The Garden of Allah

by Robert Hichens

  CHAPTER XIII

  On the following morning, before dawn, Domini awoke, stirred from sleepby her anxiety, persistent even in what seemed unconsciousness, tospeed Count Anteoni upon his desert journey. She did not know why hewas going, but she felt that some great issue in his life hung uponthe accomplishment of the purpose with which he set out, and withoutaffectation she ardently desired that accomplishment. As soon as sheawoke she lit a candle and glanced at her watch. She knew by the hourthat the dawn was near, and she got up at once and made her toilet. Shehad told Batouch to be at the hotel door before sunrise to accompany herto the garden, and she wondered if he were below. A stillness as of deepnight prevailed in the house, making her movements, while she dressed,seem unnaturally loud. When she put on her hat, and looked into theglass 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. Itsuggested to her the instability of circumstance, the perpetual changethat occurs in life. The going of her kind host made her own going morepossible than before, even more likely. Some words from the Bible kepton running through her brain "Here have we no continuing city." In thesilent darkness their cadence held an ineffable melancholy. Her mindheard them as the ear, in a pathetic moment, hears sometimes a distantstrain of music wailing like a phantom through the invisible. And theeverlasting journeying of all created things oppressed her heart.

  When she had buttoned her jacket and drawn on her gloves she went to theFrench window and pushed back the shutters. A wan semi-darkness lookedin upon her. Again she wondered whether Batouch had come. It seemed toher unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the world was upand purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a curtain forunconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the verandah andlooked over the parapet. She could see the white road, mysteriouslywhite, 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 theroad.

  All the stars had faded, yet there was no suggestion of the sun.She faced an unrelenting austerity. For a moment she thought of thisatmosphere, this dense stillness, this gravity of vague and shadowytrees, as the environment of those who had erred, of the lost spirits ofmen who had died in mortal sin.

  Almost she expected to see the desperate shade of her dead father passbetween the black stems of the palm trees, vanish into the grey mantlethat wrapped the hidden world.

  "Batouch! Batouch!"

  He was not there. That was certain. She resolved to set out alone andwent back into her bedroom to get her revolver. When she came out againwith it in her hand Androvsky was standing on the verandah justoutside her window. He took off his hat and looked from her face to therevolver. She was startled by his appearance, for she had not heard hisstep, and had been companioned by a sense of irreparable solitude. Thiswas the first time she had seen him since he vanished from the garden onthe 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 asthe 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 keepit. 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 ofit.

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

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

  "Let me tell you where I am going. I am going to say good-bye to CountAnteoni 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 theleast afraid."

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

  "Possibly."

  She began to descend the stairs. He did not follow her, but stoodlooking after her. When she reached the arcade it was deserted. Batouchhad forgotten or had overslept himself. She could have walked on underthe roof that was the floor of the verandah, but instead she stepped outinto the road. Androvsky was above her by the parapet. She glanced upand said:

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

  Slowly he took off his hat. As she went away down the road he washolding 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 hadhis bazaar, and as she neared his door she was aware of a certaintrepidation. She did not want to see those piercing eyes looking at herin the semi-darkness, and she hurried her steps. But her anxiety wasneedless. All the doors were shut, all the inhabitants doubtless wrappedin sleep. Yet, when she had gained the end of the street, she lookedback, half expecting to see an apparition of a thin figure, a torturedface, to hear a voice, like a goblin's voice, calling after her. Midwaydown the street there was a man coming slowly behind her. For a momentshe thought it was the Diviner in pursuit, but something in the gaitsoon showed her her mistake. There was a heaviness in the movementof this man quite unlike the lithe and serpentine agility of Aloui.Although she could not see the face, or even distinguish the costume inthe morning twilight, she knew it for Androvsky. From a distance he waswatching 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 thelong road that skirted the desert she met the breeze of dawn that blowsout of the east across the flats, and drank in its celestial purity.Between the palms, far away towards Sidi-Zerzour, above the long indigoline of the Sahara, there rose a curve of deep red gold. The sun wascoming up to take possession of his waiting world. She longed to rideout to meet him, to give him a passionate welcome in the sand, andthe opening words of the Egyptian "Adoration of the Sun by the PerfectSouls" came to her lips:

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

  Why had she not ordered her horse to ride a little way with CountAnteoni? She might have pretended that she was starting on her greatjourney.

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

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

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

  The door of the garden stood wide open, and, as she entered, she sawthree magnificent horses prancing upon the sweep of sand in the midstof a little group of Arabs. Smain greeted her with graceful warmth andbegged her to follow him to the _fumoir_, where the Count was waitingfor her.

  "It is good of you!" the Count said, meeting her in the doorway. "Irelied on you, you see!"

  Breakfast for two was scattered upon the little smoking-tables; coffee,eggs, rolls, fruit, sweetmeats. And everywhere sprigs of orange blossomfilled the cool air with delicate sweetness.

  "How delicious!" she exclaimed. "A break
fast here! But--no, not there!"

  "Why not?"

  "That is exactly where he was."

  "Aloui! How superstitious you are!"

  He moved her table. She sat down near the doorway and poured out coffeefor them both.

  "You look workmanlike."

  She glanced at his riding-dress and long whip. Smoked glasses hungacross his chest by a thin cord.

  "I shall have some hard riding, but I'm tough, though you may not thinkit. I've covered many a league of my friend in bygone years."

  He tapped an eggshell smartly, and began to eat with appetite.

  "How gravely gay you are!" she said, lifting the steaming coffee to herlips. He smiled.

