CHAPTER VII
The music of things from below stole up through the ethereal spaces toDomini without piercing her dream. But suddenly she started with asense of pain so acute that it shook her body and set the pulses in hertemples beating. She lifted her arms swiftly from the parapet and turnedher head. She had heard a little grating noise which seemed to be nearto her, enclosed with her on this height in the narrow space of thetower. Slight as it was, and short--already she no longer heard it--ithad in an instant driven her out of Heaven, as if it had been an angelwith a flaming sword. She felt sure that there must be something alivewith her at the tower summit, something which by a sudden movement hadcaused the little noise she had heard. What was it? When she turned herhead she could only see the outer wall of the staircase, a section ofthe narrow white space which surrounded it, an angle of the parapet andblue air.
She listened, holding her breath and closing her two hands on theparapet, which was warm from the sun. Now, caught back to reality, shecould hear faintly the sounds from below in Beni-Mora. But they did notconcern her, and she wished to shut them out from her ears. What didconcern her was to know what was with her up in the sky. Had a birdalighted on the parapet and startled her by scratching at the plasterwith its beak? Could a mouse have shuffled in the wall? Or was there ahuman being up there hidden from her by the masonry?
This last supposition disturbed her almost absurdly for a moment. Shewas inclined to walk quickly round to the opposite side of the tower,but something stronger than her inclination, an imperious shyness, heldher motionless. She had been carried so far away from the world thatshe felt unable to face the scrutiny of any world-bound creature. Havingbeen in the transparent region of magic it seemed to her as if hersecret, the great secret of the absolutely true, the naked personalityhidden in every human being, were set blazing in her eyes like sometorch borne in a procession, just for that moment. The moment past, shecould look anyone fearlessly in the face; but not now, not yet.
While she stood there, half turning round, she heard the sound again andknew what caused it. A foot had shifted on the plaster floor. There wassomeone else then looking out over the desert. A sudden idea struck her.Probably it was Count Anteoni. He knew she was coming and might havedecided to act once more as her cicerone. He had not heard her climbingthe stairs, and, having gone to the far side of the tower, was no doubtwatching the sunset, lost in a dream as she had been.
She resolved not to disturb him--if it was he. When he had dreamedenough he must inevitably come round to where she was standing in orderto gain the staircase. She would let him find her there. Less troublednow, but in an utterly changed mood, she turned, leaned once more onthe parapet and looked over, this time observantly, prepared to note thedetails that, combined and veiled in the evening light of Africa, madethe magic which had so instantly entranced her.
She looked down into the village and could see its extent, precisely howit was placed in the Sahara, in what relation exactly it stood to themountain ranges, to the palm groves and the arid, sunburnt tracts, whereits life centred and where it tailed away into suburban edges not unlikethe ragged edges of worn garments, where it was idle and frivolous,where busy and sedulous. She realised for the first time that therewere two distinct layers of life in Beni-Mora--the life of the streets,courts, gardens and market-place, and above it the life of the roofs.Both were now spread out before her, and the latter, in its domesticintimacy, interested and charmed her. She saw upon the roofs thechildren playing with little dogs, goats, fowls, mothers in rags ofgaudy colours stirring the barley for cous-cous, shredding vegetables,pounding coffee, stewing meat, plucking chickens, bending over bowlsfrom which rose the steam of soup; small girls, seated in dusty corners,solemnly winding wool on sticks, and pausing, now and then, to squeak todistant members of the home circle, or to smell at flowers laid besidethem as solace to their industry. An old grandmother rocked and kisseda naked baby with a pot belly. A big grey rat stole from a rubbish heapclose by her, flitted across the sunlit space, and disappeared into acranny. Pigeons circled above the home activities, delicate lovers ofthe air, wandered among the palm tops, returned and fearlessly alightedon the brown earth parapets, strutting hither and thither and makingtheir perpetual, characteristic motion of the head, half nod, halfgenuflection. Veiled girls promenaded to take the evening cool, foldingtheir arms beneath their flowing draperies, and chattering to oneanother in voices that Domini could not hear. More close at hand certainroofs in the dancers' street revealed luxurious sofas on which paintedhouris were lolling in sinuous attitudes, or were posed with a stiffnessof idols, little tables set with coffee cups, others round which weregathered Zouaves intent on card games, but ever ready to pause for acaress or for some jesting absurdity with the women who squatted besidethem. Some men, dressed like girls, went to and fro, serving the dancerswith sweetmeats and with cigarettes, their beards flowing down with agrotesque effect over their dresses of embroidered muslin, their hairyarms emerging from hanging sleeves of silk. A negro boy sat holding atomtom between his bare knees and beating it with supple hands, and aJewess performed the stomach dance, waving two handkerchiefs stained redand purple, and singing in a loud and barbarous contralto voice whichDomini could hear but very faintly. The card-players stopped their gameand watched her, and Domini watched too. For the first time, and fromthis immense height, she saw this universal dance of the east; thedoll-like figure, fantastically dwarfed, waving its tiny hands,wriggling its minute body, turning about like a little top, struttingand bending, while the soldiers--small almost from here as toys takenout of a box--assumed attitudes of deep attention as they leaned uponthe card-table, stretching out their legs enveloped in balloon-liketrousers.
