who, like him, was lost, who, as he had, furiouslydenied God?

A cold thrill of fear came into her heart. Suddenly she felt as if, perhaps, even in her love, Androvsky had been a stranger to her. 

She stood upon the sand. It chanced that she looked towards the camp ofthe Ouled Nails, whose fires blazed upon the dunes. While she looked shewas presently aware of a light that detached itself from the blaze ofthe fires, and moved from them, coming towards the place where she wasstanding, slowly. The young moon only gave a faint ray to the night. This light travelled onward through the dimness like an earth-boundstar. She watched it with intentness, as people watch any moving thingwhen their minds are eagerly at work, staring, yet scarcely consciousthat they see. 

The little light moved steadily on over the sands, now descending theside of a dune, now mounting to a crest, and always coming towards theplace where Domini was standing, And presently this determined movementtowards her caught hold of her mind, drew it away from other thoughts, fixed it on the light. She became interested in it, intent upon it. 

Who was bearing it? No doubt some desert man, some Arab. She imaginedhim tall, brown, lithe, half-naked, holding the lamp in his muscularfingers, treading on bare feet silently, over the deep sand. Why had heleft the camp? What was his purpose?

The light drew near. It was now moving over the flats and seemed, shethought, to travel more quickly. And always it came straight towardswhere she was standing. A conviction dawned in her that it wastravelling with an intention of reaching her, that it was carried bysomeone who was thinking of her. But how could that be? She thought ofthe light as a thing with a mind and a purpose, borne by someone whobacked up its purpose, helping it to do what it wanted. And it wanted tocome to her. 

In Mogar! Androvsky had dreaded something in Mogar. De Trevignac hadcome. He dreaded something in Amara. This light came. For an instant shefancied that the light was a lamp carried by De Trevignac. Then she sawthat it gleamed upon a long black robe, the soutane of a priest. 

As she and Androvsky rode into Amara she had asked herself whetherhis second dread would be followed, as his first dread had been, by anunusual incident. When she saw the soutane of a priest, black in thelamplight, moving towards her over the whiteness of the sand, she saidto herself that it was to be so followed. This priest stood in the placeof De Trevignac. 

Why did he come to her?

CHAPTER XXIII

When the priest drew close to the tent Domini saw that it was not hewho carried the lantern, but a native soldier, one of the Tirailleurs, formerly called Turcos, who walked beside him. The soldier saluted her, and the priest took off his broad, fluffy black hat. 

"Good-evening, Madame, " he said, speaking French with the accent ofMarseilles. "I am the Aumonier of Amara, and have just heard of yourarrival here, and as I was visiting my friends on the sand-hills yonder, I thought I would venture to call and ask whether I could be of anyservice to you. The hour is informal, I know, but to tell the truth, Madame, after five years in Amara one does not know how to be formal anylonger. "

His eyes, which had a slightly impudent look, rare in a priest but notunpleasing, twinkled cheerfully in the lamplight as he spoke, and hiswhole expression betokened a highly social disposition and the mostgenuine pleasure at meeting with a stranger. While she looked at him, and heard him speak, Domini laughed at herself for the imaginations shehad just been cherishing. He had a broad figure, long arms, large feetencased in stout, comfortable boots. His face was burnt brown by the sunand partially concealed by a heavy black beard, whiskers and moustache. His features were blunt and looked boyish, though his age must have beenabout forty. The nose was snub, and accorded with the expression in hiseyes, which were black like his hair and full of twinkling lights. Ashe smiled genially on Domini he showed two rows of small, square whiteteeth. His Marseilles accent exactly suited his appearance, which wasrough but honest. Domini welcomed him gladly. Indeed, her receptionof him was more than cordial, almost eager. For she had been vaguelyexpecting some tragic figure, some personality suggestive of mystery orsorrow, and she thought of the incidents at Mogar, and associated themoving light with the approach of further strange events. Thishomely figure of her religion, beaming satisfaction and comfortableanticipation of friendly intercourse, laid to rest fears which only now, when she was conscious of relief, she knew she had been entertaining. She begged the priest to come into the dining-tent, and, taking up thelittle bell which was on the table, went out into the sand and rang itfor Ouardi. 

He came at once, like a shadow gliding over the waste. 

"Bring us coffee for two, Ouardi, biscuits"--she glanced at hervisitor--"bon-bons, yes, the bon-bons in the white box, and the cigars. And take the soldier with you and entertain him well. Give him whateverhe likes. "

Ouardi went away with the soldier, talking frantically, and Dominireturned to the tent, where she found the priest gleaming with joyousanticipation. They sat down in the comfortable basket chairs before thetent door, through which they could see the shining of the city's lightsand hear the distant sound of its throbbing and wailing music. 

"My husband has gone to see the city, " Domini said after she had toldthe priest her name and been informed that his was Max Beret. 

"We only arrived this evening. "

"I know, Madame. "

He beamed on her, and stroked his thick beard with his broad, sunburnthand. "Everyone in Amara knows, and everyone in the tents. We know, too, how many tents you have, how many servants, how many camels, horses, dogs. "

He broke into a hearty laugh. 

"We know what you've just had for dinner!"

Domini laughed too. 

"Not really!"

"Well, I heard in the camp that it was soup and stewed mutton. But nevermind! You must forgive us. We are barbarians! We are sand-rascals! Weare ruffians of the sun!"

His laugh was infectious. He leaned back in his chair and shook with themirth his own remarks had roused. 

"We are ruffians of the sun!" he repeated with gusto. "And we must beforgiven everything. "

Although clad in a soutane he looked, at that moment, like a type of themost joyous tolerance, and Domini could not help mentally comparing himwith the priest of Beni-Mora. What would Father Roubier think of FatherBeret?

"It is easy to forgive in the sun, " Domini said. 

The priest laid his hands on his knees, setting his feet well apart. Shenoticed that his hands were not scrupulously clean. 

"Madame, " he said, "it is impossible to be anything but lenient in thesun. That is my experience. Excuse me but are you a Catholic?"

"Yes. "

"So much the better. You must let me show you the chapel. It is in thebuilding with the cupolas. The congregation consists of five on a fullSunday. " His laugh broke out again. "I hope the day after to-morrowyou and your husband will make it seven. But, as I was saying, the sunteaches one a lesson of charity. When I first came to live in Africain the midst of the sand-rascals--eh; Madame!--I suppose as a priest Iought to have been shocked by their goings-on. And indeed I tried tobe, I conscientiously did my best. But it was no good. I couldn't beshocked. The sunshine drove it all out of me. I could only say, 'Itis not for me to question _le bon Dieu_, and _le bon Dieu_ has createdthese people and set them here in the sand to behave as they do. ' Whatis my business? I can't convert them. I can't change their morals. Imust just be a friend to them, cheer them up in their sorrows, give thema bit if they're starving, doctor them a little. I'm a first-rate handat making an Arab take a pill or a powder!--when they are ill, and makethem at home with the white marabout. That's what the sun has taught me, and every sand-rascal and sand-rascal's child in Amara is a friend ofmine. "

He stretched out his legs as if he wished to elongate his satisfaction, and stared Domini full in the face with eyes that confidently, naively, asked for her approval of his doctrine of the sun. She could not helpliking him, though she felt more as if she were sitting with a jolly, big, and rather rowdy boy than with a priest. 

"You are fond of the Arabs then?" she said. 

"Of course I am, Madame. I can speak their language, and I'm as muchat home in their tents, and more, than I should ever be at theVatican--with all respect to the Holy Father. "

He got up, went out into the sand, expectorated noisily, thenreturned to the tent, wiping his bearded mouth with a large red cottonpocket-handkerchief. 

"Are you staying here long, Madame?"

He sat down again in his chair, making it creak with his substantialweight. 

"I don't know. If my husband is happy here. But he prefers thesolitudes, I think. "

"Does he? And yet he's gone into the city. Plenty of bustle there atnight, I can tell you. Well, now, I don't agree with your husband. Iknow it's been said that solitude is good for the sad, but I think justthe contrary. Ah!"

The last sonorously joyous exclamation jumped out of Father Beret at thesight of Ouardi, who at this moment entered with a large tray, coveredwith a coffee-pot, cups, biscuits, bon-bons, cigars, and a bulging flaskof some liqueur flanked by little glasses. 

"You fare generously in the desert I see, Madame, " he exclaimed. "And somuch the better. What's your servant's name?"

Domini told him. 

"Ouardi! that means born in the time of the roses. " He addressed Ouardiin Arabic and sent him off into the darkness chuckling gaily. "TheseArab names all have their meanings--Onlagareb, mother of scorpions, Omteoni, mother of eagles, and so on. So much the better! Comforts arerare here, but you carry them with you. Sugar, if you please. "

Domini put two lumps into his cup. 

"If you allow me!"

He added two more. 

"I never refuse a good cigar. These harmless joys are excellent forman. They help his Christianity. They keep him from bitterness, harshjudgments. But harshness is for northern climes--rainy England, eh?Forgive me, Madame. I speak in joke. You come from England perhaps. Itdidn't occur to me that--"

They both laughed. His garrulity was irresistible and made Domini feelas if she were sitting with a child. Perhaps he caught her feeling, forhe added:

"The desert has made me an _enfant terrible_, I fear. What have youthere?"

His eyes had been attracted by the flask of liqueur, to which Domini wasstretching out her hand with the intention of giving him some. 

"I don't know. "

She leaned forward to read the name on the flask. 

"L o u a r i n e, " she said. 

"Pst!" exclaimed the priest, with a start. 

"Will you have some? I don't know whether it's good. I've never tastedit, or seen it before. Will you have some?"

She felt so absolutely certain that he would say "Yes" that she liftedthe flask to pour the liqueur into one of the little glasses, but, looking at him, she saw that he hesitated. 

"After all--why not?" he ejaculated. "Why not?"

She was holding the flask over the glass. He saw that his remarksurprised her. 

"Yes, Madame, thanks. "

She poured out the liqueur and handed it to him. He set it down by hiscoffee-cup. 

"The fact is, Madame--but you know nothing about this liqueur?"

"No, nothing. What is it?"

Her curiosity was roused by his hesitation, his words, but still more bya certain gravity which had come into his face. 

"Well, this liqueur comes from the Trappist monastery of El-Largani. "

"The monks' liqueur!" she exclaimed. 

And instantly she thought of Mogar. 

"You do know then?"

"Ouardi told me we had with us a liqueur made by some monks. "

"This is it, and very excellent it is. I have tasted it in Tunis. "

"But then why did you hesitate to take it here?"

He lifted his glass up to the lamp. The light shone on its contents, showing that the liquid was pale green. 

"Madame, " he said, "the Trappists of El-Largani have a fine property. They grow every sort of things, but their vineyards are speciallyfamous, and their wines bring in a splendid revenue. This is their onlyliqueur, this Louarine. It, too, has brought in a lot of money to thecommunity, but when what they have in stock at the monastery now isexhausted they will never make another franc by Louarine. "

"But why not?"

"The secret of its manufacture belonged to one monk only. At his deathhe was to confide it to another whom he had chosen. "

"And he died suddenly without--"

"Madame, he didn't die. "

The gravity had returned to the priest's face and deepened there, transforming it. He put the glass down without touching it with hislips. 

"Then--I don't understand. "

"He disappeared from the monastery. "

"Do you mean he left it--a Trappist?"

"Yes. "

"After taking the final vows?"

"Oh, he had been a monk at El-Largani for over twenty years. "

"How horrible!" Domini said. She looked at the pale-green liquid. "Howhorrible!" she repeated. 

"Yes. The monks would have kept the matter a secret, but a servantof the _hotellerie_--who had taken no vow of eternal silence--spoke, and--well, I know it here in the 'belly of the desert. '"

"Horrible!"

She said the word again, and as if she felt its meaning more acutelyeach time she spoke it. 

"After twenty years to go!" she added after a moment. "And was thereno reason, no--no excuse--no, I don't mean excuse! But had nothingexceptional happened?"

"What exceptional thing can happen in a Trappist monastery?" said thepriest. "One day is exactly like another there, and one year exactlylike another. "

"Was it long ago?"

"No, not very long. Only some months. Oh, perhaps it may be a year bynow, but not more. Poor fellow! I suppose he was a man who didn't knowhimself, Madame, and the devil tempted him. "

"But after twenty years!" said Domini. 

The thing seemed to her almost incredible. 

"That man must be in hell now, " she added. "In the hell a man can makefor himself by his own act. Oh, here is my husband. "

Androvsky stood in the tent door, looking in upon them with startled, scrutinising eyes. He had come over the deep sand without noise. NeitherDomini nor the priest had heard a footstep. The priest got up from hischair and bowed genially. 

"Good-evening, Monsieur, " he said, not waiting for any introduction. "Iam the Aumonier of Amara, and----"

He paused in the full flow of his talk. Androvsky's eyes had wanderedfrom his face to the table, upon which stood the coffee, the liqueur, and the other things brought by Ouardi. It was evident even to theself-centred priest that his host was not listening to him. There was amoment's awkward pause. Then Domini said:

"Boris, Monsieur l'Aumonier!"

She did not speak loudly, but with an intention that recalled the mindof her husband. He stepped slowly into the tent and held out his hand insilence to the priest. As he did so the lamplight fell full upon him. 

"Boris, are you ill?" Domini exclaimed. 

The priest had taken Androvsky's hand, but with a doubtful air. Hischeerful and confident manner had died away, and his eyes, fixed uponhis host, shone with an astonishment which was mingled with a sortof boyish glumness. It was evident that he felt that his presence wasunwelcome. 

"I have a headache, " Androvsky said. "I--that is why I returned. "

He dropped the priest's hand. He was again looking towards the table. 

"The sun was unusually fierce to-day, " Domini said. "Do you think--"

"Yes, yes, " he interrupted. "That's it. I must have had a touch of thesun. "

He put his hand to his head. 

"Excuse me, Monsieur, " he said, speaking to the priest but not lookingat him. "I am really feeling unwell. Another day--"

He went out of the tent and disappeared silently into the darkness. Domini and the priest looked after him. Then the priest, with an air ofembarrassment, took up his hat from the table. His cigar had gone out, but he pulled at it as if he thought it was still alight, then took itout of his mouth and, glancing with a naive regret at the good thingsupon the table, his half-finished coffee, the biscuits, the white box ofbon-bons--said:

"Madame, I must be off. I've a good way to go, and it's getting late. Ifyou will allow me--"

He went to the tent door and called, in a powerful voice:

"Belgassem! Belgassem!"

He paused, then called again:

"Belgassem!"

A light travelled over the sand from the farther tents of the servants. Then the priest turned round to Domini and shook her by the hand. 

"Good-night, Madame. "

"I'm very sorry, " she said, not trying to detain him. "You must comeagain. My husband is evidently ill, and--"

"You must go to him. Of course. Of course. This sun is a blessing. Still, it brings fever sometimes, especially to strangers. Wesand-rascals--eh, Madame!" he laughed, but the laugh had lost itssonorous ring--"we can stand it. It's our friend. But for travellerssometimes it's a little bit too much. But now, mind, I'm a bit of adoctor, and if to-morrow your husband is no better I might--anyhow"--helooked again longingly at the bon-bons and the cigars--"if you'll allowme I'll call to know how he is. "

"Thank you, Monsieur. "

"Not at all, Madame, not at all! I can set him right in a minute, ifit's anything to do with the sun, in a minute. Ah, here's Belgassem!"

The soldier stood like a statue without, bearing the lantern. The priesthesitated. He was holding the burnt-out cigar in his hand, and nowhe glanced at it and then at the cigar-box. A plaintive expressionoverspread his bronzed and bearded face. It became almost piteous. Quickly Domini wait to the table, took two cigars from the box and cameback. 

"You must have a cigar to smoke on the way. "

"Really, Madame, you are too good, but--well, I rarely refuse a finecigar, and these--upon my word--are--"

He struck a match on his broad-toed boot. His demeanour was becomingcheerful again. Domini gave the other cigar to the soldier. 

"Good-night, Madame. A demain then, a demain! I trust your husband maybe able to rest. A demain! A demain!"

The light moved away over the dunes and dropped down towards the city. Then Domini hurried across the sand to the sleeping-tent. As she wentshe was acutely aware of the many distant noises that rose up in thenight to the pale crescent of the young moon, the pulsing of the tomtomsin the city, the faint screaming of the pipes that sounded almost likehuman beings in distress, the passionate barking of the guard dogstied up to the tents on the sand-slopes where the multitudes of firesgleamed. The sensation of being far away, and close to the heart of thedesert, deepened in her, but she felt now that it was a savage heart, that there was something terrible in the remoteness. In the faintmoonlight the tent cast black shadows upon the wintry whiteness of thesands, that rose and fell like waves of a smooth but foam-covered sea. And the shadow of the sleeping-tent looked the blackest of them all. For she began to feel as if there was another darkness about it than thedarkness that it cast upon the sand. Her husband's face that night ashe came in from the dunes had been dark with a shadow cast surely by hissoul. And she did not know what it was in his soul that sent forth theshadow. 

"Boris!"

She was at the door of the sleeping-tent. He did not answer. 

"Boris!"

He came in from the farther tent that he used as a dressing-room, carrying a lit candle in his hand. She went up to him with a movement ofswift, ardent sincerity. 

"You felt ill in the city? Did Batouch let you come back alone?"

"I preferred to be alone. "

He set down the candle on the table, and moved so that the light of itdid not fall upon his face. She took his hands in hers gently. There wasno response in his hands. They remained in hers, nervelessly. Theyfelt almost like dead things in her hands. But they were not cold, butburning hot. 

"You have fever!" she said. 

She let one of his hands go and put one of hers to his forehead. 

"Your forehead is burning, and your pulses--how they are beating! Likehammers! I must--"

"Don't give me anything, Domini! It would be useless. "

She was silent. There was a sound of hopelessness in his voice thatfrightened her. It was like the voice of a man rejecting remediesbecause he knew that he was stricken with a mortal disease. 

"Why did that priest come here to-night?" he asked. 

They were both standing up, but now he sat down in a chair heavily, taking his hand from hers. 

"Merely to pay a visit of courtesy. "

"At night?"

He spoke suspiciously. Again she thought of Mogar, and of how, on hisreturn from the dunes, he had said to her, "There is a light in thetower. " A painful sensation of being surrounded with mystery came uponher. It was hateful to her strong and frank nature. It was like a miasmathat suffocated her soul. 

"Oh, Boris, " she exclaimed bluntly, "why should he not come at night?"

"Is such a thing usual?"

"But he was visiting the tents over there--of the nomads, and he hadheard of our arrival. He knew it was informal, but, as he said, in thedesert one forgets formalities. "

"And--and did he ask for anything?"

"Ask?"

"I saw--on the table-coffee and--and there was liqueur. "

"Naturally I offered him something. "

"He didn't ask?"

"But, Boris, how could he?"

After a moment of silence he said:

"No, of course not. "

He shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, put his handson the arms of it, and continued:

"What did he talk about?"

"A little about Amara. "

"That was all?"

"He hadn't been here long when you came--"

"Oh. "

"But he told me one thing that was horrible, " she added, obedient to herinstinct always to tell the complete truth to him, even about trifleswhich had nothing to do with their lives or their relation to eachother. 

"Horrible!" Androvsky said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward inhis chair. 

She sat down by him. They both had their backs to the light and were inshadow. 

"Yes. "

"What was it about--some crime here?"

"Oh, no! It was about that liqueur you saw on the table. "

Androvsky was sitting upon a basket chair. As she spoke it creaked undera violent movement that he made. 

"How could--what could there be that was horrible connected with that?"he asked, speaking slowly. 

"It was made by a monk, a Trappist--"

He got up from his chair and went to the opening of the tent. 

"What--" she began, thinking he was perhaps feeling the pain in his headmore severely. 

"I only want to be in the air. It's rather hot there. Stay where, youare, Domini, and--well, what else?"

He stepped out into the sand, and stood just outside the tent in itsshadow. 

"It was invented by a Trappist monk of the monastery of El-Largani, whodisappeared from the monastery. He had taken the final vows. He had beenthere for over twenty years. "

"He--he disappeared--did the priest say?"

"Yes. "

"Where?"

"I don't think--I am sure he doesn't know. But what does it matter?The awful thing is that he should leave the monastery after taking theeternal vows--vows made to God. "

After a moment, during which neither of them spoke and Androvsky stoodquite still in the sand, she added:

"Poor man!"

Androvsky came a step towards her, then paused. 

"Why do you say that, Domini?"

"I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive. "

"Agony?"

"Of mind, of heart. You--I know, Boris, you can't feel with me oncertain subjects--yet--"

"Yet!" he said. 

"Boris"--she got up and came to the tent door, but not out upon thesand--"I dare to hope that some day perhaps----"

She was silent, looking towards him with her brave, steady eyes. 

"Agony of heart?" Androvsky said, recurring to her words. "Youthink--what--you pity that man then?"

"And don't you?"

"I--what has he to do with--us? Why should we--?"

"I know. But one does sometimes pity men one never has seen, never willsee, if one hears something frightful about them. Perhaps--don't smile, Boris--perhaps it was seeing that liqueur, which he had actually made inthe monastery when he was at peace with God, perhaps it was seeing that, that has made me realise--such trifles stir the imagination, set itworking--at any rate--"

She broke off. After a minute, during which he said nothing, shecontinued:

"I believe the priest felt something of the same sort. He could notdrink the liqueur that man had made, although he intended to. "

"But--that might have been for a different reason, " Androvsky said ina harsh voice; "priests have strange ideas. They often judge thingscruelly, very cruelly. "

"Perhaps they do. Yes; I can imagine that Father Roubier of Beni-Moramight, though he is a good man and leads a saintly life. "

"Those are sometimes the most cruel. They do not understand. "

"Perhaps not. It may be so. But this priest--he's not like that. "

She thought of his genial, bearded face, his expression when he said, "We are ruffians of the sun, " including himself with the desert men, hisboisterous laugh. 

"His fault might be the other way. "

"Which way?"

"Too great a tolerance. "

"Can a man be too tolerant towards his fellow-man?" said Androvsky. 

There was a strange sound of emotion in his deep voice which moved her. It seemed to her--why, she did not know--to steal out of the depth ofsomething their mutual love had created. 

"The greatest of all tolerance is God's, " she said. "I'm sure--quitesure--of that. "

Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his armswith passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force andfire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense. 

"God will bless you, " he said. "God will bless you. Whatever life bringsyou at the end you must--you must be blessed by Him. "

"But He has blessed me, " she whispered, through tears that rushed fromher eyes, stirred from their well-springs by his sudden outburst oflove for her. "He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, yourtruth. "

Androvsky released her as abruptly as he had taken her in his arms, turned, and went out into the desert. 

CHAPTER XXIV

True to his promise, on the following day the priest called to inquireafter Androvsky's health. He happened to come just before _dejeuner_ wasready, and met Androvsky on the sand before the tent door. 

"It's not fever then, Monsieur, " he said, after they had shaken hands. 

"No, no, " Androvsky replied. "I am quite well this morning. "

The priest looked at him closely with an unembarrassed scrutiny. 

"Have you been long in the desert, Monsieur?" he asked. 

"Some weeks. "

"The heat has tired you. I know the look--"

"I assure you, Monsieur, that I am accustomed to heat. I have lived inNorth Africa all my life. "

"Indeed. And yet by your appearance I should certainly suppose that youneeded a change from the desert. The air of the Sahara is magnificent, but there are people--"

"I am not one of them, " Androvsky said abruptly. "I have never felt sostrong physically as since I have lived in the sand. "

The priest still looked at him closely, but said nothing further onthe subject of health. Indeed, almost immediately his attention wasdistracted by the apparition of Ouardi bearing dishes from the cook'stent. 

"I am afraid I have called at a very unorthodox time, " he remarked, looking at his watch; "but the fact is that here in Amara we--"

"I hope you will stay to _dejeuner_, " Androvsky said. 

"It is very good of you. If you are certain that I shall not put youout. "

"Please stay. "

"I will, then, with pleasure. "

He moved his lips expectantly, as if only a sense of politenessprevented him from smacking them. Androvsky went towards thesleeping-tent, where Domini, who had been into the city, was washing herhands. 

"The priest has called, " he said. "I have asked him to _dejeuner_. "

She looked at him with frank astonishment in her dark eyes. 

"You--Boris!"

"Yes, I. Why not?"

"I don't know. But generally you hate people. "

"He seems a good sort of man. "

She still looked at him with some surprise, even with curiosity. 

"Have you taken a fancy to a priest?" she asked, smiling. 

"Why not? This man is very different from Father Roubier, more human. "

"Father Beret is very human, I think, " she answered. 

She was still smiling. It had just occurred to her that the priest hadtimed his visit with some forethought. 

"I am coming, " she added. 

A sudden cheerfulness had taken possession of her. All the morning shehad been feeling grave, even almost apprehensive, after a bad night. When her husband had abruptly left her and gone away into the darknessshe had been overtaken by a sudden wave of acute depression. She hadfelt, more painfully than ever before, the mental separation whichexisted between them despite their deep love, and a passionate butalmost hopeless longing had filled her heart that in all things theymight be one, not only in love of each other, but in love of God. WhenAndrovsky had taken his arms from her she had seemed to feel herselfreleased by a great despair, and this certainty--for as he vanished intothe darkness she was no more in doubt that his love for her left roomwithin his heart for such an agony--had for a moment brought her soul tothe dust. She had been overwhelmed by a sensation that instead ofbeing close together they were far apart, almost strangers, and a greatbitterness had entered into her. It was accompanied by a desire foraction. She longed to follow Androvsky, to lay her hand on his arm, tostop him in the sand and force him to confide in her. For the firsttime the idea that he was keeping something from her, a sorrow, almostmaddened her, even made her feel jealous. The fact that she divined whatthat sorrow was, or believed she divined it, did not help her just then. She waited a long while, but Androvsky did not return, and at last sheprayed and went to bed. But her prayers were feeble, disjointed, andsleep did not come to her, for her mind was travelling with this manwho loved her and who yet was out there alone in the night, who wasdeliberately separating himself from her. Towards dawn, when he stoleinto the tent, she was still awake, but she did not speak or give anysign of consciousness, although she was hot with the fierce desire tospring up, to throw her arms round him, to draw his head down upon herheart, and say, "I have given myself, body, heart and soul, to you. Giveyourself to me; give me the thing you are keeping back--your sorrow. Till I have that I have not all of you. And till I have all of you I amin hell. "

It was a mad impulse. She resisted it and lay quite still. And when helay down and was quiet she slept at length. 

