The Garden of Allah Part 102

"Yes, together," she said.

But she did not take his hand.

"Domini!" he said, still keeping his hand on the table, "Domini!"

An expression, that was like an expression of agony, flitted over her face and died away, leaving it calm.

"Let us finish," she said quietly. "Look, they have taken the tents! In a moment we can go."

The doves were silent. The night was very still in this nest of the Sahara. Ouardi brought them coffee, and Batouch came to say that the tents were ready.

"We shall want nothing more to-night, Batouch," Domini said. "Don't disturb us."

Batouch glanced towards the Cafe Maure. A red light gleamed through its low doorway. One or two Arabs were moving within. Some of the camp attendants had joined the squatting men without. A noise of busy voices reached the tents.

"To-night, Madame," Batouch said proudly, "I am going to tell stories from the _Thousand and One Nights_. I am going to tell the story of the young Prince of the Indies, and the story of Ganem, the Slave of Love.

It is not often that in Ain-la-Hammam a poet--"

"No, indeed. Go to them, Batouch. They must be impatient for you."

Batouch smiled broadly.

"Madame begins to understand the Arabs," he rejoined. "Madame will soon be as the Arabs."

"Go, Batouch. Look--they are longing for you."

She pointed to the desert men, who were gesticulating and gazing towards the tents.

"It is better so, Madame," he answered. "They know that I am here only for one night, and they are eager as the hungry jackal is eager for food among the yellow dunes of the sand."

He threw his burnous over his shoulder and moved away smiling, and murmuring in a luscious voice the first words of Ganem, the Slave of Love.

"Let us go now, Boris," Domini said.

He got up at once from the table, and they walked together round the bordj.

On its further side there was no sign of life. No traveller was resting there that night, and the big door that led into the inner court was closed and barred. The guardian had gone to join the Arabs at the Cafe Maure. Between the shadow cast by the bordj and the shadow cast by the palm trees stood the two tents on a patch of sand. The oasis was enclosed in a low earth wall, along the top of which was a ragged edging of brushwood. In this wall were several gaps. Through one, opposite to the tents, was visible a shallow pool of still water by which tall reeds were growing. They stood up like spears, absolutely motionless. A frog was piping from some hidden place, giving forth a clear flute-like note that suggested gla.s.s. It reminded Domini of her ride into the desert at Beni-Mora to see the moon rise. On that night Androvsky had told her that he was going away. That had been the night of his tremendous struggle with himself. When he had spoken she had felt a sensation as if everything that supported her in the atmosphere of life and of happiness had foundered. And now--now she was going to speak to him--to tell him--what was she going to tell him? How much could she, dared she, tell him? She prayed silently to be given strength.

In the clear sky the young moon hung. Beneath it, to the left, was one star like an attendant, the star of Venus. The faint light of the moon fell upon the water of the pool. Unceasingly the frog uttered its nocturne.

Domini stood for a moment looking at the water listening. Then she glanced up at the moon and the solitary star. Androvsky stood by her.

"Shall we--let us sit on the wall, where the gap is," she said.

"The water is beautiful, beautiful with that light on it, and the palms--palms are always beautiful, especially at night. I shall never love any other trees as I love palm trees."

"Nor I," he answered.

They sat down on the wall. At first they did not speak any more. The stillness of the water, the stillness of reeds and palms, was against speech. And the little flute-like note that came to them again and again at regular intervals was like a magical measuring of the silence of the night in the desert. At last Domini said, in a low voice:

"I heard that note on the night when I rode out of Beni-Mora to see the moon rise in the desert. Boris, you remember that night?"

"Yes," he answered.

He was gazing at the pool, with his face partly averted from her, one hand on the wall, the other resting on his knee.

"You were brave that night, Boris," she said.

"I--I wished to be--I tried to be. And if I had been--"

He stopped, then went on: "If I had been, Domini, really brave, if I had done what I meant to do that night, what would our lives have been to-day?"

"I don't know. We mustn't think of that to-night. We must think of the future. Boris, there's no life, no real life without bravery. No man or woman is worthy of living who is not brave."

He said nothing.

"Boris, let us--you and I--be worthy of living to-night--and in the future."

"Give me your hand then," he answered. "Give it me, Domini."

But she did not give it to him. Instead she went on, speaking a little more rapidly:

"Boris, don't rely too much on my strength. I am only a woman, and I have to struggle. I have had to struggle more than perhaps you will ever know. You--must not make--make things impossible for me. I am trying--very hard--to--I'm--you must not touch me to-night, Boris."

She drew a little farther away from him. A faint breath of air made the leaves of the palm trees rustle slightly, made the reeds move for an instant by the pool. He laid his hand again on the wall from which he had lifted it. There was a pleading sound in her voice which made him feel as if it were speaking close against his heart.

"I said I would tell you to-night where we are going."

"Tell me now."

"We are going back to Beni-Mora. We are not very far off from Beni-Mora to-night--not very far."

"We are going to Beni-Mora!" he repeated in a dull voice. "We are----"

He sat up on the wall, looking straight into her face.

"Why?" he said. His voice was sharp now, sharp with fear.

"Boris, do you want to be at peace, not with me, but with G.o.d? Do you want to get rid of your burden of misery, which increases--I know it--day by day?"

"How can I?" he said hopelessly.

"Isn't expiation the only way? I think it is."

"Expiation! How--how can--I can never expiate my sin."

"There's no sin that cannot be expiated. G.o.d isn't merciless. Come back with me to Beni-Mora. That little church--where you married me--come back to it with me. You could not confess to the--to Father Beret. I feel as if I knew why. Where you married me you will--you must--make your confession."

"To the priest who--to Father Roubier!"