The Garden of Allah Part 54

"No. I should not understand him."

"I can explain to Madame."

"No."

She stepped out into the road.

"There will be a moon to-night, won't there?" she said, looking up at the starry sky.

"Yes, Madame, later."

"What time will it rise?"

"Between nine and ten."

She stood in the road, thinking. It had occurred to her that she had never seen moonrise in the desert.

"And now it is"--she looked at her watch--"only eight."

"Does Madame wish to see the moon come up pouring upon the palms--"

"Don't talk so much, Batouch," she said brusquely.

To-night the easy and luscious imaginings of the poet worried her like the cry of a mosquito. His presence even disturbed her. Yet what could she do without him? After a pause she said:

"Can one go into the desert at night?"

"On foot, Madame? It would be dangerous. One cannot tell what may be in the desert by night."

These words made her long to go. They had a charm, a violence perhaps, of the unknown.

"One might ride," she said. "Why not? Who could hurt us if we were mounted and armed?"

"Madame is brave as the panther in the forests of the Djurdjurah."

"And you, Batouch? Aren't you brave?"

"Madame, I am afraid of nothing." He did not say it boastfully, like Hadj, but calmly, almost loftily.

"Well, we are neither of us afraid. Let us ride out on the Tombouctou road and see the moon rise. I'll go and put on my habit."

"Madame should take her revolver."

"Of course. Bring the horses round at nine."

When she had put on her habit it was only a few minutes after eight. She longed to be in the saddle, going at full speed up the long, white road between the palms. Physical movement was necessary to her, and she began to pace up and down the verandah quickly. She wished she had ordered the horses at once, or that she could do something definite to fill up the time till they came. As she turned at the end of the verandah she saw a white form approaching her; when it drew near she recognised Hadj, looking self-conscious and mischievous, but a little triumphant too. At this moment she was glad to see him. He received her congratulations on his recovery and approaching marriage with a sort of skittish gaiety, but she soon discovered that he had come with a money-making reason.

Having seen his cousin safely off the premises, it had evidently occurred to him to turn an honest penny. And pennies were now specially needful to him in view of married life.

"Does Madame wish to see something strange and wonderful to-night?" he asked, after a moment, looking at her sideways out of the corners of his wicked eyes, which, as Domini could see, were swift to read character and mood.

"I am going out riding."

He looked astonished.

"In the night?"

"Yes. Batouch has gone to fetch the horses."

Hadj's face became a mask of sulkiness.

"If Madame goes out with Batouch she will be killed. There are robbers in the desert, and Batouch is afraid of--"

"Could we see the strange and wonderful thing in an hour?" she interrupted.

The gay and skittish expression returned instantly to his face.

"Yes, Madame."

"What is it?"

He shook his head and made an artful gesture with his hand in the air.

"Madame shall see."

His long eyes were full of mystery, and he moved towards the staircase.

"Come, Madame."

Domini laughed and followed him. She felt as if she were playing a game, yet her curiosity was roused. They went softly down and slipped out of the hotel like children fearing to be caught.

"Batouch will be angry. There will be white foam on his lips," whispered Hadj, dropping his chin and chuckling low in his throat. "This way, Madame."

He led her quickly across the gardens to the Rue Berthe, and down a number of small streets, till they reached a white house before which, on a hump, three palm trees grew from one trunk. Beyond was waste ground, and further away a stretch of sand and low dunes lost in the darkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Domini looked at the house and at Hadj, and wondered if it would be foolish to enter.

"What is it?" she asked again.

But he only replied, "Madame will see!" and struck his flat hand upon the door. It was opened a little way, and a broad face covered with little humps and dents showed, the thick lips parted and muttering quickly. Then the face was withdrawn, the door opened wider, and Hadj beckoned to Domini to go in. After a moment's hesitation she did so, and found herself in a small interior court, with a tiled floor, pillars, and high up a gallery of carved wood, from which, doubtless, dwelling-rooms opened. In the court, upon cushions, were seated four vacant-looking men, with bare arms and legs and long matted hair, before a brazier, from which rose a sharply pungent perfume. Two of these men were very young, with pale, ascetic faces and weary eyes. They looked like young priests of the Sahara. At a short distance, upon a red pillow, sat a tiny boy of about three years old, dressed in yellow and green. When Domini and Hadj came into the court no one looked at them except the child, who stared with slowly-rolling, solemn eyes, slightly shifting on the pillow. Hadj beckoned to Domini to seat herself upon some rugs between the pillars, sat down beside her and began to make a cigarette. Complete silence prevailed. The four men stared at the brazier, holding their nostrils over the incense fumes which rose from it in airy spirals. The child continued to stare at Domini. Hadj lit his cigarette. And time rolled on.

