On a flat white roof, which bubbled up here and there in rounded domes,
a woman stood looking out over interminable waves of yellow sand, a vast
golden silence which had no end on her side of the horizon, east, west,
north, or south.
No veil hid her face, but folds of thin woollen stuff beautifully woven,
and dyed blue, almost as dark as indigo, fell from her head nearly to
her feet, over a loose robe of orange-red, cut low in the neck, with
sleeves hiding the elbows. She looked towards the west, shading her eyes
with her hand: and the sun near its setting streamed over her face and
hair, chiselling her features in marble, brightening her auburn hair to
fiery gold, giving her brown eyes the yellow tints of a topaz, or of the
amber beads which hung in a long chain, as far down as her knees.
From the white roof many things could be seen besides the immense
monotonous dunes along whose ridges orange fire seemed to play
unceasingly against the sky.
There was the roof of the Zaouïa mosque, with its low, white domes
grouped round the minaret, as somewhere below the youngest boys of the
school grouped round the taleb, or teacher. On the roof of the mosque
bassourah frames were in the making, splendid bassourahs, which, when
finished, would be the property of the great marabout, greatest of all
living marabouts, lord of the Zaouïa, lord of the desert and its people,
as far as the eye could reach, and farther.
There were other roofs, too, bubbling among the labyrinth of square open
courts and long, tunnel-like, covered and uncovered corridors which
formed the immense, rambling Zaouïa, or sacred school of Oued Tolga.
Things happened on these roofs which would have interested a stranger,
for there was spinning of sheep's wool, making of men's burnouses,
fashioning of robes for women, and embroidering of saddles; but the
woman who looked towards the west with the sun in her eyes was tired of
the life on sun-baked roofs and in shadowed courts.
The scent of orange blossoms in her own little high-walled garden came
up to her; yet she had forgotten that it was sweet, for she had never
loved it. The hum of the students' voices, faintly heard through the
open-work of wrought-iron windows, rasped her nerves, for she had heard
it too often; and she knew that the mysterious lessons, the lessons
which puzzled her, and constantly aroused her curiosity, were never
repeated aloud by the classes, as were these everlasting chapters of the
Koran.
Men sleeping on benches in the court of the mosque, under arches in the
wall, waked and drank water out of bulging goatskins, hanging from huge
hooks. Pilgrims washed their feet in the black marble basin of the
trickling fountain, for soon it would be time for moghreb, the prayer of
the evening.
Far away, eighteen miles distant across the sands, she could see the
twenty thousand domes of Oued Tolga, the desert city which had taken its
name from the older Zaouïa, and the oued or river which ran between the
sacred edifice on its golden hill, and the ugly toub-built village,
raised above danger of floods on a foundation of palm trunks.
Far away the domes of the desert city shimmered like white fire in the
strange light that hovers over the Sahara before the hour of sunset.
Behind those distant, dazzling bubbles of unearthly whiteness, the
valley-like oases of the southern desert, El Souf, dimpled the yellow
dunes here and there with basins of dark green. Near by, a little to the
left of the Zaouïa hill, such an oasis lay, and the woman on the white
roof could look across a short stretch of sand, down into its green
depths. She could watch the marabout's men repairing the sloping
sand-walls with palm trunks, which kept them from caving in, and saved
the precious date-palms from being engulfed in a yellow tide. It was the
marabout's own private oasis, and brought him in a large income every
year. But everything was the marabout's. The woman on the roof was sick
to death of his riches, his honours, his importance, for she was the
marabout's wife; and in these days she loved him as little as she loved
the orange garden he had given her, and all the things that were hers
because she was his.
It was very still in the Zaouïa of Oued Tolga. The only sound was the
droning of the boys' voices, which came faintly from behind iron
window-gratings below, and that monotonous murmur emphasized the
silence, as the humming of bees in a hive makes the stillness of a
garden in summer more heavy and hot.
