The money dropped from Domini’s fingers and rolled upon the sand at the Diviner’s feet. But though he had surely come to ask for alms, he took no heed of it. While the Arabs round him fell upon their knees and fought like animals for the plunder, he stood gaping at Domini. The smile still flickered about his lips. His hand was still stretched out.

Instinctively she had moved backwards. Something that was like a thrill of fear, mental, not physical, went through her, but she kept her eyes steadily on his, as if, despite the fear, she fought against him.

The contest of the beggars had become so passionate that Count Anteoni’s commands were forgotten. Urged by the pressure from behind those in the front scrambled or fell over the sacred threshold. The garden was invaded by a shrieking mob. Smain ran forward, and the autocrat that dwelt in the Count side by side with the benefactor suddenly emerged. He blew his whistle four times. At each call a stalwart Arab appeared.

“Shut the gate!” he commanded sternly.

The attendants furiously repulsed the mob, using their fists and feet without mercy. In the twinkling of an eye the sand was cleared and Smain had his hand upon the door to shut it. But the Diviner stopped him with a gesture, and in a fawning yet imperious voice called out something to the Count.

The Count turned to Domini.

“This is an interesting fellow. Would you like to know him?”

Her mind said no, yet her body assented. For she bowed her head. The Count beckoned. The Diviner stepped stealthily on to the sand with an air of subtle triumph, and Smain swung forward the great leaf of palm wood.

“Wait!” the Count cried, as if suddenly recollecting something. “Where is Monsieur Androvsky?”

“Isn’t he——?” Domini glanced round. “I don’t know.”

He went quickly to the door and looked out. The Arabs, silent now and respectful, crowded about him, salaaming. He smiled at them kindly, and spoke to one or two. They answered gravely. An old man with one eye lifted his hand, in which was a tomtom of stretched goatskin, and pointed towards the oasis, rapidly moving his toothless jaws. The Count stepped back into the garden, dismissed his pensioners with a masterful wave of the hand, and himself shut the door.

“Monsieur Androvsky has gone—without saying good-bye,” he said.

Again Domini felt ashamed for Androvsky.

“I don’t think he likes my pensioners,” the Count added, in amused voice, “or me.”

“I am sure—” Domini began.

But he stopped her.

“Miss Enfilden, in a world of lies I look to you for truth.”

His manner chafed her, but his voice had a ring of earnestness. She said nothing. All this time the Diviner was standing on the sand, still smiling, but with downcast eyes. His thin body looked satirical and Domini felt a strong aversion from him, yet a strong interest in him too. Something in his appearance and manner suggested power and mystery as well as cunning. The Count said some words to him in Arabic, and at once he walked forward and disappeared among the trees, going so silently and smoothly that she seemed to watch a panther gliding into the depths of a jungle where its prey lay hid. She looked at the Count interrogatively.

“He will wait in the fumoir.”

“Where we first met?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“For us, if you choose.”

“Tell me about him. I have seen him twice. He followed me with a bag of sand.”

“He is a desert man. I don’t know his tribe, but before he settled here he was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of the sand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would suppose such beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The sand tells him secrets.”

“He says. Do you believe it?”

“Would you like to test it?”

“How?”

“By coming with me to the fumoir?”

She hesitated obviously.

“Mind,” he added, “I do not press it. A word from me and he is gone. But you are fearless, and you have spoken already, will speak much more intimately in the future, with the desert spirits.”

“How do you know that?”

“The ‘much more intimately’?”

“Yes.”

“I do not know it, but—which is much more—I feel it.”

She was silent, looking towards the trees where the Diviner had disappeared. Count Anteoni’s boyish merriment had faded away. He looked grave, almost sad.

“I am not afraid,” she said at last. “No, but—I will confess it—there is something horrible about that man to me. I felt it the first time I saw him. His eyes are too intelligent. They look diseased with intelligence.”

“Let me send him away. Smain!”

