CHAPTER VIII
The village was full of the wan presage of the coming of the moon. Thenight was very still and very warm. As they skirted the long gardensDomini saw a light in the priest's house. It made her wonder how hepassed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and shefancied him sitting in some plainly-furnished little room with Bous-Bousand a few books, smoking a pipe and thinking sadly of the White Fathersof Africa and of his frustrated desire for complete renunciation. Withthis last thought blended the still remote sound of the hautboy.It suggested anything rather than renunciation; mysteriousmelancholy--successor to passion--the cry of longing, the wail of theunknown that draws some men and women to splendid follies and to ardentpilgrimages whose goal is the mirage.
Hadj was talking in a low voice, but Domini did not listen to him. Shewas vaguely aware that he was abusing Batouch, saying that he was aliar, inclined to theft, a keef smoker, and in a general way steepedto the lips in crime. But the moon was rising, the distant music wasbecoming more distinct. She could not listen to Hadj.
As they turned into the street of the sand-diviner the first ray of themoon fell on the white road. Far away at the end of the street Dominicould see the black foliage of the trees in the Gazelles' garden, andbeyond, to the left, a dimness of shadowy palms at the desert edge. Thedesert itself was not visible. Two Arabs passed, shrouded in burnouses,with the hoods drawn up over their heads. Only their black beards couldbe seen. They were talking violently and waving their arms. Suzanneshuddered and drew close to the poet. Her plump face worked and sheglanced appealingly at her mistress. But Domini was not thinking of her,or of violence or danger. The sound of the tomtoms and hautboysseemed suddenly much louder now that the moon began to shine, making awhiteness among the white houses of the village, the white robes of theinhabitants, a greater whiteness on the white road that lay beforethem. And she was thinking that the moon whiteness of Beni-Mora was morepassionate than pure, more like the blanched face of a lover than thecool, pale cheek of a virgin. There was excitement in it, suggestiongreater even than the suggestion of the tremendous coloured scenes ofthe evening that preceded such a night. And she mused of white heat andof what it means--the white heat of the brain blazing with thoughts thatgovern, the white heat of the heart blazing with emotions that make suchthoughts seem cold. She had never known either. Was she incapable ofknowing them? Could she imagine them till there was physical heat inher body if she was incapable of knowing them? Suzanne and the two Arabswere distant shadows to her when that first moon-ray touched their feet.The passion of the night began to burn her, and she thought she wouldlike to take her soul and hold it out to the white flame.
As they passed the sand-diviner's house Domini saw his spectral figurestanding under the yellow light of the hanging lantern in the middleof his carpet shop, which was lined from floor to ceiling with dullred embroideries and dim with the fumes of an incense brazier. He wastalking to a little boy, but keeping a wary eye on the street, and hecame out quickly, beckoning with his long hands, and calling softly, ina half-chuckling and yet authoritative voice:
"Venez, Madame, venez! Come! come!"
Suzanne seized Domini's arm.
"Not to-night!" Domini called out.
"Yes, Madame, to-night. The vie of Madame is there in the sand to-night.Je la vois, je la vois. C'est la dans le sable to-night."
The moonlight showed the wound on his face. Suzanne uttered a cry andhid her eyes with her hands. They went on towards the trees. Hadj walkedwith hesitation.
"How loud the music is getting," Domini said to him.
"It will deafen Madame's ears if she gets nearer," said Hadj, eagerly."And the dancers are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a greatlady of the most respectable England! Madame will be red with disgust,with anger. Madame will have _mal-au-coeur_."
Batouch began to look like an idol on whose large face the artificer hadcarved an expression of savage ferocity.
"Madame is my client," he said fiercely. "Madame trusts in me."
Hadj laughed with a snarl:
"He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue," herejoined.
The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but herestrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thicklips like a snake.
"I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful,Hadj-ben-Ibrahim," he said softly.
"Fatma is sick," said Hadj, quickly.
"It will not be Fatma."
Hadj began suddenly to gesticulate with his thin, delicate hands and tolook fiercely excited.
"Halima is at the Fontaine Chaude," he cried.
"Keltoum will be there."
"She will not. Her foot is sick. She cannot dance. For a week she willnot dance. I know it."
"And--Irena? Is she sick? Is she at the Hammam Salahine?"
Hadj's countenance fell. He looked at his cousin sideways, alwaysshowing his teeth.
"Do you not know, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"
"_Ana ma 'audi ma nek oul lek!_"[*] growled Hadj in his throat.
[*] "I have nothing to say to you."
They had reached the end of the little street. The whiteness of thegreat road which stretched straight through the oasis into the desertlay before them, with the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie staring down itin the night. At right angles was the street of the dancers, narrow,bounded with the low white houses of the ouleds, twinkling with starrylights, humming with voices, throbbing with the clashing music thatpoured from the rival _cafes maures_, thronged with the white figuresof the desert men, strolling slowly, softly as panthers up and down. Themoonlight was growing brighter, as if invisible hands began to fan thewhite flame of passion which lit up Beni-Mora. A patrol of TirailleursIndigenes passed by going up the street, in yellow and blue uniforms,turbans and white gaiters, their rifles over their broad shoulders. Thefaint tramp of their marching feet was just audible on the sandy road.
"Hadj can go home if he is afraid of anything in the dancing street,"said Domini, rather maliciously. "Let us follow the soldiers."
Hadj started as if he had been stung, and looked at Domini as if hewould like to strangle her.
"I am afraid of nothing," he exclaimed proudly. "Madame does not knowHadj-ben-Ibrahim."
Batouch laughed soundlessly, shaking his great shoulders. It was evidentthat he had divined his cousin's wish to supplant him and was busilytaking his revenge. Domini was amused, and as they went slowly up thestreet in the wake of the soldiers she said:
"Do you often come here at night, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim?"
"Oh, yes, Madame, when I am alone. But with ladies--"
"You were here last night, weren't you, with the traveller from thehotel?"
