CHAPTER XXI
That same day, to the surprise of Batouch, they left Mogar. To bothDomini and Androvsky it seemed a tragic place, a place where the desertshowed them a countenance that was menacing.
They moved on towards the south, wandering aimlessly through the warmregions of the sun. Then, as the spring drew into summer, and the heatbecame daily more intense, they turned again northwards, and on anevening in May pitched their camp on the outskirts of the Sahara city ofAmara.
This city, although situated in the northern part of the desert, wascalled by the Arabs "The belly of the Sahara," and also "The City ofScorpions." It lay in the midst of a vast region of soft and shiftingsand that suggested a white sea, in which the oasis of date palms, atthe edge of which the city stood, was a green island. From the south,whence the wanderers came, the desert sloped gently upwards for a longdistance, perhaps half a day's march, and many kilometres before thecity was reached, the minarets of its mosques were visible, pointingto the brilliant blue sky that arched the whiteness of the sands. Roundabout the city, on every side, great sand-hills rose like rampartserected by Nature to guard it from the assaults of enemies. These hillswere black with the tents of desert tribes, which, from far off, lookedlike multitudes of flies that had settled on the sands. The palms of theoasis, which stretched northwards from the city, could not be seen fromthe south till the city was reached, and in late spring this region wasa strange and barbarous pageant of blue and white and gold; crude inits intensity, fierce in its crudity, almost terrible in its blazingsplendour that was like the Splendour about the portals of the sun.
Domini and Androvsky rode towards Amara at a foot's pace, lookingtowards its distant towers. A quivering silence lay around them,yet already they seemed to hear the cries of the voices of a greatmultitude, to be aware of the movement of thronging crowds of men. Thiswas the first Sahara city they had drawn near to, and their minds werefull of memories of the stories of Batouch, told to them by the campfire at night in the uninhabited places which, till now, had been theirhome: stories of the wealthy date merchants who trafficked here anddwelt in Oriental palaces, poor in aspect as seen from the dark andnarrow streets, or zgags, in which they were situated, but within fullof the splendours of Eastern luxury; of the Jew moneylenders who livedapart in their own quarter, rapacious as wolves, hoarding theirgains, and practising the rites of their ancient and--according to theArabs--detestable religion; of the marabouts, or sacred men, reveredby the Mohammedans, who rode on white horses through the public ways,followed by adoring fanatics who sought to touch their garments andamulets, and demanded importunately miraculous blessings at theirhands--the hedgehog's foot to protect their women in the peril ofchildbirth; the scroll, covered with verses of the Koran and enclosedin a sheaf of leather, that banishes ill dreams at night and stays theuncertain feet of the sleep-walker; the camel's skull that brings fruitto the palm trees; the red coral that stops the flow of blood from aknife-wound--of the dancing-girls glittering in an armour of goldenpieces, their heads tied with purple and red and yellow handkerchiefsof silk, crowned with great bars of solid gold and tufted with ostrichfeathers; of the dwarfs and jugglers who by night perform in themarketplace, contending for custom with the sorceresses who tell thefates from shells gathered by mirage seas; with the snake-charmers--whoare immune from the poison of serpents and the acrobats who come fromfar-off Persia and Arabia to spread their carpets in the shadow of theAgha's dwelling and delight the eyes of negro and Kabyle, of Soudaneseand Touareg with their feats of strength; of the haschish smokers who,assembled by night in an underground house whose ceiling and walls wereblack as ebony, gave themselves up to day-dreams of shifting glory, inwhich the things of earth and the joys and passions of men reappeared,but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous orfairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through whichthe Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even inBaghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which thepalms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams were glidingsilver.
Often they had smiled over Batouch's opulent descriptions of the marvelsof Ain-Amara, which they suspected to be very far away from the reality,and yet, nevertheless, when they saw the minarets soaring above thesands to the brassy heaven, it seemed to them both as if, perhaps, theymight be true. The place looked intensely barbaric. The approach to itwas grandiose.