Domini thought of the recruits, now, no doubt, undergoing elsewheretheir initiation. For a moment she seemed to see their coarse peasantfaces rigid with surprise, their hanging jaws, their childish, and yetsensual, round eyes. Notre Dame de la Garde must seem very far away fromthem now.
With that thought she looked quickly away from the Jewess and thesoldiers. She felt a sudden need of something more nearly in relationwith her inner self. She was almost angry as she realised how deep hadbeen her momentary interest in a scene suggestive of a license which wassurely unattractive to her. Yet was it unattractive? She scarcelyknew. But she knew that it had kindled in her a sudden and very strongcuriosity, even a vague, momentary desire that she had been born in sometent of the Ouled Nails--no, that was impossible. She had not felt sucha desire even for an instant. She looked towards the thickets of thepalms, towards the mountains full of changing, exquisite colours,towards the desert. And at once the dream began to return, and she feltas if hands slipped under her heart and uplifted it.
What depths and heights were within her, what deep, dark valleys,and what mountain peaks! And how she travelled within herself, withswiftness of light, with speed of the wind. What terrors of activity sheknew. Did every human being know similar terrors?
The colours everywhere deepened as day failed. The desert spirits wereat work. She thought of Count Anteoni again, and resolved to go round tothe other side of the tower. As she moved to do this she heard once morethe shifting of a foot on the plaster floor, then a step. Evidentlyshe had infected him with an intention similar to her own. She went on,still hearing the step, turned the corner and stood face to face in thestrong evening light with the traveller. Their bodies almost touched inthe narrow space before they both stopped, startled. For a moment theystood still looking at each other, as people might look who have spokentogether, who know something of each other's lives, who may like ordislike, wish to avoid or to draw near to each other, but who cannotpretend that they are complete strangers, wholly indifferent to eachother. They met in the sky, almost as one bird may meet another on thewing. And, to Domini, at any rate, it seemed as if the depth, height,space, colour, mystery and calm--yes, even the calm--which were above,around and beneath them, had been placed there by hidden hands as asetting for their encounter, even a
s the abrupt pageant of the previousday, into which the train had emerged from the blackness of the tunnel,had surely been created as a frame for the face which had looked uponher as if out of the heart of the sun. The assumption was absurd,unreasonable, yet vital. She did not combat it because she felt it toopowerful for common sense to strive against. And it seemed to her thatthe stranger felt it too, that she saw her sensation reflected in hiseyes as he stood between the parapet and the staircase wall, barring--indespite of himself--her path. The moment seemed long while they stoodmotionless. Then the man took off his soft hat awkwardly, yet with realpoliteness, and stood quickly sideways against the parapet to let herpass. She could have passed if she had brushed against him, and made amovement to do so. Then she checked herself and looked at him again asif she expected him to speak to her. His hat was still in his hand, andthe light desert wind faintly stirred his short brown hair. He did notspeak, but stood there crushing himself against the plaster work with asort of fierce timidity, as if he dreaded the touch of her skirt againsthim, and longed to make himself small, to shrivel up and let her go byin freedom.
"Thank you," she said in French.
She passed him, but was unable to do so without touching him. Her leftarm was hanging down, and her bare hand knocked against the back of thehand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment shetouched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatiguedmen sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly,sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. Theintense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, hisattitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politenessagainst the white wall, the expression in his eyes when their handstouched--a look she could not analyse, but which seemed to hold amingling of wistfulness and repellance, as of a being stretching outarms for succour, and crying at the same time, "Don't draw near to me!Leave me to myself!"--everything about him moved her. She felt thatshe was face to face with a solitariness of soul such as she had neverencountered before, a solitariness that was cruel, that was weighed downwith agony. And directly she had passed the man and thanked him formallyshe stopped with her usual decision of manner. She had abruptly made upher mind to talk to him. He was already moving to turn away. She spokequickly, and in French.
