After the reply the "/Domine, exaudi orationem meam/," the "/Et clamor/," the "/Dominus vobiscum/," and the "/Et cum spiritu tuo/," the "/Oremus/," and the prayer following, he sprinkled the ring with holy water in the form of a cross and gave it to Androvsky to give with gold and silver to Domini. Androvsky took the ring, repeated the formula, "With this ring," etc., then still, as it seemed to the priest, with the same sinister deliberation, placed it on the thumb of the bride's uncovered hand, saying, "/In the name of the Father/," then on her second finger, saying, "/Of the Son/," then on her third finger, saying, "/Of the Holy Ghost/," then on her fourth finger. But at this moment, when he should have said "/Amen/," there was a long pause of silence. During it--why he did not know--the priest found himself thinking of the saying of St. Isidore of Seville that the ring of marriage is left on the fourth finger of the bride's hand because that finger contains a vein directly connected with the heart.
"/Amen/."
Androvsky had spoken. The priest started, and went on with the "/Confirma, hoc, Deus/." And from this point until the "/Per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen/," which, since there was no Mass, closed the ceremony, he felt more master of himself and his emotions than at any time previously during this day. A sensation of finality, of the irrevocable, came to him. He said within himself, "This matter has passed out of my hands into the hands of God." And in the midst of the violence of the storm a calm stole upon his spirit. "God knows best!" he said within himself. "God knows best!"
Those words and the state of feeling that was linked with them were and had always been to him as mighty protecting arms that uplifted him above the beating waves of the sea of life. The Wedding March sounded when the priest bade good-bye to the husband and wife whom he had made one. He was able to do it tranquilly. He even pressed Androvsky's hand.
"Be good to her," he said. "She is--she is a good woman."
To his surprise Androvsky suddenly wrung his hand almost passionately, and the priest saw that there were tears in his eyes.
That night the priest prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in the desert.
When Domini and Androvsky came out from the church they saw vaguely a camel lying down before the door, bending its head and snarling fiercely. Upon its back was a palanquin of dark-red stuff, with a roof of stuff stretched upon strong, curved sticks, and curtains which could be drawn or undrawn at pleasure. The desert men crowded about it like eager phantoms in the wind, half seen in the driving mist of sand. Clinging to Androvsky's arm, Domini struggled forward to the camel. As she did so, Smain, unfolding for an instant his burnous, pressed into her hands his mass of roses. She thanked him with a smile he scarcely saw and a word that was borne away upon the wind. At Larbi's lips she saw the little flute and his thick fingers fluttering upon the holes. She knew that he was playing his love-song for her, but she could not hear it except in her heart. The perfume-seller sprinkled her gravely with essence, and for a moment she felt as if she were again in his dark bazaar, and seemed to catch among the voices of the storm the sound of men muttering prayers to Allah as in the mosque of Sidi-Zazan.
Then she was in the palanquin with Androvsky close beside her.
At this moment Batouch took hold of the curtains of the palanquin to draw them close, but she put out her hand and stopped him. She wanted to see the last of the church, of the tormented gardens she had learnt to love.
He looked astonished, but yielded to her gesture, and told the camel- driver to make the animal rise to its feet. The driver took his stick and plied it, crying out, "A-ah! A-ah!" The camel turned its head towards him, showing its teeth, and snarling with a sort of dreary passion.
"A-ah!" shouted the driver. "A-ah! A-ah!"
The camel began to get up.
As it did so, from the shrouded group of desert men one started forward to the palanquin, throwing off his burnous and gesticulating with thin naked arms, as if about to commit some violent act. It was the sand-diviner. Made fantastic and unreal by the whirling sand grains, Domini saw his lean face pitted with small-pox; his eyes, blazing with an intelligence that was demoniacal, fixed upon her; the long wound that stretched from his cheek to his forehead. The pleading that had been mingled with the almost tyrannical command of his demeanour had vanished now. He looked ferocious, arbitrary, like a savage of genius full of some frightful message of warning or rebuke.
As the camel rose he cried aloud some words in Arabic. Domini heard his voice, but could not understand the words. Laying his hands on the stuff of the palanquin he shouted again, then took away his hands and shook them above his head towards the desert, still staring at Domini with his fanatical eyes.
The wind shrieked, the sand grains whirled in spirals about his body, the camel began to move away from the church slowly towards the village.
"A-ah!" cried the camel-driver. "A-ah!"
In the storm his call sounded like a wail of despair.