  "Yes. To-day I am happy, as a pious man is happy when after a longillness, he goes once more to church."

  "The desert seems to be everything to you."

  "I feel that I am going out to freedom, to more than freedom." Hestretched out his arms above his head.

  "Yet you have stayed always in this garden all these days."

  "I was waiting for my summons, as you will wait for yours."

  "What summons could I have?"

  "It will come!" he said with conviction. "It will come!" She was silent,thinking of the diviner's vision in the sand, of the caravan of camelsdisappearing in the storm towards the south. Presently she asked him:

  "Are you ever coming back?"

  He looked at her in surprise, then laughed.

  "Of course. What are you thinking?"

  "That perhaps you will not come back, that perhaps the desert will keepyou."

  "And my garden?"

  She looked out across the tiny sand-path and the running rill of waterto the great trees stirred by the cool breeze of dawn.

  "It would miss you."

  After a moment, during which his bright eyes followed hers, he said:

  "Do you know, I have a great belief in the intuitions of good women?"

  "Yes?"

  "An almost fanatical belief. Will you answer me a question at once,without consideration, without any time for thought?"

  "If you ask me to."

  "I do ask you."

  "Then----?"

  "Do you see me in this garden any more?"

  A voice answered:

  "No."

  It was her own, yet it seemed another's voice, with which she hadnothing to do.

  A great feeling of sorrow swept over her as she heard it.

  "Do come back!" she said.

  The Count had got up. The brightness of his eyes was obscured.

  "If not here, we shall meet again," he said slowly.

  "Where?"

  "In the desert."

  "Did the Diviner--? No, don't tell me."

  She got up too.

  "It is time for you to start?"

  "Nearly."

  A sort of constraint had settled over them. She felt it painfully for amoment. Did it proceed from something in his mind or in hers? She couldnot tell. They walked slowly down one of the little paths and presentlyfound themselves before the room in which sat the purple dog.

  "If I am never to come back I must say good-bye to him," the Count said.

  "But you will come back."

  "That voice said 'No.'"

  "It was a lying voice."

  "Perhaps."

  They looked in at the window and met the ferocious eyes of the dog.

  "And if I never come back will he bay the moon for his old master?" saidthe Count with a whimsical, yet sad, smile. "I put him here. And willthese trees, many of which I planted, whisper a regret? Absurd, isn'tit, Miss Enfilden? I never can feel that the growing things in my gardendo not know me as I know them."

  "Someone will regret you if--"

  "Will you? Will you really?"

  "Yes."

  "I believe it."

  He looked at her. She could see, by the expression of his eyes, that hewas on the point of saying something, but was held back by some fightingsensation, perhaps by some reserve.

  "What is it?"

  "May I speak frankly to you without offence?" he asked. "I am reallyrather old, you know."

  "Do speak."

  "That guest of mine yesterday--"

  "Monsieur Androvsky?"

  "Yes. He interested me enormously, profoundly."

  "Really! Yet he was at his worst yesterday."

  "Perhaps that was why. At any rate, he interested me more than any man Ihave seen for years. But--" He paused, looking in at the little chamberwhere the dog kept guard.

  "But my interest was complicated by a feeling that I was face to facewith a human being who was at odds with life, with himself, even withhis Creator--a man who had done what the Arabs never do--defied Allah inAllah's garden."

  "Oh!"

  She uttered a little exclamation of pain. It seemed to her that he wasgathering up and was expressing scattered, half formless thoughts ofhers.

  "You know," he continued, looking more steadily into the room of thedog, "that in Algeria there is a floating population composed of manymixed elements. I could tell you strange stories of tragedies that haveoccurred in this land, even here in Beni-Mora, tragedies of violence, ofgreed, of--tragedies that were not brought about by Arabs."

  He turned suddenly and looked right into her eyes.

  "But why am I saying all this?" he suddenly exclaimed. "What is writtenis written, and such women as you are guarded."

  "Guarded? By whom?"

  "By their own souls."

  "I am not afraid," she said quietly.

  "Need you tell me that? Miss Enfilden, I scarcely know why I have saideven as little as I have said. For I am, as you know, a fatalist. Butcertain people, very few, so awaken our regard that they make us forgetour own convictions, and might even lead us to try to tamper with thedesigns of the Almighty. Whatever is to be for you, you will be able toendure. That I know. Why should I, or anyone, seek to know more for you?But still there are moments in which the bravest want a human hand tohelp them, a human voice to comfort them. In the desert, wherever I maybe--and I shall tell you--I am at your service."

  "Thank you," she said simply.

  She gave him her hand. He held it almost as a father or a guardian mighthave held it.

  "And this garden is yours day and night--Smain knows."

  "Thank you," she said again.

  The shrill whinnying of a horse came to them from a distance. Theirhands fell apart. Count Anteoni looked round him slowly at the greatcocoanut tree, at the shaggy grass of the lawn, at the tall bamboosand the drooping mulberry trees. She saw that he was taking a silentfarewell of them.

  "This was a waste," he said at last with a half-stifled sigh. "I turnedit into a little Eden and now I am leaving it."

  "For a time."

  "And if it were for ever? Well, the great thing is to let the wastewithin one be turned into an Eden, if that is possible. And yet how manyhuman beings strive against the great Gardener. At any rate I will notbe one of them."

  "And I will not be one."

  "Shall we say good-bye here?"

  "No. Let us say it from the wall, and let me see you ride away into thedesert."

