And of what was this dread born?
Batouch drew her attention to the fact that they were coming to the marketplace, and to the curious crowds of people who were swarming out of the tortuous, narrow streets into the main thoroughfare to watch them pa.s.s, or to accompany them, running beside their horses. She divined at once, by the pa.s.sionate curiosity their entry aroused, that he had misspent his leisure in spreading through the city lying reports of their immense importance and fabulous riches.
"Batouch," she said, "you have been talking about us."
"No, Madame, I merely said that Madame is a great lady in her own land, and that Monsieur--"
"I forbid you ever to speak about me, Batouch," said Androvsky, brusquely.
He seemed worried by the clamour of the increasing mob that surrounded them. Children in long robes like night-gowns skipped before them, calling out in shrill voices. Old beggars, with diseased eyes and deformed limbs, laid filthy hands upon their bridles and demanded alms.
Impudent boys, like bronze statuettes suddenly endowed with a fury of life, progressed backwards to keep them full in view, shouting information at them and proclaiming their own transcendent virtues as guides. Lithe desert men, almost naked, but with carefully-covered heads, strode beside them, keeping pace with the horses, saying nothing, but watching them with a bright intentness that seemed to hint at unutterable designs. And towards them, through the air that seemed heavy and almost suffocating now that they were among buildings, and through clouds of buzzing flies, came the noise of the larger tumult of the market-place.
Looking over the heads of the throng Domini saw the wide road opening out into a great s.p.a.ce, with the first palms of the oasis thronging on the left, and a cl.u.s.ter of buildings, many with small cupolas, like down-turned white cups, on the right. On the farther side of this s.p.a.ce, which was black with people clad for the most in dingy garments, was an arcade jutting out from a number of hovel-like houses, and to the right of them, where the market-place, making a wide sweep, continued up hill and was hidden from her view, was the end of the great building whose gilded cupolas they had seen as they rode in from the desert, rising above the city with the minarets of its mosques.
The flies buzzed furiously about the horses" heads and flanks, and the people buzzed more furiously, like larger flies, about the riders. It seemed to Domini as if the whole city was intent upon her and Androvsky, was observing them, considering them, wondering about them, was full of a thousand intentions all connected with them.
When they gained the market-place the noise and the watchful curiosity made a violent crescendo. It happened to be market day and, although the sun was setting, buying and selling were not yet over. On the hot earth over which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the white sand grains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy colours on which were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy ornaments for women, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of bright red leather, slippers, weapons--many jewelled and gilt, or rich with patterns in silver--pyramids of the cords of camels" hair that bind the turbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all the colours of the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered with golden and silver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of henna to dye the finger-nails of the faithful, innumerable comestibles, vegetables, corn, red butcher"s meat thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellow cakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers--which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelming even than that produced by haschish--musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, and plaits of false hair.
The sellers squatted on the ground, their brown and hairy legs crossed, calmly gazing before them, or, with frenzied voices and gestures, driving bargains with the buyers, who moved to and fro, treading carelessly among the merchandise. The tellers of fates glided through the press, fingering the amulets that hung upon their hearts. Conjurors proclaimed the merits of their miracles, bawling in the faces of the curious. Dwarfs went to and fro, dressed in bright colours with green and yellow turbans on their enormous heads, tapping with long staves, and relating their deformities. Water-sellers sounded their gongs.
Before pyramids of oranges and dates, neatly arranged in patterns, sat boys crying in shrill voices the luscious virtues of their fruits.
Idiots, with blear eyes and protending under-lips, gibbered and whined.
Dogs barked. Bakers hurried along with trays of loaves upon their heads.
From the low and smoky arcades to right and left came the reiterated grunt of negroes pounding coffee. A fanatic was roaring out his prayers.
Arabs in scarlet and blue cloaks pa.s.sed by to the Bain Maure, under whose white and blue archway lounged the Kabyle ma.s.seurs with folded, muscular arms. A marabout, black as a coal, rode on a white horse towards the great mosque, followed by his servant on foot.
Native soldiers went by to the Kasba on the height, or strolled down towards the Cafes Maures smoking cigarettes. Circles of grave men bent over card games, dominoes and draughts--called by the Arabs the Ladies"
Game. Khodjas made their way with dignity towards the Bureau Arabe.