"No, Madame. The Monsieur of the hotel preferred to visit the cafe ofthe story-teller, which is far more interesting. If Madame will permitme to take her--"
But this last assault was too much for the poet's philosophy. Hesuddenly threw off all pretence of graceful calm, and poured out uponHadj a torrent of vehement Arabic, accompanying it with passionategestures which filled Suzanne with horror and Domini with secretdelight. She liked this abrupt unveiling of the raw. There had alwayslurked in her an audacity, a quick spirit of adventure more boyish thanfeminine. She had reached the age of thirty-two without ever gratifyingit, or even fully realising how much she longed to gratify it. But nowshe began to understand it and to feel that it was imperious.
"I have a barbarian in me," she thought.
"Batouch!" she said sharply.
The poet turned a distorted face to her.
"Madame!"
"That will do. Take us to the dancing-house."
Batouch shot a last ferocious glance at Hadj and they went on into thecrowd of strolling men.
The little street, bright with the lamps of the small houses, from whichprojected wooden balconies painted in gay colours, and with the glowingradiance of the moon, was mysterious despite its gaiety, its obviousdedication
to the cult of pleasure. Alive with the shrieking sounds ofmusic, the movement and the murmur of desert humanity made it almostsolemn. This crowd of boys and men, robed in white from head to heel,preserved a serious grace in its vivacity, suggested besides a dignifiedbarbarity a mingling of angel, monk and nocturnal spirit. In thedistance of the moonbeams, gliding slowly over the dusty road withslippered feet, there was something soft and radiant in their movingwhiteness. Nearer, their pointed hoods made them monastical as aprocession stealing from a range of cells to chant a midnight mass. Inthe shadowy dusk of the tiny side alleys they were like wandering ghostsintent on unholy errands or returning to the graveyard.
On some of the balconies painted girls were leaning and smokingcigarettes. Before each of the lighted doorways from which the shrillnoise of music came, small, intent crowds were gathered, watching theperformance that was going on inside. The robes of the Arabs brushedagainst the skirts of Domini and Suzanne, and eyes stared at them fromevery side with a scrutiny that was less impudent than seriously bold.
"Madame!"
Hadj's thin hand was pulling Domini's sleeve.
"Well, what is it?"
"This is the best dancing-house. The children dance here."
Domini's height enabled her to peer over the shoulders of those gatheredbefore the door, and in the lighted distance of a white-walled room,painted with figures of soldiers and Arab chiefs, she saw a smallwriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby handswaving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping vigorouslyupon an earthen floor, for background a divan crowded with women andmusicians, with inflated cheeks and squinting eyes. She stood for amoment to look, then she turned away. There was an expression of disgustin her eyes.
"No, I don't want to see children," she said. "That's too--"
She glanced at her escort and did not finish.
"I know," said Batouch. "Madame wishes for the real ouleds."
He led them across the street. Hadj followed reluctantly. Before goinginto this second dancing-house Domini stopped again to see from outsidewhat it was like, but only for an instant. Then a brightness came intoher eyes, an eager look.
"Yes, take me in here," she said.
Batouch laughed softly, and Hadj uttered a word below his breath.
"Madame will see Irena here," said Batouch, pushing the watching Arabsunceremoniously away.
Domini did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on a man who was sitting in acorner far up the room, bending forward and staring intently at a womanwho was in the act of stepping down from a raised platform decoratedwith lamps and small bunches of flowers in earthen pots.
"I wish to sit quite near the door," she whispered to Batouch as theywent in.
"But it is much better--"
"Do what I tell you," she said. "The left side of the room."
Hadj looked a little happier. Suzanne was clinging to his arm. He smiledat her with something of mischief, but he took care, when a place wascleared on a bench for their party, to sit down at the end next thedoor, and he cast an anxious glance towards the platform where thedancing-girls attached to the cafe sat in a row, hunched up against thebare wall, waiting their turn to perform. Then suddenly he shook hishead, tucked in his chin and laughed. His whole face was transformedfrom craven fear to vivacious rascality. While he laughed he looked atBatouch, who was ordering four cups of coffee from the negro attendant.The poet took no notice. For the moment he was intent upon hisprofessional duties. But when the coffee was brought, and set upon around wooden stool between two bunches of roses, he had time to noteHadj's sudden gaiety and to realise its meaning. Instantly he spoke tothe negro in a low voice. Hadj stopped laughing. The negro sped awayand returned with the proprietor of the cafe, a stout Kabyle with a fairskin and blue eyes.
Batouch lowered his voice to a guttural whisper and spoke in Arabic,while Hadj, shifting uneasily on the end seat, glanced at him sidewaysout of his almond-shaped eyes. Domini heard the name "Irena," andguessed that Batouch was asking the Kabyle to send for her and make herdance. She could not help being amused for a moment by the comedy ofintrigue, complacently malignant on both sides, that was being played bythe two cousins, but the moment passed and left her engrossed, absorbed,and not merely by the novelty of the surroundings, by the strangeness ofthe women, of their costumes, and of their movements. She watched them,but she watched more closely, more eagerly, rather as a spy than asa spectator, one who was watching them with an intentness, a stillpassion, a fierce curiosity and a sort of almost helpless wonder such asshe had never seen before, and could never have found within herself toput at the service of any human marvel.
Close to the top of the room on the right the stranger was sitting inthe midst of a mob of Arabs, whose flowing draperies almost concealedhis ugly European clothes. On the wall immediately behind him was abrilliantly-coloured drawing of a fat Ouled Nail leering at a Frenchsoldier, which made an unconventional background to his leaning figureand sunburnt face, in which there seemed now to be both asceticism andsomething so different and so powerful that it was likely, from momentto moment, to drive out the asceticism and to achieve the loneliness ofall conquering things. This fighting expression made Domini think of apicture she had once seen representing a pilgrim going through a darkforest attended by his angel and his devil. The angel of the pilgrimwas a weak and almost childish figure, frail, bloodless, scarcely evenradiant, while the devil was lusty and bold, with a muscular body and asensual, aquiline face, which smiled craftily, looking at the pilgrim.There was surely a devil in the watching traveller which was pushingthe angel out of him. Domini had never before seemed to see clearlythe legendary battle of the human heart. But it had never before beenmanifested to her audaciously in the human face.
