sky's horse far off in the river
bed, still going at a gallop towards the south, towards that region in
which she had told him on the tower she thought that peace must dwell.
It was as if he had believed her words blindly and was frantically in
chase of peace. And she pursued him through the blazing sunlight. She
was out in the desert at length, beyond the last belt of verdure, beyond
the last line of palms. The desert wind was on her cheek and in her
hair. The desert spaces stretched around her. Under her horse's hoofs
lay the sparkling crystals on the wrinkled, sun-dried earth. The red
rocks, seamed with many shades of colour that all suggested primeval
fires and the relentless action of heat, were heaped about her. But her
eyes were fixed on the far-off moving speck that was the horse carrying
Androvsky madly towards the south. The light and fire, the great airs,
the sense of the chase intoxicated her. She struck her horse with the
whip. It leaped, as if clearing an immense obstacle, came down lightly
and strained forward into the shining mysteries at a furious gallop. The
black speck grew larger. She was gaining. The crumbling, cliff-like bank
on her left showed a rent in which a faint track rose sharply to the
flatness beyond. She put her horse at it and came out among the tiny
humps on which grew the halfa grass and the tamarisk bushes. A pale sand
flew up here about the horse's feet. Androvsky was still below her in
the difficult ground where the water came in the floods. She gained and
gained till she was parallel with him and could see his bent figure, his
arms clinging to the peak of his red saddle, his legs set forward
almost on to his horse's withers by the short stirrups with their metal
toecaps. The animal's temper was nearly spent. She could see that. The
terror had gone out of his pace. As she looked she saw Androvsky raise
his arms from the saddle peak, catch at the flying rein, draw it up,
lean against the saddle back and pull with all his force. The horse
stopped dead.

"His strength must be enormous," Domini thought with a startled
admiration.

She pulled up too on the bank above him and gave a halloo. He turned his
head, saw her, and put his horse at the bank, which was steep here and
without any gap. "You can't do it," she called.

In reply he dug the heels of his heavy boots into the horse's flanks and
came on recklessly. She thought the horse would either refuse or try
to get up and roll back