When Domini reached the camp she found it in a bustle. Batouch, resigned
to the inevitable, had put the cook upon his mettle. Ouardi was already
to be seen with a bottle of Pommery in each hand, and was only prevented
from instantly uncorking them by the representations of his mistress
and an elaborate exposition of the peculiar and evanescent virtues of
champagne. Ali was humming a mysterious song about a lovesick camel-man,
with which he intended to make glad the hearts of the assembly when the
halting 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 the
hill.
“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 delicate
head with thin, pointed horns, tiny legs with exquisite little feet that
moved 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 then
dropping 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 had
finished he said nothing. But she saw him look at the dining-table laid
for three and his expression was dark and gloomy.
“Boris, you don’t mind!” she said in surprise. “Surely you would not
refuse 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 happiness
to be intruded upon even for a night. I want to be alone with you. This
life of ours in the desert has made me desperately selfish. I want to be
alone, 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. They
were speaking French.
“I must,” said Androvsky, “I must----”
He made an uncertain movement, as if to go towards the dunes, checked
it, and went hurriedly into the dressing-tent. As he disappeared De
Trevignac came into the camp with his men. Batouch conducted the latter
with all ceremony towards the fire which burned before the tents of
the attendants, and, for the moment, Domini was left alone with De
Trevignac.
“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 table
laid for three with an eager anticipation which he was far too natural
to try to conceal.
“Madame,” he said, “if I disgrace myself to-night, if I eat like an ogre
in 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 insisted
on putting a soft cushion at his back. Her manner was cheerful, almost
eagerly kind and full of a camaraderie rare in a woman, yet he noticed a
change 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 how
long 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 of
his 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--she
taught 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 frankly
shown 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 terror
of the seen. Before they spoke again Androvsky crossed the dark space
between 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 Androvsky
looked down, and two vertical lines appeared on his high forehead above
his eyebrows. They gave to his face a sudden look of acute distress. De
Trevignac thanked him for his proffered hospitality with the ease of a
man of the world, assuming that the kind invitation to him and to his
men came from the husband as well as from the wife. When he had finished
speaking, Androvsky, without looking up, said, in a voice that sounded
to Domini new, as if he had deliberately assumed it:
“I am glad, Monsieur. We found gazelle, and so I hope--I hope you will
have a fairly good dinner.”
The words could scarcely have been more ordinary, but the way in which
they were uttered was so strange, sounded indeed so forced, and so
unnatural, that both De Trevignac and Domini looked at the speaker in
surprise. There was a pause. Then Batouch and Ouardi came in with the
soup.
“Come!” Domini said. “Let us begin. Monsieur de Trevignac, will you sit
here on my right?”
They sat down. The two men were opposite to each other at the ends of
the 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 the
blaze of the fire, and the forms of the French soldiers sitting at their
table close to it, with the Arabs clustering round them. Sounds of loud
conversation and occasional roars of laughter, that was almost childish
in its frank lack of all restraint, told her that one feast was a
success. She looked at her companions and made a sudden resolve--almost
fierce--that the other, over which she was presiding, should be a
success, too. But why was Androvsky so strange with other men? Why did
he seem to become almost a different human being directly he was brought
into any close contact with his kind? Was it shyness? Had he a profound
hatred of all society? She remembered Count Anteoni’s luncheon and
the distress Androvsky had caused her by his cold embarrassment, his
unwillingness to join in conversation on that occasion. But then he
was only her friend. Now he was her husband. She longed for him to show
himself at his best. That he was not a man of the world she knew. Had he
not told her of his simple upbringing in El Kreir, a remote village of
Tunisia, by a mother who had been left in poverty after the death of
his father, a Russian who had come to Africa to make a fortune by
vine-growing, and who had had his hopes blasted by three years of
drought and by the visitation of the dreaded phylloxera? Had he not told
her 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 for
himself, but for a company that drew a fortune from the land and gave
him a bare livelihood? Till she met him he had never travelled--he had
never seen almost anything of life. A legacy from a relative had at last
enabled him to have some freedom and to gratify a man’s natural taste
for change. And, strangely, perhaps, he had come first to the desert.
She could not--she did not--expect him to show the sort of easy
cultivation that a man acquires only by long contact with all sorts and
conditions of men and women. But she knew that he was not only full of
fire and feeling--a man with a great temperament, but also that he was a
man who had found time to study, whose mind was not empty. He was a man
who had thought profoundly. She knew this, although even with her, even
in the great intimacy that is born of a great mutual passion, she knew
him for a man of naturally deep reserve, who could not perhaps speak all
his 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 will
upon this man who loved her, to force him to show his best side to the
guest who had come to them out of the terror of the dunes. She would be
obstinate for him.