Wide as the sands had been, they seemed to widen out into a greaterimmensity of arid pallor before the city gates as yet unseen. Thestretch of blue above looked vaster here, the horizons more remote, theradiance of the sun more vivid, more inexorable. Nature surely expandedas if in an effort to hold her arm against some tremendous spectacle setin its bosom by the activity of men, who were strong and ardent asthe giants of old, who had powers and a passion for employing thempersistently not known in any other region of the earth. The immensityof Mogar brought sadness to the mind. The immensity of Ain-Amara broughtexcitement. Even at this distance from it, when its minarets were stilllike shadowy fingers of an unlifted hand, Androvsky and Domini wereconscious of influences streaming forth from its battlements over thesloping sands like a procession that welcomed them to a new phase ofdesert life.
"And people talk of the monotony of the Sahara!" Domini said speakingout of their mutual thought. "Everything is here, Boris; you've neverdrawn near to London. Long before you reach the first suburbs you feelLondon like a great influence brooding over the fields and the woods.Here you feel Amara in the same way brooding over the sands. It's as ifthe sands were full of voices. Doesn't it excite you?"
"Yes," he said. "But"--and he turned in his saddle and looked back--"Ifeel as if the solitudes were safer."
"We can return to them."
"Yes."
"We are splendidly free. There's nothing to prevent us leaving Amaratomorrow."
"Isn't there?" he answered, fixing his eyes upon the minarets.
"What can there be?"
"Who knows?"
"What do you mean, Boris? Are you superstitious? But you reject theinfluence of place. Don't you remember--at Mogar?"
At the mention of the name his face clouded and she was sorry she hadspoken it. Since they had left the hill above the mirage sea they hadscarcely ever alluded to their night there. They had never once talkedof the dinner in camp with De Trevignac and his men, or renewed theirconversation in the tent on the subject of religion. But since that day,since her words about Androvsky's lack of perfect happiness even withher far out in the freedom of the desert, Domini had been consciousthat, despite their great love for each other, their mutual passion forthe solitude in which it grew each day more deep and more engrossing,wrapping their lives in fire and leading them on to the inner abodes ofsacred understanding, there was at moments a barrier between them.
At first she had striven not to recognise its existence. She hadstriven to be blind. But she was essentially a brave woman and an almostfanatical lover of truth for its own sake, thinking that what is calledan ugly truth is less ugly than the loveliest lie. To deny truth is toplay the coward. She could not long do that. And so she quickly learnedto face this truth with steady eyes and an unflinching heart.
At moments Androvsky retreated from her, his mind became remote--more,his heart was far from her, and, in its distant place, was suffering. Ofthat she was assured.
But she was assured, too, that she stood to him for perfection in humancompanionship. A woman's love is, perhaps, the only true divining rod.Domini knew instinctively where lay the troubled waters, what troubledthem in their subterranean dwelling. She was certain that Androvsky wasat peace with her but not with himself. She had said to him in the tentthat she thought he sometimes felt far away from God. The convictiongrew in her that even the satisfaction of his great human love was notenough for his nature. He demanded, sometimes imperiously, not only thepeace that can be understood gloriously, but also that other peace whichpasseth understanding. And because he had it not he suff
ered.
In the Garden of Allah he felt a loneliness even though she was withhim, and he could not speak with her of this loneliness. That was thebarrier between them, she thought.
She prayed for him: in the tent by night, in the desert under theburning sky by day. When the muezzin cried from the minaret of sometiny village lost in the desolation of the wastes, turning to the north,south, east and west, and the Mussulmans bowed their shaved heads,facing towards Mecca, she prayed to the Catholics' God, whom she felt tobe the God, too, of all the devout, of all the religions of the world,and to the Mother of God, looking towards Africa. She prayed that thisman whom she loved, and who she believed was seeking, might find. Andshe felt that there was a strength, a passion in her prayers, whichcould not be rejected. She felt that some day Allah would show himselfin his garden to the wanderer there. She dared to feel that because shedared to believe in the endless mercy of God. And when that moment cameshe felt, too, that their love--hers and his--for each other would becrowned. Beautiful and intense as it was it still lacked something. Itneeded to be encircled by the protecting love of a God in whom they bothbelieved in the same way, and to whom they both were equally near.While she felt close to this love and he far from it they were not quitetogether.