"Isn't it wonderful here?" she said; and she made her voice rather loud,and almost sharp, to arrest his attention.
He turned round swiftly, yet somehow reluctantly, looked at heranxiously, and seemed doubtful whether he would reply.
After a silence that was short, but that seemed, and in suchcircumstances was, long, he answered, in French:
"Very wonderful, Madame."
The sound of his own voice seemed to startle him. He stood as if he hadheard an unusual noise which had alarmed him, and looked at Domini asif he expected that she would share in his sensation. Very quietly anddeliberately she leaned her arms again on the parapet and spoke to himonce more.
"We seem to be the only travellers here."
The man's attitude became slightly calmer. He looked less momentary,less as if he were in haste to go, but still shy, fierce andextraordinarily unconventional.
"Yes, Madame; there are not many here."
After a pause, and with an uncertain accent, he added:
"Pardon, Madame--for yesterday."
There was a sudden simplicity, almost like that of a child, in the soundof his voice as he said that. Domini knew at once that he alluded to theincident at the station of El-Akbara, that he was trying to make amends.The way he did it touched her curiously. She felt inclined to stretchout her hand to him and say, "Of course! Shake hands on it!" almost asan honest schoolboy might. But she only answered:
"I know it was only an accident. Don't think of it any more."
She did not look at him.
"Where money is concerned the Arabs are very persistent," she continued.
The man laid one of his brown hands on the top of the parapet. Shelooked at it, and it seemed to her that she had never before seen theback of a hand express so much of character, look so intense, so ardent,and so melancholy as his.
"Yes, Madame."
He still spoke with an odd timidity, with an air of listening to his ownspeech as if in some strange way it were phenomenal to him. It occurredto her that possibly he had lived much in lonely places, in which hissolitude had rarely been broken, and he had been forced to acquire thehabit of silence.
"But they are very picturesque. They look almost like some religiousorder when they wear their hoods. Don't you think so?"
She saw the brown hand lifted from the parapet, and heard hercompanion's feet shift on the floor of the tower. But this time he saidnothing. As she could not see his hand now she looked out again overthe panorama of the evening, which was deepening in intensity with everypassing moment, and immediately she was conscious of two feelings thatfilled her with wonder: a much stronger and sweeter sense of the Africanmagic than she had felt till now, and the certainty that the greaterforce and sweetness of her feeling were caused by the fact that she hada companion in her contemplation. This was strange. An intense desirefor loneliness had driven her out of Europe to this desert place, and acompanion, who was an utter stranger, emphasised the significance, gavefibre to the beauty, intensity to the mystery of that which she lookedon. It was as if the meaning of the African evening were suddenlydoubled. She thought of a dice-thrower who throws one die and turns upsix, then throws two and turns up twelve. And she remained silent in hersurprise. The man stood silently beside her. Afterwards she felt as if,during this silence in the tower, some powerful and unseen being hadarrived mysteriously, introduced them to one another and mysteriouslydeparted.
The evening drew on in their silence and the dream was deeper now. Allthat Domini had felt when first she approached the parapet she felt morestrangely, and she grasped, with physical and mental vision, not onlythe whole, but the innumerable parts of that which she looked on. Shesaw, fancifully, the circles widen in the pool of peace, but she sawalso the things that had been hidden in the pool. The beauty of dimness,the beauty of clearness, joined hands. The one and the other were, withher, like sisters. She heard the voices from below, and surely alsothe voices of the stars that were approaching with the night, blendingharmoniously and making a music in the air. The glowing sky and theglowing mountains were as comrades, each responsive to the emotions ofthe other. The lights in the rocky clefts had messages for the shadowymoon, and the palm trees for the thin, fire-tipped clouds about thewest. Far off the misty purple of the desert drew surely closer, like amother coming to fold her children in her arms.
The Jewess still danced upon the roof to the watching Zouaves, but nowthere was something mystic in her tiny movements which no longer rousedin Domini any furtive desire not really inherent in her nature. Therewas something beautiful in everything seen from this altitude in thiswondrous evening light.
