The Garden of Allah Part 27

"Do smoke," she said.

He lit a small cigar with difficulty. She did not wish to watch him, but she could not help glancing at him once or twice, and the conviction came to her that he was unaccustomed to smoking. She lit a cigarette, and saw him look at her with a sort of horrified surprise which changed to staring interest. There was more boy, more child in this man than in any man she had ever known. Yet at moments she felt as if he had penetrated more profoundly into the dark and winding valleys of experience than all the men of her acquaintance.

"Monsieur Androvsky," she said, looking at the slow waters of the stream slipping by towards the hidden gardens, "is the desert new to you?"

She longed to know.

"Yes, Madame."

"I thought perhaps--I wondered a little whether you had travelled in it already."

"No, Madame. I saw it for the first time the day before yesterday."

"When I did."

"Yes."

So they had entered it for the first time together. She was silent, watching the pale smoke curl up through the shade and out into the glare of the sun, the lizards creeping over the hot earth, the flies circling beneath the lofty walls, the palm trees looking over into this garden from the gardens all around, gardens belonging to Eastern people, born here, and who would probably die here, and go to dust among the roots of the palms.

On the earthen bank on the far side of the stream there appeared, while she gazed, a brilliant figure. It came soundlessly on bare feet from a hidden garden; a tall, unveiled girl, dressed in draperies of vivid magenta, who carried in her exquisitely-shaped brown hands a number of handkerchiefs--scarlet, orange, yellow green and flesh colour. She did not glance into the _auberge_ garden, but caught up her draperies into a bunch with one hand, exposing her slim legs far above the knees, waded into the stream, and bending, dipped the handkerchiefs in the water.

The current took them. They streamed out on the muddy surface of the stream, and tugged as if, suddenly endowed with life, they were striving to escape from the hand that held them.

The girl's face was beautiful, with small regular features and l.u.s.trous, tender eyes. Her figure, not yet fully developed, was perfect in shape, and seemed to thrill softly with the spirit of youth. Her tint of bronze suggested statuary, and every fresh pose into which she fell, while the water eddied about her, strengthened the suggestion. With the golden sunlight streaming upon her, the brown banks, the brown waters, the brown walls throwing up the crude magenta of her bunched-up draperies, the vivid colours of the handkerchiefs that floated from her hand, with the feathery palms beside her, the cloudless blue sky above her, she looked so strangely African and so completely lovely that Domini watched her with an almost breathless attention.

She withdrew the handkerchiefs from the stream, waded out, and spread them one by one upon the low earth wall to dry, letting her draperies fall. When she had finished disposing them she turned round, and, no longer preoccupied with her task, looked under her level brows into the garden opposite and saw Domini and her companion. She did not start, but stood quite still for a moment, then slipped away in the direction whence she had come. Only the brilliant patches of colour on the wall remained to hint that she had been there and would come again. Domini sighed.

"What a lovely creature!" she said, more to herself than to Androvsky.

He did not speak, and his silence made her consciously demand his acquiescence in her admiration.

"Did you ever see anything more beautiful and more characteristic of Africa?" she asked.

"Madame," he said in a slow, stern voice, "I did not look at her."

Domini felt piqued.

"Why not?" she retorted.

Androvsky's face was cloudy and almost cruel.

"These native women do not interest me," he said. "I see nothing attractive in them."

Domini knew that he was telling her a lie. Had she not seen him watching the dancing girls in Tahar's cafe? Anger rose in her. She said to herself then that it was anger at man's hypocrisy. Afterwards she knew that it was anger at Androvsky's telling a lie to her.

"I can scarcely believe that," she answered bluntly.

They looked at each other.

"Why not, Madame?" he said. "If I say it is so?"

She hesitated. At that moment she realised, with hot astonishment, that there was something in this man that could make her almost afraid, that could prevent her even, perhaps, from doing the thing she had resolved to do. Immediately she felt hostile to him, and she knew that, at that moment, he was feeling hostile to her.

"If you say it is so naturally I am bound to take your word for it," she said coldly.

He flushed and looked down. The rigid defiance that had confronted her died out of his face.

Honest Mustapha broke joyously upon them with the coffee. Domini helped Androvsky to it. She had to make a great effort to perform this simple act with quiet, and apparently indifferent, composure.

"Thank you, Madame."

His voice sounded humble, but she felt hard and as if ice were in all her veins. She sipped her coffee, looking straight before her at the stream. The magenta robe appeared once more coming out from the brown wall. A yellow robe succeeded it, a scarlet, a deep purple. The girl, with three curious young companions, stood in the sun examining the foreigners with steady, unflinching eyes. Domini smiled grimly. Fate gave her an opportunity. She beckoned to the girls. They looked at each other but did not move. She held up a bit of silver so that the sun was on it, and beckoned them again. The magenta robe was lifted above the pretty knees it had covered. The yellow, the scarlet, the deep purple robes rose too, making their separate revelations. And the four girls, all staring at the silver coin, waded through the muddy water and stood before Domini and Androvsky, blotting out the glaring sunshine with their young figures. Their smiling faces were now eager and confident, and they stretched out their delicate hands hopefully to the silver.

