rican liqueur.

"Take it in," she said.

And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs
were making in honour of the soldiers.

When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it,
standing up, with a quantity of fragments of glass lying at his feet.
Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an
explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of glass were all that
remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.

At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted
her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see
horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not
bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was
sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse,
he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and
rode away into the desert.

_V.--I Have Insulted God_

From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of
the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She
tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often
felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.

"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come
right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah."

He made her no answer.

At last in their journeying they came to the sacred city of Amara, and
camped in the white sands beyond it.

This was the place described by the sand-diviner, and here Domini knew
that her love was to be crowned, that she would become a mother. She
hesitated to tell her husband, for in this place his misery and fear of
men seemed mounting to a climax. Nevertheless, as if in a frantic
attempt to get the better of his mental torture, he had gone off, saying
he wanted to see the city.

While he was away, Domini was visited first by Count Anteoni, who told
her that he had joined the Mohammedan religion, and was at last happy
and at peace; secondly, when night had fallen, by the priest of Amara.
This man was talkative and genial, fond of the good things of life.
Domini offered him a cigar. He accepted it. An Arab brought coffee, and
the same African liqueur which had been taken to the tent on the night
when Trevignac had dined with Domini and Androvsky.

When the priest was about to drink some of it, he suddenly paused, and
put the glass