The Garden of Allah Part 4

What was he doing? Looking over the parapet into the fruit gardens, where the white figures of the Arabs were flitting through the trees?

He was perfectly silent. Domini was now wide awake. The feeling of calm serenity had left her. She was nervously troubled by this presence near her, and swiftly recalled the few trifling incidents of the day which had begun to delineate a character for her. They were, she found, all unpleasant, all, at least, faintly disagreeable. Yet, in sum, what was their meaning? The sketch they traced was so slight, so confused, that it told little. The last incident was the strangest. And again she saw the long and luminous pathway of the tunnel, flickering with light and shade, carpeted with the pale reflections of the leaves and narrow branches of the trees, the black figure of the priest far down it, and the tall form of the stranger in an att.i.tude of painful hesitation. Each time she had seen him, apparently desirous of doing something definite, hesitation had overtaken him. In his indecision there was something horrible to her, something alarming.

She wished he was not standing behind her, and her discomfort increased.

She could still hear the voices of the soldiers in the cafe. Perhaps he was listening to them. They sounded louder.

The speakers were getting up from their seats. There was a jingling of spurs, a tramp of feet, and the voices died away. The church bell chimed again. As it did so Domini heard heavy and uneven steps cross the verandah hurriedly. An instant later she heard a window shut sharply.

"Suzanne!" she called.

Her maid appeared, yawning, with various parcels in her hands.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"I sha'n't go down to the _salle-a-manger_ to-night. Tell them to give me some dinner in my _salon_."

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"You did not see who was on the verandah just now?"

The maid looked surprised.

"I was in Mademoiselle's room."

"Yes. How near the church is."

"Mademoiselle will have no difficulty in getting to Ma.s.s. She will not be obliged to go among all the Arabs."

Domini smiled.

"I have come here to be among the Arabs, Suzanne."

"The porter of the omnibus tells me they are dirty and very dangerous.

They carry knives, and their clothes are full of fleas."

"You will feel quite differently about them in the morning. Don't forget about dinner."

"I will speak about it at once, Mademoiselle."

Suzanne disappeared, walking as one who suspects an ambush.

After dinner Domini went again to the verandah. She found Batouch there.

He had now folded a snow-white turban round his head, and looked like a young high priest of some ornate religion. He suggested that Domini should come out with him to visit the Rue des Ouled Nails and see the strange dances of the Sahara. But she declined.

"Not to-night, Batouch. I must go to bed. I haven't slept for two nights."

"But I do not sleep, Madame. In the night I compose verses. My brain is alive. My heart is on fire."

"Yes, but I am not a poet. Besides, I may be here for a long time. I shall have many evenings to see the dances."

The poet looked displeased.

"The gentleman is going," he said. "Hadj is at the door waiting for him now. But Hadj is afraid when he enters the street of the dancers."

"Why?"

"There is a girl there who wishes to kill him. Her name is Aishoush. She was sent away from Beni-Mora for six months, but she has come back, and after all this time she still wishes to kill Hadj."

"What has he done to her?"

"He has not loved her. Yes, Hadj is afraid, but he will go with the gentleman because he must earn money to buy a costume for the _fete_ of Ramadan. I also wish to buy a new costume."

He looked at Domini with a dignified plaintiveness. His pose against the pillar of the verandah was superb. Over his blue cloth jacket he had thrown a thin white burnous, which hung round him in cla.s.sic folds.

Domini could scarcely believe that so magnificent a creature was touting for a franc. The idea certainly did occur to her, but she banished it.

For she was a novice in Africa.

"I am too tired to go out to-night," she said decisively.

"Good-night, Madame. I shall be here to-morrow morning at seven o'clock.

The dawn in the garden of the gazelles is like the flames of Paradise, and you can see the Spahis galloping upon horses that are beautiful as--"

"I shall not get up early to-morrow."

Batouch a.s.sumed an expression that was tragically submissive and turned to go. Just then Suzanne appeared at the French window of her bedroom.

She started as she perceived the poet, who walked slowly past her to the staircase, throwing his burnous back from his big shoulders, and stood looking after him. Her eyes fixed themselves upon the section of bare leg that was visible above his stockings white as the driven snow, and a faintly sentimental expression mingled with their defiance and alarm.

Domini got up from her chair and leaned over the parapet. A streak of yellow light from the doorway of the hotel lay upon the white road below, and in a moment she saw two figures come out from beneath the verandah and pause there. Hadj was one, the stranger was the other.

The stranger struck a match and tried to light a cigar, but failed. He struck another match, and then another, but still the cigar would not draw. Hadj looked at him with mischievous astonishment.

"If Monsieur will permit me--" he began.

But the stranger took the cigar hastily from his mouth and flung it away.

"I don't want to smoke," Domini heard him say in French.

Then he walked away with Hadj into the darkness.

As they disappeared Domini heard a faint shrieking in the distance. It was the music of the African hautboy.

The night was marvellously dry and warm. The thickly growing trees in the garden scarcely moved. It was very still and very dark. Suzanne, standing at her window, looked like a shadow in her black dress. Her att.i.tude was romantic. Perhaps the subtle influence of this Sahara village was beginning to steal even over her obdurate spirit.

The hautboy went on crying. Its notes, though faint, were sharp and piercing. Once more the church bell chimed among the date palms, and the two musics, with their violently differing a.s.sociations, clashing together smote upon Domini's heart with a sense of trouble, almost of tragedy. The pulses in her temples throbbed, and she clasped her hands tightly together. That brief moment, in which she heard the duet of those two voices, was one of the most interesting, yet also one of the most painful she had ever known. The church bell was silent now, but the hautboy did not cease. It was barbarous and provocative, shrill with a persistent triumph.

Domini went to bed early, but she could not sleep. Just before midnight she heard someone walking up and down on the verandah. The step was heavy and shuffling. It came and went, came and went, without pause till she was in a fever of uneasiness. Only when two chimed from the church did it cease at last.

She whispered a prayer to Notre Dame de la Garde, The Blessed Virgin, looking towards Africa. For the first time she felt the loneliness of her situation and that she was far away.