There were moments in which she was troubled, even sad, but they passed.For she had a great courage, a great confidence. The hope that dwellslike a flame in the purity of prayer comforted her.
"I love the solitudes," he said. "I love to have you to myself."
"If we lived always in the greatest city of the world it would make nodifference," she said quietly. "You know that, Boris."
He bent over from his saddle and clasped her hand in his, and they rodethus up the great slope of the sands, with their horses close together.
The minarets of the city grew more distinct. They dominated the waste asthe thought of Allah dominates the Mohammedan world. Presently, far awayon the left, Domini and Androvsky saw hills of sand, clearly definedlike small mountains delicately shaped. On the summits of these hillswere Arab villages of the hue of bronze gleaming in the sun. No treesstood near them. But beyond them, much farther off, was the long greenline of the palms of a large oasis. Between them and the riders movedslowly towards the minarets dark things that looked like serpentswrithing through the sands. These were caravans coming into the cityfrom long journeys. Here and there, dotted about in the immensity, weresolitary horsemen, camels in twos and threes, small troops ofdonkeys. And all the things that moved went towards the minarets as ifirresistibly drawn onwards by some strong influence that sucked them infrom the solitudes of the whirlpool of human life.
Again Domini thought of the approach to London, and of the dominion ofgreat cities, those octopus monsters created by men, whose tentaclesare strong to seize and stronger still to keep. She was infected byAndrovsky's dread of a changed life, and through her excitement, thatpulsed with interest and curiosity, she felt a faint thrill of somethingthat was like fear.
"Boris," she said, "I feel as if your thoughts were being conveyed to meby your touch. Perhaps the solitudes are best."
By a simultaneous impulse they pulled in their horses and listened.Sounds came to them over the sands, thin and remote. They could not tellwhat they were, but they knew that they heard something which suggestedthe distant presence of life.
"What is it?" said Domini.
"I don't know, but I hear something. It travels to us from theminarets."
They both leaned forward on their horses' necks, holding each other'shand.
"I feel the tumult of men," Androvsky said presently.
"And I. But it seems as if no men could have elected to build a cityhere."
"Here in the 'Belly of the desert,'" he said, quoting the Arabs' namefor Amara.
"Boris"--she spoke in a more eager voice, clasping his handstrongly--"you remember the _fumoir_ in Count Anteoni's garden. Theplace where it stood was the very heart of the garden."
"Yes."
"We understood each other there."
He pressed her hand without speaking.
"Amara seems to me the heart of the Garden of Allah. Perhaps--perhaps weshall----"
She paused. Her eyes were fixed upon his face.
"What, Domini?" he asked.
He looked expectant, but anxious, and watched her, but with eyes thatseemed ready to look away from her at a word.
"Perhaps we shall understand each other even better there."
He looked down at the white sand.
"Better!" he repeated. "Could we do that?"
She did not answer. The far-off villages gleamed mysteriously on theirlittle mountains, like unreal things that might fade away as castlesfade in the fire. The sky above the minarets was changing in colourslowly. Its blue was being invaded by a green that was a sister colour.A curious light, that seemed to rise from below rather than to descendfrom above, was transmuting the whiteness of the sands. A lemonyellow crept through them, but they still looked cold and strange,and immeasurably vast. Domini fancied that the silence of the desertdeepened so that, in it, they might hear the voices of Amara moredistinctly.
"You know," she said, "when one looks out over the desert from a height,as we did from the tower of Beni-Mora, it seems to call one. There'sa voice in the blue distance that seems to say, 'Come to me! I amhere--hidden in my retreat, beyond the blue, and beyond the mirage, andbeyond the farthest verge!'"
"Yes, I know."
"I have always felt, when we travelled in the desert, that the callingthing, the soul of the desert, retreated as I advanced, and stillsummoned me onward but always from an infinite distance."
"And I too, Domini."
"Now I don't feel that. I feel as if now we were coming near to thevoice, as if we should reach it at Amara, as if there it would tell usits secret."
"Imagination!" he said.
But he spoke seriously, almost mystically. His voice was at odds withthe word it said. She noticed that and was sure that he was secretlysharing her sensation. She even suspected that he had perhaps felt itfirst.
