“I leave it to you, Batouch,” she said. “But, remember, as few people and beasts as possible. And as you say we must have camels for certain parts of the journey, we will travel the first stage on camel-back.” Consciously she helped to fulfil the prediction of the Diviner, and then she left Batouch free. Now outside the church, shrouded closely in hoods and haiks, grey and brown bundles with staring eyes, the desert men were huddled against the church wall in the wind. Hadj was there, and Smain, sheltering in his burnous roses from Count Anteoni’s garden. Larbi had come with his flute and the perfume-seller from his black bazaar. For Domini had bought perfumes from him on her last day in Beni-Mora. Most of Count Anteoni’s gardeners had assembled. They looked upon the Roumi lady, who rode magnificently, but who could dream as they dreamed, too, as a friend. Had she not haunted the alleys where they worked and idled till they had learned to expect her, and to miss her when she did not come? And with those whom Domini knew were assembled their friends, and their friends’ friends, men of Beni-Mora, men from the near oasis, and also many of those desert wanderers who drift in daily out of the sands to the centres of buying and selling, barter their goods for the goods of the South, or sell their loads of dates for money, and, having enjoyed the dissipation of the cafés and of the dancing-houses, drift away again into the pathless wastes which are their home. Few of the French population had ventured out, and the church itself was almost deserted when the hour for the wedding drew nigh. The priest came from his little house, bending forward against the wind, his eyes partially protected from the driving sand by blue spectacles. His face, which was habitually grave, to-day looked sad and stern, like the face of a man about to perform a task that was against his inclination, even perhaps against his conscience. He glanced at the waiting Arabs and hastened into the church, taking off his spectacles as he did so, and wiping his eyes, which were red from the action of the sand-grains, with a silk pocket-handkerchief. When he reached the sacristy he shut himself into it alone for a moment. He sat down on a chair and, leaning his arms upon the wooden table that stood in the centre of the room, bent forward and stared before him at the wall opposite, listening to the howling of the wind.