"Boris, now at last you--you can pray."

He looked at her as if awe-stricken.

"Pray!" he whispered. "You tell me I can pray--now!"

"Now at last."

She went into the tent and left him alone. He stood where he was for a moment. He knew that, in the tent, she was praying. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer. Then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out the wooden crucifix. He bent down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert.

The music had ceased in the city. There was a great silence.

BOOK VI. THE JOURNEY BACK

CHAPTER XXVII

The good priest of Amara, strolling by chance at the dinner-hour of the following day towards the camp of the hospitable strangers, was surprised and saddened to find only the sand-hill strewn with debris.

The tents, the camels, the mules, the horses--all were gone. No servants greeted him. No cook was busy. No kind hostess bade him come in and stay to dine. Forlornly he glanced around and made inquiry. An Arab told him that in the morning the camp had been struck and ere noon was far on its way towards the north. The priest had been on horseback to an neighbouring oasis, so had heard nothing of this flitting. He asked its explanation, and was told a hundred lies. The one most often repeated was to the effect that Monsieur, the husband of Madame, was overcome by the heat, and that for this reason the travellers were making their way towards the cooler climate that lay beyond the desert.

As he heard this a sensation of loneliness came to the priest. His usually cheerful countenance was overcast with gloom. For a moment he loathed his fate in the sands and sighed for the fleshpots of civilisation. With his white umbrella spread above his helmet he stood still and gazed towards the north across the vast s.p.a.ces that were lemon-yellow in the sunset. He fancied that on the horizon he saw faintly a cloud of sand grains whirling, and imagined it stirred up by the strangers' caravan. Then he thought of the rich lands of the Tell, of the olive groves of Tunis, of the blue Mediterranean, of France, his country which he had not seen for many years. He sighed profoundly.

"Happy people," he thought to himself. "Rich, free, able to do as they like, to go where they will! Why was I born to live in the sand and to be alone?"

He was moved by envy. But then he remembered his intercourse with Androvsky on the previous day.

"After all," he thought more comfortably, "he did not look a happy man!"

And he took himself to task for his sin of envy, and strolled to the inn by the fountain where he paid his pension.

The same day, in the house of the marabout of Beni-Ha.s.san, Count Anteoni received a letter brought from Amara by an Arab. It was as follows:

"AMARA.

"MY DEAR FRIEND: Good-bye. We are just leaving. I had expected to be here longer, but we must go. We are returning to the north and shall not penetrate farther into the desert. I shall think of you, and of your journey on among the people of your faith. You said to me, when we sat in the tent door, that now you could pray in the desert. Pray in the desert for us. And one thing more. If you never return to Beni-Mora, and your garden is to pa.s.s into other hands, don't let it go into the hands of a stranger. I could not bear that. Let it come to me. At any price you name. Forgive me for writing thus. Perhaps you will return, or perhaps, even if you do not, you will keep your garden.--Your Friend, DOMINI."

In a postscript was an address which would always find her.

Count Anteoni read this letter two or three times carefully, with a grave face.

"Why did she not put Domini Androvsky?" he said to himself. He locked the letter in a drawer. All that night he was haunted by thoughts of the garden. Again and again it seemed to him that he stood with Domini beside the white wall and saw, in the burning distance of the desert, at the call of the Mueddin, the Arabs bowing themselves in prayer, and the man--the man to whom now she had bound herself by the most holy tie--fleeing from prayer as if in horror.

"But it was written," he murmured to himself. "It was written in the sand and in fire: 'The fate of every man have we bound about his neck.'"

In the dawn when, turning towards the rising sun, he prayed, he remembered Domini and her words: "Pray in the desert for us." And in the Garden of Allah he prayed to Allah for her, and for Androvsky.

Meanwhile the camp had been struck, and the first stage of the journey northward, the journey back, had been accomplished. Domini had given the order of departure, but she had first spoken with Androvsky.