"Let us ride on," he said. "Do you see the change in the light? Doyou see the green in the sky? It is cooler, too. This is the wind ofevening."
Their hands fell apart and they rode slowly on, up the long slope of thesands.
Presently they saw that they had come out of the trackless waste andthat though still a long way from the city they were riding on a desertroad which had been trodden by multitudes of feet. There were manyfootprints here. On either side were low banks of sand, beaten into arough symmetry by implements of men, and shallow trenches through whichno water ran. In front of them they saw the numerous caravans, now moredistinct, converging from left and right slowly to this great isle ofthe desert which stretched in a straight line to the minarets.
"We are on a highway," Domini said.
Androvsky sighed.
"I feel already as if we were in the midst of a crowd," he answered.
"Our love for peace oughtn't to make us hate our fellowmen!" she said."Come, Boris, let us chase away our selfish mood!"
She spoke in a more cheerful voice and drew her rein a little tighter.Her horse quickened its pace.
"And think how our stay at Amara will make us love the solitudes when wereturn to them again. Contrast is the salt of life."
"You speak as if you didn't believe what you are saying."
She laughed.
"If I were ever inclined to tell you a lie," she said, "I should notdare to. Your mind penetrates mine too deeply."
"You could not tell me a lie."
"Do you hear the dogs barking?" she said, after a moment. "They areamong those tents that are like flies on the sands around the city. Thatis the tribe of the Ouled Nails I suppose. Batouch says they camp here.What multitudes of tents! Those are the suburbs of Amara. I would ratherlive in them than in the suburbs of London. Oh, how far away we are, asif we were at the end of the world!"
Either her last words, or her previous chan
ge of manner to a lightercheerfulness, almost a briskness, seemed to rouse Androvsky to a greaterconfidence, even to anticipation of possible pleasure.
"Yes. After all it is only the desert men who are here. Amara is theirMetropolis, and in it we shall only see their life."
His horse plunged. He had touched it sharply with his heel.
"I believe you hate the thought of civilisation," she exclaimed.
"And you?"
"I never think of it. I feel almost as if I had never known it, andcould never know it."
"Why should you? You love the wilds."
"They make my whole nature leap. Even when I was a child it was so.I remember once reading _Maud_. In it I came upon a passage--I can'tremember it well, but it was about the red man--"
She thought for a moment, looking towards the city.
"I don't know how it is quite," she murmured. "'When the red manlaughs by his cedar tree, and the red man's babe leaps beyond thesea'--something like that. But I know that it made my heart beat, andthat I felt as if I had wings and were spreading them to fly away tothe most remote places of the earth. And now I have spread my wings,and--it's glorious. Come, Boris!"
They put their horses to a canter, and soon drew near to the caravans.They had sent Batouch and Ali, who generally accompanied them, on withthe rest of the camp. Both had many friends in Amara, and were eager tobe there. It was obvious that they and all the attendants, servants andcamel-men, thought of it as the provincial Frenchman thinks of Paris, asa place of all worldly wonders and delights. Batouch was to meet themat the entrance to the city, and when they had seen the marvels of itsmarket-place was to conduct them to the tents which would be pitched onthe sand-hills outside.
Their horses pulled as if they, too, longed for a spell of city lifeafter the life of the wastes, and Domini's excitement grew. She feltvivid animal spirits boiling up within her, the sane and healthy sensethat welcomes a big manifestation of the ceaseless enterprise and keenactivity of a brotherhood of men. The loaded camels, the half-nakedrunning drivers, the dogs sensitively sniffing, as if enticing smellsfrom the city already reached their nostrils, the chattering desertmerchants discussing coming gains, the wealthy and richly-dressed Arabs,mounted on fine horses, and staring with eyes that glittered up thebroad track in search of welcoming friends, were sympathetic to hermood. Amara was sucking them all in together from the solitary places asquiet waters are sucked into the turmoils of a mill-race. Althoughstill out in the sands they were already in the midst of a noise oflife flowing to meet the roar of life that rose up at the feet of theminarets, which now looked tall and majestic in the growing beauty ofthe sunset.
