Domini, leaning forward with one hand upon her horse's warm neck,
watched until the full circle was poised for a moment on the horizon,
holding the palms in its frame of fire. She had never seen a moon look
so immense and so vivid as this moon that came up into the night like a
portent, fierce yet serene, moon of a barbaric world, such as might have
shone upon Herod when he heard the voice of the Baptist in his dungeon,
or upon the wife of Pilate when in a dream she was troubled. It
suggested to her the powerful watcher of tragic events fraught with long
chains of consequence that would last on through centuries, as it turned
its blood-red gaze upon the desert, upon the palms, upon her, and,
leaning upon her horse's neck, she too--like Pilate's wife--fell into
a sort of strange and troubled dream for a moment, full of strong, yet
ghastly, light and of shapes that flitted across a background of fire.
In it she saw the priest with a fanatical look of warning in his eyes,
Count Anteoni beneath the trees of his garden, the perfume-seller in
his dark bazaar, Irena with her long throat exposed and her thin
arms drooping, the sand-diviner spreading forth his hands, Androvsky
galloping upon a horse as if pursued.
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