  She had forgotten for the moment that his route was the road throughthe oasis. He did not remind her of it. It was easy to ride across thedesert and join the route where it came out from the last palms.

  "So be it. Will you go to the wall then?"

  He touched her hand again and walked away towards the villa, slowly onthe pale silver of the sand. When his figure was hidden by the trunks ofthe trees Domini made her way to the wide parapet. She sat down on oneof the tiny seats cut in it, leaned her cheek in her hand and waited.The sun was gathering strength, but the air was still deliciously cool,almost cold, and the desert had not yet put on its aspect of fierydesolation. It looked dreamlike and romantic, not only in its distances,but near at hand. There must surely be dew, she fancied, in the Gardenof Allah. She could see no one travelling in it, only some far awaycamels grazing. In
the dawn the desert was the home of the breeze, ofgentle sunbeams and of liberty. Presently she heard the noise ofhorses cantering near at hand, and Count Anteoni, followed by two Arabattendants, came round the bend of the wall and drew up beneath her. Herode on a high red Arab saddle, and a richly-ornamented gun was slung inan embroidered case behind him on the right-hand side. A broad and softbrown hat kept the sun from his forehead. The two attendants rode on afew paces and waited in the shadow of the wall.

  "Don't you wish you were going out?" he said. "Out into that?" And hepointed with his whip towards the dreamlike blue of the far horizon. Sheleaned over, looking down at him and at his horse, which fidgeted andarched his white neck and dropped foam from his black flexible lips.

  "No," she answered after a moment of thought. "I must speak the truth,you know."

  "To me, always."

  "I feel that you were right, that my summons has not yet come to me."

  "And when it comes?"

  "I shall obey it without fear, even if I go in the storm and thedarkness."

  He glanced at the radiant sky, at the golden beams slanting down uponthe palms.

  "The Coran says: 'The fate of every man have We bound about his neck.'May yours be as serene, as beautiful, as a string of pearls."

  "But I have never cared to wear pearls," she answered.

  "No? What are your stones?"

  "Rubies."

  "Blood! No others?"

  "Sapphires."

  "The sky at night."

  "And opals."

  "Fires gleaming across the white of moonlit dunes. Do you remember?"

  "I remember."

  "And you do not ask me for the end of the Diviner's vision even now?"

  "No."

  She hesitated for an instant. Then she added:

  "I will tell you why. It seemed to me that there was another's fate init as well as my own, and that to hear would be to intrude, perhaps,upon another's secrets."

  "That was your reason?"

  "My only reason." And then she added, repeating consciously Androvsky'swords: "I think there are things that should be let alone."

  "Perhaps you are right."

  A stronger breath of the cool wind came over the flats, and all the palmtrees rustled. Through the garden there was a delicate stir of life.

  "My children are murmuring farewell," said the Count. "I hear them. Itis time! Good-bye, Miss Enfilden--my friend, if I may call you so.May Allah have you in his keeping, and when your summons comes, obeyit--alone."

  As he said the last word his grating voice dropped to a deep note ofearnest, almost solemn, gravity. Then he lifted his hat, touched hishorse with his heel, and galloped away into the sun.

  Domini watched the three riders till they were only specks on thesurface of the desert. Then they became one with it, and were lost inthe dreamlike radiance of the morning. But she did not move. She satwith her eyes fixed up on the blue horizon. A great loneliness hadentered into her spirit. Till Count Anteoni had gone she did not realisehow much she had become accustomed to his friendship, how near theirsympathies had been. But directly those tiny, moving specks became onewith the desert she knew that a gap had opened in her life. It might besmall, but it seemed dark and deep. For the first time the desert, whichshe had hitherto regarded as a giver, had taken something from her. Andnow, as she sat looking at it, while the sun grew stronger and the lightmore brilliant, while the mountains gradually assumed a harsher aspect,and the details of things, in the dawn so delicately clear, became,as it were, more piercing in their sharpness, she realised a new andterrible aspect of it. That which has the power to bestow has anotherpower. She had seen the great procession of those who had received giftsof the desert's hands. Would she some day, or in the night when the skywas like a sapphire, see the procession of those from whom the deserthad taken away perhaps their dreams, perhaps their hopes, perhaps evenall that they passionately loved and had desperately clung to?

  And in which of the two processions would she walk?

  She got up with a sigh. The garden had become tragic to her for themoment, full of a brooding melancholy. As she turned to leave it sheresolved to go to the priest. She had never yet entered his house. Justthen she wanted to speak to someone with whom she could be as a littlechild, to whom she could liberate some part of her spirit simply,certain of a simple, yet not foolish, reception of it by one to whom shecould look up. She desired to be not with the friend so much as withthe spiritual director. Something was alive within her, something ofdistress, almost of apprehension, which needed the soothing hand, not ofhuman love, but of religion.

  When she reached the priest's house Beni-Mora was astir with a pleasantbustle of life. The military note pealed through its symphony. Spahiswere galloping along the white roads. Tirailleurs went by bearingdespatches. Zouaves stood under the palms, staring calmly at themorning, their sunburned hands loosely clasped upon muskets whose buttsrested in the sand. But Domini scarcely noticed the brilliant gaiety ofthe life about her. She was preoccupied, even sad. Yet, as she enteredthe little garden of the priest, and tapped gently at his door, asensation of hope sprang up in her heart, born of the sustaining powerof her religion.