They passed the caravans one by one, and came on to the crest of thelong sand slope just as the sky above the city was flushing with abright geranium red. The track from here was level to the city wall,and was no longer soft with sand. A broad, hard road rang beneath theirhorses' hoofs, startling them with a music that was like a voice ofcivilised life. Before them, under the red sky, they saw a dark blue ofdistant houses, towers, and great round cupolas glittering like gold.Forests of palm trees lay behind, the giant date palms for which Amarawas famous. To the left stretched the sands dotted with gleaming Arabvillages, to the right again the sands covered with hundreds of tentsamong which quantities of figures moved lively like ants, black on theyellow, arched by the sky that was alive with lurid colour, red fadinginto gold, gold into primrose, primrose into green, green into the bluethat still told of the fading day. And to this multi-coloured sky, fromthe barbaric city and the immense sands in which it was set, rose agreat chorus of life; voices of men and beasts, cries of naked childrenplaying Cora on the sand-hills, of mothers to straying infants, shrilllaughter of unveiled girls wantonly gay, the calls of men, the barkingof multitudes of dogs,--the guard dogs of the nomads that are neversilent night or day,--the roaring of hundreds of camels now beingunloaded for the night, the gibbering of the mad beggars who roamperpetually on the outskirts of the encampments like wolves seeking whatthey may devour, the braying of donkeys, the whinnying of horses. Andbeneath these voices of living things, foundation of their uprisingvitality, pulsed barbarous music, the throbbing tomtoms that are forever heard in the lands of the sun, fetish music that suggests fatalism,and the grand monotony of the enormous spaces, and the crude passionthat repeats itself, and the untiring, sultry loves and the untired,sultry languors of the children of the sun.
The silence of the sands, which Domini and Androvsky had known andloved, was merged in the tumult of the sands. The one had been mystical,laying the soul to rest. The other was provocative, calling the soul towake. At this moment the sands themselves seemed to stir with life andto cry aloud with voices.
"The very sky is barbarous to-night!" Domini exclaimed. "Did you eversee such colour, Boris?"
"Over the minarets it is like a great wound," he answered.
"No wonder men are careless of human life in such a land as this. Allthe wildness of the world seems to be concentrated here. Amara is likethe desert city of some tremendous dream. It looks wicked and unearthly,but how superb!"
"Look at those cupolas!" he said. "Are there really Oriental palaceshere? Has Batouch told us the truth for once?"
"Or less than the truth? I could believe anything of Amara at thismoment. What hundreds of camels! They remind me of Arba, our firsthalting-place." She looked at him and he at her.
"How long ago that seems!" she said.
"A thousand years ago."
They both had a memory of a great silence, in the midst of this growingtumult in which the sky seemed now to take its part, calling with thevoices of its fierce colours, with the voices of the fires that burdenedit in the west.
"Silence joined us, Domini," Androvsky said.
"Yes. Perhaps silence is the most beautiful voice in the world."
Far off, along the great white road, they saw two horsemen galloping tomeet them from the city, one dressed in brilliant saffron yellow, theother in the palest blue, both crowned with large and snowy turbans.
"Who can they be?" said Domini, as they drew near. "They look like twoprinces of the Sahara."
Then she broke into a merry laugh.
"Batouch! and Ali!" she exclaimed.
The servants galloped up then, without slackening speed deftly wheeledtheir horses in a narrow circle, and were beside them, going with them,one on the right hand, the other on the left.
"Bravo!" Domini cried, delighted at this feat of horsemanship. "But whathave you been doing? You are transformed!"
"Madame, we have been to the Bain Maure," replied Batouch, calmly,swelling out his broad chest under his yellow jacket laced with gold."We have had our heads shaved till they are smooth and beautiful aspolished ivory. We have been to the perfumer"--he leaned confidentiallytowards her, exhaling a pungent odour of amber--"to the tailor, tothe baboosh bazaar!"--he kicked out a foot cased in a slipper that wasbright almost as a gold piece--"to him who sells the cherchia." He shookhis head till the spangled muslin that flowed about it trembled. "Is itnot right that your servants should do you honour in the city?"
"Perfectly right," she answered with a careful seriousness. "I am proudof you both."