Presently, without turning to her companion, she said:
"Could anything look ugly in Beni-Mora from here at this hour, do youthink?"
Again there was the silence that seemed characteristic of this manbefore he spoke, as if speech were very difficult to him.
"I believe not, Madame."
"Even that woman down there on that roof looks graceful--the one dancingfor those soldiers."
He did not answer. She glanced at him and pointed.
"Down there, do you see?"
She noticed that he did not follow her hand and that his face becamestern. He kept his eyes fixed on the trees of the garden of the Gazellesnear Cardinal Lavigerie's statue and replied:
"Yes, Madame."
His manner made her think that perhaps he had seen the dance at closequarters and that it was outrageous. For a moment she felt slightlyuncomfortable, but determined not to let him remain under a falseimpression, she added carelessly:
"I have never seen the dances of Africa. I daresay I should thinkthem ugly enough if I were near, but from this height everything ist
ransformed."
"That is true, Madame."
There was an odd, muttering sound in his voice, which was deep, andprobably strong, but which he kept low. Domini thought it was the mostmale voice she had ever heard. It seemed to be full of sex, like hishands. Yet there was nothing coarse in either the one or the other.Everything about him was vital to a point that was so remarkable as tobe not actually unnatural but very near the unnatural.
She glanced at him again. He was a big man, but very thin. Herexperienced eyes of an athletic woman told her that he was capableof great and prolonged muscular exertion. He was big-boned anddeep-chested, and had nervous as well as muscular strength. The timidityin him was strange in such a man. What could it spring from? It wasnot like ordinary shyness, the _gaucherie_ of a big, awkward loutunaccustomed to woman's society but able to be at his ease andboisterous in the midst of a crowd of men. Domini thought that he wouldbe timid even of men. Yet it never struck her that he might be a coward,unmanly. Such a quality would have sickened her at once, and she knewshe would have at once divined it. He did not hold himself very well,but was inclined to stoop and to keep his head low, as if he were in thehabit of looking much on the ground. The idiosyncrasy was rather ugly,and suggested melancholy to her, the melancholy of a man given toover-much meditation and afraid to face the radiant wonder of life.
She caught herself up at this last thought. She--thinking naturally thatlife was full of radiant wonder! Was she then so utterly transformedalready by Beni-Mora? Or had the thought come to her because she stoodside by side with someone whose sorrows had been unfathomably deeperthan her own, and so who, all unconsciously, gave her a knowledge of herown--till then unsuspected--hopefulness?
She looked at her companion again. He seemed to have relinquished hisintention of leaving her, and was standing quietly beside her, staringtowards the desert, with his head slightly drooped forward. In one handhe held a thick stick. He had put his hat on again. His attitude wasmuch calmer than it had been. Already he seemed more at ease with her.She was glad of that. She did not ask herself why. But the intensebeauty of evening in this land and at this height made her wishenthusiastically that it could produce a happiness such as it created inher in everyone. Such beauty, with its voices, its colours, its linesof tree and leaf, of wall and mountain ridge, its mystery of shapes andmovements, stillness and dreaming distance, its atmosphere of the faroff come near, chastened by journeying, fine with the unfamiliar, itssolemn changes towards the impenetrable night, was too large a thing andfraught with too much tender and lovable invention to be worshipped inany selfishness. It made her feel as if she could gladly be a martyr forunseen human beings, as if sacrifice would be an easy thing if made forthose to whom such beauty would appeal. Brotherhood rose up and cried inher, as it surely sang in the sunset, in the mountains, the palm grovesand the desert. The flame above the hills, their purple outline, themoving, feathery trees; dark under the rose-coloured glory of the west,and most of all the immeasurably remote horizons, each moment morestrange and more eternal, made her long to make this harsh strangerhappy.
"One ought to find happiness here," she said to him very simply.
She saw his hand strain itself round the wood of his stick.
"Why?" he said.
He turned right round to her and looked at her with a sort of anger.
"Why should you suppose so?" he added, speaking quite quickly, andwithout his former uneasiness and consciousness.
"Because it is so beautiful and so calm."
"Calm!" he said. "Here!"
There was a sound of passionate surprise in his voice. Domini wasstartled. She felt as if she were fighting, and must fight hard if shewere not to be beaten to the dust. But when she looked at him she couldfind no weapons. She said nothing. In a moment he spoke again.
"You find calm here," he said slowly. "Yes, I see."