No noises came from the courts of the women's quarters, or those of the
marabout's guests, and attendants, and servants; not a voice was raised
in that more distant part of the Zaouïa where the students lived, and
where the poor were lodged and fed for charity's sake. No doubt the
village, across the narrow river in its wide bed, was buzzing with life
at this time of day; but seldom any sound there was loud enough to break
the slumberous silence of the great Zaouïa. And the singing of the men
in the near oasis who fought the sand, the groaning of the well-cords
woven of palm fibre which raised the buckets of hollowed palm-trunks,
was as monotonous as the recitation of the Koran. The woman had heard it
so often that she had long ago ceased to hear it at all.
She looked westward, across the river to the ugly village with the dried
palm-leaves on its roofs, and far away to the white-domed city, the
dimpling oases and the mountainous dunes that towered against a flaming
sky; then eastward, towards the two vast desert lakes, or chotts, one of
blue water, the other of saltpetre, which looked bluer than water, and
had pale edges that met the sand like snow on gold. Above the lake of
water suddenly appeared a soaring line of white, spreading and mounting
higher, then turning from white to vivid rose. It was the flamingoes
rising and flying over the chott, the one daily phenomenon of the desert
which the woman on the roof still loved to watch. But her love for the
rosy line against the blue was not entirely because of its beauty,
though it was startlingly beautiful. It meant something for which she
waited each evening with a passionate beating of her heart under the
orange-coloured robe and the chain of amber beads. It meant sunset and
the coming of a message. But the doves on the green tiled minaret of the
Zaouïa mosque had not begun yet to dip and wheel. They would not stir
from their repose until the muezzin climbed the steps to call the hour
of evening prayer, and until they flew against the sunset the message
could not come.
She must wait yet awhile. There was nothing to do till the time of hope
for the message. There was never anything else that she cared to do
through the long days from sunrise to sunset, unless the message gave
her an incentive when it came.
In the river-bed, the women and young girls had not finished their
washing, which was to them not so much labour as pleasure, since it gave
them their opportunity for an outing and a gossip. In the bed of shining
sand lay coloured stones like jewels, and the women knelt on them,
beating wet bundles of scarlet and puce with palm branches. The watcher
on the roof knew that they were laughing and chattering together though
she could not hear them. She wondered dimly how many years it was since
she had laughed, and said to herself that probably she would never laugh
again, although she was still young, only twenty-eight. But that was
almost old for a woman of the East. Those girls over there, wading
knee-deep in the bright water to fill their goatskins and curious white
clay jugs, would think her old. But they hardly knew of her existence.
She had married the great marabout, therefore she was a marabouta, or
woman saint, merely because she was fortunate enough to be his wife, and
too highly placed for them to think of as an earthly woman like
themselves. What could it matter whether such a radiantly happy being
were young or old? And she smiled a little as she imagined those poor
creatures picturing her happiness. She passed near them sometimes going
to the Moorish baths, but the long blue drapery covered her face then,
and she was guarded by veiled negresses and eunuchs. They looked her way
reverently, but had never seen her face, perhaps did not know who she
was, though no doubt they had all heard and gossipped about the romantic
history of the new wife, the beautiful Ouled Naïl, to whom the marabout
had condescended because of her far-famed, her marvellous, almost
incredible loveliness, which made her a consort worthy of a saint.
The river was a mirror this evening, reflecting the sunset of crimson
and gold, and the young crescent moon fought for and devoured, then
vomited forth again by strange black cloud-monsters. The old brown
palm-trunks, on which the village was built, were repeated in the still
water, and seemed to go down and down, as if their roots might reach to
the other side of the world.
Over the crumbling doorways of the miserable houses bleached skulls and
bones of animals were nailed for luck. The red light of the setting sun
stained them as if with blood, and they were more than ever disgusting
to the watcher on the white roof. They were the symbols of superstitions
the most Eastern and barbaric, ideas which she hated, as she was
beginning to hate all Eastern things and people.