But she stopped him. Directly he made the suggestion she felt that she must know more of this man.

“No. Let us go to the fumoir.”

“Very well. Go, Smain!”

Smain went into the little tent by the gate, sat down on his haunches and began to smell at a sprig of orange blossoms. Domini and the Count walked into the darkness of the trees.

“What is his name?” she asked.

“Aloui.”

“Aloui.”

She repeated the word slowly. There was a reluctant and yet fascinated sound in her voice.

“There is melody in the name,” he said.

“Yes. Has he—has he ever looked in the sand for you?”

“Once—a long time ago.”

“May I—dare I ask if he found truth there?”

“He found nothing for all the years that have passed since then.”

“Nothing!”

There was a sound of relief in her voice.

“For those years.”

She glanced at him and saw that once again his face had lit up into ardour.

“He found what is still to come?” she said.

And he repeated:

“He found what is still to come.”

Then they walked on in silence till they saw the purple blossoms of the bougainvillea clinging to the white walls of the fumoir. Domini stopped on the narrow path.

“Is he in there?” she asked almost in a whisper.

“No doubt.”

“Larbi was playing the first day I came here.”

“Yes.”

“I wish he was playing now.”

The silence seemed to her unnaturally intense.

“Even his love must have repose.”

She went on a step or two till, but still from a distance, she could look over the low plaster wall beneath the nearest window space into the little room.

“Yes, there he is,” she whispered.

The Diviner was crouching on the floor with his back towards them and his head bent down. Only his shoulders could be seen, covered with a white gandoura. They moved perpetually but slightly.

“What is he doing?”

“Speaking with his ancestor.”

“His ancestor?”

“The sand. Aloui!”

He called softly. The figure rose, without sound and instantly, and the face of the Diviner smiled at them through the purple flowers. Again Domini had the sensation that her body was a glass box in which her thoughts, feelings and desires were ranged for this man’s inspection; but she walked resolutely through the narrow doorway and sat down on one of the divans. Count Anteoni followed.

She now saw that in the centre of the room, on the ground, there was a symmetrical pyramid of sand, and that the Diviner was gently folding together a bag in his long and flexible fingers.

“You see!” said the Count.

She nodded, without speaking. The little sand heap held her eyes. She strove to think it absurd and the man who had shaken it out a charlatan of the desert, but she was really gripped by an odd feeling of awe, as if she were secretly expectant of some magical demonstration.

The Diviner squatted down once more on his haunches, stretched out his fingers above the sand heap, looked at her and smiled.

“La vie de Madame—I see it in the sable—la vie de Madame dans le grand desert du Sahara.”

His eyes seemed to rout out the secrets from every corner of her being, and to scatter them upon the ground as the sand was scattered.

“Dans le grand desert du Sahara,” Count Anteoni repeated, as if he loved the music of the words. “Then there is a desert life for Madame?”

The Diviner dropped his fingers on to the pyramid, lightly pressing the sand down and outward. He no longer looked at Domini. The searching and the satire slipped away from his eyes and body. He seemed to have forgotten the two watchers and to be concentrated upon the grains of sand. Domini noticed that the tortured expression, which had come into his face when she met him in the street and he stared into the bag, had returned to it. After pressing down the sand he spread the bag which had held it at Domini’s feet, and deftly transferred the sand to it, scattering the grains loosely over the sacking, in a sort of pattern. Then, bending closely over them, he stared at them in silence for a long time. His pock-marked face was set like stone. His emaciated hands, stretched out, rested above the grains like carven things. His body seemed entirely breathless in its absolute immobility.

The Count stood in the doorway, still as he was, surrounded by the motionless purple flowers. Beyond, in their serried ranks, stood the motionless trees. No incense was burning in the little brazier to-day. This cloistered world seemed spell-bound.

