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 t
o 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! Ba
touch 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 e
yes.
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.