  An Arab boy answered her knock, said that the Father was in and led herat once to a small, plainly-furnished room, with whitewashed walls, anda window opening on to an enclosure at the back, where several largepalm trees reared their tufted heads above the smoothly-raked sand. Ina moment the priest came in, smiling with pleasure and holding out hishands in welcome.

  "Father," she said at once, "I am come to have a little talk with you.Have you a few moments to give me?"

  "Sit down, my child," he said.

  He drew forward a straw chair for her and took one opposite.

  "You are not in trouble?"

  "I don't know why I should be, but----"

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said:

  "I want to tell you a little about my life."

  He looked at her kindly without a word.

  His eyes were an invitation for her to speak, and, without furtherinvitation, in as few and simple words as possible, she told him whyshe had come to Beni-Mora, and something of her parents' tragedy and itseffect upon her.

  "I wanted to renew my heart, to find myself," she said. "My life hasbeen cold, careless. I never lost my faith, but I almost forgot that Ihad it. I made little use of it. I let it rust."

  "Many do that, but a time comes when they feel that the great weaponwith which alone we can fight the sorrows and dangers of the world mustbe kept bright, or it may fail us in the hour of need."

  "Yes."

  "And this is an hour of need for you. But, indeed, is there ever an hourthat is not?"

  "I feel to-day, I----"

  She stopped, suddenly conscious of the vagueness of her apprehension.It made her position difficult, speech hard for her. She felt that shewanted something, yet scarcely knew what, or exactly why she had come.

  "I have been saying good-bye to Count Anteoni," she resumed. "He hasgone on a desert journey."

  "For long?"

  "I don't know, but I feel that it will be."

  "He comes and goes very suddenly. Often he is here and I do not evenknow it."

  "He is a strange man, but I think he is a good man."

  As she spoke about him she began to realise that something in him hadroused the desire in her to come to the priest.

  "And he sees far," she added.

  She looked steadily at the priest, who was waiting quietly to hear more.She was glad he did not trouble her mind just then by trying to help herto go on, to be explicit.

  "I came here to find peace," she continued. "And I thought I had foundit. I thought so till to-day."

  "We only find peace in one place, and only there by our own willaccording with God's."

  "You mean within ourselves."

  "Is it not so?"

  "Yes. Then I was foolish to travel in search of it."

  "I would not say that
. Place assists the heart, I think, and the way oflife. I thought so once."

  "When you wished to be a monk?"

  A deep sadness came into his eyes.

  "Yes," he said. "And even now I find it very difficult to say, 'It wasnot thy will, and so it is not mine.' But would you care to tell me ifanything has occurred recently to trouble you?"

  "Something has occurred, Father."

  More excitement came into her face and manner.

  "Do you think," she went on, "that it is right to try to avoid what lifeseems to be bringing to one, to seek shelter from--from the storm? Don'tmonks do that? Please forgive me if--"

  "Sincerity will not hurt me," he interrupted quietly. "If it did Ishould indeed be unworthy of my calling. Perhaps it is not right forall. Perhaps that is why I am here instead of--"

  "Ah, but I remember, you wanted to be one of the _freres armes_."

  "That was my first hope. But you"--very simply he turned from histroubles to hers--"you are hesitating, are you not, between twocourses?"

  "I scarcely know. But I want you to tell me. Ought we not always tothink of others more than of ourselves?"

  "So long as we take care not to put ourselves in too great danger. Thesoul should be brave, but not foolhardy."

  His voice had changed, had become stronger, even a little stern.

  "There are risks that no good Christian ought to run: it is notcowardice, it is wisdom that avoids the Evil One. I have known peoplewho seemed almost to think it was their mission to convert the fallenangels. They confused their powers with the powers that belong to Godonly."

  "Yes, but--it is so difficult to--if a human being were possessed by thedevil, would not you try--would you not go near to that person?"

  "If I had prayed, and been told that any power was given me to do whatChrist did."

  "To cast out--yes, I know. But sometimes that power is given--even towomen."

  "Perhaps especially to them. I think the devil has more fear of a goodmother than of many saints."

  Domini realised almost with agony in that moment how her own soul hadbeen stripped of a precious armour. A feeling of bitter helplessnesstook possession of her, and of contempt for what she now suddenly lookedupon as foolish pride. The priest saw that his words had hurt her, yethe did not just then try to pour balm upon the wound.

  "You came to me to-day as to a spiritual director, did you not?" heasked.

  "Yes, Father."

  "Yet you do not wish to be frank with me. Isn't that true?"

  There was a piercing look in the eyes he fixed upon her.

  "Yes," she answered bravely.

  "Why? Cannot you--at least will not you tell me?"

  A similar reason to that which had caused her to refuse to hear what theDiviner had seen in the sand caused her now to answer:

  "There is something I cannot say. I am sure I am right not to say it."

  "Do you wish me to speak frankly to you, my child?"

  "Yes, you may."

  "You have told me enough of your past life to make me feel sure that forsome time to come you ought to be very careful in regard to your faith.By the mercy of God you have been preserved from the greatest of alldangers--the danger of losing your belief in the teachings of the onlytrue Church. You have come here to renew your faith which, not killed,has been stricken, reduced, may I not say? to a sort of invalidism. Areyou sure you are in a condition yet to help"--he hesitated obviously,then slowly--"others? There are periods in which one cannot do whatone may be able to do in the far future. The convalescent who is justtottering in the new attempt to walk is not wise enough to lend an armto another. To do so may seem nobly unselfish, but is it not folly?And then, my child, we ought to be scrupulously aware what is ourreal motive for wishing to assist another. Is it of God, or is it ofourselves? Is it a personal desire to increase a perhaps unworthy, aworldly happiness? Egoism is a parent of many children, and often theydo not recognise their father."

