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 thebark
ing 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 t
he 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.