His head dropped lower and his face hardened as he looked over the edgeof the parapet to the village, the blue desert. Then he lifted his eyesto the mountains and the clear sky and the shadowy moon. Each element inthe evening scene was examined with a fierce, painful scrutiny, as if hewas resolved to wring from each its secret.
"Why, yes," he added in a low, muttering voice full of a sort ofterrified surprise, "it is so. You are right. Why, yes, it is calmhere."
He spoke like a man who had been suddenly convinced, beyond power offurther unbelief, of something he had never suspected, never dreamed of.And the conviction seemed to be bitter to him, even alarming.
"But away out there must be the real home of peace, I think," Dominisaid.
"Where?" said the man, quickly.
She pointed towards the south.
"In the depths of the desert," she said. "Far away from civilisation,far away from modern men and modern women, and all the noisy trifles weare accustomed to."
He looked towards the south eagerly. In everything he did there was aflamelike intensity, as if he could not perform an ordinary action, orturn his eyes upon any object, without calling up in his mind, or heart,a violence of thought or of feeling.
"You think it--you think there would be peace out there, far away in thedesert?" he said, and his face relaxed slightly, as if in obedience tosome thought not wholly sad.
"It may be fanciful," she replied. "But I think there must. SurelyNature has not a lying face."
He was still gazing towards the south, from which the night was slowlyemerging, a traveller through a mist of blue. He seemed to be heldfascinated by the desert which was fading away gently, like a mysterywhich had drawn near to the light of revelation, but which was nowslipping back into an underworld of magic. He bent forward as one whowatches a departure in which he longs to share, and Domini felt surethat he had forgotten her. She felt, too, that this man was gripped bythe desert influence more fiercely even than she was, and that he musthave a stronger imagination, a greater force of projection even than shehad. Where she bore a taper he lifted a blazing torch.
A roar of drums rose up immediately beneath them. From the negro villageemerged a ragged procession of thick-lipped men, and singing, caperingwomen tricked out in scarlet and yellow shawls, headed by a male dancerclad in the skins of jackals, and decorated with mirrors, camels' skullsand chains of animals' teeth. He shouted and leaped, rolled his bulgingeyes, and protruded a fluttering tongue. The dust curled up round hisstamping, naked feet.
"Yah-ah-la! Yah-ah-la!"
The howling chorus came up to the tower, with a clash of enormouscastanets, and of poles beaten rhythmically together.
"Yi-yi-yi-yi!" went the shrill voices of the women.
The cloud of dust increased, enveloping the lower part of theprocession, till the black heads and waving arms emerged as if from amaelstrom. The thunder of the drums was like the thunder of a cataractin which the singers, disappearing towards the village, seemed to beswept away.
The man at Domini's side raised himself up with a jerk, and all theformer fierce timidity and consciousness came back to his face. Heturned round, pulled open the door behind him, and took off his hat.
"Excuse me, Madame," he said. "Bon soir!"
"I am coming too," Domini answered.
He looked uncomfortable and anxious, hesitated, then, as if driven to doit in spite of himself, plunged downward through the narrow doorway ofthe tower into the darkness. Domini waited for a moment, listening tothe heavy sound of his tread on the wooden stairs. She frowned till herthick eyebrows nearly met and the corners of her lips turned down. Thenshe followed slowly. When she was on the stairs and the footsteps diedaway below her she fully realised that for the first time in her life aman had insulted her. Her face felt suddenly very hot, and her lips verydry, and she longed to use her physical strength in a way not whollyfeminine. In the hall, among the shrouded furniture, she met the smilingdoorkeeper. She stopped.
"Did the gentleman who has just gone out give you his card?" she saidabruptly.
The Arab assumed a fawning, servile expression.
&nbs
p; "No, Madame, but he is a very good gentleman, and I know well thatMonsieur the Count--"
Domini cut him short.
"Of what nationality is he?"
"Monsieur the Count, Madame?"
"No, no."
"The gentleman? I do not know. But he can speak Arabic. Oh, he is a verynice--"
"Bon soir," said Domini, giving him a franc.
When she was out on the road in front of the hotel she saw the strangerstriding along in the distance at the tail of the negro procession. Thedust stirred up by the dancers whirled about him. Several small negroesskipped round him, doubtless making eager demands upon his generosity.He seemed to take no notice of them, and as she watched him Dominiwas reminded of his retreat from the praying Arab in the desert thatmorning.
