Of what use would
it be against the spectres of the Sahara? The Jew would face it without
fear. Why not the horseman of Batouch? She dropped it into the pocket of
the saddle.
Far away in the east the darkness of the sky was slowly fading into a
luminous mystery that rose from the underworld, a mystery that at first
was faint and tremulous, pale with a pallor of silver and primrose, but
that deepened slowly into a live and ardent gold against which a group
of three palm trees detached themselves from the desert like messengers
sent forth by it to give a salutation to the moon. They were jet black
against the gold, distinct though very distant. The night, and the vast
plain from which they rose, lent them a significance that was unearthly.
Their long, thin stems and drooping, feathery leaves were living and
pathetic as the night thoughts of a woman who has suffered, but who
turns, with a gesture of longing that will not be denied, to the
luminance that dwells at the heart of the world. And those black palms
against the gold, that stillness of darkness and light in immensity,
banished Domini's faint sense of horror.
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