A low murmur at last broke the silence. It came from the Diviner. He began to talk rapidly, but as if to himself, and as he talked he moved again, broke up with his fingers the patterns in the sand, formed fresh ones; spirals, circles, snake-like lines, series of mounting dots that reminded Domini of spray flung by a fountain, curves, squares and oblongs. So swiftly was it done and undone that the sand seemed to be endowed with life, to be explaining itself in these patterns, to be presenting deliberate glimpses of hitherto hidden truths. And always the voice went on, and the eyes were downcast, and the body, save for the moving hands and arms, was absolutely motionless.

Domini looked over the Diviner to Count Anteoni, who came gently forward and sat down, bending his head to listen to the voice.

“Is it Arabic?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Can you understand it?”

“Not yet. Presently it will get slower, clearer. He always begins like this.”

“Translate it for me.”

“Exactly as it is?”

“Exactly as it is.”

“Whatever it may be?”

“Whatever it may be.”

He glanced at the tortured face of the Diviner and looked grave.

“Remember you have said I am fearless,” she said.

He answered:

“Whatever it is you shall know it.”

Then they were silent again. Gradually the Diviner’s voice grew clearer, the pace of its words less rapid, but always it sounded mysterious and inward, less like the voice of a man than the distant voice of a secret.

“I can hear now,” whispered the Count.

“What is he saying?”

“He is speaking about the desert.”

“Yes?”

“He sees a great storm. Wait a moment!”

The voice spoke for some seconds and ceased, and once again the Diviner remained absolutely motionless, with his hands extended above the grains like carven things.

“He sees a great sand-storm, one of the most terrible that has ever burst over the Sahara. Everything is blotted out. The desert vanishes. Beni-Mora is hidden. It is day, yet there is a darkness like night. In this darkness he sees a train of camels waiting by a church.”

“A mosque?”

“No, a church. In the church there is a sound of music. The roar of the wind, the roar of the camels, mingles with the chanting and drowns it. He cannot hear it any more. It is as if the desert is angry and wishes to kill the music. In the church your life is beginning.”

“My life?”

“Your real life. He says that now you are fully born, that till now there has been a veil around your soul like the veil of the womb around a child.”

“He says that!”

There was a sound of deep emotion in her voice.

“That is all. The roar of the wind from the desert has silenced the music in the church, and all is dark.”

The Diviner moved again, and formed fresh patterns in the sand with feverish rapidity, and again began to speak swiftly.

“He sees the train of camels that waited by the church starting on a desert journey. The storm has not abated. They pass through the oasis into the desert. He sees them going towards the south.”

Domini leaned forward on the divan, looking at Count Anteoni above the bent body of the Diviner.

“By what route?” she whispered.

“By the route which the natives call the road to Tombouctou.”

“But—it is my journey!”

“Upon one of the camels, in a palanquin such as the great sheikhs use to carry their women, there are two people, protected against the storm by curtains. They are silent, listening to the roaring of the wind. One of them is you.”

“Two people!”

“Two people.”

“But—who is the other?”

“He cannot see. It is as if the blackness of the storm were deeper round about the other and hid the other from him. The caravan passes on and is lost in the desolation and the storm.”

She said nothing, but looked down at the thin body of the Diviner crouched close to her knees. Was this pock-marked face the face of a prophet? Did this skin and bone envelop the soul of a seer? She no longer wished that Larbi was playing upon his flute or felt the silence to be unnatural. For this man had filled it with the roar of the desert wind. And in the wind there struggled and was finally lost the sound of voices of her Faith chanting—what? The wind was too strong. The voices were too faint. She could not hear.

Once more the Diviner stirred. For some minutes his fingers were busy in the sand. But now they moved more slowly and no words came from his lips. Domini and the Count bent low to watch what he was doing. The look of torture upon his face increased. It was terrible, and made upon Domini an indelible impression, for she could not help connecting it with his vision of her future, and it suggested to her formless phantoms of despair. She looked into the sand, as if she, too, would be able to see what he saw and had not told, looked till she began to feel almost hypnotised. The Diviner’s hands trembled now as they made the patterns, and his breast heaved under his white robe. Presently he traced in the sand a triangle and began to speak.