Now, as she heard him speak in the sunshine and knew that he had offeredhospitality to the comfortable priest her heart suddenly felt lighter, she scarcely knew why. It seemed to her that she had been a littlemorbid, and that the cloud which had settled about her was lifted, revealing the blue. 

At _dejeuner_ she was even more reassured. Her husband seemed to get onwith the priest better than she had ever seen him get on with anybody. He began by making an effort to be agreeable that was obvious to her;but presently he was agreeable without effort. The simple genialityand lack of self-consciousness in Father Beret evidently set him athis ease. Once or twice she saw him look at his guest with an earnestscrutiny that puzzled her, but he talked far more than usual and withgreater animation, discussing the Arabs and listening to the priest'saccount of the curiosities of life in Amara. When at length Father Beretrose to go Androvsky said he would accompany him a little way, and theywent off together, evidently on the best of terms. 

She was delighted and surprised. She had been right, then. It was timethat Androvsky was subjected to another influence than that of theunpeopled wastes. It was time that he came into contact with men whoseminds were more akin to his than the minds of the Arabs who had beentheir only companions. She began to imagine him with her in civilisedplaces, to be able to imagine him. And she was glad they had come toAmara and confirmed in her resolve to stay on there. She even began towish that the French officers quartered there--few in number, some fiveor six--would find them in the sand, and that Androvsky would offer themhospitality. It occurred to her that it was not quite wholesome for aman to live in isolation from his fellow-men, even with the woman heloved, and she determined that she would not be selfish in her love, that she would think for Androvsky, act for him, even against her owninclination. Perhaps his idea of life in an oasis apart from Europeanswas one she ought to combat, though it fascinated her. Perhaps it wouldbe stronger, more sane, to face a more ordinary, less dreamy, life, inwhich they would meet with people, in which they would inevitably findthemselves confronted with duties. She felt powerful enough in thatmoment to do anything that would make for Androvsky's welfare of soul. His body was strong and at ease. She thought of him going away with thepriest in friendly conversation. How splendid it would be if she couldfeel some day that the health of his soul accorded completely with thatof his body!

"Batouch!" she called almost gaily. 

Batouch appeared, languidly smoking a cigarette, and with a large flowertied to a twig protending from behind his ear. 

"Saddle the horses. Monsieur has gone with the Pere Beret. I shall takea ride, just a short ride round the camp over there--in at the citygate, through the market-place, and home. You will come with me. "

Batouch threw away his cigarette with energy. Poet though he was, allthe Arab blood in him responded to the thought of a gallop over thesands. Within a few minutes they were off. When she was in the saddle itwas at all times difficult for Domini to be sad or even pensive. She hada native passion for a good horse, and riding was one of the joys, and almost the keenest, of her life. She felt powerful when she hada spirited, fiery animal under her, and the wide spaces of the desertsummoned speed as they summoned dreams. She and Batouch went away at arapid pace, circled round the Arab cemetery, made a detour towards thesouth, and then cantered into the midst of the camps of the Ouled Nails. It was the hour of the siesta. Only a few people were stirring, comingand going over the dunes to and from the city on languid errands for thewomen of the tents, who reclined in the shade of their brushwoodarbours upon filthy cushions and heaps of multi-coloured rags, smokingcigarettes, playing cards with Arab and negro admirers, or staring intovacancy beneath their heavy eyebrows as they listened to the sound ofmusic played upon long pipes of reed. No dogs barked in their camp. The only guardians were old women, whose sandy faces were scored withinnumerable wrinkles, and whose withered hands drooped under their loadsof barbaric rings and bracelets. Batouch would evidently have liked todismount here. Like all Arabs he was fascinated by the sight of theseidols of the waste, whose painted faces called to the surface the fluidpoetry within him, but Domini rode on, descending towards the city gateby which she had first entered Amara. The priest's house was thereand Androvsky was with the priest. She hoped he had perhaps gone in toreturn the visit paid to them. As she rode into the city she glancedat the house. The door was open and she saw the gay rugs in the littlehall. She had a strong inclination to stop and ask if her husband werethere. He might mount Batouch's horse and accompany her home. 

"Batouch, " she said, "will you ask if Monsieur Androvsky is with PereBeret. I think--"

She stopped speaking. She had just seen her husband's face pass acrossthe window-space of the room on the right-hand side of the hall door. She could not see it very well. The arcade built out beyond the housecast a deep shade within, and in this shade the face had flitted like ashadow. Batouch had sprung from his horse. But the sight of the shadowyface had changed her mind. She resolved not to interrupt the two men. Long ago at Beni-Mora she had asked Androvsky to call upon a priest. Sheremembered the sequel to that visit. This time Androvsky had gone of hisown will. If he liked this priest, if they became friends, perhaps--sheremembered her vision in the dancing-house, her feeling that when shedrew near Amara she was drawing near to the heart of the desert. If sheshould see Androvsky praying here! Yet Father Beret hardly seemed a manlikely to influence her husband, or anyone with a strong and seriouspersonality. He was surely too fond of the things of this world, tooobviously a lover and cherisher of the body. Nevertheless, there wassomething attractive in him, a kindness, a geniality. In trouble hewould be sympathetic. Certainly her husband must have taken a liking tohim, and the chances of life and the influences of destiny were strangeand not to be foreseen. 

"No, Batouch, " she said. "We won't stop. "

"But, Madame, " he cried, "Monsieur is in there. I saw his face at thewindow. "

"Never mind. We won't disturb them. I daresay they have something totalk about. "

They cantered on towards the market-place. It was not market-day, andthe town, like the camp of the Ouled Nails, was almost deserted. As sherode up the hill towards the place of the fountain, however, she sawtwo handsomely-dressed Arabs, followed by a servant, slowly strollingtowards her from the doorway of the Bureau Arabe. One, who was verytall, was dressed in green, and carried a long staff, from which hunggreen ribbons. The other wore a more ordinary costume of white, with awhite burnous and a turban spangled with gold. 

"Madame!" said Batouch. 

"Yes. "

"Do you see the Arab dressed in green?"

He spoke in an almost awestruck voice. 

"Yes. Who is he?"

"The great marabout who lives at Beni-Hassan. "

The name struck upon Domini's ear with a strange familiarity. 

"But that's where Count Anteoni went when he rode away from Beni-Morathat morning. "

"Yes, Madame. "

"Is it far from Amara?"

"Two hours' ride across the desert. "

"But then Count Anteoni may be near us. After he left he wrote to me andgave me his address at the marabout's house. "

"If he is still with the marabout, Madame. "

They were close to the fountain now, and the marabout and his companionwere coming straight towards them. 

"If Madame will allow me I will salute the marabout, " said Batouch. 

"Certainly. "

He sprang off his horse immediately, tied it up to the railing of thefountain, and went respectfully towards the approaching potentate tokiss his hand. Domini saw the marabout stop and Batouch bend down, thenlift himself up and suddenly move back as if in surprise. The Arab whowas with the marabout seemed also surprised. He held out his hand toBatouch, who took it, kissed it, then kissed his own hand, and turning, pointed towards Domini. The Arab spoke a word to the marabout, then lefthim, and came rapidly forward to the fountain. As he drew close to hershe saw a face browned by the sun, a very small, pointed beard, a pairof intensely bright eyes surrounded by wrinkles. These eyes held her. It seemed to her that she knew them, that she had often looked into themand seen their changing expressions. Suddenly she exclaimed:

"Count Anteoni!"

"Yes, it is I!"

He held out his hand and clasped hers. 

"So you have started upon your desert journey, " he added, lookingclosely at her, as he had often looked in the garden. 

"Yes. "

"And as I ventured to advise--that last time, do you remember?"

She recollected his words. 

"No, " she replied, and there was a warmth of joy, almost of pride, inher voice. "I am not alone. "

Count Anteoni was standing with one hand on her horse's neck. As shespoke, his hand dropped down. 

"I have been away from Beni-Hassan, " he said slowly. "The marabout andI have been travelling in the south and only returned yesterday. I haveheard no news for a long time from Beni-Mora, but I know. You are MadameAndrovsky. "

"Yes, " she answered; "I am Madame Androvsky. "

There was a silence between them. In it she heard the dripping water inthe fountain. At last Count Anteoni spoke again. 

"It was written, " he said quietly. "It was written in the sand. "

She thought of the sand-diviner and was silent. An oppression of spirithad suddenly come upon her. It seemed to her connected with somethingphysical, something obscure, unusual, such as she had never felt before. It was, she thought, as if her body at that moment became more alivethan it had ever been, and as if that increase of life within her gaveto her a peculiar uneasiness. She was startled. She even felt alarmed, as at the faint approach of something strange, of something that wasgoing to alter her life. She did not know at all what it was. For themoment a sense of confusion and of pain beset her, and she was scarcelyaware with whom she was, or where. The sensation passed and sherecovered herself and met Count Anteoni's eyes quietly. 

"Yes, " she answered; "all that has happened to me here in Africa waswritten in the sand and in fire. "

"You are thinking of the sun. "

"Yes. "

"I--where are you living?"

"Close by on the sand-hill beyond the city wall. "

"Where you can see the fires lit at night and hear the sound of themusic of Africa?"

"Yes. "

"As he said. "

"Yes, as he said. "

Again the overwhelming sense of some strange and formidable approachcame over her, but this time she fought it resolutely. 

"Will you come and see me?" she said. 

She had meant to say "us, " but did not say it. 

"If you will allow me. "

"When?"

"I--" she heard the odd, upward grating in his voice which sheremembered so well. "May I come now if you are riding to the tents?"

"Please do. "

"I will explain to the marabout and follow you. "

"But the way? Shall Batouch--?"

"No, it is not necessary. "

She rode away. When she reached the camp she found that Androvsky hadnot yet returned, and she was glad. She wanted to talk to Count Anteonialone. Within a few minutes she saw him coming towards the tent. Hisbeard and his Arab dress so altered him that at a short distance shecould not recognise him, could only guess that it was he. But directlyhe was near, and she saw his eyes, she forgot that he was altered, andfelt that she was with her kind and whimsical host of the garden. 

"My husband is in the city, " she said. 

"Yes. "

"With the priest. "

She saw an expression of surprise flit over Count Anteoni's face. Itwent away instantly. 

"Pere Beret, " he said. "He is a cheerful creature and very good to theArabs. "

They sat down just inside the shadow of the tent before the door, and helooked out quietly towards the city. 

"Yes, this is the place, " he said. 

She knew that he was alluding to the vision of the sand-diviner, andsaid so. 

"Did you believe at the time that what he said would come true?" sheasked. 

"How could I? Am I a child?"

He spoke with gentle irony, but she felt he was playing with her. 

"Cannot a man believe such things?"

He did not answer her, but said:

"My fate has come to pass. Do you not care to know what it is?"

"Yes, do tell me. "

She spoke earnestly. She felt a change in him, a great change whichas yet she did not understand fully. It was as if he had been a man indoubt and was now a man no longer in doubt, as if he had arrived at somegoal and was more at peace with himself than he had been. 

"I have become a Mohammedan, " he said simply. 

"A Mohammedan!"

She repeated the words as a person repeats words in surprise, but hervoice did not sound surprised. 

"You wonder?" he asked. 

After a moment she answered:

"No. I never thought of such a thing, but I am not surprised. Nowyou have told me it seems to explain you, much that I noticed in you, wondered about in you. "

She looked at him steadily, but without curiosity. 

"I feel that you are happy now. "

"Yes, I am happy. The world I used to know, my world and yours, wouldlaugh at me, would say that I was crazy, that it was a whim, that Iwished for a new sensation. Simply it had to be. For years I have beentending towards it--who knows why? Who knows what obscure influenceshave been at work in me, whether there is not perhaps far back, somefaint strain of Arab blood mingled with the Sicilian blood in my veins?I cannot understand why. What I can understand is that at last I havefulfilled my destiny! After years of unrest I am suddenly and completelyat peace. It is a magical sensation. I have been wandering all my lifeand have come upon the open door of my home. "

He spoke very quietly, but she heard the joy in his voice. 

"I remember you saying, 'I like to see men praying in the desert. '"

"Yes. When I looked at them I was longing to be one of them. Foryears from my garden wall I watched them with a passion of envy, withbitterness, almost with hatred sometimes. They had something I had not, something that set them above me, something that made their lives plainthrough any complication, and that gave to death a meaning like themeaning at the close of a great story that is going to have a sequel. They had faith. And it was difficult not to hate them. But now I am oneof them. I can pray in the desert. "

"That was why you left Beni-Mora. "

"Yes. I had long been wishing to become a Mohammedan. I came here to bewith the marabout, to enter more fully into certain questions, to see ifI had any lingering doubts. "

"And you have none?"

"None. "

She looked at his bright eyes and sighed, thinking of her husband. 

"You will go back to Beni-Mora?" she asked. 

"I don't think so. I am inclined to go farther into the desert, fartheramong the people of my own faith. I don't want to be surrounded byFrench. Some day perhaps I may return. But at present everything drawsme onward. Tell me"--he dropped the earnest tone in which he had beenspeaking, and she heard once more the easy, half-ironical man of theworld--"do you think me a half-crazy eccentric?"

"No!"

"You look at me very gravely, even sadly. "

"I was thinking of the men who cannot pray, " she said, "even in thedesert. "

"They should not come into the Garden of Allah. Don't you remember thatday by the garden wall, when--"

He suddenly checked himself. 

"Forgive me, " he said simply. "And now tell me about yourself. You neverwrote that you were going to be married. "

"I knew you would know it in time--when we met again. "

"And you knew we should meet again?"

"Did not you?"

He nodded. 

"In the heart of the desert. And you--where are you going? You are notreturning to civilisation?"

"I don't know. I have no plans. I want to do what my husband wishes. "

"And he?"

"He loves the desert. He has suggested our buying an oasis and settingup as date merchants. What do you think of the idea?"

She spoke with a smile, but her eyes were serious, even sad. 

"I cannot judge for others, " he answered. 

When he got up to go he held her hand fast for a moment. 

"May I speak what is in my heart?" he asked. 

"Yes--do. "

"I feel as if what I have told you to-day about myself, about my havingcome to the open door of a home I had long been wearily seeking, hadmade you sad. Is it so?"

"Yes, " she answered frankly. 

"Can you tell me why?"

"It has made me realise more sharply than perhaps I did before what mustbe the misery of those who are still homeless. "

There was in her voice a sound as if she suppressed a sob. 

"Hope for them, remembering my many years of wandering. "

"Yes, yes. "

"Good-bye. "

"Will you come again?"

"You are here for long?"

"Some days, I think. "

"Whenever you ask me I will come. "

"I want you and my husband to meet again. I want that very much. " Shespoke with a pressure of eagerness. 

"Send for me and I will come at any hour. "

"I will send--soon. "

When he was gone, Domini sat in the shadow of the tent. From where shewas she could see the Arab cemetery at a little distance, a quantity ofstones half drowned in the sand. An old Arab was wandering there alone, praying for the dead in a loud, persistent voice. Sometimes he pausedby a grave, bowed himself in prayer, then rose and walked on again. Hisvoice was never silent. The sound of it was plaintive and monotonous. Domini listened to it, and thought of homeless men, of those who hadlived and died without ever coming to that open door through which CountAnteoni had entered. His words and the changed look in his face had madea deep impression upon her. She realised that in the garden, when theywere together, his eyes, even when they twinkled with the slightlyironical humour peculiar to him, had always held a shadow. Now thatshadow was lifted out of them. How deep was the shadow in her husband'seyes. How deep had it been in the eyes of her father. He had died withthat terrible darkness in his eyes and in his soul. If her husband wereto die thus! A terror came upon her. She looked out at the stones inthe sand and imagined herself there--as the old Arab was--praying forAndrovsky buried there, hidden from her on earth for ever. And suddenlyshe felt, "I cannot wait, I must act. "

Her faith was deep and strong. Nothing could shake it. But might it notshake the doubt from another's soul, as a great, pure wind shakes leavesthat are dead from a tree that will blossom with the spring? Hithertoa sense of intense delicacy had prevented her from ever trying to drawnear definitely to her husband's sadness. But her interview with CountAnteoni, and the sound of this voice praying, praying for the dead menin the sand, stirred her to an almost fierce resolution. She had givenherself to Androvsky. He had given himself to her. They were one. Shehad a right to draw near to his pain, if by so doing there was a chancethat she might bring balm to it. She had a right to look closer into hiseyes if hers, full of faith, could lift the shadow from them. 

She leaned back in the darkness of the tent. The old Arab had wanderedfurther on among the graves. His voice was faint in the sand, faint andsurely piteous, as if, even while he prayed, he felt that his prayerswere useless, that the fate of the dead was pronounced beyond recall. Domini listened to him no more. She was praying for the living as shehad never prayed before, and her prayer was the prelude not to patiencebut to action. It was as if her conversation with Count Anteoni had seta torch to something in her soul, something that gave out a great flame, a flame that could surely burn up the sorrow, the fear, the secrettorture in her husband's soul. All the strength of her character hadbeen roused by the sight of the peace she desired for the man she loved;enthroned in the heart of this other man who was only her friend. 

The voice of the old Arab died away in the distance, but before it diedaway Domini had ceased from hearing it. 

She heard only a voice within her, which said to her, "If you reallylove be fearless. Attack this sorrow which stands like a figure of deathbetween you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon--faith. Use it. "

It seemed to her then that through all their intercourse she had beena coward in her love, and she resolved that she would be a coward nolonger. 

CHAPTER XXV

Domini had said to herself that she would speak to her husband thatnight. She was resolved not to hesitate, not to be influenced from herpurpose by anything. Yet she knew that a great difficulty would standin her way--the difficulty of Androvsky's intense, almost passionate, reserve. This reserve was the dominant characteristic in his nature. Shethought of it sometimes as a wall of fire that he had set round aboutthe secret places of his soul to protect them even from her eyes. Perhaps it was strange that she, a woman of a singularly franktemperament, should be attracted by reserve in another, yet she knewthat she was so attracted by the reserve of her husband. Its existencehinted to her depths in him which, perhaps, some day she might sound, she alone, strength which was hidden for her some day to prove. 

Now, alone with her purpose, she thought of this reserve. Would she beable to break it down with her love? For an instant she felt as if shewere about to enter upon a contest with her husband, but she did notcoldly tell over her armoury and select weapons. There was a heat ofpurpose within her that beckoned her to the unthinking, to the recklessway, that told her to be self-reliant and to trust to the moment for themethod. 

When Androvsky returned to the camp it was towards evening. A lemonlight was falling over the great white spaces of the sand. Upon theirlittle round hills the Arab villages glowed mysteriously. Many horsemenwere riding forth from the city to take the cool of the approachingnight. From the desert the caravans were coming in. The nomad childrenplayed, half-naked, at Cora before the tents, calling shrilly to eachother through the light silence that floated airily away into the vastdistances that breathed out the spirit of a pale eternity. Despite theheat there was an almost wintry romance in this strange land of whitesands and yellow radiance, an ethereal melancholy that stole with thetwilight noiselessly towards the tents. 

As Androvsky approached Domini saw that he had lost the energy which haddelighted her at _dejeuner_. He walked towards her slowly with his headbent down. His face was grave, even sad, though when he saw her waitingfor him he smiled. 

"You have been all this time with the priest?" she said. 

"Nearly all. I walked for a little while in the city. And you?"

"I rode out and met a friend. "

"A friend?" he said, as if startled. 

"Yes, from Beni-Mora--Count Anteoni. He has been here to pay me avisit. "

She pulled forward a basket-chair for him. He sank into it heavily. 

"Count Anteoni here!" he said slowly. "What is he doing here?"

"He is with the marabout at Beni-Hassan. And, Boris, he has become aMohammedan. "

He lifted his head with a jerk and stared at her in silence. 

"You are surprised?"

"A Mohammedan--Count Anteoni?"

"Yes. Do you know, when he told me I felt almost as if I had beenexpecting it. "

"But--is he changed then? Is he--"

He stopped. His voice had sounded to her bitter, almost fierce. 

"Yes, Boris, he is changed. Have you ever seen anyone who was lost, and the same person walking along the road home? Well, that is CountAnteoni. "

They said no more for some minutes. Androvsky was the first to speakagain. 

"You told him?" he asked. 

"About ourselves?"

"Yes. "

"I told him. "

"What did he say?"

"He had expected it. When we ask him he is coming here again to see usboth together. "

Androvsky got up from his chair. His face was troubled. Standing beforeDomini, he said:

"Count Anteoni is happy then, now that he--now that he has joined thisreligion?"

"Very happy. "

"And you--a Catholic--what do you think?"

"I think that, since that is his honest belief, it is a blessed thingfor him. "

He said no more, but went towards the sleeping-tent. 

In the evening, when they were dining, he said to her:

"Domini, to-night I am going to leave you again for a short time. "

He saw a look of keen regret come into her face, and added quickly:

"At nine I have promised to go to see the priest. He--he is ratherlonely here. He wants me to come. Do you mind?"

"No, no. I am glad--very glad. Have you finished?"

"Quite. "

"Let us take a rug and go out a little way in the sand--that way towardsthe cemetery. It is quiet there at night. "

"Yes. I will get a rug. " He went to fetch it, threw it over his arm, andthey set out together. She had meant the Arab cemetery, but when theyreached it they found two or three nomads wandering there. 

"Let us go on, " she said. 

They went on, and came to the French cemetery, which was surrounded bya rough hedge of brushwood, in which there were gaps here and there. Through one of these gaps they entered it, spread out the rug, and laydown on the sand. The night was still and silence brooded here. Faintlythey saw the graves of the exiles who had died here and been given tothe sand, where in summer vipers glided to and fro, and the pariah dogswandered stealthily, seeking food to still the desires in their starvingbodies. They were mostly very simple, but close to Domini and Androvskywas one of white marble, in the form of a broken column, hung withwreaths of everlasting flowers, and engraved with these words:

ICI REPOSE

JEAN BAPTISTE FABRIANI

_Priez pour lui_. 

When they lay down they both looked at this grave, as if moved by asimultaneous impulse, and read the words. 

"Priez pour lui!" Domini said in a low voice. 

She put out her hand and took hold of her husband's, and pressed it downon the sand. 

"Do you remember that first night, Boris, " she said, "at Arba, whenyou took my hand in yours and laid it against the desert as against aheart?"

"Yes, Domini, I remember. "

"That night we were one, weren't we?"

"Yes, Domini. "

"Were we"--she was almost whispering in the night--"were we truly one?"

"Why do you--truly one, you say?"

"Yes--one in soul? That is the great union, greater than the union ofour bodies. Were we one in soul? Are we now?"

"Domini, why do you ask me such questions? Do you doubt my love?"

"No. But I do ask you. Won't you answer me?"

He was silent. His hand lay in hers, but did not press it. 

"Boris"--she spoke the cruel words very quietly, --"we are not truly onein soul. We have never been. I know that. "

He said nothing. 

"Shall we ever be? Think--if one of us were to die, and the other--theone who was left--were left with the knowledge that in our love, evenours, there had always been separation--could you bear that? Could Ibear it?"

"Domini--"

"Yes. "

"Why do you speak like this? We are one. You have all my love. You areeverything to me. "

"And yet you are sad, and you try to hide your sadness, your misery, from me. Can you not give it me? I want it--more than I want anythingon earth. I want it, I must have it, and I dare to ask for it because Iknow how deeply you love me and that you could never love another. "

"I never have loved another, " he said. 

"I was the very first. "

"The very first. When we married, although I was a man I was as youwere. "

She bent down her head and laid her lips on his hand that was in hers. 

"Then make our union perfect, as no other union on earth has ever been. Give me your sorrow, Boris. I know what it is. "

"How can--you cannot know, " he said in a broken voice. 

"Yes. Love is a diviner, the only true diviner. I told you once what itwas, but I want you to tell me. Nothing that we take is beautiful to us, only what we are given. "

"I cannot, " he said. 

He tried to take his hand from hers, but she held it fast. And she feltas if she were holding the wall of fire with which he surrounded thesecret places of his soul. 

"To-day, Boris, when I talked to Count Anteoni, I felt that I had been acoward with you. I had seen you suffer and I had not dared to draw nearto your suffering. I have been afraid of you. Think of that. "

"No. "

"Yes, I have been afraid of you, of your reserve. When you withdrew fromme I never followed you. If I had, perhaps I could have done somethingfor you. "

"Domini, do not speak like this. Our love is happy. Leave it as it is. "

"I can't. I will not. Boris, Count Anteoni has found a home. But youare wandering. I can't bear that, I can't bear it. It is as if I weresitting in the house, warm, safe, and you were out in the storm. Ittortures me. It almost makes me hate my own safety. "

Androvsky shivered. He took his hand forcibly from Domini's. 

"I have almost hated it, too, " he said passionately. "I have hated it. I'm a--I'm--"

His voice failed. He bent forward and took Domini's face between hishands. 

"And yet there are times when I can bless what I have hated. I do blessit now. I--I love your safety. You--at least you are safe. "

"You must share it. I will make you share it. "

"You cannot. "

"I can. I shall. I feel that we shall be together in soul, and perhapsto-night, perhaps even to-night. "

Androvsky looked profoundly agitated. His hands dropped down. 

"I must go, " he said. "I must go to the priest. "

He got up from the sand. 

"Come to the tent, Domini. "

She rose to her feet. 

"When you come back, " she said, "I shall be waiting for you, Boris. "

He looked at her. There was in his eyes a piercing wistfulness. Heopened his lips. At that moment Domini felt that he was on the point oftelling her all that she longed to know. But the look faded. The lipsclosed. He took her in his arms and kissed her almost desperately. 

"No, no, " he said. "I'll keep your love--I'll keep it. "

"You could never lose it. "

"I might. "

"Never. "

"If I believed that. "

"Boris!"

Suddenly burning tears rushed from her eyes. 

"Don't ever say a thing like that to me again!" she said with passion. 

She pointed to the grave close to them. 

