Vera was the first to open her lips. “You heard it then,” she said breathlessly, her face whiter than the ceiling.
“Damn!” exclaimed her brother furiously. “It was wind against the outside walls — wind in the desert. The sand is driving.”
Vera looked at him. She shrank closer against the side of the older woman, whose arm was tight about her.
“It was not wind,” she whispered simply. She paused. All waited uneasily for the completion of her sentence. They stared into her face like peasants who expected a miracle.
“Wings,” she whispered. “It was the sound of enormous wings.”
• • •
And at four o’clock in the morning, when they all returned exhausted from their excursion into the desert, little Binovitch was sleeping soundly and peacefully in his bed. They passed his door on tiptoe. But
