r meanness was not disagreeable. Domini even liked
it. It seemed to her as if the desert had thrown up waves to protect
this daring oasis which ventured to fling its green glory like a
defiance in the face of the Sahara. A wide track of earth, sprinkled
with stones and covered with deep ruts, holes and hummocks, wound in
from the desert between the earthen walls and vanished into the heart of
the oasis. They followed it.

Domini was filled with a sort of romantic curiosity. This luxury of
palms far out in the midst of desolation, untended apparently by
human hands--for no figures moved among them, there was no one on
the road--suggested some hidden purpose and activity, some concealed
personage, perhaps an Eastern Anteoni, whose lair lay surely somewhere
beyond them. As she had felt the call of the desert she now felt the
call of the oasis. In this land thrilled eternally a summons to go
onward, to seek, to penetrate, to be a passionate pilgrim. She wondered
whether her companion's heart could hear it.

"I don't know why it is," she said, "but out here I always feel
expectant. I always feel as if some marvellous thing might be going to
happen to me."

She did not add "Do you?" but looked at him as if for a reply.

"Yes, Madame," he said.

"I suppose it is because I am new to Africa. This is my first visit
here. I am not like you. I can't speak Arabic."

She suddenly wondered whether the desert was new to him as to her. She
had assumed that it was. Yet as he spoke Arabic it was almost certain
that he had been much in Africa.

"I do not speak it well," he answered.

And he looked away towards the dense thickets of the palms. The track
narrowed till the trees on either side cast patterns of moving shade
across it and the silent mystery was deepened. As far as the eye could
see the feathery, tufted foliage swayed in the little wind. The desert
had vanished, but sent in after them the message of its soul, the
marvellous breath which Domini had drunk into her lungs so long before
she saw it. That breath was like a presence. It dwells in all oases. The
high earth walls concealed the gardens. Domini longed to look over and
see what they contained, whether there were any dwellings in these dim
and silent recesses, any pools of water, flowers or grassy lawns.

Her horse neighed.

"Something is coming," she said.

They turned a corner and were suddenly in a village. A mob of half-naked
children scattered from their h