Next day, Lella M'Barka was well enough to begin the march again. They
started, in the same curtained carriage, at that moment before dawn
while it is still dark, and a thin white cloth seems spread over the
dead face of night. Then day came trembling along the horizon, and the
shadows of horses and carriage grew long and grotesquely deformed. It
was the time, M'Barka said, when Chitan the devil, and the evil Djenoun
that possess people's minds and drive them insane, were most powerful;
and she would hardly listen when Victoria answered that she did not
believe in Djenoun.
In a long day, they came to Bou-Saada, reaching the hidden oasis after
nightfall, and staying in the house of the Caïd with whom Stephen and
Nevill had talked of Ben Halim. Lella M'Barka was related to the Caïd's
wife, and was so happy in meeting a cousin after years of separation,
that the fever in her blood was cooled; and in the morning she was able
to go on.
Then came two days of driving to Djelfa, at first in a country strange
enough to be Djinn-haunted, a country of gloomy mountains, and deep
water-courses like badly healed wounds; passing through dry river-beds,
and over broken roads with here and there a bordj where men brought
water to the mules, in skins held together with ropes of straw. At last,
after a night, not too comfortable, spent in a dismal bordj, they came
to a wilderness which any fairytale-teller would have called the end of
the world. The road had dwindled to a track across gloomy desert, all
the more desolate, somehow, because of the dry asparto grass growing
thinly among stones. Nothing seemed to live or move in this world,
except a lizard that whisked its grey-green length across the road, a
long-legged bird which hopped gloomily out of the way, or a few ragged
black and white sheep with nobody to drive them. In the heat of the day
nothing stirred, not even the air, though the distance shimmered and
trembled with heat; but towards night jackals padded lithely from one
rock shelter to another. The carriage drove through a vast plain, rimmed
with far-away mountains, red as porphyry, but fading to purple at the
horizon. Victoria felt that she would never come to the end of this
plain, that it must finish only with eternity; and she wished in an
occasional burst of impatience that she were travelling in Nevill
Caird's motor-car. She could reach her sister in a third of the time!
She told herself that these thoughts were ungrateful to Maïeddine, who
was doing so much for her sake, and she kept up her spirits whether they
dragged on tediously, or stopped by the way to eat, or to let M'Barka
rest. She tried to control her restlessness, but feared that Maïeddine
saw it, for he took pains to explain, more than once, how necessary was
the detour they were making. Along this route he had friends who were
glad to entertain them at night, and give them mules or horses, and
besides, it was an advantage that the way should be unfrequented by
Europeans. He cheered her by describing the interest of the journey
when, by and by, she would ride a mehari, sitting in a bassour, made of
branches heated and bent into shape like a great cage, lined and draped
with soft haoulis of beautiful colours, and comfortably cushioned. It
would not be long now before they should come to the douar of his father
the Agha, beyond El Aghouat. She would have a wonderful experience
there; and according to Maïeddine, all the rest of the journey would be
an enchantment. Never for a moment would he let her tire. Oh, he would
promise that she should be half sorry when the last day came! As for
Lella M'Barka, the Rose of the West need not fear, for the bassour was
easy as a cradle to a woman of the desert; and M'Barka, rightfully a
princess of Touggourt, was desert-born and bred.
Queer little patches of growing grain, or miniature orchards enlivened
the dull plain round the ugly Saharian town of Djelfa, headquarters of
the Ouled Naïls. The place looked unprepossessingly new and French, and
obtrusively military; dismal, too, in the dusty sand which a wailing
wind blew through the streets; but scarcely a Frenchman was to be seen,
except the soldiers. Many Arabs worked with surprising briskness at the
loading or unloading of great carts, men of the Ouled Naïls, with eyes
more mysterious than the eyes of veiled women; tall fellows wearing high
shoes of soft, pale brown leather made for walking long distances in
heavy sand; and Maïeddine said that there was great traffic and commerce
between Djelfa and the M'Zab country, where she and he and M'Barka would
arrive presently, after passing his father's douar.