Domini signified that they must wait a moment.

She felt full of malice.

The girls wore many ornaments. She began slowly and deliberately to examine them; the huge gold earrings that were as large as the little ears that sustained them, the bracelets and anklets, the triangular silver skewers that fastened the draperies across the gentle swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the narrow girdles, worked with gold thread, and hung with lumps of coral, that circled the small, elastic waists. Her inventory was an adagio, and while it lasted Androvsky sat on his low straw chair with this wall of young womanhood before him, of young womanhood no longer self-conscious and timid, but eager, hardy, natural, warm with the sun and damp with the trickling drops of the water. The vivid draperies touched him, and presently a little hand stole out to his breast, caught at the silver chain that lay across it, and jerked out of its hiding-place--a wooden cross.

Domini saw the light on it for a second, heard a low, fierce exclamation, saw Androvsky's arm push the pretty hand roughly away, and then a thing that was strange.

He got up violently from his chair with the cross hanging loose on his breast. Then he seized hold of it, snapped the chain in two, threw the cross pa.s.sionately into the stream and walked away down the garden. The four girls, with a twittering cry of excitement, rushed into the water, heedless of draperies, bent down, knelt down, and began to feel frantically in the mud for the vanished ornament. Domini stood up and watched them. Androvsky did not come back. Some minutes pa.s.sed. Then there was an exclamation of triumph from the stream. The girl in magenta held up the dripping cross with the bit of silver chain in her dripping fingers. Domini cast a swift glance behind her. Androvsky had disappeared. Quickly she went to the edge of the water. As she was in riding-dress she wore no ornaments except two earrings made of large and beautiful turquoises. She took them hastily out of her ears and held them out to the girl, signifying by gestures that she bartered them for the little cross and chain. The girl hesitated, but the clear blue tint of the turquoise pleased her eyes. She yielded, s.n.a.t.c.hed the earrings with an eager, gave up the cross and chain with a reluctant, hand.

Domini's fingers closed round the wet gold. She threw some coins across the stream on to the bank, and turned away, thrusting the cross into her bosom.

And she felt at that moment as if she had saved a sacred thing from outrage.

At the cabaret door she found Androvsky, once more surrounded by Arabs, whom honest Mustapha was trying to beat off. He turned when he heard her. His eyes were still full of a light that revealed an intensity of mental agitation, and she saw his left hand, which hung down, quivering against his side. But he succeeded in schooling his voice as he asked:

"Do you wish to visit the village, Madame?"

"Yes. But don't let me bother you if you would rather--"

"I will come. I wish to come."

She did not believe it. She felt that he was in great pain, both of body and mind. His fall had hurt him. She knew that by the way he moved his right arm. The unaccustomed exercise had made him stiff. Probably the physical discomfort he was silently enduring had acted as an irritant to the mind. She remembered that it was caused by his determination to be her companion, and the ice in her melted away. She longed to make him calmer, happier. Secretly she touched the little cross that lay under her habit. He had thrown it away in a pa.s.sion. Well, some day perhaps she would have the pleasure of giving it back to him. Since he had worn it he must surely care for it, and even perhaps for that which it recalled.

"We ought to visit the mosque, I think," she said.

"Yes, Madame."

The a.s.sent sounded determined yet reluctant. She knew this was all against his will. Mustapha took charge of them, and they set out down the narrow street, accompanied by a little crowd. They crossed the glaring market-place, with its booths of red meat made black by flies, its heaps of refuse, its rows of small and squalid hutches, in which sat serious men surrounded by their goods. The noise here was terrific.

Everyone seemed shouting, and the uproar of the various trades, the clamour of hammers on sheets of iron, the dry tap of the shoemaker's wooden wand on the soles of countless slippers, the thud of the coffee-beater's blunt club on the beans, and the groaning grunt with which he accompanied each downward stroke mingled with the incessant roar of camels, and seemed to be made more deafening and intolerable by the fierce heat of the sun, and by the innumerable smells which seethed forth upon the air. Domini felt her nerves set on edge, and was thankful when they came once more into the narrow alleys that ran everywhere between the brown, blind houses. In them there was shade and silence and mystery. Mustapha strode before to show the way, Domini and Androvsky followed, and behind glided the little mob of barefoot inquisitors in long shirts, speechless and intent, and always hopeful of some chance scattering of money by the wealthy travellers.

The tumult of the market-place at length died away, and Domini was conscious of a curious, far-off murmur. At first it was so faint that she was scarcely aware of it, and merely felt the soothing influence of its level monotony. But as they walked on it grew deeper, stronger. It was like the sound of countless mult.i.tudes of bees buzzing in the noon among flowers, drowsily, ceaselessly. She stopped under a low mud arch to listen. And when she listened, standing still, a feeling of awe came upon her, and she knew that she had never heard such a strangely impressive, strangely suggestive sound before.

"What is that?" she said.

She looked at Androvsky.

"I don't know, Madame. It must be people."