and broke the silence and scattered her aspirations.
Count Anteoni was coming towards them between the trees. The light of
happiness was still upon his face and made him look much younger than
usual. His whole bearing, in its elasticity and buoyant courage, was
full of anticipation. As he came up to them he said to Domini:

"Do you remember chiding me?"

"I!" she said. "For what?"

Androvsky sat up and the expression of serenity passed away from his
face.

"For never galloping away into the sun."

"Oh!--yes, I do remember."

"Well, I am going to obey you. I am going to make a journey."

"Into the desert?"

"Three hundred kilometers on horseback. I start to-morrow."

She looked up at him with a new interest. He saw it and laughed, almost
like a boy.

"Ah, your contempt for me is dying!"

"How can you speak of contempt?"

"But you were full of it." He turned to Androvsky. "Miss Enfilden
thought I could not sit a horse, Monsieur, unlike you. Forgive me for
saying that you are almost more dare-devil than the Arabs themselves. I
saw you the other day set your stallion at the bank of the river bed. I
did not think any horse could have done it, but you knew better."

"I did not know at all," said Androvsky. "I had not ridden for over
twenty years until that day."

He spoke with a blunt determination which made Domini remember their
recent conversation on truth-telling.

"Dio mio!" said the Count, slowly, and looking at him with undisguised
wonder. "You must have a will and a frame of iron."

"I am pretty strong."

He spoke rather roughly. Since the Count had joined them Domini noticed
that Androvsky had become a different man. Once more he was on the
defensive. The Count did not seem to notice it. Perhaps he was too
radiant.

"I hope I shall endure as well as you, Monsieur," he said. "I go to
Beni-Hassan to visit Sidi El Hadj Aissa, one of the mightiest marabouts
in the Sahara. In your Church," he added, turning again to Domini, "he
would be a powerful Cardinal."

She noticed the "your." Evidently the Count was not a professing
Catholic. Doubtless, like many modern Italians, he was a free-thinker in
matters of religion.

"I am afraid I have never heard of him," she said. "In which direction
does Beni-Hassan lie?"

"To go there one takes the caravan route that the natives call the route
to Tombouctou."

An eager look came into her face.

"My road!" she said.

"Yours?"

"The one I shall travel