After his narrative, and her words that followed it, he did not come into the tent. She did not ask him to. She did not see him in the moonlight beyond the tent, or when the moonlight waned before the coming of the dawn. She was upon her knees, her face hidden in her hands, striving as surely few human beings have ever had to strive in the difficult paths of life. At first she had felt almost calm. When she had spoken to Androvsky there had even been a strange sensation that was not unlike triumph in her heart. In this triumph she had felt disembodied, as if she were a spirit standing there, removed from earthly suffering, but able to contemplate, to understand, to pity it, removed from earthly sin, but able to commit an action that might help to purge it.

When she said to Androvsky, "Now you can pray," she had pa.s.sed into a region where self had no existence. Her whole soul was intent upon this man to whom she had given all the treasures of her heart and whom she knew to be writhing as souls writhe in Purgatory. He had spoken at last, he had laid bare his misery, his crime, he had laid bare the agony of one who had insulted G.o.d, but who repented his insult, who had wandered far away from G.o.d, but who could never be happy in his wandering, who could never be at peace even in a mighty human love unless that love was consecrated by G.o.d's contentment with it. As she stood there Domini had had an instant of absolutely clear sight into the depths of another's heart, another's nature. She had seen the monk in Androvsky, not slain by his act of rejection, but alive, sorrow-stricken, quivering, scourged. And she had been able to tell this monk--as G.o.d seemed to be telling her, making of her his messenger--that now at last he might pray to a G.o.d who again would hear him, as He had heard him in the garden of El-Largani, in his cell, in the chapel, in the fields. She had been able to do this. Then she had turned away, gone into the tent and fallen upon her knees.

But with that personal action her sense of triumph pa.s.sed away. As her body sank down her soul seemed to sink down with it into bottomless depths of blackness where no light had ever been, into an underworld, airless, peopled with invisible violence. And it seemed to her as if it was her previous flight upward which had caused this descent into a place which had surely never before been visited by a human soul. All the selflessness suddenly vanished from her, and was replaced by a burning sense of her own personality, of what was due to it, of what had been done to it, of what it now was. She saw it like a cloth that had been white and that now was stained with indelible filth. And anger came upon her, a bitter fury, in which she was inclined to cry out, not only against man, but against G.o.d. The strength of her nature was driven into a wild bitterness, the sweet waters became acrid with salt. She had been able a moment before to say to Androvsky, almost with tenderness, "Now at last you can pray." Now she was on her knees hating him, hating--yes, surely hating--G.o.d. It was a frightful sensation.

Soul and body felt defiled. She saw Androvsky coming into her clean life, seizing her like a prey, rolling her in filth that could never be cleansed. And who had allowed him to do her this deadly wrong? G.o.d. And she was on her knees to this G.o.d who had permitted this! She was in the att.i.tude of worship. Her whole being rebelled against prayer. It seemed to her as if she made a furious physical effort to rise from her knees, but as if her body was paralysed and could not obey her will. She remained kneeling, therefore, like a woman tied down, like a blasphemer bound by cords in the att.i.tude of prayer, whose soul was shrieking insults against heaven.

Presently she remembered that outside Androvsky was praying, that she had meant to join with him in prayer. She had contemplated, then, a further, deeper union with him. Was she a madwoman? Was she a slave?

Was she as one of those women of history who, seized in a rape, resigned themselves to love and obey their captors? She began to hate herself.

And still she knelt. Anyone coming in at the tent door would have seen a woman apparently entranced in an ecstasy of worship.

This great love of hers, to what had it brought her? This awakening of her soul, what was its meaning? G.o.d had sent a man to rouse her from sleep that she might look down into h.e.l.l. Again and again, with ceaseless reiteration, she recalled the incidents of her pa.s.sion in the desert. She thought of the night at Arba when Androvsky blew out the lamp. That night had been to her a night of consecration. Nothing in her soul had risen up to warn her. No instinct, no woman's instinct, had stayed her from unwitting sin. The sand-diviner had been wiser than she; Count Anteoni more far-seeing; the priest of Beni-Mora more guided by holiness, by the inner flame that flickers before the wind that blows out of the caverns of evil. G.o.d had blinded her in order that she might fall, had brought Androvsky to her in order that her religion, her Catholic faith, might be made hideous to her for ever. She trembled all over as she knelt. Her life had been sad, even tormented. And she had set out upon a pilgrimage to find peace. She had been led to Beni-Mora.

