He looked calmly surprised. “Why should I be afraid to die? All must pass through that door. It does not matter whether it is to-day or to-morrow.”
“You have no fear of death, then?”
“Of course not. Have you, Madame?” He gazed at Domini with genuine astonishment.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
And she wondered and could not tell.
“There is the Villa Anteoni.”
Batouch lifted his hand and pointed. They had turned aside from the way to Tombouctou, left the village behind them, and come into a narrow track which ran parallel to the desert. The palm trees rustled on their right, the green corn waved, the narrow cuttings in the earth gleamed with shallow water. But on their other side was limitless sterility; the wide, stony expanse of the great river bed, the Oued-Beni-Mora, then a low earth cliff, and then the immense airy flats stretching away into the shining regions of the sun. At some distance, raised on a dazzling white wall above the desert in an unshaded place, Domini saw a narrow, two-sided white house, with a flat roof and a few tiny loopholes instead of windows. One side looked full upon the waterless river bed, the other, at right angles to it, ran back towards a thicket of palms and ended in an arcade of six open Moorish arches, through which the fierce blue of the cloudless sky stared, making an almost theatrical effect. Beyond, masses of trees were visible, looking almost black against the intense, blinding pallor of wall, villa and arcade, the intense blue above.
“What a strange house!” Domini said. “There are no windows.”
“They are all on the other side, looking into the garden.”
The villa fascinated Domini at once. The white Moorish arcade framing bare, quivering blue, blue from the inmost heart of heaven, intense as a great vehement cry, was beautiful as the arcade of a Geni’s home in Fairyland. Mystery hung about this dwelling, a mystery of light, not darkness, secrets of flame and hidden things of golden meaning. She felt almost like a child who is about to penetrate into the red land of the winter fire, and she hastened her steps till she reached a tall white gate set in an arch of wood, and surmounted with a white coat of arms and two lions. Batouch struck on it with a white knocker and then began to roll a cigarette.