"If you were there, " she said, "and I was living, and you had diedbefore--before you had told me--I believe--God forgive me, but I dobelieve that if, when you died, I were taken to heaven I should find myhell there. "

She looked through her tears at the words: "Priez pour lui. "

"To pray for the dead, " she whispered, as if to herself. "To pray formy dead--I could not do it--I could not. Boris, if you love me you musttrust me, you must give me your sorrow. "

The night drew on. Androvsky had gone to the priest. Domini was alone, sitting before the tent waiting for his return. She had told Batouch andOuardi that she wanted nothing more, that no one was to come to the tentagain that night. The young moon was rising over the city, but its lightas yet was faint. It fell upon the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe, thetowers of the mosque and the white sands, whose whiteness it seemed toemphasise, making them pale as the face of one terror-stricken. Thecity wall cast a deep shadow over the moat of sand in which, wrappedin filthy rags, lay nomads sleeping. Upon the sand-hills the camps werealive with movement. Fires blazed and smoke ascended before the tentsthat made patches of blackness upon the waste. Round the fires wereseated groups of men devouring cous-cous and the red soup beloved of thenomad. Behind them circled the dogs with quivering nostrils. Squadronsof camels lay crouched in the sand, resting after their journeys. Andeverywhere, from the city and from the waste, rose distant sounds ofmusic, thin, aerial flutings like voices of the night winds, acrid criesfrom the pipes, and the far-off rolling of the African drums that arethe foundation of every desert symphony. 

Although she was now accustomed to the music of Africa, Domini couldnever hear it without feeling the barbarity of the land from which itrose, the wildness of the people who made and who loved it. Always itsuggested to her an infinite remoteness, as if it were music soundingat the end of the world, full of half-defined meanings, melancholyyet fierce passion, longings that, momentarily satisfied, continuallyrenewed themselves, griefs that were hidden behind thin veils like thewomen of the East, but that peered out with expressive eyes, hintingtheir story and desiring assuagement. And tonight the meaning of themusic seemed deeper than it had been before. She thought of it as anoutside echo of the voices murmuring in her mind and heart, and thevoices murmuring in the mind and heart of Androvsky, broken voices someof them, but some strong, fierce, tense and alive with meaning. And asshe sat there alone she thought this unity of music drew her closer tothe desert than she had ever been before, and drew Androvsky with her, despite his great reserve. In the heart of the desert he would surelylet her see at last fully into his heart. When he came back in the nightfrom the priest he would speak. She was waiting for that. 

The moon was mounting. Its light grew stronger. She looked across thesands and saw fires in the city, and suddenly she said to herself, "Thisis the vision of the sand-diviner realised in my life. He saw me as Iam now, in this place. " And she remembered the scene in the garden, the crouching figure, the extended arms, the thin fingers tracing swiftpatterns in the sand, the murmuring voice. 

To-night she felt deeply expectant, but almost sad, encompassed by themystery that hangs in clouds about human life and human relations. Whatcould be that great joy of which the Diviner had spoken? A woman's greatjoy that starred the desert with flowers and made the dry places runwith sweet waters. What could it be?

Suddenly she felt again the oppression of spirit she had beenmomentarily conscious of in the afternoon. It was like a load descendingupon her, and, almost instantly, communicated itself to her body. Shewas conscious of a sensation of unusual weariness, uneasiness, evendread, then again of an intensity of life that startled her. Thisintensity remained, grew in her. It was as if the principle of life, like a fluid, were being poured into her out of the vials of God, asif the little cup that was all she had were too small to contain theprecious liquid. That seemed to her to be the cause of the pain ofwhich she was conscious. She was being given more than she felt herselfcapable of possessing. She got up from her chair, unable to remainstill. The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remove a veil ofdarkness that had hung over her and to let in upon her a flood of light. She caught hold of the canvas of the tent. For a moment she felt weak asa child, then strong as an Amazon. And the sense of strength remained, grew. She walked out upon the sand in the direction by which Androvskywould return. The fires in the city and the camps were to her asilluminations for a festival. The music was the music of a greatrejoicing. The vast expanse of the desert, wintry white under the moon, dotted with the fires of the nomads, blossomed as the rose. After a fewmoments she stopped. She was on the crest of a sand-bank, and could seebelow her the faint track in the sand which wound to the city gate. Bythis track Androvsky would surely return. From a long distance she wouldbe able to see him, a moving darkness upon the white. She was near tothe city now, and could hear voices coming to her from behind its ruggedwalls, voices of men singing, and calling one to another, the twang ofplucked instruments, the click of negroes' castanets. The city was fullof joy as the desert was full of joy. The glory of life rushed upon herlike a flood of gold, that gold of the sun in which thousands of tinythings are dancing. And she was given the power of giving life, ofadding to the sum of glory. She looked out over the sands and saw amoving blot upon them coming slowly towards her, very slowly. It wasimpossible at this distance to see who it was, but she felt that it washer husband. For a moment she thought of going down to meet him, butshe did not move. The new knowledge that had come to her made her, justthen, feel shy even of him, as if he must come to her, as if she couldmake no advance towards him. 

As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a manwalking heavily. The man had her husband's gait. When she saw that sheturned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him whatshe had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her senseof shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now heroneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be mademore perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would speaktoo! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil would havedropped from between them, and as they had long been one flesh theywould be one in spirit. 

She waited in the tent door. 

After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across themoonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with hishead drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close tothe tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon--she thought itmust be the moon--made his face look strange, like a dying man's face. In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly. 

"Boris!" she said. 

"Domini!"

"Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you--somethingwonderful. "

He came quite up to her. 

"Domini, " he said, as if he had not heard her. "Domini, I--I've been tothe priest to-night. I meant to confess to him. "

"To confess!" she said. 

"This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I couldnot make it. I can only make it to you, Domini--only to you. Do youhear, Domini? Do you hear?"

Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she feltas if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she didnot dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he meant todo regardless of her--of anyone. 

"What is it, Boris?" she whispered. "Tell me. Perhaps I can understandbest because I love best. "

He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman heloves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, witha desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it istouching. At last he took his lips from hers. 

"Domini, " he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in ourlove--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God, and I have insulted Him. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, toput human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted bythe thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I wasyoung, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made. Ihave--I have--"

The hardness went out of his voice. He broke down for a moment and wassilent. 

"You gave yourself to God, " she said. "How?"

He tried to meet her questioning eyes, but could not. 

"I--I gave myself to God as a monk, " he answered after a pause. 

As he spoke Domini saw before her in the moonlight De Trevignac. Hecast a glance of horror at the tent, bent over her, made the sign ofthe Cross, and vanished. In his place stood Father Roubier, his eyesshining, his hand upraised, warning her against Androvsky. Then he, too, vanished, and she seemed to see Count Anteoni dressed as an Arab andmuttering words of the Koran. 

"Domini!"

"Domini, did you hear me? Domini! Domini!"

She felt his hands on her wrists. 

"You are the Trappist!" she said quietly, "of whom the priest told me. You are the monk from the Monastery of El-Largani who disappeared aftertwenty years. "

"Yes, " he said, "I am he. "

"What made you tell me? What made you tell me?"

There was agony now in her voice. 

"You asked me to speak, but it was not that. Do you remember last nightwhen I said that God must bless you? You answered, 'He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your truth. ' It is that which makes mespeak. You have had my love, not my truth. Now take my truth. I've keptit from you. Now I'll give it you. It's black, but I'll give it you. Domini! Domini! Hate me to-night, but in your hatred believe that Inever loved you as I love you now. "

"Give me your truth, " she said. 

BOOK V. THE REVELATION

CHAPTER XXVI

They remained standing at the tent door, with the growing moonlightabout them. The camp was hushed in sleep, but sounds of music still cameto them from the city below them, and fainter music from the tents ofthe Ouled Nails on the sandhill to the south. After Domini had spokenAndrovsky moved a step towards her, looked at her, then moved back anddropped his eyes. If he had gone on looking at her he knew he could nothave begun to speak. 

"Domini, " he said, "I'm not going to try and excuse myself for whatI have done. I'm not going to say to you what I daren't say toGod--'Forgive me. ' How can such a thing be forgiven? That's part of thetorture I've been enduring, the knowledge of the unforgivable nature ofmy act. It can never be wiped out. It's black on my judgment book forever. But I wonder if you can understand--oh, I want you to understand, Domini, what has made the thing I am, a renegade, a breaker of oaths, a liar to God and you. It was the passion of life that burst up in meafter years of tranquillity. It was the waking of my nature after yearsof sleep. And you--you do understand the passion of life that's in someof us like a monster that must rule, must have its way. Even you in yourpurity and goodness--you have it, that desperate wish to live really andfully, as we have lived, Domini, together. For we have lived out in thedesert. We lived that night at Arba when we sat and watched the fireand I held your hand against the earth. We lived then. Even now, when Ithink of that night, I can hardly be sorry for what I've done, for whatI am. "

He looked up at her now and saw that her eyes were fixed on him. Shestood motionless, with her hands joined in front of her. Her attitudewas calm and her face was untortured. He could not read any thought ofhers, any feeling that was in her heart. 

"You must understand, " he said almost violently. "You must understandor I--. My father, I told you, was a Russian. He was brought up in theGreek Church, but became a Freethinker when he was still a young man. My mother was an Englishwoman and an ardent Catholic. She and my fatherwere devoted to each other in spite of the difference in their views. Perhaps the chief effect my father's lack of belief had upon mymother was to make her own belief more steadfast, more ardent. I thinkdisbelief acts often as a fan to the faith of women, makes the flameburn more brightly than it did before. My mother tried to believefor herself and for my father too, and I could almost think that shesucceeded. He died long before she did, and he died without changing hisviews. On his death-bed he told my mother that he was sure there was noother life, that he was going to the dust. That made the agony of hisfarewell. The certainty on his part that he and my mother were partingfor ever. I was a little boy at the time, but I remember that, when hewas dead, my mother said to me, 'Boris, pray for your father every day. He is still alive. ' She said nothing more, but I ran upstairs crying, fell upon my knees and prayed--trying to think where my father was andwhat he could be looking like. And in that prayer for my father, whichwas also an act of obedience to my mother, I think I took the first steptowards the monastic life. For I remember that then, for the first time, I was conscious of a great sense of responsibility. My mother's commandmade me say to myself, 'Then perhaps my prayer can do something inheaven. Perhaps a prayer from me can make God wish to do something Hehad not wished to do before. ' That was a tremendous thought! It excitedme terribly. I remember my cheeks burned as I prayed, and that I was hotall over as if I had been running in the sun. From that day my motherand I seemed to be much nearer together than we had ever been before. Ihad a twin brother to whom I was devoted, and who was devoted to me. But he took after my father. Religious things, ceremonies, church music, processions--even the outside attractions of the Catholic Church, whichplease and stimulate emotional people who have little faith--never meantmuch to him. All his attention was firmly fixed upon the life of thepresent. He was good to my mother and loved her devotedly, as he lovedme, but he never pretended to be what he was not. And he was never aCatholic. He was never anything. 

"My father had originally come to Africa for his health, which needed awarm climate. He had some money and bought large tracts of land suitablefor vineyards. Indeed, he sunk nearly his whole fortune in land. I toldyou, Domini, that the vines were devoured by the phylloxera. Most ofthe money was lost. When my father died we were left very poor. We livedquietly in a little village--I told you its name, I told you that partof my life, all I dared tell, Domini--but now--why did I enter themonastery? I was very young when I became a novice, just seventeen. Youare thinking, Domini, I know, that I was too young to know what I wasdoing, that I had no vocation, that I was unfitted for the monasticlife. It seems so. The whole world would think so. And yet--how am Ito tell you? Even now I feel that then I had the vocation, that I wasfitted to enter the monastery, that I ought to have made a faithfuland devoted monk. My mother wished the life for me, but it was not onlythat. I wished it for myself then. With my whole heart I wished it. Iknew nothing of the world. My youth had been one of absolute purity. AndI did not feel longings after the unknown. My mother's influence upon mewas strong; but she did not force me into anything. Perhaps my lovefor her led me more than I knew, brought me to the monastery door. Thepassion of her life, the human passion, had been my father. After he wasdead the passion of her life was prayer for him. My love for her made meshare that passion, and the sharing of that passion eventually led meto become a monk. I became as a child, a devotee of prayer. Oh!Domini--think--I loved prayer--I loved it----"

His voice broke. When he stopped speaking Domini was again conscious ofthe music in the city. She remembered that earlier in the night she hadthought of it as the music of a great festival. 

"I resolved to enter the life of prayer, the most perfect life ofprayer. I resolved to become a 'religious. ' It seemed to me that by sodoing I should be proving in the finest way my love for my mother. Ishould be, in the strongest way, helping her. Her life was prayer for mydead father and love for her children. By devoting myself to the life ofprayer I should show to her that I was as she was, as she had made me, true son of her womb. Can you understand? I had a passion for my mother, Domini--I had a passion. My brother tried to dissuade me from themonastic life. He himself was going into business in Tunis. He wanted meto join him. But I was firm. I felt driven towards the cloister then asother men often feel driven towards the vicious life. The inclinationwas irresistible. I yielded to it. I had to bid good-bye to my mother. I told you--she was the passion of my life. And yet I hardly felt sad atparting from her. Perhaps that will show you how I was then. It seemedto me that we should be even closer together when I wore the monk'shabit. I was in haste to put it on. I went to the monastery ofEl-Largani and entered it as a novice of the Trappistine order. Ithought in the great silence of the Trappists there would be more roomfor prayer. When I left my home and went to El-Largani I took with meone treasure only. Domini, it was the little wooden crucifix you pinnedupon the tent at Arba. My mother gave it to me, and I was allowed tokeep it. Everything else in the way of earthly possessions I, of course, had to give up. 

"You have never seen El-Largani, my home for nineteen years, my prisonfor one. It is lonely, but not in the least desolate. It stands on ahigh upland, and, from a distance, looks upon the sea. Far off there aremountains. The land was a desert. The monks have turned it, if not intoan Eden, at least into a rich garden. There are vineyards, cornfields, orchards, almost every fruit-tree flourishes there. The springs ofsweet waters are abundant. At a short way from the monastery is a largevillage for the Spanish workmen whom the monks supervise in the laboursof the fields. For the Trappist life is not only a life of prayer, but alife of diligent labour. When I became a novice I had not realised that. I had imagined myself continually upon my knees. I found instead that Iwas perpetually in the fields, in sun, and wind, and rain--that was inthe winter time--working like the labourers, and that often when wewent into the long, plain chapel to pray I was so tired--being only aboy--that my eyes closed as I stood in my stall, and I could scarcelyhear the words of Mass or Benediction. But I had expected to be happy atEl-Largani, and I was happy. Labour is good for the body and better forthe soul. And the silence was not hard to bear. The Trappists have abook of gestures, and are often allowed to converse by signs. We noviceswere generally in little bands, and often, as we walked in the garden ofthe monastery, we talked together gaily with our hands. Then the silenceis not perpetual. In the fields we often had to give directions to thelabourers. In the school, where we studied Theology, Latin, Greek, therewas heard the voice of the teacher. It is true that I have seen menin the monastery day by day for twenty years with whom I have neverexchanged a word, but I have had permission to speak with monks. Thehead of the monastery, the Reverend Pere, has the power to loose thebonds of silence when he chooses, and to allow monks to walk and speakwith each other beyond the white walls that hem in the garden of themonastery. Now and then we spoke, but I think most of us were notunhappy in our silence. It became a habit. And then we were alwaysoccupied. We had no time allowed us for sitting and being sad. Domini, I don't want to tell you about the Trappists, their life--only aboutmyself, why I was as I was, how I came to change. For years I was notunhappy at El-Largani. When my time of novitiate was over I took theeternal vows without hesitation. Many novices go out again into theworld. It never occurred to me to do so. I scarcely ever felt a stirringof worldly desire. I scarcely ever had one of those agonising struggleswhich many people probably attribute to monks. I was contented nearlyalways. Now and then the flesh spoke, but not strongly. Remember, ourlife was a life of hard and exhausting labour in the fields. The labourkept the flesh in subjection, as the prayer lifted up the spirit. Andthen, during all my earlier years at the monastery, we had an Abbe whowas quick to understand the characters and dispositions of men--DomAndre Herceline. He knew me far better than I knew myself. He knew, what I did not suspect, that I was full of sleeping violence, that in mypurity and devotion--or beneath it rather--there was a strong strain ofbarbarism. The Russian was sleeping in the monk, but sleeping soundly. That can be. Half a man's nature, if all that would call to it iscarefully kept from it, may sleep, I believe, through all his life. Hemight die and never have known, or been, what all the time he was. For years it was so with me. I knew only part of myself, a real vividpart--but only a part. I thought it was the whole. And while I thoughtit was the whole I was happy. If Dom Andre Herceline had not died, todayI should be a monk at El-Largani, ignorant of what I know, contented. 

"He never allowed me to come into any sort of contact with the manystrangers who visited the monastery. Different monks have differentduties. Certain duties bring monks into connection with the travellerswhom curiosity sends to El-Largani. The monk whose business it is tolook after the cemetery on the hill, where the dead Trappists are laidto rest, shows visitors round the little chapel, and may talk with themfreely so long as they remain in the cemetery. The monk in charge of thedistillery also receives visitors and converses with them. So does themonk in charge of the parlour at the great door of the monastery. Hesells the souvenirs of the Trappists, photographs of the church andbuildings, statues of saints, bottles of perfumes made by the monks. He takes the orders for the wines made at the monastery, and for--forthe--what I made, Domini, when I was there. "

She thought of De Trevignac and the fragments of glass lying upon theground in the tent at Mogar. 

"Had De Trevignac----" she said in a low, inward voice. 

"He had seen me, spoken with me at the monastery. When Ouardi brought inthe liqueur he remembered who I was. "

She understood De Trevignac's glance towards the tent where Androvskylay sleeping, and a slight shiver ran through her. Androvsky saw it andlooked down. 

"But the--the--"

He cleared his throat, turned, looked out across the white sand as ifhe longed to travel away into it and be lost for ever, then went on, speaking quickly:

"But the monk who has most to do with travellers is the monk who isin charge of the _hotellerie_ of the monastery. He is the host to allvisitors, to those who come over for the day and have _dejeuner_, andto any who remain for the night, or for a longer time. For when I was atEl-Largani it was permitted for people to stay in the _hotellerie_, onpayment of a small weekly sum, for as long as they pleased. The monk ofthe _hotellerie_ is perpetually brought into contact with the outsideworld. He talks with all sorts and conditions of men--women, of course, are not admitted. The other monks, many of them, probably envy him. Inever did. I had no wish to see strangers. When, by chance, I met themin the yard, the outbuildings, or the grounds of the monastery, I seldomeven raised my eyes to look at them. They were not, would never be, inmy life. Why should I look at them? What were they to me? Years wenton--quickly they passed--not slowly. I did not feel their monotony. Inever shrank from anything in the life. My health was splendid. I neverknew what it was to be ill for a day. My muscles were hard as iron. The pallet on which I lay in my cubicle, the heavy robe I wore day andnight, the scanty vegetables I ate, the bell that called me from mysleep in the darkness to go to the chapel, the fastings, the watchings, the perpetual sameness of all I saw, all I did, neither saddened norfatigued me. I never sighed for change. Can you believe that, Domini?It is true. So long as Dom Andre Herceline lived and ruled my life I wascalm, happy, as few people in the world, or none, can ever be. But DomAndre died, and then--"

His face was contorted by a spasm. 

"My mother was dead. My brother lived on in Tunis, and was successful inbusiness. He remained unmarried. So far as I was concerned, although themonastery was but two hours' drive from the town, he might almost havebeen dead too. I scarcely ever saw him, and then only by a specialpermission from the Reverend Pere, and for a few moments. Once I visitedhim at Tunis, when he was ill. When my mother died I seemed to sink downa little deeper into the monastic life. That was all. It was as if Idrew my robe more closely round me and pulled my hood further forwardover my face. There was more reason for my prayers, and I prayed morepassionately. I lived in prayer like a sea-plant in the depths of theocean. Prayer was about me like a fluid. But Dom Andre Hercelinedied, and a new Abbe was appointed, he who, I suppose, rules now atEl-Largani. He was a good man, but, I think, apt to misunderstand men. The Abbe of a Trappist monastery has complete power over his community. He can order what he will. Soon after he came to El-Largani--for somereason that I cannot divine--he--removed the Pere Michel, who had beenfor years in charge of the cemetery, from his duties there, and informedme that I was to undertake them. I obeyed, of course, without a word. 

"The cemetery of El-Largani is on a low hill, the highest part of themonastery grounds. It is surrounded by a white wall and by a hedge ofcypress trees. The road to it is an avenue of cypresses, among which areinterspersed niches containing carvings of the Fourteen Stations ofthe Cross. At the entrance to this avenue, on the left, there is a highyellow pedestal, surmounted by a black cross, on which hangs a silverChrist. Underneath is written:

"FACTUS OBEDIENS

"USQUE

"AD MORTEM

"CRUCIS. 

"I remember, on the first day when I became the guardian of thecemetery, stopping on my way to it before the Christ and praying. Myprayer--my prayer was, Domini, that I might die, as I had lived, ininnocence. I prayed for that, but with a sort of--yes, now I thinkso--insolent certainty that my prayer would of course be granted. Then Iwent on to the cemetery. 

"My work there was easy. I had only to tend the land about the graves, and sweep out the little chapel where was buried the founder of LaTrappe of El-Largani. This done I could wander about the cemetery, orsit on a bench in the sun. The Pere Michel, who was my predecessor, hadsome doves, and had left them behind in a little house by my bench. Itook care of and fed them. They were tame, and used to flutter to myshoulders and perch on my hands. To birds and animals I was always afriend. At El-Largani there are all sorts of beasts, and, at one timeor another, it had been my duty to look after most of them. I loved allliving things. Sitting in the cemetery I could see a great stretch ofcountry, the blue of the lakes of Tunis with the white villages at theiredge, the boats gliding upon them towards the white city, thedistant mountains. Having little to do, I sat day after day forhours meditating, and looking out upon this distant world. I rememberspecially one evening, at sunset, just before I had to go to the chapel, that a sort of awe came upon me as I looked across the lakes. The skywas golden, the waters were dyed with gold, out of which rose the whitesails of boats. The mountains were shadowy purple. The little minaretsof the mosques rose into the gold like sticks of ivory. As I watched myeyes filled with tears, and I felt a sort of aching in my heart, and asif--Domini, it was as if at that moment a hand was laid, on mine, butvery gently, and pulled at my hand. It was as if at that moment someonewas beside me in the cemetery wishing to lead me out to those far-offwaters, those mosque towers, those purple mountains. Never before had Ihad such a sensation. It frightened me. I felt as if the devil had comeinto the cemetery, as if his hand was laid on mine, as if his voice werewhispering in my ear, 'Come out with me into that world, that beautifulworld, which God made for men. Why do you reject it?'

"That evening, Domini, was the beginning of this--this end. Day afterday I sat in the cemetery and looked out over the world, and wonderedwhat it was like: what were the lives of the men who sailed in thewhite-winged boats, who crowded on the steamers whose smoke I could seesometimes faintly trailing away into the track of the sun; who kept thesheep upon the mountains; who--who--Domini, can you imagine--no, youcannot--what, in a man of my age, of my blood, were these first, veryfirst, stirrings of the longing for life? Sometimes I think they werelike the first birth-pangs of a woman who is going to be a mother. "

Domini's hands moved apart, then joined themselves again. 

"There was something physical in them. I felt as if my limbs had minds, and that their minds, which had been asleep, were waking. My armstwitched with a desire to stretch themselves towards the distant blueof the lakes on which I should never sail. My--I was physically stirred. And again and again I felt that hand laid closely upon mine, as if todraw me away into something I had never known, could never know. Do notthink that I did not strive against these first stirrings of the naturethat had slept so long! For days I refused to let myself look out fromthe cemetery. I kept my eyes upon the ground, upon the plain crossesthat marked the graves. I played with the red-eyed doves. I worked. But my eyes at last rebelled. I said to myself, 'It is not forbidden tolook. ' And again the sails, the seas, the towers, the mountains, were asvoices whispering to me, 'Why will you never know us, draw near to us?Why will you never understand our meaning? Why will you be ignorant forever of all that has been created for man to know?' Then the pain withinme became almost unbearable. At night I could not sleep. In the chapelit was difficult to pray. I looked at the monks around me, to most ofwhom I had never addressed a word, and I thought, 'Do they, too, holdsuch longings within them? Are they, too, shaken with a desire ofknowledge?' It seemed to me that, instead of a place of peace, themonastery was, must be, a place of tumult, of the silent tumult that hasits home in the souls of men. But then I remembered for how long I hadbeen at peace. Perhaps all the silent men by whom I was surrounded werestill at peace, as I had been, as I might be again. 

"A young monk died in the monastery and was buried in the cemetery. Imade his grave against the outer wall, beneath a cypress tree. Some daysafterwards, when I was sitting on the bench by the house of the doves, I heard a sound, which came from beyond the wall. It was like sobbing. I listened, and heard it more distinctly, and knew that it was someonecrying and sobbing desperately, and near at hand. But now it seemedto me to come from the wall itself. I got up and listened. Someone wascrying bitterly behind, or above, the wall, just where the youngmonk had been buried. Who could it be? I stood listening, wondering, hesitating what to do. There was something in this sound of lamentationthat moved one to the depths. For years I had not looked on a woman, orheard a woman's voice--but I knew that this was a woman mourning. Why was she there? What could she want? I glanced up. All round thecemetery, as I have said, grew cypress trees. As I glanced up I saw oneshake just above where the new grave was, and a woman's voice said, 'Icannot see it, I cannot see it!'

"I do not know why, but I felt that someone was there who wished to seethe young monk's grave. For a moment I stood there. Then I went tothe house where I kept my tools for my work in the cemetery, and gota shears which I used for lopping the cypress trees. I took a ladderquickly, set it against the wall, mounted it, and from the cypress Ihad seen moving I lopped some of the boughs. The sobbing ceased. Asthe boughs fell down from the tree I saw a woman's face, tear-stained, staring at me. It seemed to me a lovely face. 

"'Which is his grave?' she said. I pointed to the grave of the youngmonk, which could now be seen through the gap I had made, descended theladder, and went away to the farthest corner of the cemetery. And I didnot look again in the direction of the woman's face. 

"Who she was I do not know. When she went away I did not see. She lovedthe monk who had died, and knowing that women cannot enter the precinctsof the monastery, she had come to the outside wall to cast, if shemight, a despairing glance at his grave. 