The Count bent down till his ear was almost at the Diviner’s lips, and Domini held her breath. That caravan lost in the desolation of the desert, in the storm and the darkness—where was it? What had been its fate? Sweat ran down over the Diviner’s face, and dropped upon his robe, upon his hands, upon the sand, making dark spots. And the voice whispered on huskily till she was in a fever of impatience. She saw upon the face of the Count the Diviner’s tortured look reflected. Was it not also on her face? A link surely bound them all together in this tiny room, close circled by the tall trees and the intense silence. She looked at the triangle in the sand. It was very distinct, more distinct than the other patterns had been. What did it represent? She searched her mind, thinking of the desert, of her life there, of man’s life in the desert. Was it not tent-shaped? She saw it as a tent, as her tent pitched somewhere in the waste far from the habitations of men. Now the trembling hands were still, the voice was still, but the sweat did not cease from dropping down upon the sand.

“Tell me!” she murmured to the Count.

He obeyed, seeming now to speak with an effort.

“It is far away in the desert——”

He paused.

“Yes? Yes?”

“Very far away in a sandy place. There are immense dunes, immense white dunes of sand on every side, like mountains. Near at hand there is a gleam of many fires. They are lit in the market-place of a desert city. Among the dunes, with camels picketed behind it, there is a tent——”

She pointed to the triangle traced upon the sand.

“I knew it,” she whispered. “It is my tent.”

“He sees you there, as he saw you in the palanquin. But now it is night and you are quite alone. You are not asleep. Something keeps you awake. You are excited. You go out of the tent upon the dunes and look towards the fires of the city. He hears the jackals howling all around you, and sees the skeletons of dead camels white under the moon.”

She shuddered in spite of herself.

“There is something tremendous in your soul. He says it is as if all the date palms of the desert bore their fruit together, and in all the dry places, where men and camels have died of thirst in bygone years, running springs burst forth, and as if the sand were covered with millions of golden flowers big as the flower of the aloe.”

“But then it is joy, it must be joy!”

“He says it is great joy.”

“Then why does he look like that, breathe like that?”

She indicated the Diviner, who was trembling where he crouched, and breathing heavily, and always sweating like one in agony.

“There is more,” said the Count, slowly.

“Tell me.”

“You stand alone upon the dunes and you look towards the city. He hears the tomtoms beating, and distant cries as if there were a fantasia. Then he sees a figure among the dunes coming towards you.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

He did not answer. But she did not wish him to answer. She had spoken without meaning to speak.

“You watch this figure. It comes to you, walking heavily.”

“Walking heavily?”

“That’s what he says. The dates shrivel on the palms, the streams dry up, the flowers droop and die in the sand. In the city the tomtoms faint away and the red fires fade away. All is dark and silent. And then he sees—”

“Wait!” Domini said almost sharply.

He sat looking at her. She pressed her hands together. In her dark face, with its heavy eyebrows and strong, generous mouth, a contest showed, a struggle between some quick desire and some more sluggish but determined reluctance. In a moment she spoke again.

“I won’t hear anything more, please.”

“But you said ‘whatever it may be.’”

“Yes. But I won’t hear anything more.”

She spoke very quietly, with determination.

The Diviner was beginning to move his hands again, to make fresh patterns in the sand, to speak swiftly once more.

“Shall I stop him?”

“Please.”

“Then would you mind going out into the garden? I will join you in a moment. Take care not to disturb him.”

She got up with precaution, held her skirts together with her hands, and slipped softly out on to the garden path. For a moment she was inclined to wait there, to look back and see what was happening in the fumoir. But she resisted her inclination, and walked on slowly till she reached the bench where she had sat an hour before with Androvsky. There she sat down and waited. In a few minutes she saw the Count coming towards her alone. His face was very grave, but lightened with a slight smile when he saw her.

