re?" But that cry had risen in
her, found words in her, only when confronted by the desert. Before it
had been perhaps hidden in the womb. Only then was it born. And now the
days had passed and the nights, and the song brought with it the cry
once more, the cry and suddenly something else, another voice that, very
far away, seemed to be making answer to it. That answer she could not
hear. The words of it were hidden in the womb as, once, the words of her
intense question. Only she felt that an answer had been made. The future
knew, and had begun to try to tell her. She was on the very edge of
knowledge while she listened, but she could not step into the marvellous
land.

Presently Count Anteoni spoke to the priest.

"You have heard this song, no doubt, Father?"

Father Roubier shook his head.

"I don't think so, but I can never remember the Arab music"

"Perhaps you dislike it?"

"No, no. It is ugly in a way, but there seems a great deal of meaning in
it. In this song especially there is--one might almost call it beauty."

"Wonderful beauty," Domini said in a low voice, still listening to the
song.

"The words are beautiful," said the Count, this time addressing himself
to Androvsky. "I don't know them all, but they begin like this:

"'The gazelle dies in the water,
The fish dies in the air,
And I die in the dunes of the desert sand
For my love that is deep and sad.'

"And when the chorus sounds, as now"--and he made a gesture toward the
inner room, in which the low murmur of " Wurra-Wurra" rose again, "the
singer reiterates always the same refrain:

"'No one but God and I
Knows what is in my heart.'"

Almost as he spoke the contralto voice began to sing the refrain.
Androvsky turned pale. There were drops of sweat on his forehead. He
lifted his glass of wine to his lips and his hand trembled so that some
of the wine was spilt upon the tablecloth. And, as once before, Domini
felt that what moved her deeply moved him even more deeply, whether in
the same way or differently she could not tell. The image of the taper
and the torch recurred to her mind. She saw Androvsky with fire round
about him. The violence of this man surely resembled the violence of
Africa. There was something terrible about it, yet also something noble,
for it suggested a male power, which might make for either good or evil,
but which had nothing to do with littleness. For a moment Count Anteoni
and the p