Her lips went down a little at the corners. De Trevignac glanced at her
above his soup-plate, and then at Androvsky. He was a man who had
seen much of society, and who divined at once the gulf that must have
separated the kind of life led in the past by his hostess from the
kind of life led by his host. Such gulfs, he knew, are bridged with
difficulty. In this case a great love must have been the bridge. His
interest in these two people, encountered by him in the desolation of
the wastes, and when all his emotions had been roused by the nearness
of peril, would have been deep in any case. But there was something that
made it extraordinary, something connected with Androvsky. It seemed to
him 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 from
what 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 first
glass 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 to
join her in her effort to include Androvsky in the conversation. The
cheerful noise of the camp came to them from without.
“I’m afraid my men are lifting up their voices rather loudly,” said De
Trevignac.
“We like it,” said Domini. “Don’t we, Boris?”
There was a long peal of laughter from the distance. As it died away
Batouch’s peculiar guttural chuckle, which had something negroid in
it, was audible, prolonging itself in a loneliness that spoke his
pertinacious sense of humour.
“Certainly,” said Androvsky, still in the same strained and unnatural
voice which had surprised Domini when she introduced the two men. “We
are accustomed to gaiety round the camp fire.”
“You are making a long stay in the desert, Monsieur?” asked De
Trevignac.
“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 he
searched 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 to
Androvsky. 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 of
ice about her heart. Was it possible that Androvsky had not shared her
joy in the desert? Had she been alone in her happiness? For a moment she
sat like one stunned by a blow. Then knowledge, reason, spoke in her.
She knew of Androvsky’s happiness with her, knew it absolutely. There
are some things in which a woman cannot be deceived. When Androvsky
was with her he wanted no other human being. Nothing could take that
certainty from her.
“Of course,” she said, recovered, “there are places in the desert in
which melancholy seems to brood, in which one has a sense of the terrors
of the wastes. Mogar, I think, is one of them, perhaps the only one we
have been in yet. This evening, when I was sitting under the tower, even
I”--and as she said “even I” she smiled happily at Androvsky--“knew some
forebodings.”
“Forebodings?” Androvsky said quickly. “Why should you--?” He broke off.
“Not of coming misfortune, I hope, Madame?” said De Trevignac in a voice
that was now irresistibly cheerful.
He was helping himself to some gazelle, which sent forth an appetising
odour, and Ouardi was proudly pouring out for him the first glass of
blithely winking champagne.
“I hardly know, but everything looked sad and strange; I began to think
about the uncertainties of life.”
Domini and De Trevignac were sipping their champagne. Ouardi came behind
Androvsky 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 a
brown 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. Androvsky
followed her example, but without geniality, and when he put his lips
to the wine he scarcely tasted it. Then he put the glass down and told
Ouardi to give him red wine. And during the rest of the evening he drank
no more champagne. He also ate very little, much less than usual, for in
the desert they both had the appetites of hunters.
After thanking them cordially for drinking his health, De Trevignac
said:
“I was nearly experiencing the certainty of death. But was it Mogar that
turned 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 that
was hidden in the darkness outside, the white plains, the mirage sea,
the sand dunes like monsters, the bleached bones of the dead camels with
the eagles hovering above them.
“Don’t you think so, Boris? Don’t you think it looks like a place in
which--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 make
tragedies 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 he
continued speaking with greater naturalness and ease, even with a
certain 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 of
which they make phantoms. Half the terrors and miseries of life lie only
in the minds of men. They even cause the very tragedies they would avoid
by expecting them.”
He said the last words with a sort of strong contempt--then, more
quietly, he added:
“You, Domini, why should you feel the uncertainty of life, especially
at Mogar? You need not. You can choose not to. Life is the same in its
chances here as everywhere?”
“But you,” she answered--“did you not feel a tragic influence when we
arrived here? Do you remember how you looked at the tower?”
“The tower!” he said, with a quick glance at De Trevignac. “I--why
should 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 Domini
smile in sympathy, but De Trevignac and Androvsky looked at each other
for a moment, the one with a sort of earnest inquiry, the other with
hostility, or what seemed hostility, across the circle of lamplight that
lay between them.
“A tower rising in the desert emphasises the desolation. I suppose that
was it,” Androvsky said, as the laugh died down into Batouch’s throaty
chuckle. “It suggests lonely people watching.”
“For something that never comes, or something terrible that comes,” De
Trevignac said.
As he spoke the last words Androvsky moved uneasily in his chair, and
looked out towards the camp, as if he longed to get up and go into the
open 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 the
something terrible that came.”
She laughed. While she laughed De Trevignac noticed that Androvsky
looked at her with a sort of sad intentness, not reproachful or
wondering, as an older person might look at a child playing at the edge
of some great gulf into which a false step would precipitate it. He
strove to interpret this strange look, so obviously born in the face of
his host in connection with himself. It seemed to him that he must have
met Androvsky, and that Androvsky knew it, knew--what he did not yet
know--where it was and when. It seemed to him, too, that Androvsky
thought of him as the “something terrible” that had come to this woman
who sat between them out of the desert.