"Domini, I wonder--I wonder if you can understand how that incidentaffected me. To an ordinary man it would seem nothing, I suppose. Butto a Trappist monk it seemed tremendous. I had seen a woman. I had donesomething for a woman. I thought of her, of what I had done for her, perpetually. The gap in the cypress tree reminded me of her every timeI looked towards it. When I was in the cemetery I could hardly turnmy eyes from it. But the woman never came again. I said nothing to theReverend Pere of what I had done. I ought to have spoken, but I did not. I kept it back when I confessed. From that moment I had a secret, and itwas a secret connected with a woman. 

"Does it seem strange to you that this secret seemed to me to set meapart from all the other monks--nearer the world? It was so. I feltsometimes as if I had been out into the world for a moment, had knownthe meaning that women have for men. I wondered who the woman was. Iwondered how she had loved the young monk who was dead. He used to sitbeside me in the chapel. He had a pure and beautiful face, such a face, I supposed, as a woman might well love. Had this woman loved him, andhad he rejected her love for the life of the monastery? I remember oneday thinking of this and wondering how it had been possible for him todo so, and then suddenly realising the meaning of my thought and turninghot with shame. I had put the love of woman above the love of God, woman's service above God's service. That day I was terrified of myself. I went back to the monastery from the cemetery, quickly, asked to seethe Reverend Pere, and begged him to remove me from the cemetery, togive me some other work. He did not ask my reason for wishing to change, but three days afterwards he sent for me, and told me that I was tobe placed in charge of the _hotellerie_ of the monastery, and that myduties there were to begin upon the morrow. 

"Domini, I wonder if I can make you realise what that change meant toa man who had lived as I had for so many years. The _hotellerie_ ofEl-Largani is a long, low, one-storied building standing in a gardenfull of palms and geraniums. It contains a kitchen, a number of littlerooms like cells for visitors, and two large parlours in which guestsare entertained at meals. In one they sit to eat the fruit, eggs, andvegetables provided by the monastery, with wine. If after the meal theywish to take coffee they pass into the second parlour. Visitors whostay in the monastery are free to do much as they please, but they mustconform to certain rules. They rise at a certain hour, feed at fixedtimes, and are obliged to go to their bedrooms at half-past seven inthe evening in winter, and at eight in summer. The monk in charge of the_hotellerie_ has to see to their comfort. He looks after the kitchen, isalways in the parlour at some moment or another during meals. He visitsthe bedrooms and takes care that the one servant keeps everythingspotlessly clean. He shows people round the garden. His duties, you see, are light and social. He cannot go into the world, but he can mix withthe world that comes to him. It is his task, if not his pleasure, to becheerful, talkative, sympathetic, a good host, with a genial welcome forall who come to La Trappe. After my years of labour, solitude, silence, and prayer, I was abruptly put into this new life. 

"Domini, to me it was like rushing out into the world. I was almostdazed by the change. At first I was nervous, timid, awkward, and, especially, tongue-tied. The habit of silence had taken such a hold uponme that I could not throw it off. I dreaded the coming of visitors. Idid not know how to receive them, what to say to them. Fortunately, asI thought, the tourist season was over, the summer was approaching. Veryfew people came, and those only to eat a meal. I tried to be polite andpleasant to them, and gradually I began to fall into the way of talkingwithout the difficulty I had experienced at first. In the beginning Icould not open my lips without feeling as if I were almost committing acrime. But presently I was more natural, less taciturn. I even, now andthen, took some pleasure in speaking to a pleasant visitor. I grewto love the garden with its flowers, its orange trees, its groves ofeucalyptus, its vineyard which sloped towards the cemetery. Often Iwandered in it alone, or sat under the arcade that divided it from thelarge entrance court of the monastery, meditating, listening to the beeshumming, and watching the cats basking in the sunshine. 

"Sometimes, when I was there, I thought of the woman's face above thecemetery wall. Sometimes I seemed to feel the hand tugging at mine. ButI was more at peace than I had been in the cemetery. For from the gardenI could not see the distant world, and of the chance visitors none hadas yet set a match to the torch that, unknown to me, was ready--at thecoming of the smallest spark--to burst into a flame. 

"One day, it was in the morning towards half-past ten, when I wassitting reading my Greek Testament on a bench just inside the doorway ofthe _hotellerie_, I heard the great door of the monastery being opened, and then the rolling of carriage wheels in the courtyard. Some visitorhad arrived from Tunis, perhaps some visitors--three or four. It wasa radiant morning of late May. The garden was brilliant with flowers, golden with sunshine, tender with shade, and quiet--quiet and peaceful, Domini! There was a wonderful peace in the garden that day, a peace thatseemed full of safety, of enduring cheerfulness. The flowers looked asif they had hearts to understand it, and love it, the roses along theyellow wall of the house that clambered to the brown red tiles, thegeraniums that grew in masses under the shining leaves of the orangetrees, the--I felt as if that day I were in the Garden of Eden, and Iremember that when I heard the carriage wheels I had a moment of selfishsadness. I thought: 'Why does anyone come to disturb my blessed peace, my blessed solitude?' Then I realised the egoism of my thought and thatI was there with my duty. I got up, went into the kitchen and said toFrancois, the servant, that someone had come and no doubt would stay to_dejeuner_. And, as I spoke, already I was thinking of the moment whenI should hear the roll of wheels once more, the clang of the shuttinggate, and know that the intruders upon the peace of the Trappists hadgone back to the world, and that I could once more be alone in thelittle Eden I loved. 

"Strangely, Domini, strangely, that day, of all the days of my life, Iwas most in love--it was like that, like being in love--with mymonk's existence. The terrible feeling that had begun to ravage me hadcompletely died away. I adored the peace in which my days were passed. I looked at the flowers and compared my happiness with theirs. Theyblossomed, bloomed, faded, died in the garden. So would I wish toblossom, bloom, fade--when my time came--die in the garden--alwaysin peace, always in safety, always isolated from the terrors of life, always under the tender watchful eye of--of--Domini, that day I washappy, as perhaps they are--perhaps--the saints in Paradise. I was happybecause I felt no inclination to evil. I felt as if my joy lay entirelyin being innocent. Oh, what an ecstasy such a feeling is! 'My willaccord with Thy design--I love to live as Thou intendest me to live! Anyother way of life would be to me a terror, would bring to me despair. '

"And I felt that--intensely I felt it at that moment in heart andsoul. It was as if I had God's arms round me, caressing me as a fathercaresses his child. "

He moved away a step or two in the sand, came back, and went on with aneffort:

"Within a few minutes the porter of the monastery came through thearchway of the arcade followed by a young man. As I looked up at himI was uncertain of his nationality. But I scarcely thought aboutit--except in the first moment. For something else seized myattention--the intense, active misery in the stranger's face. He lookedravaged, eaten by grief. I said he was young--perhaps twenty-six ortwenty-seven. His face was rather dark-complexioned, with small, goodfeatures. He had thick brown hair, and his eyes shone with intelligence, with an intelligence that was almost painful--somehow. His eyes alwayslooked to me as if they were seeing too much, had always seen too much. There was a restlessness in the swiftness of their observation. Onecould not conceive of them closed in sleep. An activity that must surelybe eternal blazed in them. 

"The porter left the stranger in the archway. It was now my duty toattend to him. I welcomed him in French. He took off his hat. Whenhe did that I felt sure he was an Englishman--by the look of himbareheaded--and I told him that I spoke English as well as French. Heanswered that he was at home in French, but that he was English. Wetalked English. His entrance into the garden had entirely destroyedmy sense of its peace--even my own peace was disturbed at once by hisappearance. 

"I felt that I was in the presence of a misery that was like a devouringelement. Before we had time for more than a very few halting words thebell was rung by Francois. 

"'What's that for, Father?' the stranger said, with a start, whichshowed that his nerves were shattered. 

"'It is time for your meal, ' I answered. 

"'One must eat!' he said. Then, as if conscious that he was behavingoddly, he added politely:

"'I know you entertain us too well here, and have sometimes beenrewarded with coarse ingratitude. Where do I go?'

"I showed him into the parlour. There was no one there that day. He satat the long table. 

"'I am to eat alone?' he asked. 

"'Yes; I will serve you. '

"Francois, always waited on the guests, but that day--mindful of theselfishness of my thoughts in the garden--I resolved to add to myduties. I therefore brought the soup, the lentils, the omelette, theoranges, poured out the wine, and urged the young man cordially toeat. When I did so he looked up at me. His eyes were extraordinarilyexpressive. It was as if I heard them say to me, 'Why, I like you!' andas if, just for a moment, his grief were lessened. 

"In the empty parlour, long, clean, bare, with a crucifix on the walland the name 'Saint Bernard' above the door, it was very quiet, veryshady. The outer blinds of green wood were drawn over the window-spaces, shutting out the gold of the garden. But its murmuring tranquillityseemed to filter in, as if the flowers, the insects, the birds wereaware of our presence and were trying to say to us, 'Are you happy as weare? Be happy as we are. '

"The stranger looked at the shady room, the open windows. He sighed. 

"'How quiet it is here!' he said, almost as if to himself. 'How quiet itis!'

"'Yes, ' I answered. 'Summer is beginning. For months now scarcely anyonewill come to us here. '

"'Us?' he said, glancing at me with a sudden smile. 

"'I meant to us who are monks, who live always here. '

"'May I--is it indiscreet to ask if you have been here long?'

"I told him. 

"'More than nineteen years!' he said. 

"'Yes. '

"'And always in this silence?'

"He sat as if listening, resting his head on his hand. 

"'How extraordinary!' he said at last. 'How wonderful! Is it happiness?'

"I did not answer. The question seemed to me to be addressed to himself, not to me. I could leave him to seek for the answer. After a moment hewent on eating and drinking in silence. When he had finished I asked himwhether he would take coffee. He said he would, and I made him passinto the St. Joseph _salle_. There I brought him coffee and--andthat liqueur. I told him that it was my invention. He seemed to beinterested. At any rate, he took a glass and praised it strongly. Iwas pleased. I think I showed it. From that moment I felt as if we werealmost friends. Never before had I experienced such a feeling foranyone who had come to the monastery, or for any monk or novice in themonastery. Although I had been vexed, irritated, at the approach of astranger I now felt regret at the idea of his going away. Presentlythe time came to show him round the garden. We went out of the shadowyparlour into the sunshine. No one was in the garden. Only the bees werehumming, the birds were passing, the cats were basking on the broad paththat stretched from the arcade along the front of the _hotellerie_. As we came out a bell chimed, breaking for an instant the silence, andmaking it seem the sweeter when it returned. We strolled for a littlewhile. We did not talk much. The stranger's eyes, I noticed, wereeverywhere, taking in every detail of the scene around us. Presently wecame to the vineyard, to the left of which was the road that led to thecemetery, passed up the road and arrived at the cemetery gate. 

"'Here I must leave you, ' I said. 

"'Why?' he asked quickly. 

"'There is another Father who will show you the chapel. I shall wait foryou here. '

"I sat down and waited. When the stranger returned it seemed to me thathis face was calmer, that there was a quieter expression in his eyes. When we were once more before the _hotellerie_ I said:

"'You have seen all my small domain now. '

"He glanced at the house. 

"'But there seems to be a number of rooms, ' he said. 

"'Only the bedrooms. '

"'Bedrooms? Do people stay the night here?'

"'Sometimes. If they please they can stay for longer than a night. '

"'How much longer?'

"'For any time they please, if they conform to one or two simple rulesand pay a small fixed sum to the monastery. '

"'Do you mean that you could take anyone in for the summer?' he saidabruptly. 

"'Why not? The consent of the Reverend Pere has to be obtained. That isall. '

"'I should like to see the bedrooms. '

"I took him in and showed him one. 

"'All the others are the same, ' I said. 

"He glanced round at the white walls, the rough bed, the crucifix aboveit, the iron basin, the paved floor, then went to the window and lookedout. 

"'Well, ' he said, drawing back into the room, 'I will go now to see thePere Abbe, if it is permitted. '

"On the garden path I bade him good-bye. He shook my hand. There was anodd smile in his face. Half-an-hour later I saw him coming again throughthe arcade. 

"'Father, ' he said, 'I am not going away. I have asked the Pere Abbe'spermission to stay here. He has given it to me. To-morrow such luggageas I need will be sent over from Tunis. Are you--are you very vexed tohave a stranger to trouble your peace?'

"His intensely observant eyes were fixed upon me while he spoke. Ianswered:

"'I do not think you will trouble my peace. '

"And my thought was:

"'I will help you to find the peace which you have lost. '

"Was it a presumptuous thought, Domini? Was it insolent? At the timeit seemed to me absolutely sincere, one of the best thoughts I had everhad--a thought put into my heart by God. I didn't know then--I didn'tknow. "

He stopped speaking, and stood for a time quite still, looking down atthe sand, which was silver white under the moon. At last he lifted hishead and said, speaking slowly:

"It was the coming of this man that put the spark to that torch. It washe who woke up in me the half of myself which, unsuspected by me, hadbeen slumbering through all my life, slumbering and gathering strengthin slumber--as the body does--gathering a strength that was tremendous, that was to overmaster the whole of me, that was to make of me one madimpulse. He woke up in me the body and the body was to take possessionof the soul. I wonder--can I make you feel why this man was able toaffect me thus? Can I make you know this man?

"He was a man full of secret violence, violence of the mind and violenceof the body, a volcanic man. He was English--he said so--but there musthave been blood that was not English in his veins. When I was with himI felt as if I was with fire. There was the restlessness of fire in him. There was the intensity of fire. He could be reserved. He could appearto be cold. But always I was conscious that if there was stone withoutthere was scorching heat within. He was watchful of himself and ofeveryone with whom he came into the slightest contact. He was veryclever. He had an immense amount of personal charm, I think, at anyrate for me. He was very human, passionately interested in humanity. He was--and this was specially part of him, a dominant trait--he wassavagely, yes, savagely, eager to be happy, and when he came to live inthe _hotellerie_ he was savagely unhappy. An egoist he was, a thinker, a man who longed to lay hold of something beyond this world, but whohad not been able to do so. Even his desire to find rest in a religionseemed to me to have greed in it, to have something in it that wasakin to avarice. He was a human storm, Domini, as well as a human fire. Think! what a man to be cast by the world--which he knew as they know itonly who are voracious for life and free--into my quiet existence. 

"Very soon he began to show himself to me as he was, with a sort offearlessness that was almost impudent. The conditions of our two livesin the monastery threw us perpetually together in a curious isolation. And the Reverend Pere, Domini, the Reverend Pere, set my feet in thepath of my own destruction. On the day after the stranger had arrivedthe Reverend Pere sent for me to his private room, and said to me, 'Our new guest is in a very unhappy state. He has been attracted by ourpeace. If we can bring peace to him it will be an action acceptableto God. You will be much with him. Try to do him good. He is not aCatholic, but no matter. He wishes to attend the services in the chapel. He may be influenced. God may have guided his feet to us, we cannottell. But we can act--we can pray for him. I do not know how long hewill stay. It may be for only a few days or for the whole summer. Itdoes not matter. Use each day well for him. Each day may be his lastwith us. ' I went out from the Reverend Pere full of enthusiasm, feelingthat a great, a splendid interest had come into my life, an interestsuch as it had never held before. 

"Day by day I was with this man. Of course there were many hours whenwe were apart, the hours when I was at prayer in the chapel or occupiedwith study. But each day we passed much time together, generally in thegarden. Scarcely any visitors came, and none to stay, except, from timeto time, a passing priest, and once two young men from Tunis, one ofwhom had an inclination to become a novice. And this man, as I havesaid, began to show himself to me with a tremendous frankness. 

"Domini, he was suffering under what I suppose would be called anobsession, an immense domination such as one human being sometimesobtains over another. At that time I had never realised that there weresuch dominations. Now I know that there are, and, Domini, that they canbe both terrible and splendid. He was dominated by a woman, by a womanwho had come into his life, seized it, made it a thing of glory, brokenit. He described to me the dominion of this woman. He told me how shehad transformed him. Till he met her he had been passionate but free, his own master through many experiences, many intrigues. He was veryfrank, Domini. He did not attempt to hide from me that his life had beenevil. It had been a life devoted to the acquiring of experience, of allpossible experience, mental and bodily. I gathered that he had shrunkfrom nothing, avoided nothing. His nature had prompted him to rush uponeverything, to grasp at everything. At first I was horrified at what hetold me. I showed it. I remember the second evening after his arrivalwe were sitting together in a little arbour at the foot of the vineyardthat sloped up to the cemetery. It was half an hour before the lastservice in the chapel. The air was cool with breath from the distantsea. An intense calm, a heavenly calm, I think, filled the garden, floated away to the cypresses beside the graves, along the avenue wherestood the Fourteen Stations of the Cross. And he told me, began to tellme something of his life. 

"'You thought to find happiness in such an existence?' I exclaimed, almost with incredulity I believe. 

"He looked at me with his shining eyes. 

"'Why not, Father? Do you think I was a madman to do so?'

"'Surely. '

"'Why? Is there not happiness in knowledge?'

"'Knowledge of evil?'

"'Knowledge of all things that exist in life. I have never soughtfor evil specially; I have sought for everything. I wished to bringeverything under my observation, everything connected with human life. '

"'But human life, ' I said more quietly, 'passes away from this world. Itis a shadow in a world of shadows. '

"'You say that, ' he answered abruptly. 'I wonder if you feel it--feel itas you feel my hand on yours. '

"He laid his hand on mine. It was hot and dry as if with fever. Itstouch affected me painfully. 

"'Is that hand the hand of a shadow?' he said. 'Is this body thatcan enjoy and suffer, that can be in heaven or in hell--here--here--ashadow?'

"'Within a week it might be less than a shadow. '

"'And what of that? This is now, this is now. Do you mean what you say?Do you truly feel that you are a shadow--that this garden is but a worldof shadows? I feel that I, that you, are terrific realities, that thisgarden is of immense significance. Look at that sky. '

"The sky above the cypresses was red with sunset. The trees looked blackbeneath it. Fireflies were flitting near the arbour where we sat. 

"'That is the sky that roofs what you would have me believe a world ofshadows. It is like the blood, the hot blood that flows and surges inthe veins of men--in our veins. Ah, but you are a monk!'

"The way he said the last words made me feel suddenly a sense of shame, Domini. It was as if a man said to another man, 'You are not a man. ' Canyou--can you understand the feeling I had just then? Something hot andbitter was in me. A sort of desperate sense of nothingness came over me, as if I were a skeleton sitting there with flesh and blood and trying tobelieve, and to make it believe, that I, too, was and had been flesh andblood. 

"'Yes, thank God, I am a monk, ' I answered quietly. 

"Something in my tone, I think, made him feel that he had been brutal. 

"'I am a brute and a fool, ' he said vehemently. 'But it is always sowith me. I always feel as if what I want others must want. I always feeluniversal. It's folly. You have your vocation, I mine. Yours is to pray, mine is to live. '

"Again I was conscious of the bitterness. I tried to put it from me. 

"'Prayer is life, ' I answered, 'to me, to us who are here. '

"'Prayer! Can it be? Can it be vivid as the life of experience, asthe life that teaches one the truth of men and women, the truth ofcreation--joy, sorrow, aspiration, lust, ambition of the intellect andthe limbs? Prayer--'

"'It is time for me to go, ' I said. 'Are you coming to the chapel?'

"'Yes, ' he answered almost eagerly. 'I shall look down on you from mylonely gallery. Perhaps I shall be able to feel the life of prayer. '

"'May it be so, ' I said. 

"But I think I spoke without confidence, and I know that that evening Iprayed without impulse, coldly, mechanically. The long, dim chapel, withits lines of monks facing each other in their stalls, seemed to me asad place, like a valley of dry bones--for the first time, for the firsttime. 

"I ought to have gone on the morrow to the Reverend Pere. I ought tohave asked him, begged him to remove me from the _hotellerie_. I oughtto have foreseen what was coming--that this man had a strength to livegreater than my strength to pray; that his strength might overcome mine. I began to sin that night. Curiosity was alive in me, curiosity aboutthe life that I had never known, was--so I believed, so I thought Iknew--never to know. 

"When I came out of the chapel into the _hotellerie_ I met our guest--Ido not say his name. What would be the use?--in the corridor. It wasalmost dark. There were ten minutes before the time for locking upthe door and going to bed. Francois, the servant, was asleep under thearcade. 

"'Shall we go on to the path and have a last breath of air?' thestranger said. 

"We stepped out and walked slowly up and down. 

"'Do you not feel the beauty of peace?' I asked. 

"I wanted him to say yes. I wanted him to tell me that peace, tranquillity, were beautiful. He did not reply for a moment. I heard himsigh heavily. 

"'If there is peace in the world at all, ' he said at length, 'it is onlyto be found with the human being one loves. With the human being oneloves one might find peace in hell. '

"We did not speak again before we parted for the night. 

"Domini, I did not sleep at all that night. It was the first of manysleepless nights, nights in which my thoughts travelled like wingedFuries--horrible, horrible nights. In them I strove to imagine all thestranger knew by experience. It was like a ghastly, physical effort. Istrove to conceive of all that he had done--with the view, I told myselfat first, of bringing myself to a greater contentment, of realising howworthless was all that I had rejected and that he had grasped at. Inthe dark I, as it were, spread out his map of life and mine andexamined them. When, still in the dark, I rose to go to the chapel I wasexhausted. I felt unutterably melancholy. That was at first. PresentlyI felt an active, gnawing hunger. But--but--I have not come to that yet. This strange, new melancholy was the forerunner. It was a melancholythat seemed to be caused by a sense of frightful loneliness such as Ihad never previously experienced. Till now I had almost always felt Godwith me, and that He was enough. Now, suddenly, I began to feel that Iwas alone. I kept thinking of the stranger's words: 'If there is peacein the world at all it is only to be found with the human being oneloves. '

"'That is false, ' I said to myself again and again. 'Peace is only to befound by close union with God. In that I have found peace for many, manyyears. '

"I knew that I had been at peace. I knew that I had been happy. And yet, when I looked back upon my life as a novice and a monk, I now felt as ifI had been happy vaguely, foolishly, bloodlessly, happy only becauseI had been ignorant of what real happiness was--not really happy. Ithought of a bird born in a cage and singing there. I had been as thatbird. And then, when I was in the garden, I looked at the swallowswinging their way high in the sunshine, between the garden trees and theradiant blue, winging their way towards sea and mountains and plains, and that bitterness, like an acid that burns and eats away fine metal, was once more at my heart. 

"But the sensation of loneliness was the most terrible of all. Icompared union with God, such as I thought I had known, with that otherunion spoken of by my guest--union with the human being one loves. I setthe two unions as it were in comparison. Night after night I did this. Night after night I told over the joys of union with God--joys whichI dared to think I had known--and the joys of union with a loved humanbeing. On the one side I thought of the drawing near to God in prayer, of the sensation of approach that comes with earnest prayer, of thefeeling that ears are listening to you, that the great heart is lovingyou, the great heart that loves all living things, that you are beingabsolutely understood, that all you cannot say is comprehended, andall you say is received as something precious. I recalled the joy, theexaltation, that I had known when I prayed. That was union with God. In such union I had sometimes felt that the world, with all that itcontained of wickedness, suffering and death, was utterly devoid ofpower to sadden or alarm the humblest human being who was able to drawnear to God. 

"I had had a conquering feeling--not proud--as of one upborne, protectedfor ever, lifted to a region in which no enemy could ever be, nosadness, no faint anxiety even. 

"Then I strove to imagine--and this, Domini, was surely a deliberatesin--exactly what it must be to be united with a beloved human being. Istrove and I was able. For not only did instinct help me, instinctthat had been long asleep, but--I have told you that the stranger wassuffering under an obsession, a terrible dominion. This dominion hedescribed to me with an openness that perhaps--that indeed I believe--hewould not have shown had I not been a monk. He looked upon me as a beingapart, neither man nor woman, a being without sex. I am sure he did. And yet he was immensely intelligent. But he knew that I had entered themonastery as a novice, that I had been there through all my adult life. And then my manner probably assisted him in his illusion. For I gave--Ibelieve--no sign of the change that was taking place within me under hisinfluence. I seemed to be calm, detached, even in my sympathy forhis suffering. For he suffered frightfully. This woman he loved was aParisian, he told me. He described her beauty to me, as if in order toexcuse himself for having become the slave to her he was. I suppose shewas very beautiful. He said that she had a physical charm so intensethat few men could resist it, that she was famous throughout Europe forit. He told me that she was not a good woman. I gathered that she livedfor pleasure, admiration, that she had allowed many men to love herbefore he knew her. But she had loved him genuinely. She was not a veryyoung woman, and she was not a married woman. He said that she was awoman men loved but did not marry, a woman who was loved by the husbandsof married women, a woman to marry whom would exclude a man from thesociety of good women. She had never lived, or thought of living, forone man till he came into her life. Nor had he ever dreamed of livingfor one woman. He had lived to gain experience; she too. But when he mether--knowing thoroughly all she was--all other women ceased to exist forhim. He became her slave. Then jealousy awoke in him, jealousy of allthe men who had been in her life, who might be in her life again. He wastortured by loving such a woman--a woman who had belonged to many, whowould no doubt in the future belong to others. For despite the fact thatshe loved him he told me that at first he had no illusions about her. Heknew the world too well for that, and he cursed the fate that had boundhim body and soul to what he called a courtesan. Even the fact that sheloved him at first did not blind him to the effect upon character thather life must inevitably have had. She had dwelt in an atmosphere oflies, he said, and to lie was nothing to her. Any original refinementof feeling as regards human relations that she might have had had becomedulled, if it had not been destroyed. At first he blindly, miserably, resigned himself to this. He said to himself, 'Fate has led me to lovethis sort of woman. I must accept her as she is, with all her defects, with her instinct for treachery, with her passion for the admirationof the world, with her incapability for being true to an ideal, or forisolating herself in the adoration of one man. I cannot get away fromher. She has me fast. I cannot live without her. Then I must bear thetorture that jealousy of her will certainly bring me in silence. I mustconceal it. I must try to kill it. I must make the best of whatevershe will give me, knowing that she can never, with her nature and hertraining, be exclusively mine as a good woman might be. ' This he said tohimself. This plan of conduct he traced for himself. But he soonfound that he was not strong enough to keep to it. His jealousy was adevouring fire, and he could not conceal it. Domini, he described to meminutely the effect of jealousy in a human heart. I had never imaginedwhat it was, and, when he described it, I felt as if I looked down intoa bottomless pit lined with the flames of hell. By the depth of that pitI measured the depth of his passion for this woman, and I gained an ideaof what human love--not the best sort of human love, but still genuine, intense love of some kind--could be. Of this human love I thought atnight, putting it in comparison with the love God's creature can havefor God. And my sense of loneliness increased, and I felt as if I hadalways been lonely. Does this seem strange to you? In the love of Godwas calm, peace, rest, a lying down of the soul in the Almighty arms. Inthe other love described to me was restlessness, agitation, torture, thesoul spinning like an atom driven by winds, the heart devoured as by adisease, a cancer. On the one hand was a beautiful trust, on the othera ceaseless agony of doubt and terror. And yet I came to feel as if theone were unreal in comparison with the other, as if in the one were aloneliness, in the other fierce companionship. I thought of the Almightyarms, Domini, and of the arms of a woman, and--Domini, I longed to haveknown, if only once, the pressure of a woman's arms about my neck, aboutmy breast, the touch of a woman's hand upon my heart. 