Veiled women, fat and lethargic, jingling with ornaments, waddled through the arches of the arcades, carrying in their painted and perspiring hands blocks of sweetmeats which drew the flies. Children played in the dust by little heaps of refuse, which they stirred up into clouds with their dancing, naked feet. In front, as if from the first palms of the oasis, rose the roar of beaten drums from the negroes"
quarter, and from the hill-top at the feet of the minarets came the fierce and piteous noise that is the _leit-motif_ of the desert, the mult.i.tudinous complaining of camels dominating all other sounds.
As Domini and Androvsky rode into this whirlpool of humanity, above which the sky was red like a great wound, it flowed and eddied round them, making them its centre. The arrival of a stranger-woman was a rare, if not an unparalleled, event in Amara, and Batouch had been very busy in spreading the fame of his mistress.
"Madame should dismount," said Batouch. "Ali will take the horses, and I will escort Madame and Monsieur up the hill to the place of the fountain. Shabah will be there to greet Madame."
"What an uproar!" Domini exclaimed, half laughing, half confused. "Who on earth is Shabah?"
"Shabah is the Caid of Amara," replied Batouch with dignity. "The greatest man of the city. He awaits Madame by the fountain." Domini cast a glance at Androvsky.
"Well?" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders like a man who thinks strife useless and the moment come for giving in to Fate.
"The monster has opened his jaws for us," he said, forcing a laugh.
"We had better walk in, I suppose. But--O Domini!--the silence of the wastes!"
"We shall know it again. This is only for the moment. We shall have all its joy again."
"Who knows?" he said, as he had said when they were riding up the sand slope. "Who knows?"
Then they got off their horses and were taken by the crowd.
CHAPTER XXII
The tumult of Amara waked up in Domini the town-sense that had been slumbering. All that seemed to confuse, to daze, to repel Androvsky, even to inspire him with fear, the noise of the teeming crowds, their perpetual movement, their contact, startled her into a vividness of life and apprehension of its various meanings, that sent a thrill through her. And the thrill was musical with happiness. To the sad a great vision of human life brings sadness because they read into the hearts of others their own misery. But to the happy such a vision brings exultation, for everywhere they find dancing reflections of their own joy. Domini had lived much in crowds, but always she had been actively unhappy, or at least coldly dreary in them. Now, for the first time, she was surrounded by ma.s.ses of fellow-beings in her splendid contentment.
And the effect of this return, as it were, to something like the former material conditions of her life, with the mental and affectional conditions of it transformed by joy, was striking even to herself.
Suddenly she realised to the full her own humanity, and the living warmth of sympathy that is fanned into flame in a human heart by the presence of human life with its hopes, desires, fears, pa.s.sions, joys, that leap to the eye. Instead of hating this fierce change from solitude with the man she loved to a crowd with the man she loved she rejoiced in it. Androvsky was the cause of both her joys, joy in the waste and joy in Amara, but while he shared the one he did not share the other.
This did not surprise her because of the conditions in which he had lived. He was country-bred and had always dwelt far from towns. She was returning to an old experience--old, for the London crowd and the crowd of Amara were both crowds of men, however different--with a mind transformed by happiness. To him the experience was new. Something within her told her that it was necessary, that it had been ordained because he needed it. The recalled town-sense, with its sharpness of observation, persisted. As she rode in to Amara she had seemed to herself to be reading Androvsky with an almost merciless penetration which yet she could not check. Now she did not wish to check it, for the penetration that is founded on perfect love can only yield good fruit.
It seemed to her that she was allowed to see clearly for Androvsky what he could not see himself, almost as the mother sees for the child. This contact with the crowds of Amara was, she thought, one of the gifts the desert made to him. He did not like it. He wished to reject it. But he was mistaken. For the moment his vision was clouded, as our vision for ourselves so often is. She realised this, and, for the first time since the marriage service at Beni-Mora, perhaps seemed to be selfish. She opposed his wish. Hitherto there had never been any sort of contest between them. Their desires, like their hearts, had been in accord. Now there was not a contest, for Androvsky yielded to Domini"s preference, when she expressed it, with a quickness that set his pa.s.sion before her in a new and beautiful light. But she knew that, for the moment, they were not in accord. He hated and dreaded what she encountered with a vivid sensation of sympathy and joy.
She felt that there was something morbid in his horror of the crowd, and the same strength of her nature said to her, "Uproot it!"
