Still the woman stood looking after the bird, but the sun had dropped
behind the dunes, and she no longer needed to shade her eyes with her
hand. There was nothing more to expect till sunset to-morrow, when
something might or might not happen. If no message came, then there
would be only dullness and stagnation until the day when the Moorish
bath was sacredly kept for the great ladies of the marabout's household.
There were but two of these, yet they never went to the bath together,
nor had they ever met or spoken to one another. They were escorted to
the bath by their attendants at different hours of the same day; and
later their female servants were allowed to go, for no one but the women
of the saintly house might use the baths that day.
The woman on the white roof in the midst of the golden silence gazed
towards the west, though she looked for no event of interest; and her
eyes fixed themselves mechanically upon a little caravan which moved
along the yellow sand like a procession of black insects. She was so
accustomed to search the desert since the days, long ago, when she had
actually hoped for friends to come and take her away, that she could
differentiate objects at greater distances than one less trained to
observation. Hardly thinking of the caravan, she made out, nevertheless,
that it consisted of two camels, carrying bassourahs, a horse and Arab
rider, a brown pack camel, and a loaded mule, driven by two men who
walked.
They had evidently come from Oued Tolga, or at least from that
direction, therefore it was probable that their destination was the
Zaouïa; otherwise, as it was already late, they would have stopped in
the city all night. Of course, it was possible that they were on their
way to the village, but it was a poor place, inhabited by very poor
people, many of them freed Negroes, who worked in the oases and lived
mostly upon dates. No caravans ever went out from there, because no man,
even the richest, owned more than one camel or donkey; and nobody came
to stay, unless some son of the miserable hamlet, who had made a little
money elsewhere, and returned to see his relatives. But on the other
hand, numerous caravans arrived at the Zaouïa of Oued Tolga, and
hundreds of pilgrims from all parts of Islam were entertained as the
marabout's guests, or as recipients of charity.
Dimly, as she detached her mind from the message she had sent, the woman
began to wonder about this caravan, because of the bassourahs, which
meant that there were women among the travellers. There were
comparatively few women pilgrims to the Zaouïa, except invalids from the
town of Oued Tolga, or some Sahara encampment, who crawled on foot, or
rode decrepit donkeys, hoping to be cured of ailments by the magic power
of the marabout, the power of the Baraka. The woman who watched had
learned by this time not to expect European tourists. She had lived for
eight years in the Zaouïa, and not once had she seen from her roof a
European, except a French government-official or two, and a few--a very
few--French officers. Never had any European women come. Tourists were
usually satisfied with Touggourt, three or four days nearer
civilisation. Women did not care to undertake an immense and fatiguing
journey among the most formidable dunes of the desert, where there was
nothing but ascending and descending, day after day; where camels
sometimes broke their legs in the deep sand, winding along the fallen
side of a mountainous dune, and where a horse often had to sit on his
haunches, and slide with his rider down a sand precipice.
She herself had experienced all these difficulties, so long ago now
that she had half forgotten how she had hated them, and the fate to
which they were leading her. But she did not blame other women for not
coming to Oued Tolga.
Occasionally some caïd or agha of the far south would bring his wife who
was ill or childless to be blessed by the marabout; and in old days they
had been introduced to the marabouta, but it was years now since she had
been asked, or even allowed, to entertain strangers. She thought,
without any active interest, as she looked at the nodding bassourahs,
growing larger and larger, that a chief was coming with his women, and
that he would be disappointed to learn that the marabout was away from
home. It was rather odd that the stranger had not been told in the city,
for every one knew that the great man had gone a fortnight ago to the
province of Oran. Several days must pass before he could return, even
if, for any reason, he came sooner than he was expected. But it did not
matter much to her, if there were to be visitors who would have the pain
of waiting. There was plenty of accommodation for guests, and there were
many servants whose special duty it was to care for strangers. She would
not see the women in the bassourahs, nor hear of them unless some gossip
reached her through the talk of the negresses.
Still, as there was nothing else which she wished to do, she continued
to watch the caravan.
By and by it passed out of sight, behind the rising ground on which the
village huddled, with its crowding brown house-walls that narrowed
towards the roofs. The woman almost forgot it, until it appeared again,
to the left of the village, where palm logs had been laid in the river
bed, making a kind of rough bridge, only covered when the river was in
flood. It was certain now that the travellers were coming to the Zaouïa.
The flame of the sunset had died, though clouds purple as pansies
flowered in the west. The gold of the dunes paled to silver, and the
desert grew sad, as if it mourned for a day that would never live again.
Far away, near Oued Tolga, where the white domes of the city and the
green domes of the oasis palms all blended together in shadow, fires
sprang up in the camps of nomads, like signals of danger.
The woman on the roof shivered. The chill of the coming night cooled her
excitement. She was afraid of the future, and the sadness which had
fallen upon the desert was cold in her heart. The caravan was not far
from the gate of the Zaouïa, but she was tired of watching it. She
turned and went down the narrow stairs that led to her rooms, and to the
little garden where the fragrance of orange blossoms was too sweet.