"And of all this I never spoke at confession. I committed the deadly sinof keeping back at confession all that. " He stopped. Then he said, "Tillthe end my confessions were incomplete, were false. 

"The stranger told me that as his love for this woman grew he found itimpossible to follow the plan he had traced for himself of shutting hiseyes to the sight of other eyes admiring, desiring her, of shutting hisears to the voices that whispered, 'This it will always be, for othersas well as for you. ' He found it impossible. His jealousy was tooimportunate, and he resolved to make any effort to keep her for himselfalone. He knew she had love for him, but he knew that love would notnecessarily, or even probably, keep her entirely faithful to him. Shethought too little of passing intrigues. To her they seemed trifles, meaningless, unimportant. She told him so, when he spoke his jealousy. She said, 'I love you. I do not love these other men. They are in mylife for a moment only. '

"'And that moment plunges me into hell!' he said. 

"He told her he could not bear it, that it was impossible, that she mustbelong to him entirely and solely. He asked her to marry him. She wassurprised, touched. She understood what a sacrifice such a marriagewould be to a man in his position. He was a man of good birth. Hisrequest, his vehement insistence on it, made her understand his love asshe had not understood it before. Yet she hesitated. For so long hadshe been accustomed to a life of freedom, of changing _amours_, that shehesitated to put her neck under the yoke of matrimony. She understoodthoroughly his character and his aim in marrying her. She knew that ashis wife she must bid an eternal farewell to the life she had known. Andit was a life that had become a habit to her, a life that she was fondof. For she was enormously vain, and she was a--she was a very physicalwoman, subject to physical caprices. There are things that I pass over, Domini, which would explain still more her hesitation. He knew whatcaused it, and again he was tortured. But he persisted. And at last heovercame. She consented to marry him. They were engaged. Domini, Ineed not tell you much more, only this fact--which had driven him fromFrance, destroyed his happiness, brought him to the monastery. Shortlybefore the marriage was to take place he discovered that, while theywere engaged, she had yielded to the desires of an old admirer who hadcome to bid her farewell and to wish her joy in her new life. He wastempted, he said, to kill her. But he governed himself and left her. He travelled. He came to Tunis. He came to La Trappe. He saw the peacethere. He thought, 'Can I seize it? Can it do something for me?' He sawme. He thought, 'I shall not be quite alone. This monk--he has livedalways in peace, he has never known the torture of women. Might notintercourse with him help me?'

"Such was his history, such was the history poured, with infinite detailthat I have not told you, day by day, into my ears. It was the history, you see, of a passion that was mainly physical. I will not say entirely. I do not know whether any great passion can be entirely physical. But itwas the history of the passion of one body for another body, and hedid not attempt to present it to me as anything else. This man made meunderstand the meaning of the body. I had never understood it before. I had never suspected the immensity of the meaning there is in physicalthings. I had never comprehended the flesh. Now I comprehended it. Loneliness rushed upon me, devoured me--loneliness of the body. 'God isa spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit. ' Now Ifelt that to worship in spirit was not enough. I even felt that it wasscarcely anything. Again I thought of my life as the life of a skeletonin a world of skeletons. Again the chapel was as a valley of dry bones. It was a ghastly sensation. I was plunged in the void. I--I--I can'ttell you my exact sensation, but it was as if I was the loneliestcreature in the whole of the universe, and as if I need not have beenlonely, as if I, in my ignorance and fatuity, had selected lonelinessthinking it was the happiest fate. 

"And yet you will say I was face to face with this man's almost franticmisery. I was, and it made no difference. I envied him, even in hispresent state. He wanted to gain consolation from me if that werepossible. Oh, the irony of my consoling him! In secret I laughed at itbitterly. When I strove to console him I knew that I was an incarnatelie. He had told me the meaning of the body and, by so doing, hadsnatched from me the meaning of the spirit. And then he said to me, 'Make me feel the meaning of the spirit. If I can grasp that I may findcomfort. ' He called upon me to give him what I no longer had--the peaceof God that passeth understanding. Domini, can you feel at all what thatwas to me? Can you realise? Can you--is it any wonder that I could donothing for him, for him who had done such a frightful thing for me? Isit any wonder? Soon he realised that he would not find peace with me inthe garden. Yet he stayed on. Why? He did not know where to go, whatto do. Life offered him nothing but horror. His love of experiences wasdead. His love of life had completely vanished. He saw the worldly lifeas a nightmare, yet he had nothing to put in the place of it. And in themonastery he was ceaselessly tormented by jealousy. Ceaselessly his mindwas at work about this woman, picturing her in her life of change, ofintrigue, of new lovers, of new hopes and aims in which he had no part, in which his image was being blotted out, doubtless from her memoryeven. He suffered, he suffered as few suffer. But I think I sufferedmore. The melancholy was driven on into a gnawing hunger, the gnawinghunger of the flesh wishing to have lived, wishing to live, wishingto--to know. 

"Domini, to you I can't say more of that--to you whom I--whom I lovewith spirit and flesh. I will come to the end, to the incident whichmade the body rise up, strike down the soul, trample out over it intothe world like a wolf that was starving. 

"One day the Reverend Pere gave me a special permission to walk with ourvisitor beyond the monastery walls towards the sea. Such permission wasan event in my life. It excited me more than you can imagine. I foundthat the stranger had begged him to let me come. 

"'Our guest is very fond of you, ' the Reverend Pere said to me. 'I thinkif any human being can bring him to a calmer, happier state of mind andspirit, you can. You have obtained a good influence over him. '

"Domini, when the Reverend Pere spoke to me thus my mouth was suddenlycontracted in a smile. Devil's smile, I think. I put up my hand tomy face. I saw the Reverend Pere looking at me with a dawning ofastonishment in his kind, grave eyes, and I controlled myself at once. But I said nothing. I could not say anything, and I went out from theparlour quickly, hot with a sensation of shame. 

"'You are coming?' the stranger said. 

"'Yes, ' I answered. 

"It was a fiery day of late June. Africa was bathed in a glare oflight that hurt the eyes. I went into my cell and put on a pair of blueglasses and my wide straw hat, the hat in which I formerly used to workin the fields. When I came out my guest was standing on the garden path. He was swinging a stick in one hand. The other hand, which hung down byhis side, was twitching nervously. In the glitter of the sun his facelooked ghastly. In his eyes there seemed to be terrors watching withouthope. 

"'You are ready?' he said. 'Let us go. '

"We set off, walking quickly. 

"'Movement--pace--sometimes that does a little good, ' he said. 'If onecan exhaust the body the mind sometimes lies almost still for a moment. If it would only lie still for ever. '

"I said nothing. I could say nothing. For my fever was surely as hisfever. 

"'Where are we going?' he asked when we reached the little house of thekeeper of the gate by the cemetery. 

"'We cannot walk in the sun, ' I answered. 'Let us go into the eucalyptuswoods. '

"The first Trappists had planted forests of eucalyptus to keep off thefever that sometimes comes in the African summer. We made our way alonga tract of open land and came into a deep wood. Here we began to walkmore slowly. The wood was empty of men. The hot silence was profound. He took off his white helmet and walked on, carrying it in his hand. Nottill we were far in the forest did he speak. Then he said, 'Father, Icannot struggle on much longer. '

"He spoke abruptly, in a hard voice. 

"'You must try to gain courage, ' I said. 

"'From where?' he exclaimed. 'No, no, don't say from God. If there is aGod He hates me. '

"When he said that I felt as if my soul shuddered, hearing a frightfultruth spoken about itself. My lips were dry. My heart seemed to shrivelup, but I made an effort and answered:

"'God hates no being whom He has created. '

"'How can you know? Almost every man, perhaps every living man hatessomeone. Why not--?'

"'To compare God with a man is blasphemous, ' I answered. 

"'Aren't we made in His image? Father, it's as I said--I can't struggleon much longer. I shall have to end it. I wish now--I often wish that Ihad yielded to my first impulse and killed her. What is she doing now?What is she doing now--at this moment?'

"He stood still and beat with his stick on the ground. 

"'You don't know the infinite torture there is in knowing that, faraway, she is still living that cursed life, that she is free to continuethe acts of which her existence has been full. Every moment I amimagining--I am seeing--'

"He forced his stick deep into the ground. 

"'If I had killed her, ' he said in a low voice, 'at least I should knowthat she was sleeping--alone--there--there--under the earth. I shouldknow that her body was dissolved into dust, that her lips could kiss noman, that her arms could never hold another as they have held me!'

"'Hush!' I said sternly. 'You deliberately torture yourself and me. ' Heglanced up sharply. 

"'You! What do you mean?'

"'I must not listen to such things, ' I said. 'They are bad for you andfor me. '

"'How can they be bad for you--a monk?'

"'Such talk is evil--evil for everyone. '

"'I'll be silent then. I'll go into the silence. I'll go soon. '

"I understood that he thought of putting an end to himself. 

"'There are few men, ' I said, speaking with deliberation, with effort, 'who do not feel at some period of life that all is over for them, thatthere is nothing to hope for, that happiness is a dream which will visitthem no more. '

"'Have you ever felt like that? You speak of it calmly, but have youever experienced it?'

"I hesitated. Then I said:

"'Yes. '

"'You, who have been a monk for so many years!'

"'Yes. '

"'Since you have been here?'

"'Yes, since then. '

"'And you would tell me that the feeling passed, that hope came again, and the dream as you call it?'

"'I would say that what has lived in a heart can die, as we who live inthis world shall die. '

"'Ah, that--the sooner the better! But you are wrong. Sometimes a thinglives in the heart that cannot die so long as the heart beats. Such ismy passion, my torture. Don't you, a monk--don't dare to say to me thatthis love of mine could die. '

"'Don't you wish it to die?' I asked. 'You say it tortures you. '

"'Yes. But no--no--I don't wish it to die. I could never wish that. '

"I looked at him, I believe, with a deep astonishment. 

"'Ah, you don't understand!' he said. 'You don't understand. At allcosts one must keep it--one's love. With it I am--as you see. Butwithout it--man, without it, I should be nothing--no more than that. '

"He picked up a rotten leaf, held it to me, threw it down on the ground. I hardly looked at it. He had said to me: 'Man!' That word, thus said byhim, seemed to me to mark the enormous change in me, to indicate that itwas visible to the eyes of another, the heart of another. I had passedfrom the monk--the sexless being--to the man. He set me beside himself, spoke of me as if I were as himself. An intense excitement surged upin me. I think--I don't know what I should have said--done--but at thatmoment a boy, who acted as a servant at the monastery, came runningtowards us with a letter in his hand. 

"'It is for Monsieur!' he said. 'It was left at the gate. '

"'A letter for me!' the stranger said. 

"He held out his hand and took it indifferently. The boy gave it, andturning, went away through the wood. Then the stranger glanced at theenvelope. Domini, I wish I could make you see what I saw then, thechange that came. I can't. There are things the eyes must see. Thetongue can't tell them. The ghastly whiteness went out of his face. Ahot flood of scarlet rushed over it up to the roots of his hair. Hishands and his whole body began to tremble violently. His eyes, whichwere fixed on the envelope, shone with an expression--it was like allthe excitement in the world condensed into two sparks. He dropped hisstick and sat down on the trunk of a tree, fell down almost. 

"'Father!' he muttered, 'it's not been through the post--it's not beenthrough the post!'

"I did not understand. 

"'What do you mean?' I asked. 

"'What----'

"The flush left his face. He turned deadly white again. He held out theletter. 

"'Read it for me!' he said. 'I can't see--I can't see anything. '

"I took the letter. He covered his eyes with his hands. I opened it andread:

"'GRAND HOTEL, TUNIS. 

"'I have found out where you are. I have come. Forgive me--if you can. I will marry you--or I will live with you. As you please; but I cannotlive without you. I know women are not admitted to the monastery. Comeout on the road that leads to Tunis. I am there. At least come for amoment and speak to me. VERONIQUE. '

"Domini, I read this slowly; and it was as if I read my own fate. When Ihad finished he got up. He was still pale as ashes and trembling. 

"'Which is the way to the road?' he said. 'Do you know?'

"'Yes. '

"'Take me there. Give me your arm, Father. '

"He took it, leaned on it heavily. We walked through the wood towardsthe highroad. I had almost to support him. The way seemed long. I felttired, sick, as if I could scarcely move, as if I were bearing--as if Iwere bearing a cross that was too heavy for me. We came at last out ofthe shadow of the trees into the glare of the sun. A flat field dividedus from the white road. 

"'Is there--is there a carriage?' he whispered in my ear. 

"I looked across the field and saw on the road a carriage waiting. 

"'Yes, ' I said. 

"I stopped, and tried to take his arm from mine. 

"'Go, ' I said. 'Go on!'

"'I can't. Come with me, Father. '

"We went on in the blinding sun. I looked down on the dry earth as Iwalked. Presently I saw at my feet the white dust of the road. At thesame time I heard a woman's cry. The stranger took his arm violentlyfrom mine. 

"'Father, ' he said. 'Good-bye--God bless you!'

"He was gone. I stood there. In a moment I heard a roll of wheels. ThenI looked up. I saw a man and a woman together, Domini. Their faces werelike angels' faces--with happiness. The dust flew up in the sunshine. The wheels died away--I was alone. 

"Presently--I think after a very long time--I turned and went back tothe monastery. Domini, that night I left the monastery. I was as onemad. The wish to live had given place to the determination to live. Ithought of nothing else. In the chapel that evening I heard nothing--Idid not see the monks. I did not attempt to pray, for I knew that Iwas going. To go was an easy matter for me. I slept alone in the_hotellerie_, of which I had the key. When it was night I unlockedthe door. I walked to the cemetery--between the Stations of the Cross. Domini, I did not see them. In the cemetery was a ladder, as I told you. 

"Just before dawn I reached my brother's house outside of Tunis, not farfrom the Bardo. I knocked. My brother himself came down to know who wasthere. He, as I told you, was without religion, and had always hated mybeing a monk. I told him all, without reserve. I said, 'Help me to goaway. Let me go anywhere--alone. ' He gave me clothes, money. I shavedoff my beard and moustache. I shaved my head, so that the tonsure wasno longer visible. In the afternoon of that day I left Tunis. I was letloose into life. Domini--Domini, I won't tell you where I wandered tillI came to the desert, till I met you. 

"I was let loose into life, but, with my freedom, the wish to liveseemed to die in me. I was afraid of life. I was haunted by terrors. Ihad been a monk so long that I did not know how to live as other men. Idid not live, I never lived--till I met you. And then--then I realisedwhat life may be. And then, too, I realised fully what I was. Istruggled, I fought myself. You know--now, if you look back, I think youknow that I tried--sometimes, often--I tried to--to--I tried to----"

His voice broke. 

"That last day in the garden I thought that I had conquered myself, andit was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I knew you loved me Icould fight no more. Do you understand? You have seen me, you have livedwith me, you have divined my misery. But don't--don't think, Domini, that it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie to God, that--that--I can't go on--I can't tell you--I can't tellyou--you know. "

He was silent. Domini said nothing, did not move. He did not look ather, but her silence seemed to terrify him. He drew back from it sharplyand turned to the desert. He stared across the vast spaces lit up by themoon. Still she did not move. 

"I'll go--I'll go!" he muttered. 

And he stepped forward. Then Domini spoke. 

"Boris!" she said. 

He stopped. 

"What is it?" he murmured hoarsely. 

"Boris, now at last you--you can pray. "

He looked at her as if awe-stricken. 

"Pray!" he whispered. "You tell me I can pray--now!"

"Now at last. "

She went into the tent and left him alone. He stood where he was for amoment. He knew that, in the tent, she was praying. He stood, tryingto listen to her prayer. Then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in hisbreast. He drew out the wooden crucifix. He bent down his head, touchedit with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert. 

The music had ceased in the city. There was a great silence. 

BOOK VI. THE JOURNEY BACK

CHAPTER XXVII

The good priest of Amara, strolling by chance at the dinner-hour ofthe following day towards the camp of the hospitable strangers, wassurprised and saddened to find only the sand-hill strewn with debris. The tents, the camels, the mules, the horses--all were gone. No servantsgreeted him. No cook was busy. No kind hostess bade him come in and stayto dine. Forlornly he glanced around and made inquiry. An Arab told himthat in the morning the camp had been struck and ere noon was far onits way towards the north. The priest had been on horseback to anneighbouring oasis, so had heard nothing of this flitting. He asked itsexplanation, and was told a hundred lies. The one most often repeatedwas to the effect that Monsieur, the husband of Madame, was overcome bythe heat, and that for this reason the travellers were making their waytowards the cooler climate that lay beyond the desert. 

As he heard this a sensation of loneliness came to the priest. Hisusually cheerful countenance was overcast with gloom. For a momenthe loathed his fate in the sands and sighed for the fleshpots ofcivilisation. With his white umbrella spread above his helmet he stoodstill and gazed towards the north across the vast spaces that werelemon-yellow in the sunset. He fancied that on the horizon he sawfaintly a cloud of sand grains whirling, and imagined it stirred up bythe strangers' caravan. Then he thought of the rich lands of the Tell, of the olive groves of Tunis, of the blue Mediterranean, of France, hiscountry which he had not seen for many years. He sighed profoundly. 

"Happy people, " he thought to himself. "Rich, free, able to do as theylike, to go where they will! Why was I born to live in the sand and tobe alone?"

He was moved by envy. But then he remembered his intercourse withAndrovsky on the previous day. 

"After all, " he thought more comfortably, "he did not look a happy man!"And he took himself to task for his sin of envy, and strolled to the innby the fountain where he paid his pension. 

The same day, in the house of the marabout of Beni-Hassan, Count Anteonireceived a letter brought from Amara by an Arab. It was as follows:

"AMARA. 

"MY DEAR FRIEND: Good-bye. We are just leaving. I had expected to behere longer, but we must go. We are returning to the north and shallnot penetrate farther into the desert. I shall think of you, and of yourjourney on among the people of your faith. You said to me, when we satin the tent door, that now you could pray in the desert. Pray in thedesert for us. And one thing more. If you never return to Beni-Mora, andyour garden is to pass into other hands, don't let it go into the handsof a stranger. I could not bear that. Let it come to me. At any priceyou name. Forgive me for writing thus. Perhaps you will return, orperhaps, even if you do not, you will keep your garden. --Your Friend, DOMINI. "

In a postscript was an address which would always find her. 

Count Anteoni read this letter two or three times carefully, with agrave face. 

"Why did she not put Domini Androvsky?" he said to himself. He lockedthe letter in a drawer. All that night he was haunted by thoughts ofthe garden. Again and again it seemed to him that he stood with Dominibeside the white wall and saw, in the burning distance of the desert, atthe call of the Mueddin, the Arabs bowing themselves in prayer, andthe man--the man to whom now she had bound herself by the most holytie--fleeing from prayer as if in horror. 

"But it was written, " he murmured to himself. "It was written in thesand and in fire: 'The fate of every man have we bound about his neck. '"

In the dawn when, turning towards the rising sun, he prayed, heremembered Domini and her words: "Pray in the desert for us. " And in theGarden of Allah he prayed to Allah for her, and for Androvsky. 

Meanwhile the camp had been struck, and the first stage of the journeynorthward, the journey back, had been accomplished. Domini had given theorder of departure, but she had first spoken with Androvsky. 

After his narrative, and her words that followed it, he did not comeinto the tent. She did not ask him to. She did not see him in themoonlight beyond the tent, or when the moonlight waned before the comingof the dawn. She was upon her knees, her face hidden in her hands, striving as surely few human beings have ever had to strive in thedifficult paths of life. At first she had felt almost calm. When she hadspoken to Androvsky there had even been a strange sensation that was notunlike triumph in her heart. In this triumph she had felt disembodied, as if she were a spirit standing there, removed from earthly suffering, but able to contemplate, to understand, to pity it, removed from earthlysin, but able to commit an action that might help to purge it. 

When she said to Androvsky, "Now you can pray, " she had passed into aregion where self had no existence. Her whole soul was intent upon thisman to whom she had given all the treasures of her heart and whom sheknew to be writhing as souls writhe in Purgatory. He had spoken at last, he had laid bare his misery, his crime, he had laid bare the agony ofone who had insulted God, but who repented his insult, who had wanderedfar away from God, but who could never be happy in his wandering, whocould never be at peace even in a mighty human love unless that love wasconsecrated by God's contentment with it. As she stood there Domini hadhad an instant of absolutely clear sight into the depths of another'sheart, another's nature. She had seen the monk in Androvsky, notslain by his act of rejection, but alive, sorrow-stricken, quivering, scourged. And she had been able to tell this monk--as God seemed to betelling her, making of her his messenger--that now at last he might prayto a God who again would hear him, as He had heard him in the garden ofEl-Largani, in his cell, in the chapel, in the fields. She had been ableto do this. Then she had turned away, gone into the tent and fallen uponher knees. 

But with that personal action her sense of triumph passed away. As herbody sank down her soul seemed to sink down with it into bottomlessdepths of blackness where no light had ever been, into an underworld, airless, peopled with invisible violence. And it seemed to her as ifit was her previous flight upward which had caused this descent into aplace which had surely never before been visited by a human soul. Allthe selflessness suddenly vanished from her, and was replaced by aburning sense of her own personality, of what was due to it, of what hadbeen done to it, of what it now was. She saw it like a cloth that hadbeen white and that now was stained with indelible filth. And anger cameupon her, a bitter fury, in which she was inclined to cry out, not onlyagainst man, but against God. The strength of her nature was driven intoa wild bitterness, the sweet waters became acrid with salt. She had beenable a moment before to say to Androvsky, almost with tenderness, "Nowat last you can pray. " Now she was on her knees hating him, hating--yes, surely hating--God. It was a frightful sensation. 

Soul and body felt defiled. She saw Androvsky coming into her cleanlife, seizing her like a prey, rolling her in filth that could never becleansed. And who had allowed him to do her this deadly wrong? God. Andshe was on her knees to this God who had permitted this! She was in theattitude of worship. Her whole being rebelled against prayer. It seemedto her as if she made a furious physical effort to rise from her knees, but as if her body was paralysed and could not obey her will. Sheremained kneeling, therefore, like a woman tied down, like a blasphemerbound by cords in the attitude of prayer, whose soul was shriekinginsults against heaven. 

Presently she remembered that outside Androvsky was praying, that shehad meant to join with him in prayer. She had contemplated, then, afurther, deeper union with him. Was she a madwoman? Was she a slave?Was she as one of those women of history who, seized in a rape, resignedthemselves to love and obey their captors? She began to hate herself. And still she knelt. Anyone coming in at the tent door would have seen awoman apparently entranced in an ecstasy of worship. 

This great love of hers, to what had it brought her? This awakening ofher soul, what was its meaning? God had sent a man to rouse herfrom sleep that she might look down into hell. Again and again, withceaseless reiteration, she recalled the incidents of her passion in thedesert. She thought of the night at Arba when Androvsky blew out thelamp. That night had been to her a night of consecration. Nothing inher soul had risen up to warn her. No instinct, no woman's instinct, hadstayed her from unwitting sin. The sand-diviner had been wiser than she;Count Anteoni more far-seeing; the priest of Beni-Mora more guided byholiness, by the inner flame that flickers before the wind that blowsout of the caverns of evil. God had blinded her in order that she mightfall, had brought Androvsky to her in order that her religion, herCatholic faith, might be made hideous to her for ever. She trembled allover as she knelt. Her life had been sad, even tormented. And she hadset out upon a pilgrimage to find peace. She had been led to Beni-Mora. She remembered her arrival in Africa, its spell descending upon her, her sensation of being far off, of having left her former life with itssorrows for ever. She remembered the entrancing quiet of Count Anteoni'sgarden, how as she entered it she seemed to be entering an earthlyParadise, a place prepared by God for one who was weary as she wasweary, for one who longed to be renewed as she longed to be renewed. And in that Paradise, in the inmost recess of it, she had put her handsagainst Androvsky's temples and given her life, her fate, her heart intohis keeping. That was why the garden was there, that she might be led tocommit this frightful action in it. Her soul felt physically sick. Asto her body--but just then she scarcely thought of the body. For she wasthinking of her soul as of a body, as if it were the core of the bodyblackened, sullied, destroyed for ever. She was hot with shame, she washot with a fiery indignation. Always, since she was a child, if shewere suddenly touched by anyone whom she did not love, she had had aninclination to strike a blow on the one who touched her. Now it was asif an unclean hand had been laid on her soul. And the soul quivered withlonging to strike back. 

Again she thought of Beni-Mora, of all that had taken place there. Sherealised that during her stay there a crescendo of calm had taken placewithin her, calm of the spirit, a crescendo of strength, spiritualstrength, a crescendo of faith and of hope. The religion which hadalmost seemed to be slipping from her she had grasped firmly again. Hersoul had arrived in Beni-Mora an invalid and had become a convalescent. 

It had been reclining wearily, fretfully. In Beni-Mora it had stood up, walked, sung as the morning stars sang together. But then--why? If thiswas to be the end--why--why?

And at this question she paused, as before a great portal that was shut. She went back. She thought again of this beautiful crescendo, of thisgradual approach to the God from whom she had been if not entirelyseparated at any rate set a little apart. Could it have been only inorder that her catastrophe might be the more complete, her downfall themore absolute?