"Is he afraid of women as he is afraid of prayer?" she thought, andsuddenly the sense of humiliation and anger left her, and was succeededby a powerful curiosity such as she had never felt before about anyone.She realised that this curiosity had dawned in her almost at the firstmoment when she saw the stranger, and had been growing ever since. Onecircumstance after another had increased it till now it was definite,concrete. She wondered that she did not feel ashamed of such a feelingso unusual in her, and surely unworthy, like a prying thing. Of all herold indifference that side which confronted people had always been themost sturdy, the most solidly built. Without affectation she had been aprofoundly incurious woman as to the lives and the concerns of others,even of those whom she knew best and was supposed to care for most.Her nature had been essentially languid in human intercourse. Theexcitements, troubles, even the passions of others had generally stirredher no more than a distant puppet-show stirs an absent-minded passer inthe street.
In Africa it seemed that her whole nature had been either violentlyrenewed, or even changed. She could not tell which. But this strongstirring of curiosity would, she believed, have been impossible in thewoman she had been but a week ago, the woman who travelled to Marseillesdulled, ignorant of herself, longing for change. Perhaps instead ofbeing angry she ought to welcome it as a symptom of the re-creation shelonged for.
While she changed her gown for dinner that night she debated withinherself how she would treat her fellow-guest when she met him in the_salle-a-manger_. She ought to cut him after what had occurred, shesupposed. Then it seemed to her that to do so would be undignified, andwould give him the impression that he had the power to offend her. Sheresolved to bow to him if they met face to face. Just before she wentdownstairs she realised how vehement her internal debate had been, andwas astonished. Suzanne was putting away something in a drawer, bendingdown and stretching out her plump arms.
"Suzanne!" Domini said.
"Yes, Mam'zelle!"
"How long have you been with me?"
"Three years, Mam'zelle."
The maid shut the drawer and turned round, fixing her shallow,blue-grey eyes on her mistress, and standing as if she were ready to bephotographed.
"Would you say that I am the same sort of person to-day as I was threeyears ago?"
Suzanne looked like a cat that has been startled by a sudden noise.
"The same, Mam'zelle?"
"Yes. Do you think I have altered in that time?"
Suzanne considered the question with her head slightly on one side.
"Only here, Mam'zelle," she replied at length.
"Here!" said Domini, rather eagerly. "Why, I have only been heretwenty-six hours."
"That is true. But Mam'zelle looks as if she had a little life here, alittle emotion. Mon Dieu! Mam'zelle will pardon me, but what is a womanwho feels no emotion? A packet. Is it not so, Mam'zelle?"
"Well, but what is there to be emotional about here?"
Suzanne looked vaguely crafty.
"Who knows, Mam'zelle? Who can say? Mon Dieu! This village is dull, butit is odd. No band plays. There are no shops for a girl to look into.There is nothing chic except the costumes of the Zouaves. But one cannotdeny that it is odd. When Mam'zelle was away this afternoon in the towerMonsieur Helmuth--"
"Who is that?"
"The Monsieur who accompanies the omnibus to the station. MonsieurHelmuth was polite enough to escort me through the village. Mon Dieu,Mam'zelle, I said to myself, 'Anything might occur here.'"
"Anything! What do you mean?"
But Suzanne did not seem to know. She only made her figure look moretense than ever, tucked in her round little chin, which was dimpled andunmeaning, and said:
"Who knows, Mam'zelle? This village is dull, that is true, but it isodd. One does not find oneself in such places every day."
Domini could not help laughing at these Delphic utterances, but she wentdownstairs thoughtfully. She knew Suzanne's practical spirit. Till nowthe maid had never shown any capacity of imagination. Beni-Mora wascertainly beginning to mould her nature into a slightly different shape.And Domini seemed to see an Eastern potter at work, squatting in the sunand with long and delicate fingers changing the outline of the statuetteof a woman, modifying a curve here, an angle there, till the clay beganto show another woman, but with, as it were, the shadow of the formerone lurking behind the new personality.
The stranger was not at dinner. His table was laid and Domini satexpecting each moment to hear the shuffling tread of his heavy boots onthe wooden floor. When he did not come she thought she was glad. Afterdinner she spoke for a moment to the priest and then went upstairs tothe verandah to take coffee. She found Batouch there. He had renouncedhis determined air, and his _cafe-au-lait_ countenance and huge bodyexpressed enduring pathos, as of an injured, patient creature laid outfor the trampling of Domini's cruel feet.
