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She felt almost like a child who is about to penetrate into the red land of the winter fire, and she hastened her steps till she reached a tall white gate set in an arch of wood, and surmounted with a white coat of arms and two lions. Batouch struck on it with a white knocker and then began to roll a cigarette. "I will wait here for Madame." Domini nodded.
"Ali will take the horses, and I will escort Madame and Monsieur up the hill to the place of the fountain. Shabah will be there to greet Madame." "What an uproar!" Domini exclaimed, half laughing, half confused. "Who on earth is Shabah?" "Shabah is the Caid of Amara," replied Batouch with dignity. "The greatest man of the city. He awaits Madame by the fountain." Domini cast a glance at Androvsky.
"I did not say so." "Yet at first you wished to keep Batouch." "Yes." "Then " "Batouch is my attendant." "And I? Perhaps I am nothing but a man whom you distrust; whom whom others tell you to think ill of." "I judge for myself." "But if others speak ill of me?" "It would not influence me for long." She added the last words after a pause.
Consciously she helped to fulfil the prediction of the Diviner, and then she left Batouch free. Now outside the church, shrouded closely in hoods and haiks, grey and brown bundles with staring eyes, the desert men were huddled against the church wall in the wind. Hadj was there, and Smain, sheltering in his burnous roses from Count Anteoni's garden.
Again she wondered whether Batouch had come. It seemed to her unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the world was up and purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a curtain for unconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the verandah and looked over the parapet. She could see the white road, mysteriously white, below. It was deserted. She leaned down.
All the members of the caravan, presided over by Batouch in glory, were celebrating the wedding night of their master and mistress.
"I am not going back to London for a very long time," she replied with energy. "You will stay here many weeks?" "Months, perhaps. And perhaps I shall travel on into the desert. Yes, I must do that." "If we followed the white road into the desert, and went on and on for many days, we should come at last to Tombouctou," said Batouch. "But very likely we should be killed by the Touaregs.
Already the tents and the attendants, with the camels and the mules, were winding slowly along the plain through the scrub in the direction of the mountains, and the dark shadow which indicated the oasis of Beni-Mora. Batouch was with them. Domini and Androvsky were going to be alone on this last stage of their desert journey.
Batouch, smothered in his burnous, his large head sunk upon his chest, slumbered like a potentate relieved from cares of State. Till Arba was reached his duty was accomplished. Ali, perched behind him on the camel, stared into the dimness with eyes steady and remote as those of a vulture of the desert.
She rode with him on three occasions, twice in the oasis through the brown villages, once out into the desert on the caravan road that Batouch had told her led at last to Tombouctou. They did not travel far along it, but Domini knew at once that this route held more fascination for her than the route to Sidi-Zerzour. There was far more sand in this region of the desert.
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