“A charm of birds,” Claire murmured to Renfrew, as they rode on. “The summoning tune—what can resist it?”
“Claire,” he said, almost reproachfully, “you speak like a fatalist.”
“And I believe I am one,” she answered. “Destiny is not only a phantom but also a fact. Mine is marked out for me and known—”
“To whom? Not to yourself?”
“Oh, no!”
“To whom then?”
“To the hidden force that directs all things.”
“I am your destiny.”
“Ah, Desmond—or Morocco. I feel to-day as if I shall never see England again, or a civilised audience such as I have known.”
And then she seemed to fall into a waking dream. Even Renfrew felt drowsy, the air was so intensely hot and the motion of the horses so monotonous. And Mohammed's deep voice was never silent. It buzzed like a bourdon in the glare of the noontide, till, far away on the hill-side, they saw white Tetuan facing the plain, the river moving stagnantly towards the sea, the great fields of corn in which strange flowers grew, and the giant range of shaggy mountains, swimming in a mist of gold that looked like spangled tissue.