There was far more sand in this
region of the desert. The little humps crowned with the scrub the
camels feed on were fewer, so that the flatness of the ground was more
definite. Here and there large dunes of golden-coloured sand rose,
some straight as city walls, some curved like seats in an amphitheatre,
others indented, crenellated like battlements, undulating in beastlike
shapes. The distant panorama of desert was unbroken by any visible oasis
and powerfully suggested Eternity to Domini.
"When I go out into the desert for my long journey I shall go by this
road," she said to Androvsky.
"You are going on a journey?" he said, looking at her as if startled.
"Some day."
"All alone?"
"I suppose I must take a caravan, two or three Arabs, some horses, a
tent or two. It's easy to manage. Batouch will arrange it for me."
Androvsky still looked startled, and half angry, she thought.
They had pulled up their horses among the sand dunes. It was near
sunset, and the breath of evening was in the sir, making its coolness
even more ethereal, more thinly pure than in the daytime. The atmosphere
was so clear that when they glanced back they could see the flag
fluttering upon the white of the great hotel of Beni-Mora, many
kilometres away among the palms; so still that they could hear the bark
of a Kabyle off near a nomad's tent pitched in the green land by the
water-springs of old Beni-Mora.
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