All around the Arabs sat, motionless and at ease, gazing on the curiousdance of which they never tire--a dance which has some ingenuity,much sensuality and provocation, but little beauty and little mystery,unless--as happens now and then--an idol-like woman of the South, withall the enigma of the distant desert in her kohl-tinted eyes, dancesit with the sultry gloom of a half-awakened sphinx, and makes of it abarbarous manifestation of the nature that lies hidden in the heart ofthe sun, a silent cry uttered by a savage body born in a savage land.
In the cafe of Tahar, the Kabyle, there was at present no such woman.His beauties, huddled together on their narrow bench before a tabledecorated with glasses of water and sprigs of orange blossom in earthenvases, looked dull and cheerless in their gaudy clothes. Their bodieswere well formed, but somnolent. Their painted hands hung down like thehands of marionettes. The one who was dancing suggested Duty clad inEastern garb and laying herself out carefully to be wicked. Herjerks and wrigglings, though violent, were inhuman, like those of acomplicated piece of mechanism devised by a morbid engineer. Aftera glance or two at her Domini felt that she was bored by her ownagilities. Domini's wonder increased when she looked again at thetraveller.
For it was this dance of the _ennui_ of the East which raised up in himthis obvious battle, which drove his secret into the illumination ofthe hanging lamps and gave it to a woman, who felt half confused, halfashamed at possessing it, and yet could not cast it away.
If they both lived on, without speaking or meeting, for another halfcentury, Domini could never know the shape of the devil in this man, thelight of the smile upon its face.
The dancing woman had observed him, and presently she began slowly towriggle towards him between the rows of Arabs, fixing her eyes uponhim and parting her scarlet lips in a greedy smile. As she came on thestranger evidently began to realise that he was her bourne. He had beenleaning forward, but when she approached, waving her red hands, shakingher prominent breasts, and violently jerking her stomach, he satstraight up, and then, as if instinctively trying to get away from her,pressed back against the wall, hiding the painting of the Ouled Nail andthe French soldier. A dark flush rose on his face and even floodedhis forehead to his low-growing hair. His eyes were full of a piteousanxiety and
discomfort, and he glanced almost guiltily to right andleft of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to condemnhis presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to it. Thedancer noticed his confusion and seemed pleased by it, and moved to moreenergetic demonstrations of her art. She lifted her arms above herhead, half closed her eyes, assumed an expression of languid ecstasy andslowly shuddered. Then, bending backward, she nearly touched the floor,swung round, still bending, and showed the long curve of her bare throatto the stranger, while the girls, huddled on the bench by the musicians,suddenly roused themselves and joined their voices in a shrill andprolonged twitter. The Arabs did not smile, but the deepness of theirattention seemed to increase like a cloud growing darker. All theluminous eyes in the room were steadily fixed upon the man leaningback against the hideous picture on the wall and the gaudy siren curvedalmost into an arch before him. The musicians blew their hautboys andbeat their tomtoms more violently, and all things, Domini thought,were filled with a sense of climax. She felt as if the room, all theinanimate objects, and all the animate figures in it, were instrumentsof an orchestra, and as if each individual instrument was contributingto a slow and great, and irresistible crescendo. The stranger took hispart with the rest, but against his will, and as if under some terriblecompulsion.
His face was scarlet now, and his shining eyes looked down on thedancer's throat and breast with a mingling of eagerness and horror.Slowly she raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, andpresented her face to him, while the women twittered once more inchorus. He still stared at her without moving. The hautboy playersprolonged a wailing note, and the tomtoms gave forth a fierce and dullmurmur almost like a death, roll.
"She wants him to give her money," Batouch whispered to Domini. "Whydoes not he give her money?"
Evidently the stranger did not understand what was expected of him. Themusic changed again to a shrieking tune, the dancer drew back, did a fewmore steps, jerked her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on the floor.Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, glided closeto the stranger, and falling down deliberately laid her head on hisknees, while again the women twittered, and the long note of thehautboys went through the room like a scream of interrogation.
Domini grew hot as she saw the look that came into the stranger's facewhen the woman touched his knees.
"Go and tell him it's money she wants!" she whispered to Batouch. "Goand tell him!"
Batouch got up, but at this moment a roguish Arab boy, who sat by thestranger, laughingly spoke to him, pointing to the woman. The strangerthrust his hand into his pocket, found a coin and, directed by theroguish youth, stuck it upon the dancer's greasy forehead. At onceshe sprang to her feet. The women twittered. The music burst intoa triumphant melody, and through the room there went a stir. Almosteveryone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his hoodand settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to his lips.Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a flower,lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite still. Withthe stranger's action a strain had been removed, a mental tensionabruptly loosened, a sense of care let free in the room. Domini felt itacutely. The last few minutes had been painful to her. She sighedwith relief at the cessation of another's agony. For the stranger hadcertainly--from shyness or whatever cause--been in agony while thedancer kept her head upon his knees.
His angel had been in fear, perhaps, while his devil----
But Domini tried resolutely to turn her thoughts from the smiling face.