And then, she knew not why, she seemed to see in the hands that werepressed against her face words written in fire, and to read them slowlyas a child spelling out a great lesson, with an intense attention, witha labour whose result would be eternal recollection:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it isnot disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mountethupwards and securely passeth through all. Whosover loveth knoweth thecry of this voice. "

The cry of this voice! At that moment, in the vast silence of thedesert, she seemed to hear it. And it was the cry of her own voice. Itwas the cry of the voice of her own soul. Startled, she lifted her facefrom her hands and listened. She did not look out at the tent door, butshe saw the moonlight falling upon the matting that was spread uponthe sand within the tent, and she repeated, "Love watcheth--Lovewatcheth--Love watcheth, " moving her lips like the child who reads withdifficulty. Then came the thought, "I am watching. "

The passion of personal anger had died away as suddenly as it had come. She felt numb and yet excited. She leaned forward and once more laid herface in her hands. 

"Love watcheth--I am watching. " Then a moment--then--"God is watchingme. "

She whispered the words over again and again. And the numbness beganto pass away. And the anger was dead. Always she had felt as if she hadbeen led to Africa for some definite end. Did not the freed negroes, farout in the Desert, sing their song of the deeper mysteries--"No one butGod and I knows what is in my heart"? And had not she heard it again andagain, and each time with a sense of awe? She had always thought thatthe words were wonderful and beautiful. But she had thought that perhapsthey were not true. She had said to Androvsky that he knew what was inher heart. And now, in this night, in its intense stillness, close tothe man who for so long had not dared to pray but who now was praying, again she thought that they were not quite true. It seemed to her thatshe did not know what was in her heart, and that she was waiting therefor God to come and tell her. Would He come? She waited. Patienceentered into her. 

The silence was long. Night was travelling, turning her thoughts toa distant world. The moon waned, and a faint breath of wind that wasalmost cold stole over the sands, among the graves in the cemetery, tothe man and the woman who were keeping vigil upon their knees. The winddied away almost ere it had risen, and the rigid silence that precedesthe dawn held the desert in its grasp. And God came to Domini in thesilence, Allah through Allah's garden that was shrouded still in theshadows of night. Once, as she journeyed through the roaring of thestorm, she had listened for the voice of the desert. And as the deserttook her its voice had spoken to her in a sudden and magical silence, ina falling of the wind. Now, in a more magical silence, the voice of Godspoke to her. And the voice of the desert and of God were as one. As sheknelt she heard God telling her what was in her heart. It was a strangeand passionate revelation. She trembled as she heard. And sometimesshe was inclined to say, "It is not so. " And sometimes she was afraid, afraid of what this--all this that was in her heart--would lead her todo. For God told her of a strength which she had not known her heartpossessed, which--so it seemed to her--she did not wish it to possess, of a strength from which something within her shrank, against whichsomething within her protested. But God would not be denied. He toldher she had this strength. He told her that she must use it. He toldher that she would use it. And she began to understand something ofthe mystery of the purposes of God in relation to herself, and tounderstand, with it, how closely companioned even those who strive aftereffacement of self are by selfishness--how closely companioned she hadbeen on her African pilgrimage. Everything that had happened in Africashe had quietly taken to herself, as a gift made to her for herself. 

The peace that had descended upon her was balm for her soul, and wassent merely for that, to stop the pain she suffered from old woundsthat she might be comfortably at rest. The crescendo--the beautifulcrescendo--of calm, of strength, of faith, of hope which she had, as itwere, heard like a noble music within her spirit had been the David sentto play upon the harp to her Saul, that from her Saul the black demonof unrest, of despair, might depart. That was what she had believed. Shehad believed that she had come to Africa for herself, and now God, inthe silence, was telling her that this was not so, that He had broughther to Africa to sacrifice herself in the redemption of another. And asshe listened--listened, with bowed head, and eyes in which tears weregathering, from which tears were falling upon her clasped hands--sheknew that it was true, she knew that God meant her to put away herselfishness, to rise above it. Those eagle's wings of which she hadthought--she must spread them. She must soar towards the place of theangels, whither good women soar in the great moments of theirlove, borne up by the winds of God. On the minaret of the mosque ofSidi-Zerzour, while Androvsky remained in the dark shadow with a curse, she had mounted, with prayer, surely a little way towards God. And nowGod said to her, "Mount higher, come nearer to me, bring another withyou. That was my purpose in leading you to Beni-Mora, in leading you farout into the desert, in leading you into the heart of the desert. "

She had been led to Africa for a definite end, and now she knew whatthat end was. On the mosque of the minaret of Sidi-Zerzour she hadsurely seen prayer travelling, the soul of prayer travelling. Andshe had asked herself--"Whither?" She had asked herself where was thehalting-place, with at last the pitched tent, the camp fires, and thelong, the long repose? And when she came down into the court of themosque and found Androvsky watching the old Arab who struck against themosque and cursed, she had wished that Androvsky had mounted with her alittle way towards God. 

He should mount with her. Always she had longed to see him above her. Could she leave him below? She knew she could not. She understood thatGod did not mean her to. She understood perfectly. And tears streamedfrom her eyes. For now there came upon her a full comprehension of herlove for Androvsky. His revelation had not killed it, as, for a moment, in her passionate personal anger, she had been inclined to think. Indeedit seemed to her now that, till this hour of silence, she had neverreally loved him, never known how to love. Even in the tent at Arba shehad not fully loved him, perfectly loved him. For the thought of self, the desires of self, the passion of self, had entered into and beenmingled with her love. But now she loved him perfectly, because sheloved as God intended her to love. She loved him as God's envoy sent tohim. 

She was still weeping, but she began to feel calm, as if the stillnessof this hour before the dawn entered into her soul. She thought ofherself now only as a vessel into which God was pouring His purpose andHis love. 

Just as dawn was breaking, as the first streak of light stole into theeast and threw a frail spear of gold upon the sands, she was consciousagain of a thrill of life within her, of the movement of her unbornchild. Then she lifted her head from her hand, looking towards the east, and whispered:

"Give me strength for one more thing--give me strength to be silent!"

She waited as if for an answer. Then she rose from her knees, bathed herface and went out to the tent door to Androvsky. 

"Boris!" she said. 

He rose from his knees and looked at her, holding the little woodencrucifix in his hand. 

"Domini?" he said in an uncertain voice. 

"Put it back into your breast. Keep it for ever, Boris. "

As if mechanically, and not removing his eyes from her, he put thecrucifix into his breast. After a moment she spoke again, quietly. 

"Boris, you never wished to stay here. You meant to stay here for me. Let us go away from Amara. Let us go to-day, now, in the dawn. "

"Us!" he said. 

There was a profound amazement in his voice. 

"Yes, " she answered. 

"Away from Amara--you and I--together?"

"Yes, Boris, together. "

"Where--where can we go?"

The amazement seemed to deepen in his voice. His eyes were watching herwith an almost fierce intentness. In a flash of insight she realisedthat, just then, he was wondering about her as he had never wonderedbefore, wondering whether she was really the good woman at whose feethis sin-stricken soul had worshipped. Yes, he was asking himself thatquestion. 

"Boris, " she said, "will you leave yourself in my hands? We have talkedof our future life. We have wondered what we should do. Will you let medo as I will, let the future be as I choose?"

In her heart she said "as God chooses. "

"Yes, Domini, " he answered. "I am in your hands, utterly in your hands. "

"No, " she said. 

Neither of them spoke after that till the sunlight lay above the towersand minarets of Amara. Then Domini said:

"We will go to-day--now. "

And that morning the camp was struck, and the new journey began--thejourney back. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

A silence had fallen between Domini and Androvsky which neither seemedable to break. They rode on side by side across the sands towards thenorth through the long day. The tower of Amara faded in the sunshineabove the white crests of the dunes. The Arab villages upon their littlehills disappeared in the quivering gold. New vistas of desert openedbefore them, oases crowded with palms, salt lakes and stony ground. Theypassed by native towns. They saw the negro gardeners laughing amongthe rills of yellow water, or climbing with bare feet the wrinkled treetrunks to lop away dead branches. They heard tiny goatherds piping, solitary, in the wastes. Dreams of the mirage rose and faded far offon the horizon, rose and faded mystically, leaving no trembling tracebehind. And they were silent as the mirage, she in her purpose, he inhis wonder. And the long day waned, and towards evening the camp waspitched and the evening meal was prepared. And still they could notspeak. 

Sometimes Androvsky watched her, and there was a great calm in her face, but there was no rebuke, no smallness of anger, no hint of despair. Always he had felt her strength of mind and body, but never so much asnow. Could he rest on it? Dared he? He did not know. And the day seemedto him to become a dream, and the silence recalled to him the silence ofthe monastery in which he had worshipped God before the strangercame. He thought that in this silence he ought to feel that she wasdeliberately raising barriers between them, but--it was strange--hecould not feel this. In her silence there was no bitterness. When isthere bitterness in strength? He rode on and on beside her, and hissense of a dream deepened, helped by the influence of the desert. Wherewere they going? He did not know. What was her purpose? He could nottell. But he felt that she had a purpose, that her mind was resolved. Now and then, tearing himself with an effort from the dream, he askedhimself what it could be. What could be in store for him, for them, after the thing he had told? What could be their mutual life? Must itnot be for ever at an end? Was it not shattered? Was it not dust, likethe dust of the desert that rose round their horses' feet? The silencedid not tell him, and again he ceased from wondering and the dreamclosed round him. Were they not travelling in a mirage, mirage people, unreal, phantomlike, who would presently fade away into the spaces ofthe sun? The sand muffled the tread of the horses' feet. The desertunderstood their silence, clothed it in a silence more vast and moreimpenetrable. And Androvsky had made his effort. He had spoken the truthat last. He could do no more. He was incapable of any further action. AsDomini felt herself to be in the hands of God, he felt himself to bein the hands of this woman who had received his confession withthis wonderful calm, who was leading him he knew not whither in thiswonderful silence. 

When the camp was pitched, however, he noticed something that caughthim sharply away from the dreamlike, unreal feeling, and set him face toface with fact that was cold as steel. Always till now the dressing-tenthad been pitched beside their sleeping-tent, with the flap of theentrance removed so that the two tents communicated. To-night it stoodapart, near the sleeping-tent, and in it was placed one of the smallcamp beds. Androvsky was alone when he saw this. On reaching thehalting-place he had walked a little way into the desert. When hereturned he found this change. It told him something of what was passingin Domini's mind, and it marked the transformation of their mutual life. As he gazed at the two tents he felt stricken, yet he felt a curioussense of something that was like--was it not like--relief? It was as ifhis body had received a frightful blow and on his soul a saint's handhad been gently laid, as if something fell about him in ruins, and atthe same time a building which he loved, and which for a moment he hadthought tottering, stood firm before him founded upon rock. He was a mancapable of a passionate belief, despite his sin, and he had always had apassionate belief in Domini's religion. That morning, when she came outto him in the sand, a momentary doubt had assailed him. He had known thethought, "Does she love me still--does she love me more than sheloves God, more than she loves his dictates manifested in the Catholicreligion?" When she said that word "together" that had been his thought. Now, as he looked at the two tents, a white light seemed to fall uponDomini's character, and in this white light stood the ruin and the housethat was founded upon a rock. He was torn by conflicting sensationsof despair and triumph. She was what he had believed. That made thetriumph. But since she was that where was his future with her? The monkand the man who had fled from the monastery stood up within him to dobattle. The monk knew triumph, but the man was in torment. 

Presently, as Androvsky looked at the two tents, the monk in him seemedto die a new death, the man who had left the monastery to know a newresurrection. He was seized by a furious desire to go backward in time, to go backward but a few hours, to the moment when Domini did not knowwhat now she knew. He cursed himself for what he had done. At last hehad been able to pray. Yes, but what was prayer now, what was prayer tothe man who looked at the two tents and understood what they meant? Hemoved away and began to walk up and down near to the two tents. He didnot know where Domini was. At a little distance he saw the servantsbusy preparing the evening meal. Smoke rose up before the cook's tent, curling away stealthily among a group of palm trees, beneath which someArab boys were huddled, staring with wide eyes at the unusual sight oftravellers. They came from a tiny village at a short distance off, halfhidden among palm gardens. The camels were feeding. A mule was rollingvoluptuously in the sand. At a well a shepherd was watering his flocks, which crowded about him baaing expectantly. The air seemed to breatheout a subtle aroma of peace and of liberty. And this apparent presenceof peace, this vision of the calm of others, human beings and animals, added to the torture of Androvsky. As he walked to and fro he felt asif he were being devoured by his passions, as if he were losing thelast vestiges of self-control. Never in the monastery, never even in thenight when he left it, had he been tormented like this. For now he hada terrible companion whom, at that time, he had not known. Memory walkedwith him before the tents, the memory of his body, recalling and callingfor the past. 

He had destroyed that past himself. But for him it might have been alsothe present, the future. It might have lasted for years, perhaps tilldeath took him or Domini. Why not? He had only had to keep silence, toinsist on remaining in the desert, far from the busy ways of men. They could have lived as certain others lived, who loved the free, thesolitary life, in an oasis of their own, tending their gardens of palms. Life would have gone like a sunlit dream. And death? At that thought heshuddered. Death--what would that have been to him? What would it be nowwhen it came? He put the thought from him with force, as a man thrustsaway from him the filthy hand of a clamouring stranger assailing him inthe street. 

This evening he had no time to think of death. Life was enough, lifewith this terror which he had deliberately placed in it. 

He thought of himself as a madman for having spoken to Domini. He cursedhimself as a madman. For he knew, although he strove furiously not toknow, how irrevocable was his act, in consequence of the great strengthof her nature. He knew that though she had been to him a woman of fireshe might be to him a woman of iron--even to him whom she loved. 

How she had loved him!

He walked faster before the tents, to and fro. 

How she had loved him! How she loved him still, at this moment after sheknew what he was, what he had done to her. He had no doubt of her loveas he walked there. He felt it, like a tender hand upon him. But thathand was inflexible too. In its softness there was firmness--firmnessthat would never yield to any strength in him. 

Those two tents told him the story of her strength. As he looked at themhe was looking into her soul. And her soul was in direct conflict withhis. That was what he felt. She had thought, she had made up her mind. Quietly, silently she had acted. By that action, without a word, she hadspoken to him, told him a tremendous thing. And the man--the passionateman who had left the monastery--loose in him now was aflame with animpotent desire that was like a heat of fury against her, while themonk, hidden far down in him, was secretly worshipping her cleanlinessof spirit. 

But the man who had left the monastery was in the ascendant in him, andat last drove him to a determination that the monk secretly knew to beutterly vain. He made up his mind to enter into conflict with Domini'sstrength. He felt that he must, that he could not quietly, without aword, accept this sudden new life of separation symbolised for him bythe two tents standing apart. 

He stood still. In the distance, under the palms, he saw Batouchlaughing with Ouardi. Near them Ali was reposing on a mat, moving hishead from side to side, smiling with half-shut, vacant eyes, and singinga languid song. 

This music maddened him. 

"Batouch!" he called out sharply. "Batouch!"

Batouch stopped laughing, glanced round, then came towards him with alarge pace, swinging from his hips. 

"Monsieur?"

"Batouch!" Androvsky said. 

But he could not go on. He could not say anything about the two tents toa servant. 

"Where--where is Madame?" he said almost stammering. 

"Out there, Monsieur. "

With a sweeping arm the poet pointed towards a hump of sand crowned bya few palms. Domini was sitting there, surrounded by Arab children, towhom she was giving sweets out of a box. As Androvsky saw her the angerin him burnt up more fiercely. This action of Domini's, simple, naturalthough it was, seemed to him in his present condition cruelly heartless. He thought of her giving the order about the tents and then going calmlyto play with these children, while he--while he----

"You can go, Batouch, " he said. "Go away. "

The poet stared at him with a superb surprise, then moved slowly towardsOuardi, holding his burnous with his large hands. 

Androvsky looked again at the two tents as a man looks at two enemies. Then, walking quickly, he went towards the hump of sand. As heapproached it Domini had her side face turned towards him. She did notsee him. The little Arabs were dancing round her on their naked feet, laughing, showing their white teeth and opening their mouths wide forthe sugar-plums--gaiety incarnate. Androvsky gazed at the woman who wascausing this childish joy, and he saw a profound sadness. Never hadhe seen Domini's face look like this. It was always white, but now itswhiteness was like a whiteness of marble. She moved her head, turning tofeed one of the little gaping mouths, and he saw her eyes, tearless, but sadder than if they had been full of tears. She was looking at thesechildren as a mother looks at her children who are fatherless. He didnot--how could he?--understand the look, but it went to his heart. He stopped, watching. One of the children saw him, shrieked, pointed. Domini glanced round. As she saw him she smiled, threw the lastsugar-plums and came towards him. 

"Do you want me?" she said, coming up to him. 

His lips trembled. 

"Yes, " he said, "I want you. "

Something in his voice seemed to startle her, but she said nothing more, only stood looking at him. The children, who had followed her, crowdedround them, touching their clothes curiously. 

"Send them away, " he said. 

She made the children go, pushing them gently, pointing to the village, and showing the empty box to them. Reluctantly at last they went towardsthe village, turning their heads to stare at her till they were a longway off, then holding up their skirts and racing for the houses. 

"Domini--Domini, " he said. "You can--you can play withchildren--to-day. "

"I wanted to feel I could give a little happiness to-day, " sheanswered--"even to-day. "

"To-day when--when to me--to me--you are giving----"

But before her steady gaze all the words he had meant to say, all thewords of furious protest, died on his lips. 

"To me--to me--" he repeated. 

Then he was silent. 

"Boris, " she said, "I want to give you one thing, the thing that youhave lost. I want to give you back peace. "

"You never can. "

"I must try. Even if I cannot I shall know that I have tried. "

"You are giving me--you are giving me not peace, but a sword, " he said. 

She understood that he had seen the two tents. 

"Sometimes a sword can give peace. "

"The peace of death. "

"Boris--my dear one--there are many kinds of deaths. Try to trust me. Leave me to act as I must act. Let me try to be guided--only let metry. "

He did not say another word. 

That night they slept apart for the first time since their marriage. 

"Domini, where are you taking me? Where are we going?"

* * * * *

The camp was struck once more and they were riding through the desert. Domini hesitated to answer his question. It had been put with a sort ofterror. 

"I know nothing, " he continued. "I am in your hands like a child. Itcannot be always so. I must know, I must understand. What is our life tobe? What is our future? A man cannot--"

He paused. Then he said:

"I feel that you have come to some resolve. I feel it perpetually. Itis as if you were in light and I in darkness, you in knowledge and I inignorance. You--you must tell me. I have told you all now. You must tellme. "

But she hesitated. 

"Not now, " she answered. "Not yet. "

"We are to journey on day by day like this, and I am not to know wherewe are going! I cannot, Domini--I will not. "

"Boris, I shall tell you. "

"When?"

"Will you trust me, Boris, completely? Can you?"

"How?"

"Boris, I have prayed so much for you that at last I feel that I can actfor you. Don't think me presumptuous. If you could see into my heart youwould see that--indeed, I don't think it would be possible to feel morehumble than I do in regard to you. "

"Humble--you, Domini! You can feel humble when you think of me, when youare with me. "

"Yes. You have suffered so terribly. God has led you. I feel that He hasbeen--oh, I don't know how to say it quite naturally, quite as I feelit--that He has been more intent on you than on anyone I have everknown. I feel that His meaning in regarding to you is intense, Boris, asif He would not let you go. "

"He let me go when I left the monastery. "

"Does one never return?"

Again a sensation almost of terror assailed him. He felt as if he werefighting in darkness something that he could not see. 

"Return!" he said. "What do you mean?"

She saw the expression of almost angry fear in his face. It warned hernot to give the reins to her natural impulse, which was always towards agreat frankness. 

"Boris, you fled from God, but do you not think it possible that youcould ever return to Him? Have you not taken the first step? Have younot prayed?" His face changed, grew slightly calmer. 

"You told me I could pray, " he answered, almost like a child. "OtherwiseI--I should not have dared to. I should have felt that I was insultingGod. "

"If you trusted me in such a thing, can you not trust me now?"

"But"--he said uneasily--"but this is different, a worldly matter, amatter of daily life. I shall have to know. "

"Yes. "

"Then why should I not know now? At any moment I could ask Batouch. "

"Batouch only knows from day to day. I have a map of the desert. I gotit before we left Beni-Mora. "

Something--perhaps a very slight hesitation in her voice just before shesaid the last words--startled him. He turned on his horse and looked ather hard. 

"Domini, " he said, "are we--we are not going back to Beni-Mora?"

"I will tell you to-night, " she replied in a low voice. "Let me tell youtonight. "

He said no more, but he gazed at her for a long time as if strivingpassionately to read her thoughts. But he could not. Her white facewas calm, and she rode looking straight before her, as one that lookedtowards some distant goal to which all her soul was journeying withher body. There was something mystical in her face, in that straight, far-seeing glance, that surely pierced beyond the blue horizon line andreached a faroff world. What world? He asked himself the question, butno answer came, and he dropped his eyes. A new and horrible sadness cameto him, a new sensation of separation from Domini. She had set theirbodies apart, and he had yielded. Now, was she not setting somethingelse apart? For, in spite of all, in spite of his treacherous existencewith her, he had so deeply and entirely loved her that he had sometimesfelt, dared to feel, that in their passion in the desert their souls hadbeen fused together. His was black--he knew it--and hers was white. Buthad not the fire and the depth of their love conquered all differences, made even their souls one as their bodies had been one? And now wasshe not silently, subtly, withdrawing her soul from his? A sensation ofacute despair swept over him, of utter impotence. 

"Domini!" he said, "Domini!"

"Yes, " she answered. 

And this time she withdrew her eyes from the blue distance and looked athim. 

"Domini, you must trust me. "

He was thinking of the two tents set the one apart from the other. 

"Domini, I've borne something in silence. I haven't spoken. I wantedto speak. I tried--but I did not. I bore my punishment--you don't know, you'll never know what I felt last--last night--when--I've borne that. But there's one thing I can't bear. I've lived a lie with you. My lovefor you overcame me. I fell. I have told you that I fell. Don't--don'tbecause of that--don't take away your heart from me entirely. Domini--Domini--don't do that. "

She heard a sound of despair in his voice. 

"Oh, Boris, " she said, "if you knew! There was only one moment when Ifancied my heart was leaving you. It passed almost before it came, andnow--"

"But, " he interrupted, "do you know--do you know that since--since Ispoke, since I told you, you've--you've never touched me?"

"Yes, I know it, " she replied quietly. 

Something told him to be silent then. Something told him to wait tillthe night came and the camp was pitched once more. 

They rested at noon for several hours, as it was impossible to travelin the heat of the day. The camp started an hour before they did. OnlyBatouch remained behind to show them the way to Ain-la-Hammam, wherethey would pass the following night. When Batouch brought the horses hesaid:

"Does Madame know the meaning of Ain-la-Hammam?"

"No, " said Domini. "What is it?"

"Source des tourterelles, " replied Batouch. "I was there once with anEnglish traveller. "

"Source des tourterelles, " repeated Domini. "Is it beautiful, Batouch?It sounds as if it ought to be beautiful. "

She scarcely knew why, but she had a longing that Ain-la-Hammam might betender, calm, a place to soothe the spirit, a place in which Androvskymight be influenced to listen to what she had to tell him withoutrevolt, without despair. Once he had spoken about the influence ofplace, about rising superior to it. But she believed in it, and shewaited, almost anxiously, for the reply of Batouch. As usual it wasenigmatic. 

"Madame will see, " he answered. "Madame will see. But theEnglishman----"

"Yes?"

"The Englishman was ravished. 'This, ' he said to me, 'this, Batouch, isa little Paradise!' And there was no moon then. To-night there will be amoon. "

"Paradise!" exclaimed Androvsky. 

He sprang upon his horse and pulled up the reins. Domini said no more. They had started late. It was night when they reached Ain-la-Hammam. Asthey drew near Domini looked before her eagerly through the pale gloomthat hung over the sand. She saw no village, only a very small grove ofpalms and near it the outline of a bordj. The place was set in a cup ofthe Sahara. All around it rose low hummocks of sand. On two or three ofthem were isolated clumps of palms. Here the eyes roamed over no vastdistances. There was little suggestion of space. She drew up her horseon one of the hummocks and gazed down. She heard doves murmuring intheir soft voices among the trees. The tents were pitched near thebordj. 

"What does Madame think?" asked Batouch. "Does Madame agree with theEnglishman?"

"It is a strange little place, " she answered. 

She listened to the voices of the doves. A dog barked by the bordj. 

"It is almost like a hiding-place, " she added. 

Androvsky said nothing, but he, too, was gazing intently at the treesbelow them, he, too, was listening to the voices of the doves. After amoment he looked at her. 

"Domini, " he whispered. "Here--won't you--won't you let me touch yourhand again here?"

"Come, Boris, " she answered. "It is late. "

They rode down into Ain-la-Hammam. 

The tents had all been pitched near together on the south of the bordj, and separated by it from the tiny oasis. Opposite to them was a CafeMaure of the humblest kind, a hovel of baked earth and brushwood, withearthen divans and a coffee niche. Before this was squatting a groupof five dirty desert men, the sole inhabitants of Ain-la-Hammam. Justbefore dinner Domini gave an order to Batouch, and, while they weredining, Androvsky noticed that their people were busy unpegging the twosleeping-tents. 

"What are they doing?" he said to Domini, uneasily. In his presentcondition everything roused in him anxiety. In every unusual action hediscerned the beginning of some tragedy which might affect his life. 

"I told Batouch to put our tents on the other side of the bordj, " sheanswered. 

"Yes. But why?"

"I thought that to-night it would be better if we were a little morealone than we are here, just opposite to that Cafe Maure, and with theservants. And on the other side there are the palms and the water. Andthe doves were talking there as we rode in. When we have finished dinnerwe can go and sit there and be quiet. "

"Together, " he said. 

An eager light had come into his eyes. He leaned forward towards herover the little table and stretched out his hand. 

"Yes, together, " she said. 

But she did not take his hand. 

"Domini!" he said, still keeping his hand on the table, "Domini!"

An expression, that was like an expression of agony, flitted over herface and died away, leaving it calm. 

"Let us finish, " she said quietly. "Look, they have taken the tents! Ina moment we can go. "

The doves were silent. The night was very still in this nest of theSahara. Ouardi brought them coffee, and Batouch came to say that thetents were ready. 

"We shall want nothing more to-night, Batouch, " Domini said. "Don'tdisturb us. "

Batouch glanced towards the Cafe Maure. A red light gleamed throughits low doorway. One or two Arabs were moving within. Some of the campattendants had joined the squatting men without. A noise of busy voicesreached the tents. 

