But he stopped her.

"Miss Enfilden, in a world of lies I look to you for truth."

His manner chafed her, but his voice had a ring of earnestness. She
said nothing. All this time the Diviner was standing on the sand, still
smiling, but with downcast eyes. His thin body looked satirical and
Domini felt a strong aversion from him, yet a strong interest in him
too. Something in his appearance and manner suggested power and mystery
as well as cunning. The Count said some words to him in Arabic, and
at once he walked forward and disappeared among the trees, going so
silently and smoothly that she seemed to watch a panther gliding into
the depths of a jungle where its prey lay hid. She looked at the Count
interrogatively.

"He will wait in the _fumoir_."

"Where we first met?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"For us, if you choose."

"Tell me about him. I have seen him twice. He followed me with a bag of
sand."

"He is a desert man. I don't know his tribe, but before he settled here
he was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of the
sand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would suppose
such beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The sand tells
him secrets."

"He says. Do you believe it?"

"Would you like to test it?"

"How?"

"By coming with me to the _fumoir_?"

She hesitated obviously.

"Mind," he added, "I do not press it. A word from me and he is gone.
But you are fearless, and you have spoken already, will speak much more
intimately in the future, with the desert spirits."

"How do you know that?"

"The 'much more intimately'?"

"Yes."

"I do not know it, but--which is much more--I feel it."

She was silent, looking towards the trees where the Diviner had
disappeared. Count Anteoni's boyish merriment had faded away. He looked
grave, almost sad.

"I am not afraid," she said at last. "No, but--I will confess it--there
is something horrible about that man to me. I felt it the first time
I saw him. His eyes are too intelligent. They look diseased with
intelligence."

"Let me send him away. Smain!"

But she stopped him. Directly he made the suggestion she felt that she
must know more of this man.

"No. Let us go to the _fumoir_."

"Very well. Go, Smain!"

Smain went into the little tent by the gate, sat down on his haunches
and began to smell at a sprig of orange blossoms. Domini and the Count
walked into the darkness of the trees.

"What is h