XXXIV
Still the woman stood looking after the bird, but the sun had droppedbehind the dunes, and she no longer needed to shade her eyes with herhand. There was nothing more to expect till sunset to-morrow, whensomething might or might not happen. If no message came, then therewould be only dullness and stagnation until the day when the Moorishbath was sacredly kept for the great ladies of the marabout's household.There were but two of these, yet they never went to the bath together,nor had they ever met or spoken to one another. They were escorted tothe bath by their attendants at different hours of the same day; andlater their female servants were allowed to go, for no one but the womenof the saintly house might use the baths that day.
The woman on the white roof in the midst of the golden silence gazedtowards the west, though she looked for no event of interest; and hereyes fixed themselves mechanically upon a little caravan which movedalong the yellow sand like a procession of black insects. She was soaccustomed to search the desert since the days, long ago, when she hadactually hoped for friends to come and take her away, that she coulddifferentiate objects at greater distances than one less trained toobservation. Hardly thinking of the caravan, she made out, nevertheless,that it consisted of two camels, carrying bassourahs, a horse and Arabrider, a brown pack camel, and a loaded mule, driven by two men whowalked.
They had evidently come from Oued Tolga, or at least from thatdirection, therefore it was probable that their destination was theZaouia; otherwise, as it was already late, they would have stopped inthe city all night. Of course, it was possible that they were on theirway to the village, but it was a poor place, inhabited by very poorpeople, many of them freed Negroes, who worked in the oases and livedmostly upon dates. No caravans ever went out from there, because no man,even the richest, owned more than one camel or donkey; and nobody cameto stay, unless some son of the miserable hamlet, who had made a littlemoney elsewhere, and returned to see his relatives. But on the otherhand, numerous caravans arrived at the Zaouia of Oued Tolga, andhundreds of pilgrims from all parts of Islam were entertained as themarabout's guests, or as recipients of charity.
Dimly, as she detached her mind from the message she had sent, the womanbegan to wonder about this caravan, because of the bassourahs, whichmeant that there were women among the travellers. There werecomparatively few women pilgrims to the Zaouia, except invalids from thetown of Oued Tolga, or some Sahara encampment, who crawled on foot, orrode decrepit donkeys, hoping to be cured of ailments by the magic powerof the marabout, the power of the Baraka. The woman who watched hadlearned by this time not to expect European tourists. She had lived foreight years in the Zaouia, and not once had she seen from her roof aEuropean, except a French government-official or two, and a few--a veryfew--French officers. Never had any European women come. Tourists wereusually satisfied with Touggourt, three or four days nearercivilisation. Women did not care to undertake an immense and fatiguingjourney among the most formidable dunes of the desert, where there wasnothing but ascending and descending, day after day; where camelssometimes broke their legs in the deep sand, winding along the fallenside of a mountainous dune, and where a horse often had to sit on hishaunches, and slide with his rider down a sand precipice.
She herself had experienced all these difficulties, so long ago nowthat she had half forgotten how she had hated them, and the fate towhich they were leading her. But she did not blame other women for notcoming to Oued Tolga.
Occasionally some caid or agha of the far south would bring his wife whowas ill or childless to be blessed by the marabout; and in old days theyhad been introduced to the marabouta, but it was years now since she hadbeen asked, or even allowed, to entertain strangers. She thought,without any active interest, as she looked at the nodding bassourahs,growing larger and larger, that a chief was coming with his women, andthat he would be disappointed to learn that the marabout was away fromhome. It was rather odd that the stranger had not been told in the city,for every one knew that the great man had gone a fortnight ago to theprovince of Oran. Several days must pass before he could return, evenif, for any reason, he came sooner than he was expected. But it did notmatter much to her, if there were to be visitors who would have the painof waiting. There was plenty of accommodation for guests, and there weremany servants whose special duty it was to care for strangers. She wouldnot see the women in the bassourahs, nor hear of them unless some gossipreached her through the talk of the negresses.
Still, as there was nothing else which she wished to do, she continuedto watch the caravan.
By and by it passed out of sight, behind the rising ground on which thevillage huddled, with its crowding brown house-walls that narrowedtowards the roofs. The woman almost forgot it, until it appeared again,to the left of the village, where palm logs had been laid in the riverbed, making a kind of rough bridge, only covered when the river was inflood. It was certain now that the travellers were coming to the Zaouia.
The flame of the sunset had died, though clouds purple as pansiesflowered in the west. The gold of the dunes paled to silver, and thedesert grew sad, as if it mourned for a day that would never live again.Far away, near Oued Tolga, where the white domes of the city and thegreen domes of the oasis palms all blended together in shadow, firessprang up in the camps of nomads, like signals of danger.
The woman on the roof shivered. The chill of the coming night cooled herexcitement. She was afraid of the future, and the sadness which hadfallen upon the desert was cold in her heart. The caravan was not farfrom the gate of the Zaouia, but she was tired of watching it. Sheturned and went down the narrow stairs that led to her rooms, and to thelittle garden where the fragrance of orange blossoms was too sweet.