After pressing the money on the girl's forehead the man made a movementas if he meant to leave the room, but once again the curious indecisionwhich Domini had observed in him before cut his action, as it were, intwo, leaving it half finished. As the dancer, turning, wriggledslowly to the platform, he buttoned up his jacket with a sort of hastyresolution, pulled it down with a jerk, glanced swiftly round, and roseto his feet. Domini kept her eyes on him, and perhaps they drew his,for, just as he was about to step into the narrow aisle that led to thedoor he saw her. Instantly he sat down again, turned so that she couldonly see part of his face, unbuttoned his jacket, took out some matchesand busied himself in lighting a cigarette. She knew he had felt herconcentration on him, and was angry with herself. Had she really a spyin her? Was she capable of being vulgarly curious about a man? A suddenmovement of Hadj drew her attention. His face was distorted by anexpression that seemed half angry, half fearful. Batouch was smilingseraphically as he gazed towards the platform. Suzanne, with apinched-up mouth, was looking virginally at her lap. Her whole attitudeshowed her consciousness of the many blazing eyes that were intentlystaring at her. The stomach dance which she had just been watching hadamazed her so much that she felt as if she were the only respectablewoman in the world, and as if no one would suppose it unless she hungout banners white as the walls of Beni-Mora's houses. She strove to doso, and, meanwhile, from time to time, cast sideway glances towards theplatform to see whether another stomach dance was preparing. She didnot see Hadj's excitement or the poet's malignant satisfaction, but she,with Domini, saw a small door behind the platform open, and the stoutKabyle appear followed by a girl who was robed in gold tissue, anddecorated with cascades of golden coins.
Domini guessed at once that this was Irena, the returned exile, whowished to kill Hadj, and she was glad that a new incident had occurredto switch off the general attention from the stranger.
Irena was evidently a favourite. There was a grave movement as she camein, a white undulation as all the shrouded forms bent slightly forwardin her direction. Only Hadj caught his burnous round him with his thinfingers, dropped his chin, shook his hood down upon his forehead, leanedback against the wall, and, curling his legs under him, seemed to fallasleep. But beneath his brown lids and long black lashes his furtiveeyes followed every movement of the girl in the sparkling robe.
She came in slowly and languidly, with a heavy and cross expression uponher face, which was thin to emaciation and painted white, with scarletlips and darkened eyes and eyebrows. Her features were narrow andpointed. Her bones were tiny, and her body was so slender, her waistso small, that, with her flat breast and meagre shoulders, she lookedalmost like a stick crowned with a human face and hung with brilliantdraperies. Her hair, which was thick and dark brown, was elaboratelybraided and covered with a yellow silk handkerchief. Domini thought shelooked consumptive, and was bitterly disappointed in her appearance. Forsome unknown reason she had expected the woman who wished to killHadj, and who obviously inspired him with fear, to be a magnificent andglowing desert beauty. This woman might be violent. She looked weary,anaemic, and as if she wished to go to bed, and Domini's contempt forHadj increased as she looked at her. To be afraid of a thin, tired,sleepy creature such as that was too pitiful. But Hadj did not seemto think so. He had pulled his hood still further forward, and was nowmerely a bundle concealed in the shade of Suzanne.
Irena stepped on to the platform, pushed the girl who sat at the end ofthe bench till she moved up higher, sat down in the vacant place, dranksome water out of the glass nearest to her, and then remained quitestill staring at the floor, utterly indifferent to the Arabs who weredevouring her with their eyes. No doubt the eyes of men had devoured herever since she could remember. It was obvious that they meant nothingto her, that they did not even for an instant disturb the current of herdreary thoughts.
Another girl was dancing, a stout, Oriental Jewess with a thick hookednose, large lips and bulging eyes, that looked as if they had been newlyscoured with emery powder. While she danced she sang, or rather shoutedroughly, an extraordinary melody that suggested battle, murder andsudden death. Careless of onlookers, she sometimes scratched her heador rubbed her nose without ceasing her contortions. Domini guessed thatthis was the girl whom she had seen from the tower dancing upon the roofin the sunset. Distance and light had indeed transformed her. Under thelamps she was the embodiment of all that was coarse and greasy. Even thepitiful slenderness of Iren
a seemed attractive when compared with herbillowing charms, which she kept in a continual commotion that wasalmost terrifying.
"Hadj is nearly dead with fear," whispered Batouch, complacently.Domini's lips curled.
"Does not Madame think Irena beautiful as the moon on the waters of theOued Beni-Mora?"
"Indeed I don't," she replied bluntly. "And I think a man who can beafraid of such a little thing must be afraid of the children in thestreet."
"Little! But Irena is tall as a female palm in Ourlana."
"Tall!"
Domini looked at her again more carefully, and saw that Batouch spokethe truth. Irena was unusually tall, but her excessive narrowness, hertiny bones, and the delicate way in which she held herself deceived theeye and gave her a little appearance.
"So she is; but who could be afraid of her? Why, I could pick her up andthrow her over that moon of yours."
"Madame is strong. Madame is like the lioness. But Irena is the mostterrible girl in all Beni-Mora if she loves or if she is angry, the mostterrible in all the Sahara."
Domini laughed.
"Madame does not know her," said Batouch, imperturbably. "But Madamecan ask the Arabs. Many of the dancers of Beni-Mora are murdered, eachseason two or three. But no man would try to murder Irena. No man woulddare."
The poet's calm and unimpassioned way of alluding to the most horriblecrimes as if they were perfectly natural, and in no way to be condemnedor wondered at, amazed Domini even more than his statement about Irena.
"Why do they murder the dancers?" she asked quickly.
"For their jewels. At night, in those little rooms with the balconieswhich Madame has seen, it is easy. You enter in to sleep there. Youclose your eyes, you breathe gently and a little loud. The woman hears.She is not afraid. She sleeps. She dreams. Her throat is like that"--hethrew back his head, exposing his great neck. "Just before dawn you drawyour knife from your burnous. You bend down. You cut the throat withoutnoise. You take the jewels, the money from the box by the bed. Yougo down quietly with bare feet. No one is on the stair. You unbar thedoor--and there before you is the great hiding-place."
"The great hiding-place!"
"The desert, Madame." He sipped his coffee. Domini looked at him,fascinated.
Suzanne shivered. She had been listening. The loud contralto cry ofthe Jewess rose up, with its suggestion of violence and of roughindifference. And Domini repeated softly:
"The great hiding-place."
With every moment in Beni-Mora the desert seemed to become more--morefull of meaning, of variety, of mystery, of terror. Was it everything?The garden of God, the great hiding-place of murderers! She had calledit, on the tower, the home of peace. In the gorge of El-Akbara, ere heprayed, Batouch had spoken of it as a vast realm of forgetfulness, wherethe load of memory slips from the weary shoulders and vanishes into thesoft gulf of the sands.
