But the bells on the horses" necks rang always gaily, and the coachman, who would presently drive Domini back alone to Tunis, whistled and sang on his high seat.
Presently they came to a great wooden cross standing on a pedestal of stone by the roadside at the edge of a grove of olive trees. It marked the beginning of the domain of El-Largani. When Domini saw it she looked at Androvsky, and his eyes answered her silent question. The coachman whipped his horses into a canter, as if he were in haste to reach his destination. He was thinking of the good red wine of the monks. In a cloud of white dust the carriage rolled onwards between vineyards in which, here and there, labourers were working, sheltered from the sun by immense straw hats. A long line of waggons, laden with barrels and drawn by mules covered with bells, sheltered from the flies by leaves, met them. In the distance Domini saw forests of eucalyptus trees. Suddenly it seemed to her as if she saw Androvsky coming from them towards the white road, helping a man who was pale, and who stumbled as if half-fainting, yet whose face was full of a fierce pa.s.sion of joy--the stranger whose influence had driven him out of the monastery into the world. She bent down her head and hid her face in her hands, praying, praying with all her strength for courage in this supreme moment of her life. But almost directly the prayers died on her lips and in her heart, and she found herself repeating the words of _The Imitation_:
"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. Whosoever loveth knoweth the cry of this voice."
Again and again she said the words: "It securely pa.s.seth through all--it securely pa.s.seth through all." Now, at last, she was to know the uttermost truth of those words which she had loved in her happiness, which she clung to now as a little child clings to its father"s hand.
The carriage turned to the right, went on a little way, then stopped.
Domini lifted her face from her hands. She saw before her a great door which stood open. Above it was a statue of the Madonna and Child, and on either side were two angels with swords and stars. Underneath was written, in great letters:
JANUA COELI.
Beyond, through the doorway, she saw an open s.p.a.ce upon which the sunlight streamed, three palm trees, and a second door which was shut.
Above this second door was written:
"_Les dames n"entrent pas ici._"
As she looked the figure of a very old monk with a long white beard shuffled slowly across the patch of sunlight and disappeared.
The coachman turned round.
"You descend here," he said in a cheerful voice. "Madame will be entertained in the parlour on the right of the first door, but Monsieur can go on to the _hotellerie_. It"s over there."
He pointed with his whip and turned his back to them again.
Domini sat quite still. Her lips moved, once more repeating the words of _The Imitation_. Androvsky got up from his seat, stepped heavily out of the carriage, and stood beside it. The coachman was busy lighting a long cigar. Androvsky leaned forward towards Domini with his arms on the carriage and looked at her with tearless eyes.
"Domini," at last he whispered. "Domini!"
Then she turned to him, bent towards him, put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his face for a long time, as if she were trying to see it now for all the years that were perhaps to come. Her eyes, too, were tearless.
At last she leaned down and touched his forehead with her lips.
She said nothing. Her hands dropped from his shoulders, she turned away and her lips moved once more.
Then Androvsky moved slowly in through the doorway of the monastery, crossed the patch of sunlight, lifted his hand and rang the bell at the second door.
"Drive back to Tunis, please."
"Madame!" said the coachman.
"Drive back to Tunis."
"Madame is not going to enter! But Monsieur--"
"Drive back to Tunis!"
Something in the voice that spoke to him startled the coachman. He hesitated a moment, staring at Domini from his seat, then, with a muttered curse, he turned his horses" heads and plied the whip ferociously.
"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not tired. When weary--it--is not--tired."
Domini"s lips ceased to move. She could not speak any more. She could not even pray without words.
Yet, in that moment, she did not feel alone.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
In the garden of Count Anteoni, which has now pa.s.sed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing. He is gay, as children are, and sometimes he is naughty and, as if out of sheer wantonness, he destroys the pyramids of sand erected by the Arab gardeners upon the narrow paths between the hills, or tears off the petals of the geraniums and scatters them to the breezes that whisper among the trees. But when Larbi"s flute calls to him he runs to hear. He sits at the feet of that persistent lover, and watches the big fingers fluttering at the holes of the reed, and his small face becomes earnest and dreamy, as if it looked on far-off things, or watched the pale pageant of the mirages rising mysteriously out of the sunlit s.p.a.ces of the sands to fade again, leaving no trace behind.
Only one other song he loves more than the twittering tune of Larbi.
Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls him to her, to the white wall where she is sitting beneath a jamelon tree.
"Listen, Boris!" she whispers.
The little boy climbs up on her knee, leans his face against her breast and obeys. An Arab is pa.s.sing below on the desert track, singing to himself as he goes towards his home in the oasis:
"No one but G.o.d and I Knows what is in my heart."
He is singing the song of the freed negroes. When his voice has died away the mother puts the little boy down. It is bed time, and Smain is there to lead him to the white villa, where he will sleep dreamlessly till morning.
But the mother stays alone by the wall till the night falls and the desert is hidden.
"No one but G.o.d and I Knows what is in my heart."
She whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows over the vast s.p.a.ces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her of the wind that, at Arba, carried fire towards her as she sat before the tent, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the pa.s.sion that came to her soul like fire in the desert.
But she does not rebel.
For always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying who once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last has reached his home.