She remembered her arrival in Africa, its spell descending upon her, her sensation of being far off, of having left her former life with its sorrows for ever. She remembered the entrancing quiet of Count Anteoni's garden, how as she entered it she seemed to be entering an earthly Paradise, a place prepared by G.o.d for one who was weary as she was weary, for one who longed to be renewed as she longed to be renewed.

And in that Paradise, in the inmost recess of it, she had put her hands against Androvsky's temples and given her life, her fate, her heart into his keeping. That was why the garden was there, that she might be led to commit this frightful action in it. Her soul felt physically sick. As to her body--but just then she scarcely thought of the body. For she was thinking of her soul as of a body, as if it were the core of the body blackened, sullied, destroyed for ever. She was hot with shame, she was hot with a fiery indignation. Always, since she was a child, if she were suddenly touched by anyone whom she did not love, she had had an inclination to strike a blow on the one who touched her. Now it was as if an unclean hand had been laid on her soul. And the soul quivered with longing to strike back.

Again she thought of Beni-Mora, of all that had taken place there. She realised that during her stay there a crescendo of calm had taken place within her, calm of the spirit, a crescendo of strength, spiritual strength, a crescendo of faith and of hope. The religion which had almost seemed to be slipping from her she had grasped firmly again. Her soul had arrived in Beni-Mora an invalid and had become a convalescent.

It had been reclining wearily, fretfully. In Beni-Mora it had stood up, walked, sung as the morning stars sang together. But then--why? If this was to be the end--why--why?

And at this question she paused, as before a great portal that was shut.

She went back. She thought again of this beautiful crescendo, of this gradual approach to the G.o.d from whom she had been if not entirely separated at any rate set a little apart. Could it have been only in order that her catastrophe might be the more complete, her downfall the more absolute?

And then, she knew not why, she seemed to see in the hands that were pressed against her face words written in fire, and to read them slowly as a child spelling out a great lesson, with an intense attention, with a labour whose result would be eternal recollection:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth upwards and securely pa.s.seth through all. Whosover loveth knoweth the cry of this voice."

The cry of this voice! At that moment, in the vast silence of the desert, she seemed to hear it. And it was the cry of her own voice. It was the cry of the voice of her own soul. Startled, she lifted her face from her hands and listened. She did not look out at the tent door, but she saw the moonlight falling upon the matting that was spread upon the sand within the tent, and she repeated, "Love watcheth--Love watcheth--Love watcheth," moving her lips like the child who reads with difficulty. Then came the thought, "I am watching."

The pa.s.sion of personal anger had died away as suddenly as it had come.

She felt numb and yet excited. She leaned forward and once more laid her face in her hands.

"Love watcheth--I am watching." Then a moment--then--"G.o.d is watching me."

She whispered the words over again and again. And the numbness began to pa.s.s away. And the anger was dead. Always she had felt as if she had been led to Africa for some definite end. Did not the freed negroes, far out in the Desert, sing their song of the deeper mysteries--"No one but G.o.d and I knows what is in my heart"? And had not she heard it again and again, and each time with a sense of awe? She had always thought that the words were wonderful and beautiful. But she had thought that perhaps they were not true. She had said to Androvsky that he knew what was in her heart. And now, in this night, in its intense stillness, close to the man who for so long had not dared to pray but who now was praying, again she thought that they were not quite true. It seemed to her that she did not know what was in her heart, and that she was waiting there for G.o.d to come and tell her. Would He come? She waited. Patience entered into her.