But was it everything then? And if it was so much to her already, in anight and a day, what would it be when she knew it, what would it be toher after many nights and many days? She began to feel a sort of terrormingled with the most extraordinary attraction she had ever known.
Hadj crouched right back against the wall. The voice of the Jewessceased in a shout. The hautboys stopped playing. Only the tomtomsroared.
"Hadj can be happy now," observed Batouch in a voice of almostsatisfaction, "for Irena is going to dance. Look! There is the littleMiloud bringing her the daggers."
An Arab boy, with a beautiful face and a very dark skin, slipped on tothe platform with two long, pointed knives in his hand. He laid them onthe table before Irena, between the bouquets of orange blossom, jumpedlightly down and disappeared.
Directly the knives touched the table the hautboy players blew aterrific blast, and then, swelling the note, till it seemed as ifthey must burst both themselves and their instruments, swung into atremendous and magnificent tune, a tune tingling with barbarity, yetsuch as a European could have sung or written down. In an instant itgripped Domini and excited her till she could hardly breathe. It pouredfire into her veins and set fire about her heart. It was triumphant as agreat song after war in a wild land, cruel, vengeful, but so strong andso passionately joyous that it made the eyes shine and the blood leap,and the spirit rise up and clamour within the body, clamour for utterliberty, for action, for wide fields in which to roam, for long days andnights of glory and of love, for intense hours of emotion and of lifelived with exultant desperation. It was a melody that seemed to set thesoul of Creation dancing before an ark. The tomtoms accompanied itwith an irregular but rhythmical roar which Domini thought was like thedeep-voiced shouting of squadrons of fighting men.
Irena looked wearily at the knives. Her expression had not changed, andDomini was amazed at her indifference. The eyes of everyone in theroom were fixed upon her. Even Suzanne began to be less virginal inappearance under the influence of this desert song of triumph. Dominidid not let her eyes stray any more towards the stranger. For the momentindeed she had forgotten him. Her attention was fastened upon the thin,consumptive-looking creature who was staring at the two knives laid uponthe table. When the great tune had been played right through once, and apassionate roll of tomtoms announced its repetition, Irena suddenly shotout her tiny arms, brought her hands down on the knives, seized them andsprang to her feet. She had passed from lassitude to vivid energy withan abruptness that was almost demoniacal, and to an energy with whichboth mind and body seemed to blaze. Then, as the hautboys screamed outthe tune once more, she held the knives above her head and danced.
Irena was not an Ouled Nail. She was a Kabyle woman born in themountains of Djurdjura, not far from the village of Tamouda. As a childshe had lived in one of those chimneyless and windowless mud cottageswith red tiled roofs which are so characteristic a feature of La GrandeKabylie. She had climbed barefoot the savage hills, or descended intothe gorges yellow with the broom plant and dipped her brown toes in thewaters of the Sebaou. How had she drifted so far from the sharp spursof her native hills and from the ruddy-haired, blue-eyed people of hertribe? Possibly she had sinned, as the Kabyle women often sin, andfled from the wrath that she would understand, and that all her fiercebravery could not hope to conquer. Or perhaps with her Kabyle blood,itself a brew composed of various strains, Greek, Roman, as well asBerber, were mingling some drops drawn from desert sources, which hadmanifested themselves physically in her dark hair, mentally in a nomadicinstinct which had forbidden her to rest among the beauties of AitOuaguennoun, whose legendary charm she did not possess. There was thelook of an exile in her face, a weariness that dreamed, perhaps, ofdistant things. But now that she danced that fled, and the gleam offlame-lit steel was in her eyes.
Tangled and vital impressions came to Domini as she watched. Now she sawJael and the tent, and the nails driven into the temples of the sleepingwarrior. Now she saw Medea in the moment before she tore to pieces herbrother and threw the bloody fragments in Aetes's path; Clytemnestra'sface while Agamemnon was passing to the bath, Delilah's when Samson laysleeping on her knee. But all these imagined faces of named women fledlike sand grains on a desert wind as the dance went on and therecurrent melody came back and back and back with a savage and gloriouspersistence. They were too small, too individual, and pinned theimagination down too closely. This dagger dance let in upon her a largeratmosphere, in which one human being was as nothing, even a goddess ora siren prodigal of enchantments was a little thing not without a narrowmeanness of physiognomy.
She looked and listened till she saw a grander procession troop by,garlanded with mystery and triumph: War as a shape with woman's eyes:Night, without poppies, leading the stars and moon and all the vigorousdreams that must come true: Love of woman that cannot be set aside, butwill govern the world from Eden to the abyss into which the nations fallto the outstretched hands of God: Death as Life's leader, with a stafffrom which sprang blossoms red as the western sky: Savage Fecundity thatcrushes all barren things into the silent dust: and then the Desert.
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p; That came in a pale cloud of sand, with a pale crowd of worshippers,those who had received gifts from the Desert's hands and sought formore: white-robed Marabouts who had found Allah in his garden and becomea guide to the faithful through all the circling years: murderers whohad gained sanctuary with barbaric jewels in their blood-stained hands:once tortured men and women who had cast away terrible recollections inthe wastes among the dunes and in the treeless purple distances, and whohad been granted the sweet oases of forgetfulness to dwell in: ardentbeings who had striven vainly to rest content with the world of hillsand valleys, of sea-swept verges and murmuring rivers, and who had beendriven, by the labouring soul, on and on towards the flat plains whereroll for ever the golden wheels of the chariot of the sun. She saw, too,the winds that are the Desert's best-loved children: Health withshining eyes and a skin of bronze: Passion, half faun, half black-browedHercules: and Liberty with upraised arms, beating cymbals like monstrousspheres of fire.