"And Monsieur?" asked Ali, speaking in his turn.
Androvsky withdrew his eyes from the city, which was now near at hand.
"Splendid!" he said, but as if attending to the Arabs with difficulty."You are splendid."
As they came towards the old wall which partially surrounds Amara, andwhich rises from a deep natural moat of sand, they saw that the groundimmediately before the city which, from a distance, had looked almostfiat, was in reality broken up into a series of wavelike dunes, somesmall with depressions like deep crevices between them, others largewith summits like plateaux. These dunes were of a sharp lemon yellowin the evening light, a yellow that was cold in its clearness, almostsetting the teeth on edge. They went away into great rolling slopes ofsand on which the camps of the nomads and the Ouled Nails were pitched,s
ome near to, some distant from, the city, but they themselves weresolitary. No tents were pitched close to the city, under the shadow ofits wall. As Androvsky spoke, Domini exclaimed:
"Boris---look! That is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen!"
She put her hand on his arm. He obeyed her eyes and looked to his right,to the small lemon-yellow dunes that were close to them. At perhaps ahundred yards from the road was a dune that ran parallel with it. Thefire of the sinking sun caught its smooth crest, and above this crest,moving languidly towards the city, were visible the heads and busts ofthree women, the lower halves of whose bodies were concealed by thesand of the farther side of the dune. They were dancing-girls. On theirheads, piled high with gorgeous handkerchiefs, were golden crowns whichglittered in the sun-rays, and tufts of scarlet feathers. Their ovalfaces, covered with paint, were partially concealed by long strings ofgold coins, which flowed from their crowns down over their large breastsand disappeared towards their waists, which were hidden by the sand.Their dresses were of scarlet, apple-green and purple silks, partiallycovered by floating shawls of spangled muslin. Beneath their crowns andhandkerchiefs burgeoned forth plaits of false hair decorated with coraland silver ornaments. Their hands, which they held high, gesticulatingabove the crest of the dune, were painted blood red.
These busts and heads glided slowly along in the setting sun, andpresently sank down and vanished into some depression of the dunes. Foran instant one blood-red hand was visible alone, waving a signal abovethe sand to someone unseen. Its fingers fluttered like the wings of astartled bird. Then it, too, vanished, and the sharply-cold lemon yellowof the dunes stretched in vivid loneliness beneath the evening sky.
To both of them this brief vision of women in the sand brought homethe solitude of the desert and the barbarity of the life it held, theascetism of this supreme manifestation of Nature and the animal passionwhich fructifies in its heart.
"Do you know what that made me think of, Boris?" Domini said, as thered hand with its swiftly-moving fingers disappeared. "You'll smile,perhaps, and I scarcely know why. It made me think of the Devil in amonastery."
Androvsky did not smile. Nor did he answer. She felt sure that he, too,had been strongly affected by that glimpse of Sahara life. His silencegave Batouch an opportunity of pouring forth upon them a flood ofpoetical description of the dancing-girls of Amara, all of whom heseemed to know as intimate friends. Before he ceased they came into thecity.
The road was still majestically broad. They looked with interest at thefirst houses, one on each side of the way. And here again they were metby the sharp contrast which was evidently to be the keynote of Amara.The house on the left was European, built of white stone, clean,attractive, but uninteresting, with stout white pillars of plastersupporting an arcade that afforded shade from the sun, windows withgreen blinds, and an open doorway showing a little hall, on the floorof which lay a smart rug glowing with gay colours; that on the right,before which the sand lay deep as if drifted there by some recentwind of the waste, was African and barbarous, an immense and ramblingbuilding of brown earth, brushwood and palm, windowless, with aflat-terraced roof, upon which were piled many strange-looking objectslike things collapsed, red and dark green, with fringes and rosettes,and tall sticks of palm pointing vaguely to the sky.
"Why, these are like our palanquin!" Domini said.
"They are the palanquins of the dancing-girls, Madame," said Batouch."That is the cafe of the dancers, and that"--he pointed to the neathouse opposite--"is the house of Monsieur the Aumonier of Amara."
"Aumonier," said Androvsky, sharply. "Here!"
He paused, then added more quietly:
"What should he do here?"
