Early next morning a carriage was at the door. When they had got into it
the coachman looked round.
"Where shall I drive to, Monsieur?"
Androvsky looked at him and made no reply.
"To El-Largani," Domini said.
"To the monastery, Madame?"
He whistled to his horses gaily. As they trotted on bells chimed about
their necks, chimed a merry peal to the sunshine that lay over the land.
They passed soldiers marching, and heard the call of bugles, the rattle
of drums. And each sound seemed distant and each moving figure far
away. This world of Africa, fiercely distinct in the clear air under
the cloudless sky, was unreal to them both, was vague as a northern
land wrapped in a mist of autumn. The unreal was about them. Within
themselves was the real. They sat beside each other without speaking.
Words to them now were useless things. What more had they to say?
Everything and nothing. Lifetimes would not have been long enough for
them to speak their thoughts for each other, of each other, to speak
their emotions, all that was in their minds and hearts during that drive
from the city to the monastery that stood upon the hill.
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