"Are there really Oriental palaces
here? Has Batouch told us the truth for once?"
"Or less than the truth? I could believe anything of Amara at this
moment. What hundreds of camels! They remind me of Arba, our first
halting-place." She looked at him and he at her.
"How long ago that seems!" she said.
"A thousand years ago."
They both had a memory of a great silence, in the midst of this growing
tumult in which the sky seemed now to take its part, calling with the
voices of its fierce colours, with the voices of the fires that burdened
it in the west.
"Silence joined us, Domini," Androvsky said.
"Yes. Perhaps silence is the most beautiful voice in the world."
Far off, along the great white road, they saw two horsemen galloping to
meet them from the city, one dressed in brilliant saffron yellow, the
other in the palest blue, both crowned with large and snowy turbans.
"Who can they be?" said Domini, as they drew near. "They look like two
princes of the Sahara."
Then she broke into a merry laugh.
"Batouch! and Ali!" she exclaimed.
The servants galloped up then, without slackening speed deftly wheeled
their horses in a narrow circle, and were beside them, going with them,
one on the right hand, the other on the left.
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