She did not feel the horse under her, the reins in her hand. She did not see the desert or the moon. Though she was looking at Androvsky she no longer perceived him. At the sound of his words it seemed to her as if all outside things she had ever known had foundered, like a ship whose bottom is ripped up by a razor-edged rock, as if with them had foundered, too, all things within herself: thoughts, feelings, even the bodily powers that were of the essence of her life; sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight, the capacity of movement and of deliberate repose. Nothing seemed to remain except the knowledge that she was still alive and had spoken.
"Yes, to-morrow I shall go away."
His face was still turned from her, and his voice sounded as if it spoke to someone at a distance, someone who could hear as man cannot hear.
"To-morrow," she repeated.
She knew she had spoken again, but it did not seem to her as if she had heard herself speak. She looked at her hands holding the reins, knew that she looked at them, yet felt as if she were not seeing them while she did so. The moonlit desert was surely flickering round her, and away to the horizon in waves that were caused by the disappearance of that ship which had suddenly foundered with all its countless lives. And she knew of the movement of these waves as the soul of one of the drowned, already released from the body, might know of the movement on the surface of the sea beneath which its body was hidden.
But the soul was evidently nothing without the body, or, at most, merely a continuance of power to know that all which had been was no more. All which had been was no more.
At last her mind began to work again, and those words went through it with persistence. She thought of the fascination of Africa, that enormous, overpowering fascination which had taken possession of her body and spirit. What had become of it? What had become of the romance of the palm gardens, of the brown villages, of the red mountains, of the white town with its lights, its white figures, its throbbing music? And the mystical attraction of the desert--where was it now?
Its voice, that had called her persistently, was suddenly silent. Its hand, that had been laid upon her, was removed. She looked at it in the moonlight and it was no longer the desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances full of a music of summons, spaces, peopled with spirits from the sun. It was only a barren waste of dried-up matter, arid, featureless, desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had died.
She heard the dogs barking by the tents of the nomads and the noises of the insects, but still she did not feel the horse underneath her.
Yet she was gradually recovering her powers, and their recovery brought with it sharp, physical pain, such as is felt by a person who has been nearly drowned and is restored from unconsciousness.
Androvsky turned round. She saw his eyes fastened upon her, and instantly pride awoke in her, and, with pride, her whole self.
She felt her horse under her, the reins in her hands, the stirrup at her foot. She moved in her saddle. The blood tingled in her veins fiercely, bitterly, as if it had become suddenly acrid. She felt as if her face were scarlet, as if her whole body flushed, and as if the flush could be seen by her companion. For a moment she was clothed from head to foot in a fiery garment of shame. But she faced Androvsky with calm eyes, and her lips smiled.
"You are tired of it?" she said.
"I never meant to stay long," he answered, looking down.
"There is not very much to do here. Shall we ride back to the village now?"
She turned her horse, and as she did so cast one more glance at the three palm trees that stood far out on the path of the moon. They looked like three malignant fates lifting up their hands in malediction. For a moment she shivered in the saddle. Then she touched her horse with the whip and turned her eyes away. Androvsky followed her and rode by her side in silence.
To gain the oasis they passed near to the tents of the nomads, whose fires were dying out. The guard dogs were barking furiously, and straining at the cords which fastened them to the tent pegs, by the short hedges of brushwood that sheltered the doors of filthy rags. The Arabs were all within, no doubt huddled up on the ground asleep. One tent was pitched alone, at a considerable distance from the others, and under the first palms of the oasis. A fire smouldered before it, casting a flickering gleam of light upon something dark which lay upon the ground between it and the tent. Tied to the tent was a large white dog, which was not barking, but which was howling as if in agony of fear. Before Domini and Androvsky drew near to this tent the howling of the dog reached them and startled them. There was in it a note that seemed humanly expressive, as if it were a person trying to scream out words but unable to from horror. Both of them instinctively pulled up their horses, listened, then rode forward. When they reached the tent they saw the dark thing lying by the fire.
"What is it?" Domini whispered.
"An Arab asleep, I suppose," Androvsky answered, staring at the motionless object.
"But the dog----" She looked at the white shape leaping frantically against the tent. "Are you sure?"
"It must be. Look, it is wrapped in rags and the head is covered."
"I don't know."
She stared at it. The howling of the dog grew louder, as if it were straining every nerve to tell them something dreadful.
"Do you mind getting off and seeing what it is? I'll hold the horse."
He swung himself out of the saddle. She caught his rein and watched him go forward to the thing that lay by the fire, bend down over it, touch it, recoil from it, then--as if with a determined effort--kneel down beside it on the ground and take the rags that covered it in his hands. After a moment of contemplation of what they had hidden he dropped the rags--or rather threw them from him with a violent gesture --got up and came back to Domini, and looked at her without speaking.
She bent down.
"I'll tell you," she said. "I'll tell you what it is. It's a dead woman."
It seemed to her as if the dark thing lying by the fire was herself.
"Yes," he said. "It's a woman who has been strangled."
"Poor woman!" she said. "Poor--poor woman!"
And it seemed to her as if she said it of herself.