But how could it be?
A profound curiosity was roused in him and he mentally cursed his
treacherous memory--if it were treacherous. For possibly he might be
mistaken. He had perhaps never met his host before, and this strange
manner of his might be due to some inexplicable cause, or perhaps to
some cause explicable and even commonplace. This Monsieur Androvsky
might be a very jealous man, who had taken this woman away into the
desert to monopolise her, and who resented even the chance intrusion of
a stranger. De Trevignac knew life and the strange passions of men, knew
that there are Europeans with the Arab temperament, who secretly long
that 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 happier
current by your coming.”
“How so?”
“You made me think of what are called the little things of life that are
more to us women than to you men, I suppose.”
“Ah,” he said. “This food, this wine, this chair with a cushion, this
gay 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 were
tears in his blue eyes, which were fixed on her with an expression of
ardent gratitude. He cleared his throat.
“Monsieur,” he said to Androvsky, “you will not think me presuming on an
acquaintance formed in the desert if I say that till the end of my life
I--and my men--can only think of Madame as of the good Goddess of the
desolate Sahara!”
He did not know how Androvsky would take this remark, he did not
care. For the moment in his impulsive nature there was room only for
admiration of the woman and, gratitude for her frank kindness. Androvsky
said:
“Thank you, Monsieur.”
He spoke with an intensity, even a fervour, that were startling. For
the first time since they had been together his voice was absolutely
natural, his manner was absolutely unconstrained, he showed himself as
he was, a man on fire with love for the woman who had given herself to
him, and who received a warm word of praise of her as a gift made to
himself. De Trevignac no longer wondered that Domini was his wife. Those
three words, and the way they were spoken, gave him the man and what he
might be in a woman’s life. Domini looked at her husband silently. It
seemed to her as if her heart were flooded with light, as if desolate
Mogar were the Garden of Eden before the angel came. When they spoke
again it was on some indifferent topic. But from that moment the meal
went more merrily. Androvsky seemed to lose his strange uneasiness. De
Trevignac met him more than half-way. Something of the gaiety round the
camp fire had entered into the tent. A chain of sympathy had been forged
between these three people. Possibly, a touch might break it, but for
the 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 to
leave 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 together
to seal their good fellowship. Her husband’s change from taciturnity to
cordiality had enchanted her. Happiness was dancing within her. She felt
gay as a child. Between the fire and the tent she met Ouardi carrying a
tray. On it were a coffee-pot, cups, little glasses and a tall bottle of
a 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. Batouch
told 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 the
fire, and at the faces lit up by it, French and Arab. The happy soldiers
were singing a French song with a chorus for the delectation of the
Arabs, who swayed to and fro, wagging their heads and smiling in an
effort to show appreciation of the barbarous music of the Roumis.
Dreary, terrible Mogar and its influences were being defied by the
wanderers halting in it. She thought of Androvsky’s words about the
human will overcoming the influence of place, and a sudden desire
came to her to go as far as the tower where she had felt sad and
apprehensive, to stand in its shadow for an instant and to revel in her
happiness.
She yielded to the impulse, walked to the tower, and stood there facing
the darkness which hid the dunes, the white plains, the phantom sea,
seeing them in her mind, and radiantly defying them. Then she began to
return to the camp, walking lightly, as happy people walk. When she had
gone a very short way she heard someone coming towards her. It was too
dark 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 soldiers
come 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 talking
in frank good fellowship. It was like a bright star, she thought, that
gleam of light that shone out of her home, the brightest of all the
stars of Africa. She went towards it. As she drew near she expected to
hear the voices of the two men, but she heard nothing. Nor did she see
the blackness of their forms in the circle of the light. Perhaps they
had gone out to join the soldiers and the Arabs round the fire. She
hastened on, came to the tent, entered it, and was confronted by her
husband, who was standing back in an angle formed by the canvas, in
the shadow, alone. On the floor near him lay a quantity of fragments of
glass.
“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 face
of 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 had
displayed such warm, even touching, appreciation of her kindness leaving
her without a word, taking the opportunity of her momentary absence to
disappear, 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 ground
among the fragments.
“What’s this?” she said. “Oh, the African liqueur!”
Suddenly Androvsky put his arm round her with an iron grip, and led her
away out of the tent. They crossed the space to the sleeping-tent in
silence. She felt governed, and as if she must yield to his will, but
she also felt confused, even almost alarmed mentally. The sleeping-tent
was dark. When they reached it Androvsky took his arm from her, and she
heard him searching for the matches. She was in the tent door and could
see that there was a light in the tower. De Trevignac must be there
already. No doubt it was he who had passed her in the night when she was
returning to the camp. Androvsky struck a match and lit a candle. Then
he 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 the
night.
