ert, with
you."

"And nothing else?"

"I want that. I cannot have that taken from me."

He looked about him quickly from side to side as they rode up the
street, as if he were a scout sent in advance of an army and suspected
ambushes. His manner reminded her of the way he had looked towards the
tower as they rode into Mogar. And he had connected that tower with the
French. She remembered his saying to her that it must have been built
for French soldiers. As they rode into Mogar he had dreaded something in
Mogar. The strange incident with De Trevignac had followed. She had put
it from her mind as a matter of small, or no, importance, had resolutely
forgotten it, had been able to forget it in their dream of desert life
and desert passion. But the entry into a city for the moment destroyed
the dreamlike atmosphere woven by the desert, recalled her town sense,
that quick-wittedness, that sharpness of apprehension and swiftness of
observation which are bred in those who have long been accustomed to
a life in the midst of crowds and movement, and changing scenes and
passing fashions. Suddenly she seemed to herself to be reading Androvsky
with an almost merciless penetration, which yet she could not check. He
had dreaded something in Mogar. He dreaded something here in Amara. An
unusual incident--for the coming of a stranger into their lives out of
their desolation of the sand was unusual--had followed close upon the
first dread. Would another such incident follow upon this second dread?
And of what was this dread born?

Batouch drew her attention to the fact that they were coming to the
marketplace, and to the curious crowds of people who were swarming out
of the tortuous, narrow streets into the main thoroughfare to watch them
pass, or to accompany them, running beside their horses. She divined
at once, by the passionate curiosity their entry aroused, that he had
misspent his leisure in spreading through the city lying reports of
their immense importance and fabulous riches.

"Batouch," she said, "you have been talking about us."

"No, Madame, I merely said that Madame is a great lady in her own land,
and that Monsieur--"

"I forbid you ever to speak about me, Batouch," said Androvsky,
brusquely.

He seemed worried by the clamour of the increasing mob that surrounded
them. Children in long robes like night-gowns skipped before them,
calling out in shrill voices. Old beggars, with diseased eyes and
deformed limbs,