And she saw palm trees waving, immense palm trees in the south. Itseemed to her that she travelled as far away from Beni-Mora as she hadtravelled from England in coming to Beni-Mora. She made her way towardsthe sun, joining the pale crowd of the Desert's worshippers. And always,as she travelled, she heard the clashing of the cymbals of Liberty. Aconviction was born in her that Fate meant her to know the Desert well,strangely well; that the Desert was waiting calmly for her to come toit and receive that which it had to give to her; that in the Desertshe would learn more of the meaning of life than she could ever learnelsewhere. It seemed to her suddenly that she understood more clearlythan hitherto in what lay the intense, the over-mastering and hypnoticattraction exercised already by the Desert over her nature. In theDesert there must be, there was--she felt it--not only light to warmthe body, but light to illuminate the dark places of the soul. Analmost fatalistic idea possessed her. She saw a figure--one of theMessengers--standing with her beside the corpse of her father andwhispering in her ear "Beni-Mora"; taking her to the map and pointing tothe word there, filling her brain and heart with suggestions, till--asshe had thought almost without reason, and at haphazard--she choseBeni-Mora as the place to which she would go in search of recovery, ofself-knowledge. It had been pre-ordained. The Messenger had been sent.The Messenger had guided her. And he would come again, when the time wasripe, and lead her on into the Desert. She felt it. She knew it.
She looked round at the Arabs. She was as much a fatalist as any one ofthem. She looked at the stranger. What was he?
Abruptly in her imagination a vision rose. She gazed once more intothe crowd that thronged about the Desert having received gifts at theDesert's hands, and in it she saw the stranger.
He was kneeling, his hands were stretched out, his head was bowed, andhe was praying. And, while he prayed, Liberty stood by him smiling, andher fiery cymbals were like the aureoles that illumine the beautifulfaces of the saints.
For some reason that she could not understand her heart began to beatfast, and she felt a burning sensation behind her eyes.
She thought that this extraordinary music, that this amazing dance,excited her too much.
The white bundle at Suzanne's side stirred. Irena, holding the daggersabove her head, had sprung from the little platform and was dancing onthe earthen floor in the midst of the Arabs.
Her thin body shook convulsively in time to the music. She marked theaccents with her shudders. Excitement had grown in her till she seemedto be in a feverish passion that was half exultant, half despairing. Inher expression, in her movements, in the way she held herself, leaningbackwards with her face looking up, her breast and neck exposed asif she offered her life, her love and all the mysteries in her, to animagined being who dominated her savage and ecstatic soul, there was avivid suggestion of the two elements in Passion--rapture and melancholy.In her dance she incarnated passion whole by conveying the two halvesthat compose it. Her eyes were nearly closed, as a woman closes themwhen she has seen the lips of her lover descending upon hers. And hermouth seemed to be receiving the fiery touch of another mouth. In thismoment she was a beautiful woman because she looked like womanhood.And Domini understood why the Arabs thought her more beautiful thanthe other dancers. She had what they had not--genius. And genius, underwhatever form, shows to the world at moments the face of Aphrodite.
She came slowly nearer, and those by the platform turned round to followher with their eyes. Hadj's hood had slipped completely down over hisface, and his chin was sunk on his chest. Batouch noticed it and lookedangry, but Domini had forgotten both the comedy of the two cousinsand the tragedy of Irena's love for Hadj. She was completely under thefascination of this dance and of the music that accompanied it. Now thatIrena was near she was able to see that, without her genius, there wouldhave been no beauty in her face. It was painfully thin, painfully longand haggard. Her life had written a fatal inscription across it astheir life writes upon the faces of poor street-bred children the oneword--Want. As they have too little this dancing woman had had too much.The sparkle of her robe of gold tissue covered with golden coins wasstrong in the lamplight. Domini looked at it and at the two sharpknives above her head, looked at her violent, shuddering movements, andshuddered too, thinking of Batouch's story of murdered dancers. It wasdangerous to have too much in Beni-Mora.
Irena was quite close now. She seemed so wrapped in the ecstasy of thedance that it did not occur to Domini at first that she was imitatingthe Ouled Nail who had laid her greasy head upon the stranger's knees.The abandonment of her performance was so great that it was difficult toremember its money value to her and to Tahar, the fair Kabyle. Only whenshe was actually opposite to them and stayed there, still performing hershuddering dance, still holding the daggers above her head, did Dominirealise that those half-closed, passionate eyes had marked the strangerwoman, and that she must add one to the stream of golden coins. Shetook out her purse but did not give the money at once. With the pitilessscrutiny of her sex she noticed all the dancer's disabilities. Shewas certainly young, but she was very worn. Her mouth drooped. At thecorners of her eyes there were tiny lines tending downward. Her foreheadhad what Domini secretly called a martyred look. Nevertheless, she wassavage and triumphant. Her thin body suggested force; the way she heldherself consuming passion. Even so near at hand, even while she waspausing for money, and while her eyes were, doubtless, furtively readingDomini, she shed round her a powerful atmosphere, which stirred theblood, and made the heart leap, and created longing for unknown andviolent things. As Domini watched her she felt that Irena must havelived at moments magnificently, that despite her almost shatteredcondition and permanent weariness--only cast aside for the moment of thedance--she must have known intense joys, that so long as she lived shewould possess the capacity for knowing them again. There was somethingburning within her that would burn on so long as she was alive, a sparkof nature that was eternally red hot. It was that spark which made herthe idol of the Arabs and shed a light of beauty through her haggardframe.
The spirit blazed.
