sheikhs use to
carry their women, there are two people, protected against the storm by
curtains. They are silent, listening to the roaring of the wind. One of
them is you."

"Two people!"

"Two people."

"But--who is the other?"

"He cannot see. It is as if the blackness of the storm were deeper round
about the other and hid the other from him. The caravan passes on and is
lost in the desolation and the storm."

She said nothing, but looked down at the thin body of the Diviner
crouched close to her knees. Was this pock-marked face the face of
a prophet? Did this skin and bone envelop the soul of a seer? She no
longer wished that Larbi was playing upon his flute or felt the silence
to be unnatural. For this man had filled it with the roar of the desert
wind. And in the wind there struggled and was finally lost the sound of
voices of her Faith chanting--what? The wind was too strong. The voices
were too faint. She could not hear.

Once more the Diviner stirred. For some minutes his fingers were busy
in the sand. But now they moved more slowly and no words came from his
lips. Domini and the Count bent low to watch what he was doing. The
look of torture upon his face increased. It was terrible, and made upon
Domini an indelible impression, for she could not help connecting it
with his vision of her future, and it suggested to her formless phantoms
of despair. She looked into the sand, as if she, too, would be able to
see what he saw and had not told, looked till she began to feel almost
hypnotised. The Diviner's hands trembled now as they made the patterns,
and his breast heaved under his white robe. Presently he traced in the
sand a triangle and began to speak.

The Count bent down till his ear was almost at the Diviner's lips,
and Domini held her breath. That caravan lost in the desolation of the
desert, in the storm and the darkness--where was it? What had been its
fate? Sweat ran down over the Diviner's face, and dropped upon his
robe, upon his hands, upon the sand, making dark spots. And the voice
whispered on huskily till she was in a fever of impatience. She saw upon
the face of the Count the Diviner's tortured look reflected. Was it not
also on her face? A link surely bound them all together in this tiny
room, close circled by the tall trees and the intense silence. She
looked at the triangle in the sand. It was very distinct, more distinct
than the other patterns had been. What did it represent? She searc