Maïeddine was uneasy until they were out of Djelfa, for, though few
Europeans travelled that way, and the road is hideous for motors, still
it was not impossible that a certain yellow car had slipped in before
them, to lie in wait. The Caïd's house, where they spent that night, was
outside the town, and behind its closed doors and little windows there
was no fear of intruders. It was good to be sure of shelter and security
under a friend's roof; and so far, in spite of the adventure at Ben
Sliman's, everything was going well enough. Only--Maïeddine was a little
disappointed in Victoria's manner towards himself. She was sweet and
friendly, and grateful for all he did, but she did not seem interested
in him as a man. He felt that she was eager to get on, that she was
counting the days, not because of any pleasure they might bring in his
society, but to make them pass more quickly. Still, with the deep-rooted
patience of the Arab, he went on hoping. His father, Agha of the
Ouled-Serrin, reigned in the desert like a petty king. Maïeddine thought
that the douar and the Agha's state must impress her; and the journey
on from there would be a splendid experience, different indeed from this
interminable jogging along, cramped up in a carriage, with M'Barka
sighing, or leaning a heavy head on the girl's shoulder. Out in the
open, Victoria in her bassour, he on the horse which he would take from
his father's goum, travelling would be pure joy. And Maïeddine had been
saving up many surprises for that time, things he meant to do for the
girl, which must turn her heart towards him.
Beyond Djelfa, on the low mountains that alone broke the monotony
of the dismal plain, little watch-towers rose dark along the
sky-line--watch-towers old as Roman days. Sometimes the travellers met a
mounted man wearing a long, hooded cloak over his white burnous; a
cavalier of the Bureau Arabe, or native policeman on his beat, under the
authority of a civil organization more powerful in the Sahara than the
army. These men, riding alone, saluted Si Maïeddine almost with
reverence, and Lella M'Barka told Victoria, with pride, that her cousin
was immensely respected by the French Government. He had done much for
France in the far south, where his family influence was great, and he
had adjusted difficulties between the desert men and their rulers. "He
is more tolerant than I, to those through whom Allah has punished us for
our sins," said the woman of the Sahara. "I was brought up in an older
school; and though I may love one of the Roumis, as I have learned to
love thee, oh White Rose, I cannot love whole Christian nations.
Maïeddine is wiser than I, yet I would not change my opinions for his;
unless, as I often think, he really----" she stopped suddenly, frowning
at herself. "This dreariness is not _our_ desert," she explained eagerly
to the girl, as the horses dragged the carriage over the sandy earth,
through whose hard brown surface the harsh, colourless blades of _drinn_
pricked like a few sparse hairs on the head of a shrivelled old man. "In
the Sahara, there are four kinds of desert, because Allah put four
angels in charge, giving each his own portion. The Angel of the Chebka
was cold of nature, with no kindness in his heart, and was jealous of
the others; so the Chebka is desolate, sown with sharp rocks which were
upheaved from under the earth before man came, and its dark ravines are
still haunted by evil spirits. The Angel of the Hameda was careless, and
forgot to pray for cool valleys and good water, so the Hameda hardened
into a great plateau of rock. The Angel of the Gaci was loved by a
houri, who appeared to him and danced on the firm sand of his desert.
Vanishing, she scattered many jewels, and fruits from the celestial
gardens which turned into beautifully coloured stones as they fell, and
there they have lain from that day to this. But best of all was the
Angel of the Erg, our desert--desert of the shifting dunes, never twice
the same, yet always more beautiful to-day than yesterday; treacherous
to strangers, but kind as the bosom of a mother to her children. The
first three angels were men, but the fourth and best is the angel woman
who sows the heaven with stars, for lamps to light her own desert, and
all the world beside, even the world of infidels."
M'Barka and Maïeddine both talked a great deal of El Aghouat, which
M'Barka called the desert pearl, next in beauty to her own wild
Touggourt, and Maïeddine laughingly likened the oasis-town to Paris. "It
is the Paris of our Sahara," he said, "and all the desert men, from
Caïds to camel-drivers, look forward to its pleasures."
