“It is almost like a hiding-place,” she added.
Androvsky said nothing, but he, too, was gazing intently at the trees below them, he, too, was listening to the voices of the doves. After a moment he looked at her.
“Domini,” he whispered. “Here—won’t you—won’t you let me touch your hand again here?”
“Come, Boris,” she answered. “It is late.”
They rode down into Ain-la-Hammam.
The tents had all been pitched near together on the south of the bordj, and separated by it from the tiny oasis. Opposite to them was a Cafe Maure of the humblest kind, a hovel of baked earth and brushwood, with earthen divans and a coffee niche. Before this was squatting a group of five dirty desert men, the sole inhabitants of Ain-la-Hammam. Just before dinner Domini gave an order to Batouch, and, while they were dining, Androvsky noticed that their people were busy unpegging the two sleeping-tents.
“What are they doing?” he said to Domini, uneasily. In his present condition everything roused in him anxiety. In every unusual action he discerned the beginning of some tragedy which might affect his life.
“I told Batouch to put our tents on the other side of the bordj,” she answered.
“Yes. But why?”
“I thought that to-night it would be better if we were a little more alone than we are here, just opposite to that Cafe Maure, and with the servants. And on the other side there are the palms and the water. And the doves were talking there as we rode in. When we have finished dinner we can go and sit there and be quiet.”