  Just for a moment Domini felt a heat of anger rise within her. She didnot express it, and did not know that she had shown a sign of it tillshe heard Father Roubier say:

  "If you knew how often I have found that what for a moment I believedto be my noblest aspirations had sprung from a tiny, hidden seed ofegoism!"

  At once her anger died away.

  "That is terribly true," she said. "Of us all, I mean."

  She got up.

  "You are going?"

  "Yes. I want to think something out. You have made me want to. I must doit. Perhaps I'll come again."

  "Do. I want to help you if I can."

  There was such a heartfelt sound in his voice that impulsively she heldout her hand.

  "I know you do. Perhaps you will be able to."

  But even as she said the last words doubt crept into her mind, even intoher voice.

  The priest came to his gate to see Domini off, and directly she hadleft him she noticed that Androvsky was under the arcade and had beena witness of their parting. As she went past him and into the hotel shesaw that he looked greatly disturbed and excited. His face was lit up bythe now fiery glare of the sun, and when, in passing, she nodded tohim, and he took off his hat, he cast at her a glance that was like anaccusation. As soon as she gained the verandah she heard his heavy stepupon the stair. For a moment she hesitated. Should she go into her roomand so avoid him, or remain and let him speak to her? She knew that hewas following her with that purpose. Her mind was almost instantly madeup. She crossed the verandah and sat down in the low chair that wasalways placed outside her French window. Androvsky followed her andstood beside her. He did not say anything for a moment, nor did she.Then he spoke with a sort of passionate attempt to sound careless andindifferent.

  "Monsieur Anteoni has gone, I suppose, Madame?"

  "Yes, he has gone. I reached the garden safely, you see."

  "Batouch came later. He was much ashamed when he found you had gone. Ibelieve he is afraid, and is hiding himself till your anger shall havepassed away."

  She laughed.

  "Batouch could not easily make me angry. I am not like you, MonsieurAndrovsky."

  Her sudden challenge startled him, as she had meant it should. He movedquickly, as at an unexpected touch.

  "I, Madame?"

  "Yes; I think you are very often angry. I think you are angry now."

  His face was flooded with red.

  "Why should I be angry?" he stammered, like a man completely takenaback.

  "How can I tell? But, as I came in just now, you looked at me as if youwanted to punish me."

  "I--I am afraid--it seems that my face says a great deal that--that--"

  "Your lips would not choose to say. Well, it does. Why are you angrywith me?" She gazed at him mercilessly, studying the trouble of hisface. The combative part of her nature had been roused by the glancehe had cast at her. What right had he, had any man, to look at her likethat?

  Her blunt directness lashed him back into the firmness he had lost.She felt in a moment that there was a fighting capacity in him equal,perhaps superior, to her own.

  "When I saw you come from the priest's house, Madame, I felt as if youhad been there speaking about me--about my conduct of yesterday."

  "Indeed! Why should I do that?"

  "I thought as you had kindly wished me to come--"

  He stopped.

  "Well?" she said, in rather a hard voice.

  "Madame, I don't know what I thought, what I think--only I cannot bearthat you should apologise for any conduct of mine. Indeed, I cannot bearit."

  He looked fearfully excited and moved two or three steps away, thenreturned.

  "Were you doing that?" he asked. "Were you, Madame?"

  "I never mentioned your name to Father Roubier, nor did he to me," sheanswered.

  For a moment he looked relieved, then a sudden suspicion seemed tostrike him.

  "But without mentioning my name?" he said.

  "You wish to accuse me of quibbling, of insincerity, then!" sheexclai
med with a heat almost equal to his own.

  "No, Madame, no! Madame, I--I have suffered much. I am suspicious ofeverybody. Forgive me, forgive me!"

  He spoke almost with distraction. In his manner there was somethingdesperate.

  "I am sure you have suffered," she said more gently, yet with a certaininflexibility at which she herself wondered, yet which she could notcontrol. "You will always suffer if you cannot govern yourself. You willmake people dislike you, be suspicious of you."

  "Suspicious! Who is suspicious of me?" he asked sharply. "Who has anyright to be suspicious of me?"

  She looked up and fancied that, for an instant, she saw something asugly as terror in his eyes.

  "Surely you know that people don't ask permission to be suspicious oftheir fellow-men?" she said.

  "No one here has any right to consider me or my actions," he said,fierceness blazing out of him. "I am a free man, and can do as I will.No one has any right--no one!"

  Domini felt as if the words were meant for her, as if he had struckher. She was so angry that she did not trust herself to speak, andinstinctively she put her hand up to her breast, as a woman might whohad received a blow. She touched something small and hard that washidden beneath her gown. It was the little wooden crucifix Androvsky hadthrown into the stream at Sidi-Zerzour. As she realised that her angerdied. She was humbled and ashamed. What was her religion if, at a word,she could be stirred to such a feeling of passion?

  "I, at least, am not suspicious of you," she said, choosing the verywords that were most difficult for her to say just then. "And FatherRoubier--if you included him--is too fine-hearted to cherish unworthysuspicions of anyone."

  She got up. Her voice was full of a subdued, but strong, emotion.

  "Oh, Monsieur Androvsky!" she said. "Do go over and see him. Makefriends with him. Never mind yesterday. I want you to be friends withhim, with everyone here. Let us make Beni-Mora a place of peace and goodwill."