He planned to let the girl see El Aghouat for the first time at sunset.
That was to be one of his surprises. By nature he was dramatic; and the
birth of the sun and the death of the sun are the great dramas of the
desert. He wished to be the hero of such a drama for Victoria, with El
Aghouat for his background; for there, he was leading her in at the gate
of his own country.
When they had passed the strange rock-shape known as the Chapeau de
Gendarme, and the line of mountains which is like the great wall of
China, Maïeddine defied the danger he had never quite ceased to fear
during the five long days since the adventure on the other side of
Bou-Saada. He ordered the carriage curtains to be rolled up as tightly
as they would go, and Victoria saw a place so beautiful that it was like
the secret garden of some Eastern king. It was as if they had driven
abruptly over the edge of a vast bowl half filled with gold dust, and
ringed round its rim with quivering rosy flames. Perhaps the king of the
garden had a dragon whose business it was to keep the fire always alight
to prevent robbers from coming to steal the gold dust; and so ardently
had it been blazing there for centuries, that all the sky up to the
zenith had caught fire, burning with so dazzling an intensity of violet
that Victoria thought she could warm her hands in its reflection on the
sand. In the azure crucible diamonds were melting, boiling up in a
radiant spray, but suddenly the violet splendour was cooled, and after a
vague quivering of rainbow tints, the celestial rose tree of the Sahara
sunset climbed blossoming over the whole blue dome, east, west, north
and south.
In the bottom of the golden bowl, there was a river bed to cross, on a
bridge of planks, but among the burning stones trickled a mere runnel of
water, bright as spilt mercury. And Maïeddine chose the moment when the
minarets of El Aghouat rose from a sea of palms, to point out the
strange, pale hills crowned by old koubbahs of marabouts and the
military hospital. He told the story of the Arab revolt of fifty odd
years ago; and while he praised the gallantry of the French, Victoria
saw in his eyes, heard in the thrill of his voice, that his admiration
was for his own people. This made her thoughtful, for though it was
natural enough to sympathize with the Arabs who had stood the siege and
been reconquered after desperate fighting, until now his point of view
had seemed to be the modern, progressive, French point of view. Quickly
the question flashed through her mind--"Is he letting himself go,
showing me his real self, because I'm in the desert with him, and he
thinks I'll never go back among Europeans?"
She shivered a little at the thought, but she put it away with the doubt
of Maïeddine that came with it. Never had he given her the least cause
to fear him, and she would go on trusting in his good faith, as she had
trusted from the first.
Still, there was that creeping chill, in contrast to the warm glory of
the sunset, which seemed to shame it by giving a glimpse of the desert's
heart, which was Maïeddine's heart. She hurried to say how beautiful was
El Aghouat; and that night, in the house of the Caïd, (an uncle of
Maïeddine's on his mother's side), as the women grouped round her,
hospitable and admiring, she reproached herself again for her suspicion.
The wife of the Caïd was dignified and gentle. There were daughters
growing up, and though they knew nothing, or seemed to know nothing, of
Saidee, they were sure that, if Maïeddine knew, all was well. Because
they were his cousins they had seen and been seen by him, and the young
girls poured out all the untaught romance of their little dim souls in
praise of Maïeddine. Once they were on the point of saying something
which their mother seemed to think indiscreet, and checked them quickly.
Then they stopped, laughing; and their laughter, like the laughter of
little children, was so contagious that Victoria laughed too.
There was some dreadful European furniture of sprawling, "nouveau art"
design in the guest-room which she and Lella M'Barka shared; and as
Victoria lay awake on the hard bed, of which the girls were proud, she
said to herself that she had not been half grateful enough to Si
Maïeddine. For ten years she had tried to find Saidee, and until the
other day she had been little nearer her heart's desire than when she
was a child, hoping and longing in the school garret. Now Maïeddine had
made the way easy--almost too easy, for the road to the golden silence
had become so wonderful that she was tempted to forget her haste to
reach the end.