The Garden of Allah Part 48

"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?" said the Count with a whimsical, yet sad, smile. "I put him here. And will these trees, many of which I planted, whisper a regret? Absurd, isn't it, Miss Enfilden? I never can feel that the growing things in my garden do 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 he was on the point of saying something, but was held back by some fighting sensation, perhaps by some reserve.

"What is it?"

"May I speak frankly to you without offence?" he asked. "I am really rather 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 I have seen for years. But--" He paused, looking in at the little chamber where the dog kept guard.

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

"Oh!"

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

"You know," he continued, looking more steadily into the room of the dog, "that in Algeria there is a floating population composed of many mixed elements. I could tell you strange stories of tragedies that have occurred in this land, even here in Beni-Mora, tragedies of violence, of greed, 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 written is 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 said even as little as I have said. For I am, as you know, a fatalist. But certain people, very few, so awaken our regard that they make us forget our own convictions, and might even lead us to try to tamper with the designs of the Almighty. Whatever is to be for you, you will be able to endure. 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 to help them, a human voice to comfort them. In the desert, wherever I may be--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 might have 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. Their hands fell apart. Count Anteoni looked round him slowly at the great cocoanut tree, at the s.h.a.ggy gra.s.s of the lawn, at the tall bamboos and the drooping mulberry trees. She saw that he was taking a silent farewell of them.

"This was a waste," he said at last with a half-stifled sigh. "I turned it 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 waste within one be turned into an Eden, if that is possible. And yet how many human beings strive against the great Gardener. At any rate I will not be 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 the desert."

She had forgotten for the moment that his route was the road through the oasis. He did not remind her of it. It was easy to ride across the desert 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 on the pale silver of the sand. When his figure was hidden by the trunks of the trees Domini made her way to the wide parapet. She sat down on one of 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 fiery desolation. It looked dreamlike and romantic, not only in its distances, but near at hand. There must surely be dew, she fancied, in the Garden of Allah. She could see no one travelling in it, only some far away camels grazing. In the dawn the desert was the home of the breeze, of gentle sunbeams and of liberty. Presently she heard the noise of horses cantering near at hand, and Count Anteoni, followed by two Arab attendants, came round the bend of the wall and drew up beneath her. He rode on a high red Arab saddle, and a richly-ornamented gun was slung in an embroidered case behind him on the right-hand side. A broad and soft brown hat kept the sun from his forehead. The two attendants rode on a few paces and waited in the shadow of the wall.

"Don't you wish you were going out?" he said. "Out into that?" And he pointed with his whip towards the dreamlike blue of the far horizon. She leaned over, looking down at him and at his horse, which fidgeted and arched 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 the darkness."