The streak of rose which meant a flock of flying flamingoes had faded
out of the sky. The birds seemed to have vanished into the sunset, and
hardly had they gone when the loud crystalline voice of the muezzin
began calling the faithful to prayer. Work stopped for the day. The men
and youths of the Zaouïa climbed the worn stairs to the roof of the
mosque, where, in their white turbans and burnouses, they prostrated
themselves before Allah, going down on their faces as one man. The doves
of the minaret--called Imams, because they never leave the mosque or
cease to prostrate themselves, flying head downwards--began to wheel and
cry plaintively. The moment when the message might come was here at
last.
The white roof had a wall, which was low in places, in others very high,
so high that no one standing behind it could be seen. This screen of
whitewashed toub was arranged to hide persons on the roof from those on
the roof of the mosque; but window-like openings had been made in it,
filled in with mashrabeyah work of lace-like pattern; an art brought to
Africa long ago by the Moors, after perfecting it in Granada. And this
roof was not the only one thus screened and latticed. There was another,
where watchers could also look down into the court of the fountain, at
the carved doors taken from the Romans, and up to the roof of the mosque
with all its little domes. From behind those other lace-like windows in
the roof-wall, sparkled such eyes as only Ouled Naïl girls can have; but
the first watcher hated to think of those eyes and their wonderful
fringe of black lashes. It was an insult to her that they should
beautify this house, and she ignored their existence, though she had
heard her negresses whispering about them.
While the faithful prayed, a few of the wheeling doves flew across from
the mosque to the roof where the woman waited for a message. At her feet
lay a small covered basket, from which she took a handful of grain. The
dove Imams forgot their saintly manners in an unseemly scramble as the
white hand scattered the seeds, and while they disputed with one
another, complaining mournfully, another bird, flying straight to the
roof from a distance, suddenly joined them. It was white, with feet like
tiny branches of coral, whereas the doves from the mosque were grey, or
burnished purple.
The woman had been pale, but when the bird fluttered down to rest on the
open basket of grain, colour rushed to her face, as if she had been
struck on each cheek with a rose. None of the doves of the mosque were
tame enough to sit on the basket, which was close to her feet, though
they sidled round it wistfully; but the white bird let her stroke its
back with her fingers as it daintily pecked the yellow grains.
Very cautiously she untied a silk thread fastened to a feather under the
bird's wing. As she did so it fluttered both wings as if stretching them
in relief, and a tiny folded paper attached to the cord fell into the
basket. Instantly the woman laid her hand over it. Then she looked
quickly, without moving her head, towards the square opening at a corner
of the roof where the stairway came up. No one was there. Nobody could
see her from the roof of the mosque, and her roof was higher than any of
the others, except that which covered the private rooms of the marabout.
But the marabout was away, and no one ever came out on his roof when he
was absent.
She opened the folded bit of white paper, which was little more than two
inches square, and was covered on one side with writing almost
microscopically small. The other side was blank, but the woman had no
doubt that the letter was for her. As she read, the carrier-pigeon went
on pecking at the seeds in the basket, and the doves of the mosque
watched it enviously.
The writing was in French, and no name was at the beginning or the end.
"Be brave, my beautiful one, and dare to do as your heart prompts.
Remember, I worship you. Ever since that wonderful day when the wind
blew aside your veil for an instant at the door of the Moorish bath, the
whole world has been changed for me. I would die a thousand deaths if
need be for the joy of rescuing you from your prison. Yet I do not wish
to die. I wish to live, to take you far away and make you so happy that
you will forget the wretchedness and failure of the past. A new life
will begin for both of us, if you will only trust me, and forget the
scruples of which you write--false scruples, believe me. As he had a
wife living when he married you, and has taken another since, surely
you cannot consider that you are bound by the law of God or man? Let me
save you from the dragon, as fairy princesses were saved in days of old.
