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They reached it only when darkness was falling, going out of the city on foot by the great wall of dressed stone which enclosed the Kasba of the native soldiers, and ascending and descending various slopes of deep sand, over which the airs of night blew with a peculiar thin freshness that renewed Domini's sense of being at the end of the world.
The two birds they had seen flew back beneath the trees, turned in an airy circle, rose above the trees into the blue sky, and, side by side, winged their way out of the garden to the desert. In the evening before the day of Domini's marriage with Androvsky there was a strange sunset, which attracted even the attention and roused the comment of the Arabs.
The robes of the Arabs brushed against the skirts of Domini and Suzanne, and eyes stared at them from every side with a scrutiny that was less impudent than seriously bold. "Madame!" Hadj's thin hand was pulling Domini's sleeve. "Well, what is it?" "This is the best dancing-house. The children dance here."
One of the little Arab boys was indeed visible running with all his might towards the Rue Berthe. Domini's face suddenly clouded. The presence of the guide would take all the edge off her pleasure, and in the short gallop she had just had she had savoured its keenness. She was alive with desire to be happy. "I don't need you, Batouch," she said.
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.
He was a man capable of a passionate belief, despite his sin, and he had always had a passionate belief in Domini's religion. That morning, when she came out to him in the sand, a momentary doubt had assailed him. He had known the thought, "Does she love me still does she love me more than she loves God, more than she loves his dictates manifested in the Catholic religion?"
Hitherto there had never been any sort of contest between them. Their desires, like their hearts, had been in accord. Now there was not a contest, for Androvsky yielded to Domini's preference, when she expressed it, with a quickness that set his passion before her in a new and beautiful light. But she knew that, for the moment, they were not in accord.
"I have almost hated it, too," he said passionately. "I have hated it. I'm a I'm " His voice failed. He bent forward and took Domini's face between his hands. "And yet there are times when I can bless what I have hated. I do bless it now. I I love your safety. You at least you are safe." "You must share it. I will make you share it." "You cannot." "I can. I shall.
It was poor pride in her, a mean little feeling. "Come with me," she said. They went on together. The Arabs, stirred up by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething with excitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little crowd, were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the statue of the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them and hesitated.
The children danced up and began to ask for alms, and an immense man, with a broken nose and brown teeth like tusks, laid a gigantic hand on Domini's bridle and said, in atrocious French: "I am the guide, I am the guide. Look at my certificates. Take no one else. The people here are robbers. I am the only honest man. I will show Madame everything. I will take Madame to the inn.
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