"To-night, Madame, " Batouch said proudly, "I am going to tell storiesfrom the _Thousand and One Nights_. I am going to tell the story of theyoung Prince of the Indies, and the story of Ganem, the Slave of Love. It is not often that in Ain-la-Hammam a poet--"

"No, indeed. Go to them, Batouch. They must be impatient for you. "

Batouch smiled broadly. 

"Madame begins to understand the Arabs, " he rejoined. "Madame will soonbe as the Arabs. "

"Go, Batouch. Look--they are longing for you. "

She pointed to the desert men, who were gesticulating and gazing towardsthe tents. 

"It is better so, Madame, " he answered. "They know that I am here onlyfor one night, and they are eager as the hungry jackal is eager for foodamong the yellow dunes of the sand. "

He threw his burnous over his shoulder and moved away smiling, andmurmuring in a luscious voice the first words of Ganem, the Slave ofLove. 

"Let us go now, Boris, " Domini said. 

He got up at once from the table, and they walked together round thebordj. 

On its further side there was no sign of life. No traveller was restingthere that night, and the big door that led into the inner court wasclosed and barred. The guardian had gone to join the Arabs at the CafeMaure. Between the shadow cast by the bordj and the shadow cast bythe palm trees stood the two tents on a patch of sand. The oasis wasenclosed in a low earth wall, along the top of which was a ragged edgingof brushwood. In this wall were several gaps. Through one, opposite tothe tents, was visible a shallow pool of still water by which tall reedswere growing. They stood up like spears, absolutely motionless. A frogwas piping from some hidden place, giving forth a clear flute-like notethat suggested glass. It reminded Domini of her ride into the desertat Beni-Mora to see the moon rise. On that night Androvsky had toldher that he was going away. That had been the night of his tremendousstruggle with himself. When he had spoken she had felt a sensation as ifeverything that supported her in the atmosphere of life and of happinesshad foundered. And now--now she was going to speak to him--to tellhim--what was she going to tell him? How much could she, dared she, tellhim? She prayed silently to be given strength. 

In the clear sky the young moon hung. Beneath it, to the left, was onestar like an attendant, the star of Venus. The faint light of themoon fell upon the water of the pool. Unceasingly the frog uttered itsnocturne. 

Domini stood for a moment looking at the water listening. Then sheglanced up at the moon and the solitary star. Androvsky stood by her. 

"Shall we--let us sit on the wall, where the gap is, " she said. "The water is beautiful, beautiful with that light on it, and thepalms--palms are always beautiful, especially at night. I shall neverlove any other trees as I love palm trees. "

"Nor I, " he answered. 

They sat down on the wall. At first they did not speak any more. Thestillness of the water, the stillness of reeds and palms, was againstspeech. And the little flute-like note that came to them again and againat regular intervals was like a magical measuring of the silence of thenight in the desert. At last Domini said, in a low voice:

"I heard that note on the night when I rode out of Beni-Mora to see themoon rise in the desert. Boris, you remember that night?"

"Yes, " he answered. 

He was gazing at the pool, with his face partly averted from her, onehand on the wall, the other resting on his knee. 

"You were brave that night, Boris, " she said. 

"I--I wished to be--I tried to be. And if I had been--"

He stopped, then went on: "If I had been, Domini, really brave, if Ihad done what I meant to do that night, what would our lives have beento-day?"

"I don't know. We mustn't think of that to-night. We must think of thefuture. Boris, there's no life, no real life without bravery. No man orwoman is worthy of living who is not brave. "

He said nothing. 

"Boris, let us--you and I--be worthy of living to-night--and in thefuture. "

"Give me your hand then, " he answered. "Give it me, Domini. "

But she did not give it to him. Instead she went on, speaking a littlemore rapidly:

"Boris, don't rely too much on my strength. I am only a woman, and Ihave to struggle. I have had to struggle more than perhaps you willever know. You--must not make--make things impossible for me. I amtrying--very hard--to--I'm--you must not touch me to-night, Boris. "

She drew a little farther away from him. A faint breath of air made theleaves of the palm trees rustle slightly, made the reeds move for aninstant by the pool. He laid his hand again on the wall from which hehad lifted it. There was a pleading sound in her voice which made himfeel as if it were speaking close against his heart. 

"I said I would tell you to-night where we are going. "

"Tell me now. "

"We are going back to Beni-Mora. We are not very far off from Beni-Morato-night--not very far. "

"We are going to Beni-Mora!" he repeated in a dull voice. "We are----"

He sat up on the wall, looking straight into her face. 

"Why?" he said. His voice was sharp now, sharp with fear. 

"Boris, do you want to be at peace, not with me, but with God? Doyou want to get rid of your burden of misery, which increases--I knowit--day by day?"

"How can I?" he said hopelessly. 

"Isn't expiation the only way? I think it is. "

"Expiation! How--how can--I can never expiate my sin. "

"There's no sin that cannot be expiated. God isn't merciless. Come backwith me to Beni-Mora. That little church--where you married me--comeback to it with me. You could not confess to the--to Father Beret. Ifeel as if I knew why. Where you married me you will--you must--makeyour confession. "

"To the priest who--to Father Roubier!"

There was fierce protest in his voice. 

"It does not matter who is the priest who will receive your confession. Only make it there--make it in the church at Beni-Mora where you marriedme. "

"That was your purpose! That is where you are taking me! I can't go, Iwon't! Domini, think what you are doing! You are asking too much--"

"I feel that God is asking that of you. Don't refuse Him. "

"I cannot go--at Beni-Mora where we--where everything will remind us--"

"Ah, don't you think I shall feel it too? Don't you think I shallsuffer?"

He felt horribly ashamed when she said that, bowed down with anoverwhelming weight of shame. 

"But our lives"--he stammered--"but--if I go--afterwards--if I make myconfession--afterwards--afterwards?"

"Isn't it enough to think of that one thing? Isn't it better to puteverything else, every other thought, away? It seems so clear to me thatwe should go to Beni-Mora. I feel as if I had been told--as a child istold to do something by its father. "

She looked up into the clear sky. 

"I am sure I have been told, " she added. "I know I have. "

There was a long silence between them. Androvsky felt that he did notdare to break it. Something in Domini's face and voice cast out from himthe instinct of revolt, of protest. He began to feel exhausted, withoutpower, like a sick man who is being carried by bearers in a litter, andwho looks at the landscape through which he is passing with listlesseyes, and who scarcely has the force to care whither he is being borne. 

"Domini, " he said at last, and his voice sounded very tired, "if yousay I must go to Beni-Mora I will go. I have done you a great wrongand--and--"

"Don't think of me any more, " she said. "Think--think as Ido--of--of----

"What am I? I have loved you, I shall always love you, but I am as youare, here for a little while, elsewhere for all eternity. You toldhim--that man in the monastery--that we are shadows set in a world ofshadows. "

"That was a lie, " he interrupted, and the weariness had gone out of hisvoice. "When I said that I had never loved, I had never loved you. "

"Or was it a half-truth? Aren't we, perhaps, shadow now incomparison--comparison to what we shall be? Isn't this world, eventhis--this desert, this pool with the light on it, this silence of thenight around us--isn't all this a shadow in comparison to the worldwhere we are going, you and I? Boris, I think if we are brave now weshall be together in that world. But if we are cowards now, I think, Iam sure, that in that world--the real world--we shall be separated forever. You and I, whatever we may be, whatever we may have done, at leastare one thing--we are believers. We don't think this is all. If we didit would be different. But we can't change the truth that is in oursouls, and as we can't change it we must live by it, we must act by it. We can't do anything else. I can't--and you? Don't you feel, don't youknow, that you can't?"

"To-night, " he said, "I feel that I know nothing--nothing except that Iam suffering. "

His voice broke on the last words. Tears were shining in his eyes. Aftera long silence he said:

"Domini, take me where you will. If it is to Beni-Mora I will go. But--but--afterwards?"

"Afterwards----" she said. 

Then she stopped. 

The little note of the frog sounded again and again by the still wateramong the reeds. The moon was higher in the sky. "Don't let us thinkof afterwards, Boris, " she said at length. "That song we have heardtogether, that song we love--'No one but God and I knows what is inmy heart. ' I hear it now so often, always almost. It seems to gathermeaning, it seems to--God knows what is in your heart and mine. He willtake care of the--afterwards. Perhaps in our hearts already He has put asecret knowledge of the end. "

"Has He--has He put it--that knowledge--into yours?"

"Hush!" she said. 

They spoke no more that night. 

CHAPTER XXIX

The caravan of Domini and Androvsky was leaving Arba. 

Already the tents and the attendants, with the camels and the mules, were winding slowly along the plain through the scrub in the directionof the mountains, and the dark shadow which indicated the oasis ofBeni-Mora. Batouch was with them. Domini and Androvsky were going to bealone on this last stage of their desert journey. They had mounted theirhorses before the great door of the bordj, said goodbye to the Sheikh ofArba, scattered some money among the ragged Arabs gathered to watch themgo, and cast one last look behind them. 

In that mutual, instinctive look back they were both bidding a silentfarewell to the desert, that had sheltered their passion, surely takenpart in the joy of their love, watched the sorrow and the terror growin it to the climax at Amara, and was now whispering to them a faint andmysterious farewell. 

To Domini the desert had always been as a great and significantpersonality, a personality that had called her persistently to come toit. Now, as she turned on her horse, she felt as if it were calling herno longer, as if its mission to her were accomplished, as if its voicehad sunk into a deep and breathless silence. She wondered if Androvskyfelt this too, but she did not ask him. His face was pale and severe. His eyes stared into the distance. His hands lay on his horse's necklike tired things with no more power to grip and hold. His lips wereslightly parted, and she heard the sound of his breath coming and goinglike the breath of a man who is struggling. This sound warned her not totry his strength or hers. 

"Come, Boris, " she said, and her voice held none of the passionateregret that was in her heart, "we mustn't linger, or it will be nightbefore we reach Beni-Mora. "

"Let it be night, " he said. "Dark night!"

The horses moved slowly on, descending the hill on which stood thebordj. 

"Dark--dark night!" he said again. 

She said nothing. They rode into the plain. When they were there hesaid:

"Domini, do you understand--do you realise?"

"What, Boris?" she asked quietly. 

"All that we are leaving to-day?"

"Yes, I understand. "

"Are we--are we leaving it for ever?"

"We must not think of that. "

"How can we help it? What else can we think of? Can one govern themind?"

"Surely, if we can govern the heart. "

"Sometimes, " he said, "sometimes I wonder----"

He looked at her. Something in her face made it impossible for him togo on, to say what he had been going to say. But she understood theunfinished sentence. 

"If you can wonder, Boris, " she said, "you don't know me, you don't knowme at all!"

"Domini, " he said, "I don't wonder. But sometimes I understand yourstrength, and sometimes it seems to me scarcely human, scarcely thestrength of a woman. "

She lifted her whip and pointed to the dark shadow far away. 

"I can just see the tower, " she said. "Can't you?"

"I will not look, " he said. "I cannot. If you can, you are stronger thanI. When I remember that it was on that tower you first spoke to me--oh, Domini, if we could only go back! It is in our power. We have only todraw a rein and--and--"

"I look at the tower, " she said, "as once I looked at the desert. Itcalls us, the shadow of the palm trees calls us, as once the desertdid. "

"But the voice--what a different voice! Can you listen to it?"

"I have been listening to it ever since we left Amara. Yes, it is adifferent voice, but we must obey it as we obeyed the voice of thedesert. Don't you feel that?"

"If I do it is because you tell me to feel it; you tell me that I mustfeel it. "

His words seemed to hurt her. An expression of pain came into her face. 

"Boris, " she said, "don't make me regret too terribly that I ever cameinto your life. When you speak like that I feel almost as if you wereputting me in the place of--of--I feel as if you were depending upon mefor everything that you are doing, as if you were letting your own willfall asleep. The desert brings dreams. I know that. But we, you and I, we must not dream any more. "

"A dream, you call it--the life we have lived together, our desertlife?"

"Boris, I only mean that we must live strongly now, act strongly now, that we must be brave. I have always felt that there was strength inyou. "

"Strength!" he said bitterly. 

"Yes. Otherwise I could never have loved you. Don't ever prove to methat I was utterly wrong. I can bear a great deal. But that--I don'tfeel as if I could bear that. "

After a moment he answered:

"I will try to give you nothing more to bear for me. "

And he lifted his eyes and fixed them upon the tower with a sort ofstern intentness, as a man looks at something cruel, terrible. 

She saw him do this. 

"Let us ride quicker, " she said. "To-night we must be in Beni-Mora. "

He said nothing, but he touched his horse with his heel. His eyes werealways fixed upon the tower, as if they feared to look at the desertany more. She understood that when he had said "I will try to give younothing more to bear for me, " he had not spoken idly. He had waked upfrom the egoism of his despair. He had been able to see more clearlyinto her heart, to feel more rightly what she was feeling than he hadbefore. As she watched him watching the tower, she had a sensation thata bond, a new bond between them, was chaining them together in a newway. Was it not a bond that would be strong and lasting, that thefuture, whatever it held, would not be able to break? Ties, sacred ties, that had bound them together might, must, be snapped asunder. And theend was not yet. She saw, as she gazed at the darkness of the palms ofBeni-Mora, a greater darkness approaching, deeper than any darkness ofpalms, than any darkness of night. But now she saw also a ray oflight in the gloom, the light of the dawning strength, the dawningunselfishness in Androvsky. And she resolved to fix her eyes upon it ashe fixed his eyes upon the tower. 

Just after sunset they rode into Beni-Mora in advance of the camp, whichthey had passed upon their way. To the right were the trees of CountAnteoni's garden. Domini felt them, but she did not look towards them. Nor did Androvsky. They kept their eyes fixed upon the distance ofthe white road. Only when they reached the great hotel, now closed anddeserted, did she glance away. She could not pass the tower withoutseeing it. But she saw it through a mist of tears, and her handstrembled upon the reins they held. For a moment she felt that she mustbreak down, that she had no more strength left in her. But they came tothe statue of the Cardinal holding the double cross towards the desertlike a weapon. And she looked at it and saw the Christ. 

"Boris, " she whispered, "there is the Christ. Let us think only of thattonight. "

She saw him look at it steadily. 

"You remember, " she said, at the bottom of the avenue of cypresses--"atEl-Largani--_Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis_?"

"Yes, Domini. "

"We can be obedient too. Let us be obedient too. "

When she said that, and looked at him, Androvsky felt as if he were onhis knees before her, as he was upon his knees in the garden when hecould not go away. But he felt, too, that then, though he had loved her, he had not known how to love her, how to love anyone. She had taught himnow. The lesson sank into his heart like a sword and like balm. It wasas if he were slain and healed by the same stroke. 

That night, as Domini lay in the lonely room in the hotel, with theFrench windows open to the verandah, she heard the church clock chimethe hour and the distant sound of the African hautboy in the street ofthe dancers, she heard again the two voices. The hautboy was barbarousand provocative, but she thought that it was no more shrill with apersistent triumph. Presently the church bell chimed again. 

Was it the bell of the church of Beni-Mora, or the bell of the chapelof El-Largani? Or was it not rather the voice of the great religion towhich she belonged, to which Androvsky was returning?

When it ceased she whispered to herself, "_Factus obediens usque admortem Crucis_. " And with these words upon her lips towards dawnshe fell asleep. They had dined upstairs in the little room that hadformerly been Domini's salon, and had not seen Father Roubier, whoalways came to the hotel to take his evening meal. In the morning, afterthey had breakfasted, Androvsky said:

"Domini, I will go. I will go now. "

He got up and stood by her, looking down at her. In his face there was asort of sternness, a set expression. 

"To Father Roubier, Boris?" she said. 

"Yes. Before I go won't you--won't you give me your hand?"

She understood all the agony of spirit he was enduring, all the shameagainst which he was fighting. She longed to spring up, to take him inher arms, to comfort him as only the woman he loves and who loves himcan comfort a man, without words, by the pressure of her arms, thepressure of her lips, the beating of her heart against his heart. Shelonged to do this so ardently that she moved restlessly, looking up athim with a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them before, noteven when they watched the fire dying down at Arba. But she did not lifther hand to his. 

"Boris, " she said, "go. God will be with you. "

After a moment she added:

"And all my heart. "

He stood, as if waiting, a long time. She had ceased from moving andhad withdrawn her eyes from his. In his soul a voice was saying, "If shedoes not touch you now she will never touch you again. " And he waited. He could not help waiting. 

"Boris, " she whispered, "good-bye. "

"Good-bye?" he said. 

"Come to me--afterwards. Come to me in the garden. I shall be therewhere we--I shall be there waiting for you. "

He went out without another word. 

When he was gone she went on to the verandah quickly and looked over theparapet. She saw him come out from beneath the arcade and walk slowlyacross the road to the little gate of the enclosure before the house ofthe priest. As he lifted his hands to open the gate there was the soundof a bark, and she saw Bous-Bous run out with a manner of sterninquiry, which quickly changed to joyful welcome as he recognised an oldacquaintance. Androvsky bent down, took up the little dog in his arms, and, holding him, walked to the house door. In a moment it was openedand he went in. Then Domini set out towards the garden, avoiding thevillage street, and taking a byway which skirted the desert. She walkedquickly. She longed to be within the shadows of the garden behind thewhite wall. She did not feel much, think much, as she walked. Withoutself-consciously knowing it she was holding all her nature, the whole ofherself, fiercely in check. She did not look about her, did not see thesunlit reaches of the desert, or the walls of the houses of Beni-Mora, or the palm trees. Only when she had passed the hotel and the negrovillage and turned to the left, to the track at the edge of which thevilla of Count Anteoni stood, did she lift her eyes from the ground. They rested on the white arcade framing the fierce blue of the cloudlesssky. She stopped short. Her nature seemed to escape from the leash bywhich she had held it in with a rush, to leap forward, to be in thegarden and in the past, in the past with its passion and its fieryhopes, its magnificent looking forward, its holy desires of joy thatwould crown her woman's life, of love that would teach her allthe depth, and the height, and the force and the submission of herwomanhood. And then, from that past, it strove on into the present. Theshock was as the shock of battle. There were noises in her ears, voicesclamouring in her heart. All her pulses throbbed like hammers, and thensuddenly she felt as weak as a little sick child, and as if she must liedown there on the dust of the white road in the sunshine, lie down anddie at the edge of the desert that had treated her cruelly, that hadslain the hopes it had given to her and brought into her heart thisterrible despair. 

For now she knew a moment of utter despair, in which all things seemedto dissolve into atoms and sink down out of her sight. She stoodquivering in blackness. She stood absolutely alone, more absolutelyalone than any woman had ever been, than any human being had ever been. She seemed presently, as the blackness faded into something pale, like aghastly twilight, to see herself--her wraith, as it were--standing in avast landscape, vast as the desert, companionless, lost, forgotten, outof mind, watching for something that would never come, listening forsome voice that was hushed in eternal silence. 

That was to be her life, she thought--could she face it? Could sheendure it? And everything within her said to her that she could not. 

And then, just then, when she felt that she must sink down and giveup the battle of life, she seemed to see by her side a shape, a littleshape like a child. And it lifted up a hand to her hand. 

And she knew that the vast landscape was God's garden, the Garden ofAllah, and that no day, no night could ever pass without God walking init. 

Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled himselfon his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, without arose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor. Domini stood without. When he saw her he smiled quietly, with no surprise. 

"Madame has returned?"

Domini smiled at him, but her lips were trembling, and she said nothing. 

Smain observed her with a dawning of curiosity. 

"Madame is changed, " he said at length. "Madame looks tired. The sun ishot in the desert now. It is better here in the garden. "

With an effort she controlled herself. 

"Yes, Smain, " she answered, "it is better here. But I can not stay herelong. "

"You are going away?"

"Yes, I am going away. "

She saw more quiet questions fluttering on his lips, and added:

"And now I want to walk in the garden alone. "

He waved his hand towards the trees. 

"It is all for Madame. Monsieur the Count has always said so. ButMonsieur?"

"He is in Beni-Mora. He is coming presently to fetch me. "

Then she turned away and walked slowly across the great sweep of sandtowards the trees and was taken by their darkness. She heard again theliquid bubbling of the hidden waterfall, and was again companioned bythe mystery of this desert Paradise, but it no longer whispered toher of peace for her. It murmured only its own personal peace andaccentuated her own personal agony and struggle. All that it had been itstill was, but all that she had been in it was changed. And she felt thefull terror of Nature's equanimity environing the fierce and torturedlives of men. 

As she walked towards the deepest recesses of the garden along thewinding tracks between the rills she had no sensation of approaching thehidden home of the Geni of the garden. Yet she remembered acutely allher first feelings there. Not one was forgotten. They returned to herlike spectres stealing across the sand. They lurked like spectres amongthe dense masses of the trees. She strove not to see their pale shapes, not to hear their terrible voices. She strove to draw calm once morefrom this infinite calm of silently-growing things aspiring towards thesun. But with each step she took the torment in her heart increased. Atlast she came to the deeper darkness and the blanched sand, and sawpine needles strewed about her feet. Then she stood still, instinctivelylistening for a sound that would complete the magic of the garden andher own despair. She waited for it. She even felt, strangely, that shewanted, that she needed it--the sound of the flute of Larbi playing hisamorous tune. But his flute to-day was silent. Had he fallen out of anold love and not yet found a new? or had he, perhaps, gone away? or washe dead? For a long time she stood there, thinking about Larbi. He andhis flute and his love were mingled with her life in the desert. And shefelt that she could not leave the desert without bidding them farewell. 

But the silence lasted and she went on and came to the _fumoir_. Shewent into it at once and sat down. She was going to wait for Androvskyhere. 

Her mind was straying curiously to-day. Suddenly she found herselfthinking of the fanatical religious performance she had seen with Hadjon the night when she had ridden out to watch the moon rise. She saw inimagination the bowing bodies, the foaming mouths, the glassy eyesof the young priests of the Sahara. She saw the spikes behind theireyeballs, the struggling scorpions descending into their throats, theflaming coals under their arm-pits, the nails driven into their heads. She heard them growling as they saw the glass, like hungry beasts at thesight of meat. And all this was to them religion. This madness wastheir conception of worship. A voice seemed to whisper to her: "And yourmadness?"

It was like the voice that whispered to Androvsky in the cemetery ofEl-Largani, "Come out with me into that world, that beautiful worldwhich God made for men. Why do you reject it?"

For a moment she saw all religions, all the practices, the renunciationsof the religions of the world, as varying forms of madness. She comparedthe self-denial of the monk with the fetish worship of the savage. Anda wild thrill of something that was almost like joy rushed through her, the joy that sometimes comes to the unbelievers when they are about tocommit some act which they feel would be contrary to God's will if therewere a God. It was a thrill of almost insolent human emancipation. Thesoul cried out: "I have no master. When I thought I had a master I wasmad. Now I am sane. "

But it passed almost as it came, like a false thing slinking from thesunlight, and Domini bowed her head in the obscurity of Count Anteoni'sthinking-place and returned to her true self. That moment had been likethe moment upon the tower when she saw below her the Jewess dancing uponthe roof for the soldiers, a black speck settling for an instant uponwhiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. She knew that shewould always be subject to such moments so long as she was a humanbeing, that there would always be in her blood something that wasself-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in Paradise? She satand prayed for strength in the battle of life, that could never beanything else but a battle. 

At last something within her told her to look up, to look out throughthe window-space into the garden. She had not heard a step, but sheknew that Androvsky was approaching, and, as she looked up, she preparedherself for a sight that would be terrible. She remembered his face whenhe came to bid her good-bye in the garden, and she feared to see hisface now. But she schooled herself to be strong, for herself and forhim. 

He was near her on the path coming towards her. As she saw him sheuttered a little cry and stood up. An immense surprise came to her, followed in a moment by an immense joy--the greatest joy, she thought, that she had ever experienced. For she looked on a face in which shesaw for the first time a pale dawning of peace. There was sadness in it, there was awe, but there was a light of calm, such as sometimes settlesupon the faces of men who have died quietly without agony or fear. Andshe felt fully, as she saw it, the rapture of having refused cowardiceand grasped the hand of bravery. Directly afterwards there came to her asensation of wonder that at this moment of their lives she and Androvskyshould be capable of a feeling of joy, of peace. When the wonder passedit was as if she had seen God and knew for ever the meaning of Hisdivine compensations. 

Androvsky came to the doorway of the _fumoir_ without looking up, stood still there--just where Count Anteoni had stood during his firstinterview with Domini--and said:

"Domini, I have been to the priest. I have made my confession. "

"Yes, " she said. "Yes, Boris!"

He came into the _fumoir_ and sat down near her, but not close to her, on one of the divans. Now the sad look in his face had deepened and thepeace seemed to be fading. She had thought of the dawn--that pale lightwhich is growing into day. Now she thought of the twilight which isfading into night. And the terrible knowledge struck her, "I am thetroubler of his peace. Without me only could he ever regain fully thepeace which he has lost. "

"Domini, " he said, looking up at her, "you know the rest. You meant itto be as it will be when we left Amara. "

"Was there any other way? Was there any other possible life for us--foryou--for me?"

"For you!" he said, and there was a sound almost of despair in hisvoice. "But what is to be your life? I have never protected you--youhave protected me. I have never been strong for you--you have beenstrong for me. But to leave you--all alone, Domini, must I do that? MustI think of you out in the world alone?"

For a moment she was tempted to break her silence, to tell him thetruth, that she would perhaps not be alone, that another life, sprungfrom his and hers, was coming to be with her, was coming to share thegreat loneliness that lay before her. But she resisted the temptationand only said:

"Do not think of me, Boris. "

"You tell me not to think of you!" he said with an almost fierce wonder. "Do you--do you wish me not to think of you?"

"What I wish--that is so little, but--no, Boris, I can't say--I don'tthink I could ever truly say that I wish you to think no more of me. After all, one has a heart, and I think if it's worth anything it mustbe often a rebellious heart. I know mine is rebellious. But if you don'tthink too much of me--when you are there--"

She paused, and they looked at each other for a moment in silence. Thenshe continued:

"Surely it will be easier for you, happier for you. "

Androvsky clenched his right hand on the divan and turned round till hewas facing her full. His eyes blazed. 