“He has gone?” she asked.

“Yes.”

He was about to sit beside her, but she said quickly:

“Would you mind going back to the jamelon tree?”

“Where we sat this morning?”

“Was it only—yes.”

“Certainly.”

“Oh; but you are going away to-morrow! You have a lot to do probably?”

“Nothing. My men will arrange everything.”

She got up, and they walked in silence till they saw once more the immense spaces of the desert bathed in the afternoon sun. As Domini looked at them again she knew that their wonder, their meaning, had increased for her. The steady crescendo that was beginning almost to frighten her was maintained—the crescendo of the voice of the Sahara. To what tremendous demonstration was this crescendo tending, to what ultimate glory or terror? She felt that her soul was as yet too undeveloped to conceive. The Diviner had been right. There was a veil around it, like the veil of the womb that hides the unborn child.

Under the jamelon tree she sat down once more.

“May—I light a cigar?” the Count asked.

“Do.”

He struck a match, lit a cigar, and sat down on her left, by the garden wall.

“Tell me frankly,” he said. “Do you wish to talk or to be silent?”

“I wish to speak to you.”

“I am sorry now I asked you to test Aloui’s powers.”

“Why?”

“Because I fear they made an unpleasant impression upon you.”

“That was not why I made you stop him.”

“No?”

“You don’t understand me. I was not afraid. I can only say that, but I can’t give you my reason for stopping him. I wished to tell you that it was not fear.”

“I believe—I know that you are fearless,” he said with an unusual warmth. “You are sure that I don’t understand you?”

“Remember the refrain of the Freed Negroes’ song!”

“Ah, yes—those black fellows. But I know something of you, Miss Enfilden—yes, I do.”

“I would rather you did—you and your garden.”

“And—some day—I should like you to know a little more of me.”

“Thank you. When will you come back?”

“I can’t tell. But you are not leaving?”

“Not yet.”

The idea of leaving Beni-Mora troubled her heart strangely.

“No, I am too happy here.”

“Are you really happy?”

“At any rate I am happier than I have ever been before.”

“You are on the verge.”

He was looking at her with eyes in which there was tenderness, but suddenly they flashed fire, and he exclaimed:

“My desert land must not bring you despair.”

She was startled by his sudden vehemence.

“What I would not hear!” she said. “You know it!”

“It is not my fault. I am ready to tell it to you.”

“No. But do you believe it? Do you believe that man can read the future in the sand? How can it be?”

“How can a thousand things be? How can these desert men stand in fire, with their naked feet set on burning brands, with burning brands under their armpits, and not be burned? How can they pierce themselves with skewers and cut themselves with knives and no blood flow? But I told you the first day I met you; the desert always makes me the same gift when I return to it.”

“What gift?”

“The gift of belief.”

“Then you do believe in that man—Aloui?”

“Do you?”

“I can only say that it seemed to me as if it might be divination. If I had not felt that I should not have stopped it. I should have treated it as a game.”

“It impressed you as it impresses me. Well, for both of us the desert has gifts. Let us accept them fearlessly. It is the will of Allah.”

She remembered her vision of the pale procession. Would she walk in it at last?

“You are as fatalistic as an Arab,” she said.

“And you?”

“I!” she answered simply. “I believe that I am in the hands of God, and I know that perfect love can never harm me.”

After a moment he said, gently:

“Miss Enfilden, I want to ask something of you.”

“Yes?”

“Will you make a sacrifice? To-morrow I start at dawn. Will you be here to wish me God speed on my journey?”

“Of course I will.”

“It will be good of you. I shall value it from you. And—and when—if you ever make your long journey on that road—the route to the south—I will wish you Allah’s blessing in the Garden of Allah.”

He spoke with solemnity, almost with passion, and she felt the tears very near her eyes. Then they sat in silence, looking out over the desert.

And she heard its voices calling.