  Then she went across the verandah quickly to her room, and passed in,closing the window behind her.

  _Dejeuner_ was brought into her sitting-room. She ate it in solitude,and late in the afternoon she went out on the verandah. She had madeup her mind to spend an hour in the church. She had told Father Roubierthat she wanted to think something out. Since she had left him theburden upon her mind had become heavier, and she longed to be alone inthe twilight near the altar. Perhaps she might be able to cast down theburden there. In the verandah she stood for a moment and thought howwonderful was the difference between dawn and sunset in this land. Thegardens, that had looked like a place of departed and unhappy spiritswhen she rose that day, were now bathed in the luminous rays of thedeclining sun, were alive with the softly-calling voices of children,quivered with romance, with a dreamlike, golden charm. The stillnessof the evening was intense, enclosing the children's voices, whichpresently died away; but while she was marvelling at it she wasdisturbed by a sharp noise of knocking. She looked in the direction fromwhich it came and saw Androvsky standing before the priest's door. Asshe looked, the door was opened by the Arab boy and Androvsky went in.

  Then she did not think of the gardens any more. With a radiantexpression in her eyes she went down and crossed over to the church. Itwas empty. She went softly to a _prie-dieu_ near the altar, knelt downand covered her eyes with her hands.

  At first she did not pray, or even think consciously, but just rested inthe attitude which always seems to bring humanity nearest its God.And, almost immediately, she began to feel a quietude of spirit, asif something delicate descended upon her, and lay lightly about her,shrouding her from the troubles of the world. How sweet it was to havethe faith that brings with it such tender protection, to have the trustthat keeps alive through the swift passage of the years the spirit ofthe little child. How sweet it was to be able to rest. There was at thismoment a sensation of deep joy within her. It grew in the silence ofthe church, and, as it grew, brought with it presently a growingconsciousness of the lives beyond those walls, of other spirits capableof suffering, of conflict, and of peace, not far away; till she knewthat this present blessing of happiness came to her, not only fromthe scarce-realised thought of God, but also from the scarce-realisedthought of man.

  Close by, divided from her only by a little masonry, a few feet of sand,a few palm trees, Androvsky was with the priest.

  Still kneeling, with her face between her hands, Domini began to thinkand pray. The memory of her petition to Notre Dame de la Garde came backto her. Before she knew Africa she had prayed for men wandering, andperhaps unhappy, there, for men whom she would probably never see again,would never know. And now that she was growing familiar with this land,divined something of its wonders and its dangers, she prayed for a manin it whom she did not know, who was very near to her making a sacrificeof his prejudices, perhaps of his fears, at her desire. She prayed forAndrovsky without words, making of her feelings of gratitude to him aprayer, and presently, in the darkness framed by her hands, she seemedto see Liberty once more, as in the shadows of the dancing-house,standing beside a man who prayed far out in the glory of the desert. Thestorm, spoken of by the Diviner, did not always rage. It was stilled tohear his prayer. And the darkness had fled, and the light drew near tolisten. She pressed her face more strongly against her hands, and beganto think more definitely.

  Was this interview with the priest the first step taken by Androvskytowards the gift the desert held for him?

  He must surely be a man who hated religion, or thought he hated it.

  Perhaps he looked upon it as a chain, instead of as the hammer thatstrikes away the fetters from the slave.

  Yet he had worn a crucifix.

  She lifted her head, put her hand into her breast, and drew out thecrucifix. What was its history? She wondered as she looked at it. Hadsomeone who loved him given it to him, someone, perhaps, who grievedat his hatred of holiness, and who fancied that this very humble symbolmight one day, as the humble symbols sometimes do, prove itself a littleguide towards shining truth? Had a woman given it to him?

  She laid the cross down on the edge of the _prie-dieu_.

  There was red fire gleaming now on the windows of the church. Sherealised the pageant that was marching up the west, the passion of theworld as well as the purity which lay beyond the world. Her mind wasdisturbed. She glanced from the red radiance on the glass to the dullbrown wood of the cross. Blood and agony had made it the mystical symbolthat it was--blood and agony.

  She had something to think out. That burden was still upon her mind,and now again she felt its weight, a weight that her interview with thepriest had not lifted. For she had not been able to be quite frank withthe priest. Something had held her back from absolute sincerity, and sohe had not spoken quite plainly all that was in his mind. His words hadbeen a little vague, yet she had understood the meaning that lay behindthem.

  Really, he had warned her against Androvsky. There were two men of verydifferent types. One was unworldly as a child. The other knew the world.Neither of them had any acquaintance with Androvsky's history, and bothhad warned her. It was instinct then that had spoken in them, tellingthem that he was a man to be shunned, perhaps feared. And her owninstinct? What had it said? What did it say?

  For a long time she remained in the church. But she could not thinkclearly, reason calmly, or even pray passionately. For a vagueness hadcome into her mind like the vagueness of twilight that filled the spacebeneath the starry roof, softening the crudeness of the ornaments, thegarish colours of the plaster saints. It seemed to her that her thoughtsand feelings lost their outlines, that she watched them fading like theshrouded forms of Arabs fading in the tunnels of Mimosa. But as theyvanished surely they whispered, "That which is written is written."

  The mosques of Islam echoed these words, and surely this little churchthat bravely stood among them.

  "That which is written is written."

  Domini rose from her knees, hid the wooden cross once more in herbreast, and went out into the even
ing.