"Domini, " he said, "you are truthful. I'll be truthful to you. Tillthe end of my life I'll think of you--every day, every hour. If it weremortal sin to think of you I would commit it--yes, Domini, deliberately, I would commit it. But--God doesn't ask so much of us; no, God doesn't. I've made my confession. I know what I must do. I'll do it. You areright--you are always right--you are guided, I know that. But I willthink of you. And I'll tell you something--don't shirk from it, becauseit's truth, the truth of my soul, and you love truth. Domini--"

Suddenly he got up from the divan and stood before her, looking down ather steadily. 

"Domini, I can't regret that I have seen you, that we have beentogether, that we have loved each other, that we do love each other forever. I can't regret it; I can't even try or wish to. I can't regretthat I have learned from you the meaning of life. I know that God haspunished me for what I have done. In my love for you--till I toldyou the truth, that other truth--I never had a moment of peace--ofexultation, yes, of passionate exultation; but never, never a moment ofpeace. For always, even in the most beautiful moments, there has beenagony for me. For always I have known that I was sinning against God andyou, against myself, my eternal vows. And yet now I tell you, Domini, as I have told God since I have been able to pray again, that I am glad, thankful, that I have loved you, been loved by you. Is it wicked? Idon't know. I can scarcely even care, because it's true. And how can Ideny the truth, strive against truth? I am as I am, and I am that. Godhas made me that. God will forgive me for being as I am. I'm not afraid. I believe--I dare to believe--that He wishes me to think of you alwaystill the end of my life. I dare to believe that He would almost hate meif I could ever cease from loving you. That's my other confession--myconfession to you. I was born, perhaps, to be a monk. But I was born, too, that I might love you and know your love, your beauty, yourtenderness, your divinity. If I had not known you, if I had died a monk, a good monk who had never denied his vows, I should have died--I feelit, Domini--in a great, a terrible ignorance. I should have known thegoodness of God, but I should never have known part, a beautiful part, of His goodness. For I should never have known the goodness that He hasput into you. He has taught me through you. He has tortured me throughyou; yes, but through you, too, He has made me understand Him. When Iwas in the monastery, when I was at peace, when I lost myself in prayer, when I was absolutely pure, absolutely--so I thought--the child ofGod, I never really knew God. Now, Domini, now I know Him. In the worstmoments of the new agony that I must meet at least I shall always havethat help. I shall always feel that I know what God is. I shall always, when I think of you, when I remember you, be able to say, 'God islove. '"

He was silent, but his face still spoke to her, his eyes read her eyes. And in that moment at last they understood each other fully and forever. "It was written"--that was Domini's thought--"it was written byGod. " Far away the church bell chimed. 

"Boris, " Domini said quietly, "we must go to-day. We must leaveBeni-Mora. You know that?"

"Yes, " he said, "I know. "

He looked out into the garden. The almost fierce resolution, that hadsomething in it of triumph, faded from him. 

"Yes, " he said, "this is the end, the real end, for--there, it will allbe different--it will be terrible. "

"Let us sit here for a little while together, " Domini said, "and bequiet. Is it like the garden of El-Largani, Boris?"

"No. But when I first came here, when I saw the white walls, the greatdoor, when I saw the poor Arabs gathered there to receive alms, it mademe feel almost as if I were at El-Largani. That was why----" he paused. 

"I understand, Boris, I understand everything now. "

And then they were silent. Such a silence as theirs was then couldnever be interpreted to others. In it the sorrows, the aspirations, thestruggles, the triumphs, the torturing regrets, the brave determinationsof poor, great, feeble, noble humanity were enclosed as in a casket--acasket which contains many kinds of jewels, but surely none that are notprecious. 

And the garden listened, and beyond the garden the desert listened--thatother garden of Allah. And in this garden was not Allah, too, listeningto this silence of his children, this last mutual silence of theirs inthe garden where they had wandered, where they had loved, where they hadlearned a great lesson and drawn near to a great victory?

They might have sat thus for hours; they had lost all count of time. Butpresently, in the distance among the trees, there rose a light, frailsound that struck into both their hearts like a thin weapon. It was theflute of Larbi, and it reminded them--of what did it not remind them?All their passionate love of the body, all their lawlessness, all thejoy of liberty and of life, of the barbaric life that is liberty, alltheir wandering in the great spaces of the sun, were set before them inLarbi's fluttering tune, that was like the call of a siren, the callof danger, the call of earth and of earthly things, summoning them toabandon the summons of the spirit. Domini got up swiftly. 

"Come, Boris, " she said, without looking at him. 

He obeyed her and rose to his feet. 

"Let us go to the wall, " she said, "and look out once more on thedesert. It must be nearly noon. Perhaps--perhaps we shall hear the callto prayer. "

They walked down the winding alleys towards the edge of the garden. Thesound of the flute of Larbi died away gradually into silence. Soon theysaw before them the great spaces of the Sahara flooded with the blindingglory of the summer sunlight. They stood and looked out over it from theshelter of some pepper trees. No caravans were passing. No Arabs werevisible. The desert seemed utterly empty, given over, naked, to thedominion of the sun. While they stood there the nasal voice of theMueddin rose from the minaret of the mosque of Beni-Mora, uttered itsfourfold cry, and died away. 

"Boris, " Domini said, "that is for the Arabs, but for us, too, for webelong to the garden of Allah as they do, perhaps even more than they. "

"Yes, Domini. "

She remembered how, long ago, Count Anteoni had stood there with her andrepeated the words of the angel to the Prophet, and she murmured themnow:

"O thou that art covered, arise, and magnify thy Lord, and purify thyclothes, and depart from uncleanness. "

Then, standing side by side, they prayed, looking at the desert. 

CHAPTER XXX

In the evening of that day they left Beni-Mora. 

Domini wished to go quietly, but, knowing the Arabs, she feared it wouldbe impossible. Nevertheless, when she paid Batouch in the hotel andthanked him for all his services, she said:

"We'll say adieu here, Batouch. "

The poet displayed a large surprise. 

"But I will accompany Madame to the station. I will--"

"It is not necessary. "

Batouch looked offended but obstinate. His ample person became almostrigid. 

"If I am not at the station, Madame, what will Hadj think, and Ali, andOuardi, and--"

"They will be there?"

"Of course, Madame. Where else should they be? Does Madame wish to leaveus like a thief in the night, or like--"

"No, no, Batouch. I am very grateful to you all, but especially to you. "

Batouch began to smile. 

"Madame has entered into our hearts as no other stranger has ever done, "he remarked. "Madame understands the Arabs. We shall all come to say _aurevoir_ and to wish Madame and Monsieur a happy journey. "

For the moment the irony of her situation struck Domini so forcibly thatshe could say nothing. She only looked at Batouch in silence. 

"What is it? But I know. Madame is sad at leaving the desert, at leavingBeni-Mora. "

"Yes, Batouch. I am sad at leaving Beni-Mora. "

"But Madame will return?"

"Who knows?"

"I know. The desert has a spell. He who has once seen the desert mustsee it again. The desert calls and its voice is always heard. Madamewill hear it when she is far away, and some day she will feel, 'Imust come back to the land of the sun and to the beautiful land offorgetfulness. '"

"I shall see you at the station, Batouch, " Domini said quickly. "Good-bye till then. "

The train for Tunis started at sundown, in order that the travellersmight avoid the intense heat of the day. All the afternoon they keptwithin doors. The Arabs were sleeping in dark rooms. The gardens weredeserted. Domini could not sleep. She sat near the French window thatopened on to the verandah and said a silent good-bye to life. For thatwas what she felt--that life was leaving her, life with its intensity, its fierce meaning. She had come out of a sort of death to find life inBeni-Mora, and now she felt that she was going back again to somethingthat would be like death. After her strife there came a numbness of thespirit, a heavy dullness. Time passed and she sat there without moving. Sometimes she looked at the trunks lying on the floor ready for thejourney, at the labels on which was written "Tunis _via_ Constantine. "And then she tried to imagine what it would be like to travel in thetrain after her long travelling in the desert, and what it would be liketo be in a city. But she could not. The heat was intense. Perhaps itaffected her mind through her body. Faintly, far down in her mind andheart, she knew that she was wishing, even longing, to realise allthat these last hours in Beni-Mora meant, to gather up in them allthe threads of her life and her sensations there, to survey, as from aheight, the panorama of the change that had come to her in Africa. Butshe was frustrated. 

The hours fled, and she remained cold, listless. Often she was hardlythinking at all. When the Arab servant came in to tell her that itwas time to start for the station she got up slowly and looked at himvaguely. 

"Time to go already?" she asked. 

"Yes, Madame. I have told Monsieur. "

"Very well. "

At this moment Androvsky came into the room. 

"The carriage is waiting, " he said. 

She felt almost as if a stranger was speaking to her. 

"I am ready, " she said. 

And without looking round the room she went downstairs and got into thecarriage. 

They drove to the station without speaking. She had not seen FatherRoubier. Androvsky took the tickets. When they came out upon theplatform they found there a small crowd of Arab friends, with Batouchin command. Among them were the servants who had accompanied them upontheir desert journey, and Hadj. He came forward smiling to shake hands. When she saw him Domini remembered Irena, and, forgetting that it is notetiquette to inquire after an Arab's womenfolk, she said:

"Ah, Hadj, and are you happy now? How is Irena?"

Hadj's face fell, and he showed his pointed teeth in a snarl. For amoment he hesitated, looking round at the other Arabs. Then he said:

"I am always happy, Madame. "

Domini saw that she had made a mistake. She took out her purse and gavehim five francs. 

"A parting present, " she said. 

Hadj shook his head with recovered cheerfulness, tucked in his chinand laughed. Domini turned away, shook hands with all her darkacquaintances, and climbed up into the train, followed by Androvsky. Batouch sprang upon the step as the porter shut the door. 

"Madame!" he exclaimed. 

"What is it, Batouch?"

"To-day you have put Hadj to shame. "

He smiled broadly. 

"I? How? What have I done?"

"Irena is dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert beyond Amara. "

"Irena! But--"

"She could not live shut up in a room. She could not wear the veil forHadj. "

"But then--?"

"She has divorced him, Madame. It is easy here. For a few francs onecan--"

The whistle sounded. The train jerked. Batouch seized her hand, seizedAndrovsky's, sprang back to the platform. 

"Good-bye, Batouch! Good-bye, Ouardi! Good-bye, Smain!"

The train moved on. As it reached the end of the platform Domini saw anemaciated figure standing there alone, a thin face with glittering eyesturned towards her with a glaring scrutiny. It was the sand-diviner. Hesmiled at her, and his smile contracted the wound upon his face, makingit look wicked and grotesque like the face of a demon. She sank down onthe seat. For a moment, a hideous moment, she felt as if he personifiedBeni-Mora, as if this smile were Beni-Mora's farewell to her and toAndrovsky. 

And Irena was dancing at Onargla, far away in the desert. 

She remembered the night in the dancing-house, Irena's attack upon Hadj. 

That love of Africa was at an end. Was not everything at an end? YetLarbi still played upon his flute in the garden of Count Anteoni, stillplayed the little tune that was as the _leit motif_ of the eternalrenewal of life. And within herself she carried God's mystery ofrenewal, even she, with her numbed mind, her tired heart. She, too, wasto help to carry forward the banner of life. 

She had come to Beni-Mora in the sunset, and now, in the sunset, she wasleaving it. But she did not lean from the carriage window to watch thepageant that was flaming in the west. Instead, she shut her eyesand remembered it as it was on that evening when they, who now werejourneying away from the desert together, had been journeying towards ittogether. Strangers who had never spoken to each other. And the eveningcame, and the train stole into the gorge of El-Akbara, and still shekept her eyes closed. Only when the desert was finally left behind, divided from them by the great wall of rock, did she look up and speakto Androvsky. 

"We met here, Boris, " she said. 

"Yes, " he answered, "at the gate of the desert. I shall never be hereagain. "

Soon the night fell around them. 

* * * * *

In the evening of the following day they reached Tunis, and drove to theHotel d'Orient, where they had written to engage rooms for one night. They had expected that the city would be almost deserted by its Europeaninhabitants now the summer had set in, but when they drove up to thedoor of the hotel the proprietor came out to inform them that, owingto the arrival of a ship full of American tourists who, personallyconducted, were "viewing" Tunis after an excursion to the East andto the Holy Land, he had been unable to keep for them a privatesitting-room. With many apologies he explained that all thesitting-rooms in the house had been turned into bedrooms, but only forone night. On the morrow the personally-conducted ones would depart andMadame and Monsieur could have a charming salon. They listened silentlyto his explanations and apologies, standing in the narrow entrancehall, which was blocked up with piles of luggage. "Tomorrow, " he kept onrepeating, "to-morrow" all would be different. 

Domini glanced at Androvsky, who stood with his head bent down, lookingon the ground. 

"Shall we try another hotel?" she asked. 

"If you wish, " he answered in a low voice. 

"It would be useless, Madame, " said the proprietor. "All the hotels arefull. In the others you will not find even a bedroom. "

"Perhaps we had better stay here, " she said to Androvsky. 

Her voice, too, was low and tired. In her heart something seemed to say, "Do not strive any more. In the garden it was finished. Already you areface to face with the end. "

When she was alone in her small bedroom, which was full of the noisesof the street, and had washed and put on another dress, she began torealise how much she had secretly been counting on one more eveningalone with Androvsky. She had imagined herself dining with him in theirsitting-room unwatched, sitting together afterwards, for an hour or two, in silence perhaps, but at least alone. She had imagined a last solitudewith him with the darkness of the African night around them. She hadcounted upon that. She realised it now. Her whole heart and soul hadbeen asking for that, believing that at least that would be granted toher. But it was not to be. She must go down with him into a crowd ofAmerican tourists, must--her heart sickened. It seemed to her for amoment that if only she could have this one more evening quietly withthe man she loved she could brace herself to bear anything afterwards, but that if she could not have it she must break down. She feltdesperate. 

A gong sounded below. She did not move, though she heard it, knew whatit meant. After a few minutes there was a tap at the door. 

"What is it?" she said. 

"Dinner is ready, Madame, " said a voice in English with a strong foreignaccent. 

Domini went to the door and opened it. 

"Does Monsieur know?"

"Monsieur is already in the hall waiting for Madame. "

She went down and found Androvsky. 

They dined at a small table in a room fiercely lit up with electriclight and restless with revolving fans. Close to them, at an immensetable decorated with flowers, dined the American tourists. The womenwore hats with large hanging veils. The men were in travelling suits. They looked sunburnt and gay, and talked and laughed with an intensevivacity. Afterwards they were going in a body to see the dances of theAlmees. Androvsky shot one glance at them as he came in, then lookedaway quickly. The lines near his mouth deepened. For a moment heshut his eyes. Domini did not speak to him, did not attempt to talk. Enveloped by the nasal uproar of the gay tourists they ate in silence. When the short meal was over they got up and went out into the hall. Thepublic drawing-room opened out of it on the left. They looked into itand saw red plush settees, a large centre table covered with a rummageof newspapers, a Jew with a bald head writing a letter, and two oldGerman ladies with caps drinking coffee and knitting stockings. 

"The desert!" Androvsky whispered. 

Suddenly he drew away from the door and walked out into the street. Lines of carriages stood there waiting to be hired. He beckoned to one, a victoria with a pair of small Arab horses. When it was in front of thehotel he said to Domini:

"Will you get in, Domini?"

She obeyed. Androvsky said to the mettse driver:

"Drive to the Belvedere. Drive round the park till I tell you toreturn. "

The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, pastthe brilliantly-lighted cafes, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of theResident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soonout on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste groundand flat fields. In front of them rose a hill with a darkness of treesscattered over it. They reached it, and began to mount it slowly. Thelights of the city shone below them. Domini saw great sloping lawnsdotted with streets and by trees. Scents of hidden flowers came to herin the night, and she heard a whirr of insects. Still they mounted, andpresently reached the top of the hill. 

"Stop!" said Androvsky to the driver. 

He drew up his horses. 

"Wait for us here. "

Androvsky got out. 

"Shall we walk a little way?" he said to Domini. 

"Yes--yes. "

She got out too, and they walked slowly along the deserted road. Belowthem she saw the lights of ships gliding upon the lakes, the brighteyes of a lighthouse, the distant lamps of scattered villages along theshores, and, very far off, a yellow gleam that dominated the sea beyondthe lakes and seemed to watch patiently all those who came and went, thepilgrims to and from Africa. That gleam shone in Carthage. 

From the sea over the flats came to them a breeze that had a savour offreshness, of cool and delicate life. 

They walked for some time without speaking, then Domini said:

"From the cemetery of El-Largani you looked out over this, didn't you, Boris?"

"Yes, Domini, " he answered. "It was then that the voice spoke to me. "

"It will never speak again. God will not let it speak again. "

"How can you know that?"

"We are tried in the fire, Boris, but we are not burnt to death. "

She said it for herself, to reassure herself, to give a little comfortto her own soul. 

"To-night I feel as if it were not so, " he answered. "When we came tothe hotel it seemed--I thought that I could not go on. "

"And now?"

"Now I do not know anything except that this is my last night with you. And, Domini, that seems to me to be absolutely incredible although Iknow it. I cannot imagine any future away from you, any life in whichI do not see you. I feel as if in parting from you I am parting frommyself, as if the thing left would be no more a man, but only a brokenhusk. Can I pray without you, love God without you?"

"Best without me. "

"But can I live without you, Domini? Can I wake day after day to thesunshine, and know that I shall never see you again, and go on living?Can I do that? I don't feel as if it could be. Perhaps, when I have donemy penance, God will have mercy. "

"How, Boris?"

"Perhaps He will let me die. "

"Let us fix all the thoughts of our hearts on the life in which Hemay let us be together once more. Look, Boris, there are lights in thedarkness, there will always be lights. "

"I can't see them, " he said. 

She looked at him and saw that tears were running down his cheeks. Again, on this last night of companionship, God summoned her to bestrong for him. On the edge of the hill, close to them, she saw aMoorish temple built of marble, with narrow arches and columns, andmarble seats. 

"Let us sit here for a moment, Boris, " she said. 

He followed her up the marble steps. Two or three times he stumbled, butshe did not give him her hand. They sat down between the slender columnsand looked out over the city, whose blanched domes and minarets werefaintly visible in the night. Androvsky was shaken with sobs. 

"How can I part from you?" he said brokenly. "How am I to do it? How canI--how can I? Why was I given this love for you, this terrible thing, this crying out, this reaching out of the flesh and heart and soulto you? Domini--Domini--what does it all mean--this mystery oftorture--this scourging of the body--this tearing in pieces of my souland yours? Domini, shall we know--shall we ever know?"

"I am sure we shall know, we shall all know some day, the meaning of themystery of pain. And then, perhaps, then surely, we shall each of usbe glad that we have suffered. The suffering will make the glory of ourhappiness. Even now sometimes when I am suffering, Boris, I feel as ifthere were a kind of splendour, even a kind of nobility in what I amdoing, as if I were proving my own soul, proving the force that God hasput into me. Boris, let us--you and I--learn to say in all this terror, 'I am unconquered, I am unconquerable. '"

"I feel that I could say that, be it in the most frightfulcircumstances, if only I could sometimes see you--even far away as now Isee those lights. "

"You will see me in your prayers every day, and I shall see you inmine. "

"But the cry of the body, Domini, of the eyes, of the hands, to see, totouch--it's so fierce, it's so--it's so--"

"I know, I hear it too, always. But there is another voice, which willbe strong when the other has faded into eternal silence. In all bodilythings, even the most beautiful, there is something finite. We mustreach out our poor, feeble, trembling hands to the infinite. I thinkeveryone who is born does that through life, often without beingconscious of it. We shall do it consciously, you and I. We shall be ableto do it because of our dreadful suffering. We shall want, we shall haveto do it, you--where you are going, and I----"

"Where will you be?"

"I don't know, I don't know. I won't think of the afterwards now, inthese last few hours--in these last----"

Her voice faltered and broke. Then the tears came to her also, and for awhile she could not see the distant lights. 

Then she spoke again; she said:

"Boris, let us go now. "

He got up without a word. They found the carriage and drove back toTunis. 

When they reached the hotel they came into the midst of the Americantourists, who were excitedly discussing the dances they had seen, andcalling for cooling drinks to allay the thirst created by the heat ofthe close rooms of Oriental houses. 

Early next morning a carriage was at the door. When they had got into itthe coachman looked round. 

"Where shall I drive to, Monsieur?"

Androvsky looked at him and made no reply. 

"To El-Largani, " Domini said. 

"To the monastery, Madame?"

He whistled to his horses gaily. As they trotted on bells chimed abouttheir necks, chimed a merry peal to the sunshine that lay over the land. They passed soldiers marching, and heard the call of bugles, the rattleof drums. And each sound seemed distant and each moving figure faraway. This world of Africa, fiercely distinct in the clear air underthe cloudless sky, was unreal to them both, was vague as a northernland wrapped in a mist of autumn. The unreal was about them. Withinthemselves was the real. They sat beside each other without speaking. Words to them now were useless things. What more had they to say?Everything and nothing. Lifetimes would not have been long enough forthem to speak their thoughts for each other, of each other, to speaktheir emotions, all that was in their minds and hearts during that drivefrom the city to the monastery that stood upon the hill. Yet did nottheir mutual action of that morning say all that need be said? Thesilence of the Trappists surely floated out to them over the plains andthe pale waters of the bitter lakes and held them silent. 

But the bells on the horses' necks rang always gaily, and the coachman, who would presently drive Domini back alone to Tunis, whistled and sangon his high seat. 

Presently they came to a great wooden cross standing on a pedestal ofstone by the roadside at the edge of a grove of olive trees. It markedthe beginning of the domain of El-Largani. When Domini saw it she lookedat Androvsky, and his eyes answered her silent question. The coachmanwhipped his horses into a canter, as if he were in haste to reach hisdestination. He was thinking of the good red wine of the monks. In acloud of white dust the carriage rolled onwards between vineyards inwhich, here and there, labourers were working, sheltered from the sun byimmense straw hats. A long line of waggons, laden with barrels and drawnby mules covered with bells, sheltered from the flies by leaves, metthem. In the distance Domini saw forests of eucalyptus trees. Suddenlyit seemed to her as if she saw Androvsky coming from them towardsthe white road, helping a man who was pale, and who stumbled as ifhalf-fainting, yet whose face was full of a fierce passion of joy--thestranger whose influence had driven him out of the monastery into theworld. She bent down her head and hid her face in her hands, praying, praying with all her strength for courage in this supreme moment of herlife. But almost directly the prayers died on her lips and in her heart, and she found herself repeating the words of _The Imitation_:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it isnot disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mountethupwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth thecry of this voice. "

Again and again she said the words: "It securely passeth throughall--it securely passeth through all. " Now, at last, she was to knowthe uttermost truth of those words which she had loved in her happiness, which she clung to now as a little child clings to its father's hand. 

The carriage turned to the right, went on a little way, then stopped. 

Domini lifted her face from her hands. She saw before her a great doorwhich stood open. Above it was a statue of the Madonna and Child, andon either side were two angels with swords and stars. Underneath waswritten, in great letters:

JANUA COELI. 

Beyond, through the doorway, she saw an open space upon which thesunlight streamed, three palm trees, and a second door which was shut. Above this second door was written:

"_Les dames n'entrent pas ici. _"

As she looked the figure of a very old monk with a long white beardshuffled slowly across the patch of sunlight and disappeared. 

The coachman turned round. 

"You descend here, " he said in a cheerful voice. "Madame will beentertained in the parlour on the right of the first door, but Monsieurcan go on to the _hotellerie_. It's over there. "

He pointed with his whip and turned his back to them again. 

Domini sat quite still. Her lips moved, once more repeating the words of_The Imitation_. Androvsky got up from his seat, stepped heavily out ofthe carriage, and stood beside it. The coachman was busy lighting along cigar. Androvsky leaned forward towards Domini with his arms on thecarriage and looked at her with tearless eyes. 

"Domini, " at last he whispered. "Domini!"

Then she turned to him, bent towards him, put her hands on his shouldersand looked into his face for a long time, as if she were trying to seeit now for all the years that were perhaps to come. Her eyes, too, weretearless. 

At last she leaned down and touched his forehead with her lips. 

She said nothing. Her hands dropped from his shoulders, she turned awayand her lips moved once more. 

Then Androvsky moved slowly in through the doorway of the monastery, crossed the patch of sunlight, lifted his hand and rang the bell at thesecond door. 

"Drive back to Tunis, please. "

"Madame!" said the coachman. 

"Drive back to Tunis. "

"Madame is not going to enter! But Monsieur--"

"Drive back to Tunis!"

Something in the voice that spoke to him startled the coachman. Hehesitated a moment, staring at Domini from his seat, then, witha muttered curse, he turned his horses' heads and plied the whipferociously. 

* * * * *

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is nottired. When weary--it--is not--tired. "

Domini's lips ceased to move. She could not speak any more. She couldnot even pray without words. 

Yet, in that moment, she did not feel alone. 

CHAPTER XXXI

In the garden of Count Anteoni, which has now passed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing. He is gay, as children are, andsometimes he is naughty and, as if out of sheer wantonness, he destroysthe pyramids of sand erected by the Arab gardeners upon the narrow pathsbetween the hills, or tears off the petals of the geraniums and scattersthem to the breezes that whisper among the trees. But when Larbi's flutecalls to him he runs to hear. He sits at the feet of that persistentlover, and watches the big fingers fluttering at the holes of thereed, and his small face becomes earnest and dreamy, as if it lookedon far-off things, or watched the pale pageant of the mirages risingmysteriously out of the sunlit spaces of the sands to fade again, leaving no trace behind. 

Only one other song he loves more than the twittering tune of Larbi. 

Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother callshim to her, to the white wall where she is sitting beneath a jamelontree. 

"Listen, Boris!" she whispers. 

The little boy climbs up on her knee, leans his face against her breastand obeys. An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing tohimself as he goes towards his home in the oasis:

 "No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. "

He is singing the song of the freed negroes. When his voice has diedaway the mother puts the little boy down. It is bed time, and Smain isthere to lead him to the white villa, where he will sleep dreamlesslytill morning. 

But the mother stays alone by the wall till the night falls and thedesert is hidden. 

 "No one but God and I Knows what is in my heart. "

She whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows overthe vast spaces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her ofthe wind that, at Arba, carried fire towards her as she sat before thetent, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the passion thatcame to her soul like fire in the desert. 

But she does not rebel. 

For always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying whoonce fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last hasreached his home.