Domini put her hand at last into her purse and took out a piece of gold.She was just going to give it to Irena when the white bundle that wasHadj made a sudden, though slight, movement, as if the thing inside ithad shivered. Irena noticed it with her half-closed eyes. Domini leanedforward and held out the money, then drew back startled. Irena hadchanged her posture abruptly. Instead of keeping her head thrown backand exposing her long throat, she lifted it, shot it forward. Her meagrebosom almost disappeared as she bent over. Her arms fell to her sides.Her eyes opened wide and became full of a sharp, peering intensity.Her vision and dreams dropped out of her. Now she was only fierce andquestioning, and horribly alert. She was looking at the white bundle. Itshifted again. She sprang upon it, showing her teeth, caught hold of it.With a swift turn of her thin hands she tore back the hood, and out ofthe bundle came Hadj's head and face livid with fear. One of the daggersflashed and came up at him. He leaped from the seat and screamed.Suzanne echoed his cry. Then the whole room was a turm
oil of whitegarments and moving limbs. In an instant everybody seemed to be leaping,calling out, grasping, struggling. Domini tried to get up, but she washemmed in, and could not make a movement upward or free her arms, whichwere pressed against her sides by the crowd around her. For a momentshe thought she was going to be severely hurt or suffocated. She did notfeel afraid, but only indignant, like a boy who has been struck inthe face and longs to retaliate. Someone screamed again. It was Hadj.Suzanne was on her feet, but separated from her mistress. Batouch'sarm was round her. Domini put her hands on the bench and tried to forceherself up, violently setting her broad shoulders against the Arabswho were towering over her and covering her head and face with theirfloating garments as they strove to see the fight between Hadj and thedancer. The heat almost stifled her, and she was suddenly aware of astrong musky smell of perspiring humanity. She was beginning to pantfor breath when she felt two burning, hot, hard hands come down on hers,fingers like iron catch hold of hers, go under them, drag up her hands.She could not see who had seized her, but the life in the hands thatwere on hers mingled with the life in her hands like one fluid withanother, and seemed to pass on till she felt it in her body, and had anodd sensation as if her face had been caught in a fierce grip, and herheart too.
Another moment and she was on her feet and out in the moonlit alleybetween the little white houses. She saw the stars, and the paintedbalconies crowded with painted women looking down towards the cafeshe had left and chattering in shrill voices. She saw the patrol ofTirailleurs Indigenes marching at the double to the doorway in which theArabs were still struggling. Then she saw that the traveller was besideher. She was not surprised.
"Thank you for getting me out," she said rather bluntly. "Where's mymaid?"
"She got away before us with your guide, Madame."
He held up his hands and looked at them hard, eagerly, questioningly.
"You weren't hurt?"
He dropped his hands quickly. "Oh, no, it wasn't----"
He broke off the sentence and was silent. Domini stood still, drew along breath and laughed. She still felt angry and laughed to controlherself. Unless she could be amused at this episode she knew that shewas capable of going back to the door of the cafe and hitting out rightand left at the men who had nearly suffocated her. Any violence done toher body, even an unintentional push against her in the street--if therewas real force in it--seemed to let loose a devil in her, such a devilas ought surely only to dwell inside a man.
"What people!" she said. "What wild creatures!"
She laughed again. The patrol pushed its way roughly in at the doorway.
"The Arabs are always like that, Madame."
She looked at him, then she said, abruptly:
"Do you speak English?"
Her companion hesitated. It was perfectly obvious to her that he wasconsidering whether he should answer "Yes" or "No." Such hesitationabout such a matter was very strange. At last he said, but still inFrench:
"Yes."
And directly he had said it she saw by his face that he wished he hadsaid "No."
From the cafe the Arabs began to pour into the street. The patrol wasclearing the place. The women leaning over the balconies cried outshrilly to learn the exact history of the tumult, and the men standingunderneath, and lifting up their bronzed faces in the moonlight, repliedin violent voices, gesticulating vehemently while their hanging sleevesfell back from their hairy arms.
"I am an Englishwoman," Domini said.
But she too felt obliged to speak still in French, as if a suddenreserve told her to do so. He said nothing. They were standing in quitea crowd now. It swayed, parted suddenly, and the soldiers appearedholding Irena. Hadj followed behind, shouting as if in a frenzy ofpassion. There was some blood on one of his hands and a streak of bloodon the front of the loose shirt he wore under his burnous. He kepton shooting out his arms towards Irena as he walked, and franticallyappealing to the Arabs round him. When he saw the women on theirbalconies he stopped for a moment and called out to them like a manbeside himself. A Tirailleur pushed him on. The women, who had beenquiet to hear him, burst forth again into a paroxysm of chatter. Irenalooked utterly indifferent and walked feebly. The little processiondisappeared in the moonlight accompanied by the crowd.
"She has stabbed Hadj," Domini said. "Batouch will be glad."
She did not feel as if she were sorry. Indeed, she thought she was gladtoo. That the dancer should try to do a thing and fail would have seemedcontradictory. And the streak of blood she had just seen seemed torelieve her suddenly and to take from her all anger. Her self-controlreturned.
"Thank you once more," she said to her companion. "Goodnight."
She remembered the episode of the tower that afternoon, and resolved totake a definite line this time, and not to run the chance of a seconddesertion. She started off down the street, but found him walking besideher in silence. She stopped.
"I am very much obliged to you for getting me out," she said, lookingstraight at him. "And now, good-night."
Almost for the first time he endured her gaze without any uncertainty,and she saw that though he might be hesitating, uneasy, evencontemptible--as when he hurried down the road in the wake of the negroprocession--he could also be a dogged man.
"I'll go with you, Madame," he said.
"Why?"
"It's night."
"I'm not afraid."
"I'll go with you, Madame."
He said it again harshly and kept his eyes on her, frowning.
"And if I refuse?" she said, wondering whether she was going to refuseor not.
"I'll follow you, Madame."
She knew by the look on his face that he, too, was thinking of what hadhappened in the afternoon. Why should she wish to deprive him of thereparation he was anxious to make--obviously anxious in an almostpiteously determined way? It was poor pride in her, a mean littlefeeling.
"Come with me," she said.
They went on together.
The Arabs, stirred up by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething withexcitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little crowd,were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the statueof the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them and hesitated.
"I think, Madame, it would be better to take a side street," he said.
"Very well. Let us go to the left here. It is bound to bring us to thehotel as it runs parallel to the house of the sand diviner."
He started.
"The sand-diviner?" he said in his low, strong voice.
"Yes."
She walked on into a tiny alley. He followed her.
"You haven't seen the thin man with the bag of sand?"
"No, Madame."
"He reads your past in sand from the desert and tells what your futurewill be."
