"I understand, Boris, I understand everything now."
And then they were silent. Such a silence as theirs was then could never be interpreted to others. In it the sorrows, the aspirations, the struggles, the triumphs, the torturing regrets, the brave determinations of poor, great, feeble, n.o.ble humanity were enclosed as in a casket--a casket which contains many kinds of jewels, but surely none that are not precious.
And the garden listened, and beyond the garden the desert listened--that other garden of Allah. And in this garden was not Allah, too, listening to this silence of his children, this last mutual silence of theirs in the garden where they had wandered, where they had loved, where they had learned a great lesson and drawn near to a great victory?
They might have sat thus for hours; they had lost all count of time. But presently, in the distance among the trees, there rose a light, frail sound that struck into both their hearts like a thin weapon. It was the flute of Larbi, and it reminded them--of what did it not remind them?
All their pa.s.sionate love of the body, all their lawlessness, all the joy of liberty and of life, of the barbaric life that is liberty, all their wandering in the great s.p.a.ces of the sun, were set before them in Larbi"s fluttering tune, that was like the call of a siren, the call of danger, the call of earth and of earthly things, summoning them to abandon the summons of the spirit. Domini got up swiftly.
"Come, Boris," she said, without looking at him.
He obeyed her and rose to his feet.
"Let us go to the wall," she said, "and look out once more on the desert. It must be nearly noon. Perhaps--perhaps we shall hear the call to prayer."
They walked down the winding alleys towards the edge of the garden. The sound of the flute of Larbi died away gradually into silence. Soon they saw before them the great s.p.a.ces of the Sahara flooded with the blinding glory of the summer sunlight. They stood and looked out over it from the shelter of some pepper trees. No caravans were pa.s.sing. No Arabs were visible. The desert seemed utterly empty, given over, naked, to the dominion of the sun. While they stood there the nasal voice of the Mueddin rose from the minaret of the mosque of Beni-Mora, uttered its fourfold cry, and died away.
"Boris," Domini said, "that is for the Arabs, but for us, too, for we belong to the garden of Allah as they do, perhaps even more than they."
"Yes, Domini."
She remembered how, long ago, Count Anteoni had stood there with her and repeated the words of the angel to the Prophet, and she murmured them now:
"O thou that art covered, arise, and magnify thy Lord, and purify thy clothes, and depart from uncleanness."
Then, standing side by side, they prayed, looking at the desert.
CHAPTER x.x.x
In the evening of that day they left Beni-Mora.
Domini wished to go quietly, but, knowing the Arabs, she feared it would be impossible. Nevertheless, when she paid Batouch in the hotel and thanked him for all his services, she said:
"We"ll say adieu here, Batouch."
The poet displayed a large surprise.
"But I will accompany Madame to the station. I will--"
"It is not necessary."
Batouch looked offended but obstinate. His ample person became almost rigid.
"If I am not at the station, Madame, what will Hadj think, and Ali, and Ouardi, and--"
"They will be there?"
"Of course, Madame. Where else should they be? Does Madame wish to leave us like a thief in the night, or like--"
"No, no, Batouch. I am very grateful to you all, but especially to you."
Batouch began to smile.
"Madame has entered into our hearts as no other stranger has ever done,"
he remarked. "Madame understands the Arabs. We shall all come to say _au revoir_ and to wish Madame and Monsieur a happy journey."
For the moment the irony of her situation struck Domini so forcibly that she could say nothing. She only looked at Batouch in silence.
"What is it? But I know. Madame is sad at leaving the desert, at leaving Beni-Mora."
"Yes, Batouch. I am sad at leaving Beni-Mora."
"But Madame will return?"
"Who knows?"
"I know. The desert has a spell. He who has once seen the desert must see it again. The desert calls and its voice is always heard. Madame will hear it when she is far away, and some day she will feel, "I must come back to the land of the sun and to the beautiful land of forgetfulness.""
"I shall see you at the station, Batouch," Domini said quickly.
"Good-bye till then."
The train for Tunis started at sundown, in order that the travellers might avoid the intense heat of the day. All the afternoon they kept within doors. The Arabs were sleeping in dark rooms. The gardens were deserted. Domini could not sleep. She sat near the French window that opened on to the verandah and said a silent good-bye to life. For that was what she felt--that life was leaving her, life with its intensity, its fierce meaning. She had come out of a sort of death to find life in Beni-Mora, and now she felt that she was going back again to something that would be like death. After her strife there came a numbness of the spirit, a heavy dullness. Time pa.s.sed and she sat there without moving.
Sometimes she looked at the trunks lying on the floor ready for the journey, at the labels on which was written "Tunis _via_ Constantine."
And then she tried to imagine what it would be like to travel in the train after her long travelling in the desert, and what it would be like to be in a city. But she could not. The heat was intense. Perhaps it affected her mind through her body. Faintly, far down in her mind and heart, she knew that she was wishing, even longing, to realise all that these last hours in Beni-Mora meant, to gather up in them all the threads of her life and her sensations there, to survey, as from a height, the panorama of the change that had come to her in Africa. But she was frustrated.
The hours fled, and she remained cold, listless. Often she was hardly thinking at all. When the Arab servant came in to tell her that it was time to start for the station she got up slowly and looked at him vaguely.
"Time to go already?" she asked.
"Yes, Madame. I have told Monsieur."
"Very well."
At this moment Androvsky came into the room.
"The carriage is waiting," he said.
She felt almost as if a stranger was speaking to her.
"I am ready," she said.
And without looking round the room she went downstairs and got into the carriage.
They drove to the station without speaking. She had not seen Father Roubier. Androvsky took the tickets. When they came out upon the platform they found there a small crowd of Arab friends, with Batouch in command. Among them were the servants who had accompanied them upon their desert journey, and Hadj. He came forward smiling to shake hands.
When she saw him Domini remembered Irena, and, forgetting that it is not etiquette to inquire after an Arab"s womenfolk, she said:
"Ah, Hadj, and are you happy now? How is Irena?"