“What does Madame think?” asked Batouch.  “Does Madame agree with the Englishman?”

“It is a strange little place,” she answered.

She listened to the voices of the doves.  A dog barked by the bordj.

“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.”

“Together,” he said.

An eager light had come into his eyes.  He leaned forward towards her over the little table and stretched out his hand.

“Yes, together,” she said.

But she did not take his hand.

“Domini!” he said, still keeping his hand on the table, “Domini!”

An expression, that was like an expression of agony, flitted over her face and died away, leaving it calm.

“Let us finish,” she said quietly.  “Look, they have taken the tents!  In a moment we can go.”

The doves were silent.  The night was very still in this nest of the Sahara.  Ouardi brought them coffee, and Batouch came to say that the tents were ready.

“We shall want nothing more to-night, Batouch,” Domini said.  “Don’t disturb us.”

Batouch glanced towards the Cafe Maure.  A red light gleamed through its low doorway.  One or two Arabs were moving within.  Some of the camp attendants had joined the squatting men without.  A noise of busy voices reached the tents.

“To-night, Madame,” Batouch said proudly, “I am going to tell stories from the Thousand and One Nights.  I am going to tell the story of the young Prince of the Indies, and the story of Ganem, the Slave of Love.  It is not often that in Ain-la-Hammam a poet—­”