"Come, Madame."

Domini laughed and followed him. She felt as if she were playing a game,
yet her curiosity was roused. They went softly down and slipped out of
the hotel like children fearing to be caught.

"Batouch will be angry. There will be white foam on his lips," whispered
Hadj, dropping his chin and chuckling low in his throat. "This way,
Madame."

He led her quickly across the gardens to the Rue Berthe, and down a
number of small streets, till they reached a white house before which,
on a hump, three palm trees grew from one trunk. Beyond was waste
ground, and further away a stretch of sand and low dunes lost in the
darkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Domini looked at the house and
at Hadj, and wondered if it would be foolish to enter.

"What is it?" she asked again.

But he only replied, "Madame will see!" and struck his flat hand upon
the door. It was opened a little way, and a broad face covered with
little humps and dents showed, the thick lips parted and muttering
quickly. Then the face was withdrawn, the door opened wider, and Hadj
beckoned to Domini to go in. After a moment's hesitation she did so, and
found herself in a small interior court, with a tiled floor,
pillars, and high up a gallery of carved wood, from which, doubtless,
dwelling-rooms opened. In the court, upon cushions, were seated four
vacant-looking men, with bare arms and legs and long matted hair, before
a brazier, from which rose a sharply pungent perfume. Two of these men
were very young, with pale, ascetic faces and weary eyes. They looked
like young priests of the Sahara. At a short distance, upon a red
pillow, sat a tiny boy of about three years old, dressed in yellow and
green. When Domini and Hadj came into the court no one looked at them
except the child, who stared with slowly-rolling, solemn eyes, slightly
shifting on the pillow. Hadj beckoned to Domini to seat herself upon
some rugs between the pillars, sat down beside her and began to make
a cigarette. Complete silence prevailed. The four men stared at the
brazier, holding their nostrils over the incense fumes which rose from
it in airy spirals. The child continued to stare at Domini. Hadj lit his
cigarette. And time rolled on.

Domini had desired violence, and had been conveyed into a dumbness of
mystery, that fell upon her turmoil of spirit like a blow. What struck
her as especially strange and unnatural was the fact that the men with
whom she was sitting in the