  As she left the church door something occurred which struck thevagueness from her. She came upon Androvsky and the priest. They werestanding together at the latter's gate, which he was in the act ofopening to an accompaniment of joyous barking from Bous-Bous. Both menlooked strongly expressive, as if both had been making an effort of somekind. She stopped in the twilight to speak to them.

  "Monsieur Androvsky has kindly been paying me a visit," said FatherRoubier.

  "I am glad," Domini said. "We ought all to be friends here."

  There was a perceptible pause. Then Androvsky lifted his hat.

  "Good-evening, Madame," he said. "Good-evening, Father." And he walkedaway quickly.

  The priest looked after him and sighed profoundly.

  "Oh, Madame!" he exclaimed, as if impelled to liberate his mind tosomeone, "what is the matter with that man? What is the matter?"

  He stared fixedly into the twilight after Androvsky's retreating form.

  "With Monsieur Androvsky?"

  She spoke quietly, but her mind was full of apprehension, and she lookedsearchingly at the priest.

  "Yes. What can it be?"

  "But--I don't understand."

  "Why did he come to see me?"

  "I asked him to come."

  She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that shemust speak the truth.

  "You asked him!"

  "Yes. I wanted you to be friends--and I thought perhaps you might----"

  "Yes?"

  "I wanted you to be friends." She repeated it almost stubbornly.

  "I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being,"exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. "And yet I could not lethim go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him toremain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it wasas if we were in a great tragedy. What is he? What can he be?" (He stilllooked down the road.)

  "I don't know. I know nothing. He is a man travelling, as other mentravel."

  "Oh, no!"

  "What do you mean, Father?"

  "I mean that other travellers are not like this man."

  He leaned his thin hands heavily on the gate, and she saw, by theexpression of his eyes, that he was going to say something startling.

  "Madame," he said, lowering his voice, "I did not speak quite franklyto you this afternoon. You may, or you may not, have understood what Imeant. But now I will speak plainly. As a priest I warn you, I warn youmost solemnly, not to make friends with this man."

  There was a silence, then Domini said:

  "Please give me your reason for this warning."

  "That I can't do."

  "Because you have no reason, or because it is not one you care to tellme?"

  "I have no reason to give. My reason is my instinct. I know nothing ofthis man--I pity him. I shall pray for him. He needs prayers, yes, heneeds them. But you are a woman out here alone. You have spoken to me ofyourself, and I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestlyto break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky."

  "Do you mean that you think him evil?"

  "I don't know whether he is evil, I don't know what he is."

  "I know he is not evil."

  The priest looked at her, wondering.

  "You know--how?"

  "My instinct," she said, coming a step nearer, and putting her hand,too, on the gate near his. "Why should we desert him?"

  "Desert him, Madame!"

  Father Roubier's voice sounded amazed.

  "Yes. You say he needs prayers. I know it. Father, are not the firstprayers, the truest, those that go most swiftly to Heaven--acts?"

  The priest did not reply for a moment. He looked at her and seemed to bethinking deeply.

  "Why did you send Monsieur Androvsky to me this afternoon?" he said atlast abruptly.

  "I knew you were a good man, and I fancied if you became friends youmight help him."

  His face softened.

  "A good man," he said. "Ah!" He shook his head sadly, with a sound thatwas like a little pathetic laugh. "I--a good man! And I allow an almostinvincible personal feeling to conquer my inward sense of right! Madame,come into the garden for a moment."

  He opened the gate, she passed in, and he led her round the house to theenclosure at the back, where they could talk in greater privacy. Then hecontinued:

  "You are right, Madame. I am here to try to do God's work, and sometimesit is better to act for a human being, perhaps, even than to pray forhim. I will tell you that I feel an almost invincible repugnance toMonsieur Androvsky, a repugnance that is almost stronger than my willto hold it in check." He shivered slightly. "But, with God's help, I'llconquer that. If he stays on here I'll try to be his friend. I'll do allI can. If he is unhappy, far away from good, perhaps--I say it humbly,Madame, I assure you--I might help him. But"--and here his face andmanner changed, became firmer, more dominating--"you are not a priest,and--"

  "No, only a woman," she said, interrupting him.

  Something in her voice arrested him. There was a long silence in whichthey paced slowly up and down on the sand between the palm trees. Thetwilight was dying into night. Already the tomtoms were throbbing in thestreet of the dancers, and the shriek of the distant pipes was faintlyheard. At last the priest spoke again.

  "Madame," he said, "when you came to me this afternoon there wassomething that you could not tell me."

  "Yes."

  "Had it anything to do with Monsieur Androvsky?"

  "I meant to ask you to advise me about myself."

  "My advice to you was and is--be strong but not too foolhardy."

  "Believe me I will try not to be foolhardy. But you said something elsetoo, something about women. Don't you remember?"

  She stopped, took his hands impulsively and pressed them.

  "Father, I've scarcely ever been of any use all my life. I've scarcelyever tried to be. Nothing within me said, 'You could be,' and if it hadI was so dulled by routine and sorrow that I don't think I shouldhave heard it. But here it is different. I am not dulled. I can hear.And--suppose I can be of use for the first time! You wouldn't say to me,'Don't try!' You couldn't say that?"

  He stood holding her hands and looking into her face for a moment. Thenhe said, half-humorously, half-sadly:

  "My child, perhaps you know your own strength best. Perhaps your safestspiritual director is your own heart. Who knows? But whether it be so ornot you will not take advice from me."

  She knew that was true now and, for a moment, felt almost ashamed.