The man made no reply.
"Will you pay him a visit?" Domini asked curiously.
"No, Madame. I do not care for such things."
Suddenly she stood still.
"Oh, look!" she said. "How strange! And there are others all down thestreet."
In the tiny alley the balconies of the houses nearly met. No figuresleaned on their railings. No chattering voices broke the furtive silencethat prevailed in this quarter of Beni-Mora. The moonlight was fainterhere, obscured by the close-set buildings, and at the moment there wasnot an Arab in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was profound,and as the rare windows of the houses, minute and protected by heavygratings, were dark, it had seemed to Domini at first as if all theinhabitants were in bed and asleep. But, in passing on, she had seen afaint and blanched illumination; then another; the vague vision of anaperture; a seated figure making a darkness against whiteness; a secondaperture and seated figure. She stopped and stood still. The man stoodstill beside her.
The alley was an alley of women. In every house on either side of theway a similar picture of attentive patience was revealed: a narrowMoorish archway with a wooden door set back against the wall to show ast
eep and diminutive staircase winding up into mystery; upon the higheststair a common candlestick with a lit candle guttering in it, and,immediately below, a girl, thickly painted, covered with barbarousjewels and magnificently dressed, her hands, tinted with henna, foldedin her lap, her eyes watching under eyebrows heavily darkened, andprolonged until they met just above the bridge of the nose, to which anumber of black dots descended; her naked, brown ankles decorated withlarge circlets of gold or silver. The candle shed upon each watcher afaint light that half revealed her and left her half concealed upon herwhite staircase bounded by white walls. And in her absolute silence,absolute stillness, each one was wholly mysterious as she gazedceaselessly out towards the empty, narrow street.
The woman before whose dwelling Domini had stopped was an Ouled Nail,with a square headdress of coloured handkerchiefs and feathers, a pinkand silver shawl, a blue skirt of some thin material powdered withsilver flowers, and a broad silver belt set with squares of red coral.She was sitting upright, and would have looked exactly like an idol setup for savage worship had not her long eyes gleamed and moved as shesolemnly returned the gaze of Domini and of the man who stood a littlebehind looking over her shoulder.
When Domini stopped and exclaimed she did not realise to what thisstreet was dedicated, why these women sat in watchful silence, each onealone on her stair waiting in the night. But as she looked and saw thegaudy finery she began to understand. And had she remained in doubt anincident now occurred which must have enlightened her.
A great gaunt Arab, one of the true desert men, almost black, with highcheek bones, hollow cheeks, fierce falcon's eyes shining as if withfever, long and lean limbs hard as iron, dressed in a rough, sacklikebrown garment, and wearing a turban bound with cords of camel's hair,strode softly down the alley, slipped in front of Domini, and went upto the woman, holding out something in his scaly hand. There was a briefcolloquy. The woman stretched her arm up the staircase, took the candle,held it to the man's open hand, and bent over counting the money thatlay in the palm. She counted it twice deliberately. Then she nodded. Shegot up, turned, holding the candle above her square headdress, and wentslowly up the staircase followed by the Arab, who grasped his coarsedraperies and lifted them, showing his bare legs. The two disappearedwithout noise into the darkness, leaving the stairway deserted, itswhite steps, its white walls faintly lit by the moon.
The woman had not once looked at the man, but only at the money in hisscaly hand.
Domini felt hot and rather sick. She wondered why she had stood therewatching. Yet she had not been able to turn away. Now, as she steppedback into the middle of the alley and walked on with the man beside hershe wondered what he was thinking of her. She could not talk to him anymore. She was too conscious of the lighted stairways, one after one,succeeding each other to right and left of them, of the still figures,of the watching eyes in which the yellow rays of the candles gleamed.Her companion did not speak; but as they walked he glanced furtivelyfrom one side to the other, then stared down steadily on the white road.When they turned to the right and came out by the gardens, and Dominisaw the great tufted heads of the palms black against the moon, she feltrelieved and was able to speak again.
"I should like you to know that I am quite a stranger to all Africanthings and people," she said. "That is why I am liable to fall intomistakes in such a place as this. Ah, there is the hotel, and my maid onthe verandah. I want to thank you again for looking after me."
They were at a few steps from the hotel door in the road. The manstopped, and Domini stopped too.
"Madame," he said earnestly, with a sort of hardly controlledexcitement, "I--I am glad. I was ashamed--I was ashamed."
"Why?"
"Of my conduct--of my awkwardness. But you will forgive it. I am notaccustomed to the society of ladies--like you. Anything I have done Ihave not done out of rudeness. That is all I can say. I have not done itout of rudeness."
He seemed to be almost trembling with agitation.
"I know, I know," she said. "Besides, it was nothing."
"Oh, no, it was abominable. I understand that. I am not so coarse-fibredas not to understand that."
Domini suddenly felt that to take his view of the matter, exaggeratedthough it was, would be the kindest course, even the most delicate.
"You were rude to me," she said, "but I shall forget it from thismoment."
She held out her hand. He grasped it, and again she felt as if a furnacewere pouring its fiery heat upon her.
"Good-night."
"Good-night, Madame. Thank you."
She was going away to the hotel door, but she stopped.
"My name is Domini Enfilden," she said in English.
The man stood in the road looking at her. She waited. She expected himto tell her his name. There was a silence. At last he said hesitatingly,in English with a very slight foreign accent:
"My name is Boris--Boris Androvsky."
"Batouch told me you were English," she said.
"My mother was English, but my father was a Russian from Tiflis. That ismy name."
There was a sound in his voice as if he were insisting like a man makingan assertion not readily to be believed.
"Good-night," Domini said again.
And she went away slowly, leaving him standing on the moonlit road.
He did not remain there long, nor did he follow her into the hotel.After she had disappeared he stood for a little while gazing up at thedeserted verandah upon which the moon-rays fell. Then he turned andlooked towards the village, hesitated, and finally walked slowly backtowards the tiny, shrouded alley in which on the narrow staircases thepainted girls sat watching in the night.