"Yes?"

"Will you make a sacrifice? To-morrow I start at dawn. Will you be here to wish me G.o.d speed on my journey?"

"Of course I will."

"It will be good of you. I shall value it from you. And--and when--if you ever make your long journey on that road--the route to the south--I will wish you Allah's blessing in the Garden of Allah."

He spoke with solemnity, almost with pa.s.sion, and she felt the tears very near her eyes. Then they sat in silence, looking out over the desert.

And she heard its voices calling.

CHAPTER XIII

On the following morning, before dawn, Domini awoke, stirred from sleep by her anxiety, persistent even in what seemed unconsciousness, to speed Count Anteoni upon his desert journey. She did not know why he was going, but she felt that some great issue in his life hung upon the accomplishment of the purpose with which he set out, and without affectation she ardently desired that accomplishment. As soon as she awoke she lit a candle and glanced at her watch. She knew by the hour that the dawn was near, and she got up at once and made her toilet. She had told Batouch to be at the hotel door before sunrise to accompany her to the garden, and she wondered if he were below. A stillness as of deep night prevailed in the house, making her movements, while she dressed, seem unnaturally loud. When she put on her hat, and looked into the gla.s.s to see if it were just at the right angle, she thought her face, always white, was haggard. This departure made her a little sad. It suggested to her the instability of circ.u.mstance, the perpetual change that occurs in life. The going of her kind host made her own going more possible than before, even more likely. Some words from the Bible kept on running through her brain "Here have we no continuing city." In the silent darkness their cadence held an ineffable melancholy. Her mind heard them as the ear, in a pathetic moment, hears sometimes a distant strain of music wailing like a phantom through the invisible. And the everlasting journeying of all created things oppressed her heart.

When she had b.u.t.toned her jacket and drawn on her gloves she went to the French window and pushed back the shutters. A wan semi-darkness looked in upon her. Again she wondered whether Batouch had come. It seemed to her unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the world was up and purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a curtain for unconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the verandah and looked over the parapet. She could see the white road, mysteriously white, below. It was deserted. She leaned down.

"Batouch!" she called softly. "Batouch!"

He might be hidden under the arcade, sleeping in his burnous.

"Batouch! Batouch!"

No answer came. She stood by the parapet, waiting and looking down the road.

All the stars had faded, yet there was no suggestion of the sun.

She faced an unrelenting austerity. For a moment she thought of this atmosphere, this dense stillness, this gravity of vague and shadowy trees, as the environment of those who had erred, of the lost spirits of men who had died in mortal sin.

Almost she expected to see the desperate shade of her dead father pa.s.s between the black stems of the palm trees, vanish into the grey mantle that wrapped the hidden world.

"Batouch! Batouch!"

He was not there. That was certain. She resolved to set out alone and went back into her bedroom to get her revolver. When she came out again with it in her hand Androvsky was standing on the verandah just outside her window. He took off his hat and looked from her face to the revolver. She was startled by his appearance, for she had not heard his step, and had been companioned by a sense of irreparable solitude. This was the first time she had seen him since he vanished from the garden on the previous day.

"You are going out, Madame?" he said.

"Yes."

"Not alone?"

"I believe so. Unless I find Batouch below."

She slipped the revolver into the pocket of the loose coat she wore.

"But it is dark."

"It will be day very soon. Look!"

She pointed towards the east, where a light, delicate and mysterious as the distant lights in the opal, was gently pushing in the sky.

"You ought not to go alone."

"Unless Batouch is there I must. I have given a promise and I must keep it. There is no danger."

He hesitated, looking at her with an anxious, almost a suspicious, expression.

"Good-bye, Monsieur Androvsky."

She went towards the staircase. He followed her quickly to the head of it.

"Don't trouble to come down with me."

"If--if Batouch is not there--might not I guard you, Madame?" She remembered the Count's words and answered:

"Let me tell you where I am going. I am going to say good-bye to Count Anteoni before he starts for his desert journey."

Androvsky stood there without a word.

"Now, do you care to come if I don't find Batouch? Mind, I'm not the least afraid."

"Perhaps he is there--if you told him." He muttered the words. His whole manner had changed. Now he looked more than suspicious--cloudy and fierce.

"Possibly."

She began to descend the stairs. He did not follow her, but stood looking after her. When she reached the arcade it was deserted. Batouch had forgotten or had overslept himself. She could have walked on under the roof that was the floor of the verandah, but instead she stepped out into the road. Androvsky was above her by the parapet. She glanced up and said:

"He is not here, but it is of no consequence. Dawn is breaking. _Au revoir_!"

Slowly he took off his hat. As she went away down the road he was holding it in his hand, looking after her.

"He does not like the Count," she thought.

At the corner she turned into the street where the sand-diviner had his bazaar, and as she neared his door she was aware of a certain trepidation. She did not want to see those piercing eyes looking at her in the semi-darkness, and she hurried her steps. But her anxiety was needless. All the doors were shut, all the inhabitants doubtless wrapped in sleep. Yet, when she had gained the end of the street, she looked back, half expecting to see an apparition of a thin figure, a tortured face, to hear a voice, like a goblin's voice, calling after her. Midway down the street there was a man coming slowly behind her. For a moment she thought it was the Diviner in pursuit, but something in the gait soon showed her her mistake. There was a heaviness in the movement of this man quite unlike the lithe and serpentine agility of Aloui.

Although she could not see the face, or even distinguish the costume in the morning twilight, she knew it for Androvsky. From a distance he was watching over her. She did not hesitate, but walked on quickly again.

She did not wish him to know that she had seen him. When she came to the long road that skirted the desert she met the breeze of dawn that blows out of the east across the flats, and drank in its celestial purity.

Between the palms, far away towards Sidi-Zerzour, above the long indigo line of the Sahara, there rose a curve of deep red gold. The sun was coming up to take possession of his waiting world. She longed to ride out to meet him, to give him a pa.s.sionate welcome in the sand, and the opening words of the Egyptian "Adoration of the Sun by the Perfect Souls" came to her lips:

"Hommage a Toi. Dieu Soleil. Seigneur du Ciel, Roi sur la Terre! Lion du Soir! Grande Ame divine, vivante a toujours."

Why had she not ordered her horse to ride a little way with Count Anteoni? She might have pretended that she was starting on her great journey.

The red gold curve became a semi-circle of burnished glory resting upon the deep blue, then a full circle that detached itself majestically and mounted calmly up the cloudless sky. A stream of light poured into the oasis, and Domini, who had paused for a moment in silent worship, went on swiftly through the negro village which was all astir, and down the track to the white villa.

She did not glance round again to see whether Androvsky was still following her, for, since the sun had come, she had the confident sensation that he was no longer near.

He had surely given her into the guardianship of the sun.