  "Forgive me," she said. "But--it is strange, and may seem to youridiculous or even wrong--ever since I have been here I have felt as ifeverything that happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it had tohappen. And I feel that, too, about the future."

  "Count Anteoni's fatalism!" the priest said with a touch of impatientirritation. "I know. It is the guiding spirit of this land. And you tooare going to be led by it. Take care! You have come to a land of fire,and I think you are made of fire."

  For a moment she saw a fanatical expression in his eyes. She thought ofit as the look of the monk crushed down within his soul. He opened hislips again, as if to pour forth upon her a torrent of burning words. Butthe look died away, and they parted quietly like two good friends. Yet,as she went to the hotel, she knew that Father Roubier could not giveher the kind of help she wanted, and she even fancied that perhaps nopriest could. Her heart was in a turmoil, and she seemed to be in themidst of a crowd.

  Batouch was at the door, looking elaborately contrite and ready withhis lie. He had been seized with fever in the night, in token whereof heheld up hands which began to shake like wind-swept leaves. Only now hadhe been able to drag himself from his quilt and, still afflicted as hewas, to creep to his honoured patron and crave her pardon. Domini gaveit with an abstracted carelessness that evidently hurt his pride, andwas passing into the hotel when he said:

  "Irena is going to marry Hadj, Madame."

  Sinc
e the fracas at the dancing-house both the dancer and her victim hadbeen under lock and key.

  "To marry her after she tried to kill him!" said Domini.

  "Yes, Madame. He loves her as the palm tree loves the sun. He will takeher to his room, and she will wear a veil, and work for him and never goout any more."

  "What! She will live like the Arab women?"

  "Of course, Madame. But there is a very nice terrace on the roof outsideHadj's room, and Hadj will permit her to take the air there, in theevening or when it is hot."

  "She must love Hadj very much."

  "She does, or why should she try to kill him?"

  So that was an African love--a knife-thrust and a taking of the veil!The thought of it added a further complication to the disorder that wasin her mind.

  "I will see you after dinner, Batouch," she said.

  She felt that she must do something, go somewhere that night. She couldnot remain quiet.

  Batouch drew himself up and threw out his broad chest. His air gaveplace to importance, and, as he leaned against the white pillar of thearcade, folded his ample burnous round him, and glanced up at the sky hesaw, in fancy, a five-franc piece glittering in the chariot of the moon.

  The priest did not come to dinner that night, but Androvsky was alreadyat his table when Domini came into the _salle-a-manger_. He got up fromhis seat and bowed formally, but did not speak. Remembering his outburstof the morning she realised the suspicion which her second interviewwith the priest had probably created in his mind, and now she was notfree from a feeling of discomfort that almost resembled guilt. For nowshe had been led to discuss Androvsky with Father Roubier, and had itnot been almost an apology when she said, "I know he is not evil"? Onceor twice during dinner, when her eyes met Androvsky's for a moment, sheimagined that he must know why she had been at the priest's house, thatanger was steadily increasing in him.

  He was a man who hated to be observed, to be criticised. Hissensitiveness was altogether abnormal, and made her wonder afresh wherehis previous life had been passed. It must surely have been a verysheltered existence. Contact with the world blunts the fine edge of ourfeeling with regard to others' opinion of us. In the world men learn tobe heedless of the everlasting buzz of comment that attends their goingsout and their comings in. But Androvsky was like a youth, alive to thetiniest whisper, set on fire by a glance. To such a nature life inthe world must be perpetual torture. She thought of him with a sorrowthat--strangely in her--was not tinged with contempt. That whichmanifested by another man would certainly have moved her to impatience,if not to wrath, in this man woke other sensations--curiosity, pity,terror.

  Yes--terror. To-night she knew that. The long day, begun in thesemidarkness before the dawn and ending in the semidarkness of thetwilight, had, with its events that would have seemed to anotherordinary and trivial enough, carried her forward a stage on an emotionalpilgrimage. The half-veiled warnings of Count Anteoni and of the priest,followed by the latter's almost passionately abrupt plain speaking,had not been without effect. To-night something of Europe and herlife there, with its civilised experience and drastic training in themanagement of woman's relations with humanity in general, crept backunder the palm trees and the brilliant stars of Africa; and despite thefatalism condemned by Father Roubier, she was more conscious than shehad hitherto been of how others--the outside world--would be likelyto regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. She stood, as it were, andlooked on at the events in which she herself had been and was involved,and in that moment she was first aware of a thrill of something akin toterror, as if, perhaps, without knowing it, she had been moving amida great darkness, as if perhaps a great darkness were approaching.Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend;as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads and distinguishedfor an instant in an oblique lightning flash; as Vanderdecken passingin the hurricane and throwing a blood-red illumination from the sailsof his haunted ship; as the everlasting climber of the Brocken, as theshrouded Arab of the Eastern legend, who announced coming disaster tothe wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum among thedunes.

  And with Count Anteoni and the priest she set another figure, that ofthe sand-diviner, whose tortured face had suggested a man looking on afate that was terrible. Had not he, too, warned her? Had not the warningbeen threefold, been given to her by the world, the Church, and theunder-world--the world beneath the veil?

  She met Androvsky's eyes. He was getting up to leave the room. Hismovement caught her away from things visionary, but not from worldlythings. She still looked on herself moving amid these events at whichher world would laugh or wonder, and perhaps for the first time in herlife she was uneasily self-conscious because of the self that watchedherself, as if that self held something coldly satirical that mocked ather and marvelled.