The silence was long. Night was travelling, turning her thoughts to a distant world. The moon waned, and a faint breath of wind that was almost cold stole over the sands, among the graves in the cemetery, to the man and the woman who were keeping vigil upon their knees. The wind died away almost ere it had risen, and the rigid silence that precedes the dawn held the desert in its grasp. And G.o.d came to Domini in the silence, Allah through Allah's garden that was shrouded still in the shadows of night. Once, as she journeyed through the roaring of the storm, she had listened for the voice of the desert. And as the desert took her its voice had spoken to her in a sudden and magical silence, in a falling of the wind. Now, in a more magical silence, the voice of G.o.d spoke to her. And the voice of the desert and of G.o.d were as one. As she knelt she heard G.o.d telling her what was in her heart. It was a strange and pa.s.sionate revelation. She trembled as she heard. And sometimes she was inclined to say, "It is not so." And sometimes she was afraid, afraid of what this--all this that was in her heart--would lead her to do. For G.o.d told her of a strength which she had not known her heart possessed, which--so it seemed to her--she did not wish it to possess, of a strength from which something within her shrank, against which something within her protested. But G.o.d would not be denied. He told her she had this strength. He told her that she must use it. He told her that she would use it. And she began to understand something of the mystery of the purposes of G.o.d in relation to herself, and to understand, with it, how closely companioned even those who strive after effacement of self are by selfishness--how closely companioned she had been on her African pilgrimage. Everything that had happened in Africa she had quietly taken to herself, as a gift made to her for herself.

The peace that had descended upon her was balm for her soul, and was sent merely for that, to stop the pain she suffered from old wounds that she might be comfortably at rest. The crescendo--the beautiful crescendo--of calm, of strength, of faith, of hope which she had, as it were, heard like a n.o.ble music within her spirit had been the David sent to play upon the harp to her Saul, that from her Saul the black demon of unrest, of despair, might depart. That was what she had believed. She had believed that she had come to Africa for herself, and now G.o.d, in the silence, was telling her that this was not so, that He had brought her to Africa to sacrifice herself in the redemption of another. And as she listened--listened, with bowed head, and eyes in which tears were gathering, from which tears were falling upon her clasped hands--she knew that it was true, she knew that G.o.d meant her to put away her selfishness, to rise above it. Those eagle's wings of which she had thought--she must spread them. She must soar towards the place of the angels, whither good women soar in the great moments of their love, borne up by the winds of G.o.d. On the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, while Androvsky remained in the dark shadow with a curse, she had mounted, with prayer, surely a little way towards G.o.d. And now G.o.d said to her, "Mount higher, come nearer to me, bring another with you. That was my purpose in leading you to Beni-Mora, in leading you far out into the desert, in leading you into the heart of the desert."

She had been led to Africa for a definite end, and now she knew what that end was. On the mosque of the minaret of Sidi-Zerzour she had surely seen prayer travelling, the soul of prayer travelling. And she had asked herself--"Whither?" She had asked herself where was the halting-place, with at last the pitched tent, the camp fires, and the long, the long repose? And when she came down into the court of the mosque and found Androvsky watching the old Arab who struck against the mosque and cursed, she had wished that Androvsky had mounted with her a little way towards G.o.d.

He should mount with her. Always she had longed to see him above her.

Could she leave him below? She knew she could not. She understood that G.o.d did not mean her to. She understood perfectly. And tears streamed from her eyes. For now there came upon her a full comprehension of her love for Androvsky. His revelation had not killed it, as, for a moment, in her pa.s.sionate personal anger, she had been inclined to think. Indeed it seemed to her now that, till this hour of silence, she had never really loved him, never known how to love. Even in the tent at Arba she had not fully loved him, perfectly loved him. For the thought of self, the desires of self, the pa.s.sion of self, had entered into and been mingled with her love. But now she loved him perfectly, because she loved as G.o.d intended her to love. She loved him as G.o.d's envoy sent to him.

She was still weeping, but she began to feel calm, as if the stillness of this hour before the dawn entered into her soul. She thought of herself now only as a vessel into which G.o.d was pouring His purpose and His love.