"But, Monsieur, he is for the French officers."
"There are French officers?"
"Yes, Monsieur, four or five, and the commandant. They live in thepalace with the cupolas."
"I forgot," Androvsky said to Domini. "We are not out of the sphere ofFrench influence. This place looks so remote and so barbarous that Iimagined it given over entirely to the desert men."
"We need not see the French," she said. "We shall be encamped outside inthe sand."
"And we need not stay here long," he said quickly.
"Boris," she asked him, half in jest, half in earnest, "shall we buy adesert island to live in?"
"Let us buy an oasis," he said. "That would be the perf--the safest lifefor us."
"The safest?"
"The safest for our happiness. Domini, I have a horror of the world!" Hesaid the last words with a strong, almost fierce, emphasis.
"Had you it always, or only since we have been married?"
"I--perhaps it was born in me, perhaps it is part of me. Who knows?"
He had relapsed into a gravity that was heavy with gloom, and lookedabout him with eyes that seemed to wish to reject all that offereditself to their sight.
"I want the desert and you in it," he said. "The lonely desert, withyou."
"And nothing else?"
"I want that. I cannot have that taken from me."
He looked about him quickly from side to side as they rode up thestreet, as if he were a scout sent in advance of an army and suspectedambushes. His manner reminded her of the way he had looked towards thetower as they rode into Mogar. And he had connected that tower with theFrench. She remembered his saying to her that it must have been builtfor French soldiers. As they rode into Mogar he had dreaded something inMogar. The strange incident with De Trevignac had followed. She had putit from her mind as a matter of small, or no, importance, had resolutelyforgotten it, had been able to forget it in their dream of desert lifeand desert passion. But the entry into a city for the moment destroyedthe dreamlike atmosphere woven by the desert, recalled her town sense,that quick-wittedness, that sharpness of apprehension and swiftness ofobservation which are bred in those who have long been accustomed toa life in the midst of crowds and movement, and changing scenes andpassing fashions. Suddenly she seemed to herself to be reading Androvskywith an almost merciless penetration, which yet she could not check. Hehad dreaded something in Mogar. He dreaded something here in Amara. Anunusual incident--for the coming of a stranger into their lives out oftheir desolation of the sand was unusual--had followed close upon thefirst dread. Would another such incident follow upon this second dread?And of what was this dread born?
Batouch drew her attention to the fact that they were coming to themarketplace, and to the curious crowds of people who were swarming outof the tortuous, narrow streets into the main thoroughfare to watch thempass, or to accompany them, running beside their horses. She divinedat once, by the passionate curiosity their entry aroused, that he hadmisspent his leisure in spreading through the city lying reports oftheir immense importance and fabulous riches.
"Batouch," she said, "you have been talking about us."
"No, Madame, I merely said that Madame is a great lady in her own land,and that Monsieur--"
"I forbid you ever to speak about me, Batouch," said Androvsky,brusquely.
He seemed worried by the clamour of the increasing mob that surroundedthem. Children in long robes like night-gowns skipped before them,calling out in shrill voices. Old beggars, with diseased eyes anddeformed limbs, laid filthy hands upon their bridles and demanded alms.Impudent boys, like bronze statuettes suddenly endowed with a furyof life, progressed backwards to keep them full in view, shoutinginformation at them and proclaiming their own transcendent virtuesas guides. Lithe desert men, almost naked, but with carefully-coveredheads, strode beside them, keeping pace with the horses, saying nothing,but watching them with a bright intentness that seemed to hint atunutterable designs. And towards them, through the air that seemed heavyand almost suffocating now that they were among buildings, and throughclouds of buzzing flies, came the noise of the larger tumult of themarket-place.
Looking over the heads of the throng Domini saw the wide road openingout into a great space, with the first palms of the oasis throngingon the l
eft, and a cluster of buildings, many with small cupolas, likedown-turned white cups, on the right. On the farther side of this space,which was black with people clad for the most in dingy garments, was anarcade jutting out from a number of hovel-like houses, and to the rightof them, where the market-place, making a wide sweep, continued up hilland was hidden from her view, was the end of the great building whosegilded cupolas they had seen as they rode in from the desert, risingabove the city with the minarets of its mosques.
