"But
very likely we should be killed by the Touaregs. They are fierce and
they hate strangers."
"Would you be afraid to go?" Domini asked him, curiously.
"Why afraid?"
"Of being killed?"
He looked calmly surprised. "Why should I be afraid to die? All must
pass through that door. It does not matter whether it is to-day or
to-morrow."
"You have no fear of death, then?"
"Of course not. Have you, Madame?" He gazed at Domini with genuine
astonishment.
"I don't know," she answered.
And she wondered and could not tell.
"There is the Villa Anteoni."
Batouch lifted his hand and pointed. They had turned aside from the
way to Tombouctou, left the village behind them, and come into a narrow
track which ran parallel to the desert. The palm trees rustled on their
right, the green corn waved, the narrow cuttings in the earth gleamed
with shallow water. But on their other side was limitless sterility; the
wide, stony expanse of the great river bed, the Oued-Beni-Mora, then a
low earth cliff, and then the immense airy flats stretching away into
the shining regions of the sun. At some distance, raised on a dazzling
white wall above the desert in an unshaded place, Domini saw a narrow,
two-sided white house, with a flat roof and a few tiny loopholes instead
of windows.
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