If I might speak with you, tell you all the arguments that constantly
suggest themselves to my mind, you could not refuse. I have thought of
more than one way, but dare not put my ideas on paper, lest some unlucky
chance befall our little messenger. Soon I shall have perfected the
cypher. Then there will not be the same danger. Perhaps to-morrow night
I shall be able to send it. But meanwhile, for the sake of my love, give
me a little hope. If you will try to arrange a meeting, to be settled
definitely when the cypher is ready, twist three of those glorious
threads of gold which you have for hair round the cord when you send the
messenger back."
All the rosy colour had died away from the woman's face by the time she
had finished reading the letter. She folded it again into a tiny square
even smaller than before, and put it into one of the three or four
little engraved silver boxes, made to hold texts from the Koran, which
hung from her long amber necklace. Her eyes were very wide open, but she
seemed to see nothing except some thought printed on her brain like a
picture.
On the mosque roof a hundred men of the desert knelt praying in the
sunset, their faces turned towards Mecca. Down in the fountain-court,
the marabout's lazy tame lion rose from sleep and stretched himself,
yawning as the clear voice of the muezzin chanted from the minaret the
prayer of evening, "Allah Akbar, Allah il Allah, Mohammed r'soul Allah."
The woman did not know that she heard the prayer, for as her eyes saw a
picture, so did her ears listen to a voice which she had heard only
once, but desired beyond all things to hear again. To her it was the
voice of a saviour-knight; the face she saw was glorious with the
strength of manhood, and the light of love. Only to think of the voice
and face made her feel that she was coming to life again, after lying
dead and forgotten in a tomb for many years of silence.
Yes, she was alive now, for he had waked her from a sleep like death;
but she was still in the tomb, and it seemed impossible to escape from
it, even with the help of a saviour-knight. If she said "yes" to what he
asked, as she was trying to make herself believe she had a moral and
legal right to do, they would be found out and killed, that was all.
She was not brave. The lassitude which is a kind of spurious resignation
poisons courage, or quenches it as water quenches fire. Although she
hated her life, if it could be called life, had no pleasure in it, and
had almost forgotten how to hope, still she was afraid of being
violently struck down.
Not long ago a woman in the village had tried to leave her husband with
a man she loved. The husband found out, and having shot the man before
her eyes, stabbed her with many wounds, one for each traitorous kiss,
according to the custom of the desert; not one knife-thrust deep enough
to kill; but by and by she had died from the shock of horror, and loss
of blood. Nobody blamed the husband. He had done the thing which was
right and just. And stories like this came often to the ears of the
woman on the roof through her negresses, or from the attendants at the
Moorish bath.
The man she loved would not be shot like the wretched Bedouin, who was
of no importance except to her for whom his life was given; but
something would happen. He would be taken ill with a strange disease, of
which he would die after dreadful suffering; or at best his career would
be ruined; for the greatest of all marabouts was a man of immense
influence. Because of his religious vow to wear a mask always like a
Touareg, none of the ruling race had ever seen the marabout's features,
yet his power was known far and wide--in Morocco; all along the caravan
route to Tombouctou; in the capital of the Touaregs; in Algiers; and
even in Paris itself.
She reminded herself of these things, and at one moment her heart was
like ice in her breast; but at the next, it was like a ball of fire; and
pulling out three long bright hairs from her head, she twisted them
round the cord which the carrier-pigeon had brought. Before tying it
under his wing again, she scattered more yellow seeds for the dove
Imams, because she did not want them to fly away until she was ready to
let her messenger go. Thus there was the less danger that the
carrier-pigeon would be noticed. Only Noura, her negress, knew of him.
Noura had smuggled him into the Zaouïa, and she herself had trained him
by giving him food that he liked, though his home was at Oued Tolga, the
town.
The birds from the mosque had waited for their second supply, for the
same programme had been carried out many times before, and they had
learned to expect it.
When they finished scrambling for the grain which the white pigeon could
afford to scorn, they fluttered back to the minaret, following a leader.
But the carrier flew away straight and far, his little body vanishing at
last as if swallowed up in the gold of the sunset. For he went west,
towards the white domes of Oued Tolga.