"Well?" she said, sitting down by the basket table.
"Well, Madame?"
He sighed and looked on the ground, lifted one white-socked foot,removed its yellow slipper, shook out a tiny stone from the slipper andput it on again, slowly, gracefully and very sadly. Then he pulled thewhite sock up with both hands and glanced at Domini out of the cornersof his eyes.
"What's the matter?"
"Madame does not care to see the dances of Beni-Mora, to hear the music,to listen to the story-teller, to enter the cafe of El Hadj whereAchmed sings to the keef smokers, or to witness the beautiful religiousecstasies of the dervishes from Oumach. Therefore I come to bid Madamerespectfully goodnight and to take my departure."
He threw his burnous over his left shoulder with a sudden gesture ofdespair that was full of exaggeration. Domini smiled.
"You've been very good to-day," she said.
"I am always good, Madame. I am of a serious disposition. Not one keepsRamadan as I do."
"I am sure of it. Go downstairs and wait for me under the arcade."
Batouch's large face became suddenly a rendezvous of all the gaieties.
"Madame is coming out to-night?"
"Presently. Be in the arcade."
He swept away with the ample magnificence of joyous bearing and movementthat was like a loud Te Deum.
"Suzanne! Suzanne!"
Domini had finished her coffee.
"Mam'zelle!" answered Suzanne, appearing.
"Would you like to come out with me to-night?"
"Mam'zelle is going out?"
"Yes, to see the village by night."
Suzanne looked irresolute. Craven fear and curiosity fought a battlewithin her, as was evident by the expressions that came and went in herface before she answered.
"Shall we not be murdered, Mam'zelle, and are there interesting thingsto see?"
"There are interesting things to see--dancers, singers, keef smokers.But if you are afraid don't come."
"Dancers, Mam'zelle! But the Arabs carry knives. And is there singing?I--I should not like Mam'zelle to go without me. But----"
"Come and protect me from the knives then. Bring my jacket--any one. Idon't suppose I shall put it on."
As she spoke the distant tomtoms began. Suzanne started nervously andlooked at Domini with sincere apprehension.
"We had better not go, Mam'zelle. It is not safe out here. Men who makea noise like that would not respect us."
"I like it."
"That sound? But it is always the same and there is no music in it."
"Perhaps there is more in it than music. The jacket?"
Suzanne went gingerly to fetch it. The faint cry of the African hautboyrose up above the tomtoms. The evening _fete_ was beginning. To-nightDomini felt that she must go to the distant music and learn tounderstand its meaning, not only for herself, but for those who made itand danced to it night after night. It stirred her imagination, andmade her in love with mystery, and anxious at least to steal to the verythreshold of the barbarous world. Did it stir those who had had it intheir ears ever since they were naked, sunburned babies rolling in thehot sun of the Sahara? Could it seem as ordinary to them as the colduproar of the piano-organ to the urchins of Whitechapel, or the whineof the fiddle to the peasants of Touraine where Suzanne was born? Shewanted to know. Suzanne returned with the jacket. She still lookedapprehensive, but she had put on her hat and fastened a sprig of redgeranium in the front of her black gown. The curiosity was in theascendant.
"We are not going quite alone, Mam'zelle?"
"No, no. Batouch will protect us."
Suzanne breathed a furtive sigh.
The poet was in the white arcade with Hadj, who looked both wickedand deplorable, and had a shabby air, in marked contrast to Batouch'sostentatious triumph. Domini felt quite sorry for him.
"You come with us too," she said.
Hadj squared his shoulders and instantly looked vivacious and almostsmart. But an undecided expression came into his face.
"Where is Madame going?"
"To see the village."
Batouch shot a glance at Hadj and smiled unpleasantly.
"I will come with Madame."
Batouch still smiled.
"We are going to the Ouled Nails," he said significantly to Hadj.
"I--I will come."
They set out. Suzanne looked gently at the poet's legs and seemedcomforted.
"Take great care of Mademoiselle Suzanne," Domini said to the poet. "Sheis a little nervous in the dark."
"Mademoiselle Suzanne is like the first day after the fast of Ramadan,"replied the poet, majestically. "No one would harm her were she towander alone to Tombouctou."
The prospect drew from Suzanne a startled gulp. Batouch placed himselftenderly at her side and they set out, Domini walking behind with Hadj.