Domini had desired violence, and had been conveyed into a dumbness of mystery, that fell upon her turmoil of spirit like a blow. What struck her as especially strange and unnatural was the fact that the men with whom she was sitting in the dim court of this lonely house had not looked at her, did not appear to know that she was there. Hadj had caught the aroma of their meditations with the perfume of the incense, for his eyes had lost their mischief and become gloomily profound, as if they stared on bygone centuries or watched a far-off future. Even the child began to look elderly, and worn as with fastings and with watchings. As the fumes perpetually ascended from the red-hot coals of the brazier the sharp smell of the perfume grew stronger. There was in it something provocative and exciting that was like a sound, and Domini marvelled that the four men who crouched over it and drank it in perpetually could be unaffected by its influence when she, who was at some distance from it, felt dawning on her desires of movement, of action, almost a physical necessity to get up and do something extraordinary, absurd or pa.s.sionate, such as she had never done or dreamed of till this moment.

A low growl like that of a wild beast broke the silence. Domini did not know at first whence it came. She stared at the four men, but they were all gazing vacantly into the brazier, their naked arms dropping to the floor. She glanced at Hadj. He was delicately taking a cigarette paper from a little case. The child--no, it was absurd even to think of a child emitting such a sound.

Someone growled again more fiercely, and this time Domini saw that it was the palest of the ascetic-looking youths. He shook back his long hair, rose to his feet with a bound, and moving into the centre of the court gazed ferociously at his companions. As if in obedience to the glance, two of them stretched their arms backwards, found two tomtoms, and began to beat them loudly and monotonously. The young ascetic bowed to the tomtoms, dropping his lower jaw and jumping on his bare feet. He bowed again as if saluting a fetish, and again and again. Ceaselessly he bowed to the tomtoms, always jumping softly from the pavement. His long hair fell over his face and back upon his shoulders with a monotonous regularity that imitated the tomtoms, as if he strove to mould his life in accord with the fetish to which he offered adoration. Flecks of foam appeared upon his lips, and the asceticism in his eyes changed to a b.e.s.t.i.a.l glare. His whole body was involved in a long and snake-like undulation, above which his hair flew to and fro. Presently the second youth, moving reverently like a priest about the altar, stole to a corner and returned with a large and curved sheet of gla.s.s. Without looking at Domini he came to her and placed it in her hands. When the dancer saw the gla.s.s he stood still, growled again long and furiously, threw himself on his knees before Domini, licked his lips, then, abruptly thrusting forward his face, set his teeth in the sheet of gla.s.s, bit a large piece off, crunched it up with a loud noise, swallowed it with a gulp, and growled for more. She fed him again, while the tomtoms went on roaring, and the child in its red pillow watched with its weary eyes. And when he was full fed, only a fragment of gla.s.s remained between her fingers, he fell upon the ground and lay like one in a trance.

Then the second youth bowed to the tomtoms, leaping gently on the pavement, foamed at the mouth, growled, snuffed up the incense fumes, shook his long mane, and placed his naked feet in the red-hot coals of the brazier. He plucked out a coal and rolled his tongue round it. He placed red coals under his bare armpits and kept them there, pressing his arms against his sides. He held a coal, like a monocle, in his eye socket against his eye. And all the time he leaped and bowed and foamed, undulating his body like a snake. The child looked on with a still gravity, and the tomtoms never ceased. From the gallery above painted faces peered down, but Domini did not see them. Her attention was taken captive by the young priests of the Sahara. For so she called them in her mind, realising that there were religious fanatics whose half-crazy devotion seemed to lift them above the ordinary dangers to the body. One of the musicians now took his turn, throwing his tomtom to the eater of gla.s.s, who had wakened from his trance. He bowed and leaped; thrust spikes behind his eyes, through his cheeks, his lips, his arms; drove a long nail into his head with a wooden hammer; stood upon the sharp edge of an upturned sword blade. With the spikes protruding from his face in all directions, and his eyes bulging out from them like b.a.l.l.s, he spun in a maze of hair, barking like a dog. The child regarded him with a still attention, and the incense fumes were cloudy in the court. Then the last of the four men sprang up in the midst of a more pa.s.sionate uproar from the tomtoms. He wore a filthy burnous, and, with a shriek, he plunged his hand into its hood and threw some squirming things upon the floor. They began to run, rearing stiff tails into the air. He sank down, blew upon them, caught them, letting them set their tail weapons in his fingers, and lifting them thus, imbedded, high above the floor.

Then again he put them down, breathed upon each one, drew a circle round each with his forefinger. His face had suddenly become intense, hypnotic. The scorpions, as if mesmerised, remained utterly still, each in its place within its imaginary circle, that had become a cage; and their master bowed to the fetish of the tomtoms, leaped, grinned, and bowed again, undulating his body in a maze of hair.

Domini felt as if she, like the scorpions, had been mesmerised. She, too, was surely bound in a circle, breathed upon by some arrogant breath of fanaticism, commanded by some horrid power. She looked at the scorpions and felt a sort of pity for them. From time to time the bowing fanatic glanced at them through his hair out of the corners of his eyes, licked his lips, shook his shoulders, and uttered a long howl, thrilling with the note of greed. The tomtoms pulsed faster and faster, louder and louder, and all the men began to sing a fierce chant, the song surely of desert souls driven crazy by religion. One of the scorpions moved slightly, reared its tail, began to run. Instantly, as if at a signal, the dancer fell upon his knees, bent down his head, seized it in his teeth, munched it and swallowed it. At the same moment with the uproar of the tomtoms there mingled a loud knocking on the door.