Their camp was pitched on the sand-hills, to the north of the city near the French and Arab cemeteries. They reached it only when darkness was falling, going out of the city on foot by the great wall of dressed stone which enclosed the Kasba of the native soldiers, and ascending and descending various slopes of deep sand, over which the airs of night blew with a peculiar thin freshness that renewed Domini"s sense of being at the end of the world. Everything here whispered the same message, said, "We are the denizens of far-away."
In their walk to the camp they were accompanied by a little procession.
Shabah, the Caid of Amara, a shortish man whose immense dignity made him almost gigantic, insisted upon attending them to the tents, with his young brother, a pretty, libertine boy of sixteen, the brother"s tutor, an Arab black as a negro but without the negro"s look of having been freshly oiled, and two attendants. To them joined himself the Caid of the Nomads, a swarthy potentate who not only looked, but actually was, immense, his four servants, and his uncle, a venerable person like a shepherd king. These worthies surrounded Domini and Androvsky, and behind streamed the curious, the envious, the greedy and the desultory Arabs, who follow in the trail of every stranger, hopeful of the crumbs that are said to fall from the rich man"s table. Shabah spoke French and led the conversation, which was devoted chiefly to his condition of health. Some years before an attempt had been made upon his life by poison, and since that time, as he himself expressed it, his stomach had been "perturbed as a guard dog in the night when robbers are approaching." All efforts to console or to inspire him with hope of future cure were met with a stern hopelessness, a brusque certainty of perpetual suffering. The idea that his stomach could again know peace evidently shocked and distressed him, and as they all waded together through the sand, pioneered by the glorified Batouch, Domini was obliged to yield to his emphatic despair, and to join with him in his appreciation of the perpetual indigestion which set him apart from the rest of the world like some G.o.d within a shrine. The skittish boy, his brother, who wore kid gloves, cast at her sly glances of admiration which asked for a return. The black tutor grinned. And the Caid of the Nomads punctuated their progress with loud grunts of heavy satisfaction, occasionally making use of Batouch as interpreter to express his hopes that they would visit his palace in the town, and devour a cous-cous on his carpet.
When they came to the tents it was necessary to entertain these personages with coffee, and they finally departed promising a speedy return, and full of invitations, which were cordially accepted by Batouch on his employer"s behalf before either Domini or Androvsky had time to say a word.
As the _cortege_ disappeared over the sands towards the city Domini burst into a little laugh, and drew Androvsky out to the tent door to see them go.
"Society in the sands!" she exclaimed gaily. "Boris, this is a new experience. Look at our guests making their way to their palaces!"
Slowly the potentates progressed across the white dunes towards the city. Shabah wore a long red cloak. His brother was in pink and gold, with white billowing trousers. The Caid of the Nomads was in green.
They all moved with a large and conscious majesty, surrounded by their obsequious attendants. Above them the purple sky showed a bright evening star. Near it was visible the delicate silhouette of the young moon.
Scattered over the waste rose many koubbahs, grey in the white, with cupolas of gypse. Hundreds of dogs were barking in the distance. To the left, on the vast, rolling slopes of sand, glared the innumerable fires kindled before the tents of the Ouled Nails. Before the sleeping tent rose the minarets and the gilded cupolas of the city which it dominated from its mountain of sand. Behind it was the blanched immensity of the plain, of the lonely desert from which Domini and Androvsky had come to face this barbaric stir of life. And the city was full of music, of tomtoms throbbing, of bugles blowing in the Kasba, of pipes shrieking from hidden dwellings, and of the faint but mult.i.tudinous voices of men, carried to them on their desolate and treeless height by the frail wind of night that seemed a white wind, twin-brother of the sands.
"Let us go a step or two towards the city, Boris," Domini said, as their guests sank magnificently down into a fold of the dunes.
"Towards the city!" he answered. "Why not--?" He glanced behind him to the vacant, noiseless sands.
She set her impulse against his for the first time.
"No, this is our town life, our Sahara season. Let us give ourselves to it. The loneliness will be its antidote some day."
"Very well, Domini," he answered.
They went a little way towards the city, and stood still in the sand at the edge of their height.
"Listen, Boris! Isn"t it strange in the night all this barbaric music?
It excites me."
"You are glad to be here."
She heard the note of disappointment in his voice, but did not respond to it.
"And look at all those fires, hundreds of them in the sand!"