glided streams of opaque water that were guided from the desert by a
system of dams. The Kaid's mill watched over them and the great wall
of the fort. In the tunnel the light was very delicate and tinged with
green. The noise of the water flowing was just audible. A few Arabs were
sitting on benches in dreamy attitudes, with their heelless slippers
hanging from the toes of their bare feet. Beyond the entrance of the
tunnel Domini could see two horsemen galloping at a tremendous pace into
the desert. Their red cloaks streamed out over the sloping quarters of
their horses, which devoured the earth as if in a frenzy of emulation.
They disappeared into the last glories of the sun, which still lingered
on the plain and blazed among the summits of the red mountains.

All the contrasts of this land were exquisite to Domini and, in some
mysterious way, suggested eternal things; whispering through colour,
gleam, and shadow, through the pattern of leaf and rock, through the
air, now fresh, now tenderly warm and perfumed, through the silence that
hung like a filmy cloud in the golden heaven.

She and Batouch entered the tunnel, passing at once into definite
evening. The quiet of these gardens was delicious, and was only
interrupted now and then by the sound of wheels upon the road as a
carriage rolled by to some house which was hidden in the distance of the
oasis. The seated Arabs scarcely disturbed it by their murmured talk.
Many of them indeed said nothing, but rested like lotus-eaters in
graceful attitudes, with hanging hands, and eyes, soft as the eyes of
gazelles, that regarded the shadowy paths and creeping waters with a
grave serenity born of the inmost spirit of idleness.

But Batouch loved to talk, and soon began a languid monologue.