“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 on
the 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 we
happier 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 worldly
knowledge, might perhaps have shown their guest that he secretly
resented the intrusion of a stranger upon them even for one evening, and
that De Trevignac, being a sensitive man, had been hurt and had abruptly
gone away. Her social sense revolted at this idea.
“You didn’t let him see that, Boris!” she exclaimed. “After his escape
from death! It would have been inhuman.”
“Perhaps my love for you might even make me that, Domini. And if it
did--if you knew why I was inhuman--would you blame me for it? Would you
hate me for it?”
There was a strong excitement dawning in him. It recalled to her the
first night in the desert when they sat together on the ground and
watched the waning of the fire.
“Could you--could you hate me for anything, Domini?” he said. “Tell
me--could you?”
His face was close to hers. She looked at him with her long, steady
eyes, 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 last
simply.
“Then you--you have perfect trust in me?”
“But--have you ever thought I had not?” she asked. There was wonder in
her voice.
“But I have given my life to you,” she added still with wonder. “I am
here 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, far
down.”
“How can you say that? I couldn’t have loved you if it were so.” She
spoke with complete conviction.
“Perhaps,” he said, in a low voice, “perhaps women never realise what
their love can do. It might--it might--”
“What, Boris?”
“It might do what Christ did--go down into hell to preach to the--to the
spirits in prison.”
His voice had dropped almost to a murmur. With one hand on her cheek he
kept her face pressed down upon his shoulder so that she could not see
his face.
“It might do that, Domini.”
“Boris,” she said, almost whispering too, for his words and manner
filled 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 you
to 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 of
the happiness there is in the world for man and woman who love each
other.”
“Then you are happy?”
“Don’t I seem so?”
She did not reply. She was searching her heart for the answer--searching
it with an almost terrible sincerity. He waited for her answer, sitting
quite still. His hand was always against her face. After what seemed to
him an eternity she said:
“Boris!”
“Yes.”
“Why did you say that about a woman’s love being able even to go down
into hell to preach to the spirits in prison?”
He did not answer. His hand seemed to her to lie more heavily on her
cheek.
“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. There
was 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 from
them the camp they heard a sound of music. Drums were being beaten. The
African 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 sad
even 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 she
caught 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 feel
far 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 the
desert. For the desert is the Garden of Allah. And, Boris--put out the
light.”
He extinguished the candle with his hand.
“You feel, perhaps, that you can’t pray honestly now, but some day you
may be able to. You will be able to. I know it. Before I knew I loved
you 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 with
her arms.
“It was that night in the dancing-house. I seemed to see a crowd of
people to whom the desert had given gifts, and to you it had given the
gift 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 the
crucifix. 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 that
night.
Domini did not sleep, and very early in the morning, just as dawn was
beginning, she stole out of the tent, shutting down the canvas flap
behind her.
It was cold outside--cold almost as in a northern winter. The wind of
the morning, that blew to her across the wavelike dunes and the white
plains, seemed impregnated with ice. The sky was a pallid grey. The camp
was 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 the
hill and looked towards the tower.
As she did so, from the house behind it came a string of mules, picking
their way among the stones over the hard earth. De Trevignac and his men
were already departing from Mogar.
They came towards her slowly. They had to pass her to reach the track by
which they were going on to the north and civilisation. She stood to see
them pass.
When they were quite near De Trevignac, who was riding, with his head
bent 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 thought
that he was going on without stopping to speak to her. She saw that he
hesitated what to do. Then he pulled up his mule and prepared to get
off.
“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 had
passed, saluting her, he let her hand go. He had not spoken a word. His
face, burned scarlet by the sun, had a look of exhaustion on it, but
also another look--of horror, she thought, as if in his soul he was
recoiling from her. His inflamed blue eyes watched her, as if in a
search that was intense. She stood beside the mule in amazement. She
could hardly believe that this was the man who had thanked her, with
tears in his eyes, for her hospitality the night before. “Good-bye,”
he said, speaking at last, coldly. She saw him glance at the tent from
which she had come. The horror in his face surely deepened. “Goodbye,
Madame,” he repeated. “Thank you for your hospitality.” He pulled up the
rein to ride on. The mule moved a step or two. Then suddenly he checked
it and turned in the saddle. “Madame!” he said. “Madame!”
She came up to him. It seemed to her that he was going to say something
of tremendous importance to her. His lips, blistered by the sun, opened
to speak. But he only looked again towards the tent in which Androvsky
was still sleeping, then at her.
A long moment passed.
Then De Trevignac, as if moved by an irresistable impulse, leaned from
the saddle and made over Domini the sign of the cross. His hand dropped
down against the mule’s side, and without another word, or look, he rode
away to the north, following his men.