Domini leaned forward on the divan, looking at Count Anteoni above the bent body of the Diviner.
“By what route?” she whispered.
“By the route which the natives call the road to Tombouctou.”
“But—it is my journey!”
“Upon one of the camels, in a palanquin such as the great sheikhs use to carry their women, there are two people, protected against the storm by curtains. They are silent, listening to the roaring of the wind. One of them is you.”
“Two people!”
“Two people.”
“But—who is the other?”
“He cannot see. It is as if the blackness of the storm were deeper round about the other and hid the other from him. The caravan passes on and is lost in the desolation and the storm.”
She said nothing, but looked down at the thin body of the Diviner crouched close to her knees. Was this pock-marked face the face of a prophet? Did this skin and bone envelop the soul of a seer? She no longer wished that Larbi was playing upon his flute or felt the silence to be unnatural. For this man had filled it with the roar of the desert wind. And in the wind there struggled and was finally lost the sound of voices of her Faith chanting—what? The wind was too strong. The voices were too faint. She could not hear.