The flies buzzed furiously about the horses' heads and flanks, and thepeople buzzed more furiously, like larger flies, about the riders. Itseemed to Domini as if the whole city was intent upon her and Androvsky,was observing them, considering them, wondering about them, was full ofa thousand intentions all connected with them.
When they gained the market-place the noise and the watchful curiositymade a violent crescendo. It happened to be market day and, although thesun was setting, buying and selling were not yet over. On the hot earthover which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the white sandgrains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy colours onwhich were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy ornaments forwomen, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of bright redleather, slippers, weapons--many jewelled and gilt, or rich withpatterns in silver--pyramids of the cords of camels' hair that bind theturbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all the coloursof the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered with golden andsilver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of henna to dye thefinger-nails of the faithful, innumerable comestibles, vegetables, corn,red butcher's meat thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellowcakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers--which,cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelmingeven than that produced by haschish--musical instruments, derboukas,guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms,skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, andplaits of false hair.
The sellers squatted on the ground, their brown and hairy legs crossed,calmly gazing before them, or, with frenzied voices and gestures,driving bargains with the buyers, who moved to and fro, treadingcarelessly among the merchandise. The tellers of fates glided throughthe press, fingering the amulets that hung upon their hearts. Conjurorsproclaimed the merits of their miracles, bawling in the faces of thecurious. Dwarfs went to and fro, dressed in bright colours with greenand yellow turbans on their enormous heads, tapping with long staves,and relating their deformities. Water-sellers sounded their gongs.Before pyramids of oranges and dates, neatly arranged in patterns,sat boys crying in shrill voices the luscious virtues of their fruits.Idiots, with blear eyes and protending under-lips, gibbered and whined.Dogs barked. Bakers hurried along with trays of loaves upon their heads.From the low and smoky arcades to right and left came the reiteratedgrunt of negroes pounding coffee. A fanatic was roaring out his prayers.Arabs in scarlet and blue cloaks passed by to the Bain Maure, underwhose white and blue archway lounged the Kabyle masseurs with folded,muscular arms. A marabout, black as a coal, rode on a white horsetowards the great mosque, followed by his servant on foot.
Native soldiers went by to the Kasba on the height, or strolled downtowards the Cafes Maures smoking cigarettes. Circles of grave men bentover card games, dominoes and draughts--called by the Arabs the Ladies'Game. Khodjas made their way with dignity towards the Bureau Arabe.Veiled women, fat and lethargic, jingling with ornaments, waddledthrough the arches of the arcades, carrying in their painted andperspiring hands blocks of sweetmeats which drew the flies. Childrenplayed in the dust by little heaps of refuse, which they stirred up intoclouds with their dancing, naked feet. In front, as if from the firstpalms of the oasis, rose the roar of beaten drums from the negroes'quarter, and from the hill-top at the feet of the minarets came thefierce and piteous noise that is the _leit-motif_ of the desert, themultitudinous complaining of camels dominating all other sounds.
As Domini and Androvsky rode into this whirlpool of humanity, abovewhich the sky was red like a great wound, it flowed and eddied roundthem, making them its centre. The arrival of a stranger-woman was arare, if not an unparalleled, event in Amara, and Batouch had been verybusy in spreading the fame of his mistress.
"Madame should dismount," said Batouch. "Ali will take the horses, andI will escort Madame and Monsieur up the hill to the place of thefountain. Shabah will be there to greet Madame."
"What an uproar!" Domini exclaimed, half laughing, half confused. "Whoon earth is Shabah?"
"Shabah is the Caid of Amara," replied Batouch with dignity. "Thegreatest man of the city. He awaits Madame by the fountain." Domini casta glance at Androvsky.
"Well?" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders like a man who thinks strife useless and themoment come for giving in to Fate.
"The monster has opened his jaws for us," he said, forcing a laugh."We had better walk in, I suppose. But--O Domini!--the silence of thewastes!"
"We shall know it again. This is only for the moment. We shall have allits joy again."
"Who knows?" he said, as he had said when they were riding up the sandslope. "Who knows?"
Then they got off their horses and were taken by the crowd.