“Opposite to the aumônier’s dwelling was the great dancing-house of the
town, and when we had bade him good-night, and turned to go back to the
inn, I rather tentatively suggested to Marnier that, perhaps, it would
be interesting to look in there for a moment.
“‘All right,’ he responded, with his most donnish manner. ‘But I expect
it will be rather an unwashed crowd.’
“A quantity of native soldiers—the sort that used to be called
Turcos—were gathered round the door. We pushed our way through them,
and entered. The café was large, with big white pillars and a double
row of divans in the middle, and divans rising in tiers all round.
On the left was a large doorway, in which gorgeously-dressed painted
women, with gold crowns on their heads, were standing, smoking
cigarettes, and laughing with the Arabs; and at the end farthest
from the street entrance was a raised platform, on which sat three
musicians—a wild-looking demon of a man blowing into an instrument with
an immense funnel, and two men beating tomtoms. The noise they made
was terrific. The piper wore a voluminous burnous, and as the dancers
came in in pairs from the big doorway, which led into the court where
they all live together, each in her separate little room with her own
front door, they threw their door keys into the hood that was attached
to it. As soon as they had finished dancing they went to the hood, and
rummaged violently for them again. And all the time the piper blew
frantically into his instrument, and rocked himself about like a man in
a convulsion.
“We sat on one of the raised divans, with coffee before us on a wooden
stool, and Marnier observed it all with a slightly supercilious
coldness. The women, who were dressed in different shades of red, and
were the most amazing trollops I ever set eyes on, came and went in
pairs, fluttered their painted fingers, twittered like startled birds,
jumped and twirled, wriggled and revolved, and inclined their greasy
foreheads to the impenetrable spectators, who stuck silver coins on
to the perspiring flesh. And Marnier sat and gazed at them with the
aloofness of one who watches the creatures in puddle water through a
microscope. I could scarcely help laughing at him, but I wished him
away. For to me there was excitement, there was even a sort of ecstasy,
in the utter barbarity of this spectacle, in the moving scarlet figures
with their golden crowns and tufts of ostrich plumes, in the serried
masses of turbaned and hooded spectators, in the rocking forms of the
musicians, in the strident and ceaseless uproar that they made.
“And through the doorway where the Turcos—I like the old name—crowded I
saw the sand filtering in from the desert, and against the black leaves
of a solitary palm-tree, with leaves like giant Fatma hands, I saw the
silver disc of the moon.
“‘I vote we go,’ said Marnier’s light tenor voice in my ear. ‘The
atmosphere’s awful in here.’
“‘Very well,’ I said.
“I got up; but just then a girl, dressed in midnight purple embroidered
with silver, came in from the doorway, and began to dance alone. She
was very young—fourteen, I found out afterwards—and, in contrast to the
other women, extremely beautiful. There were grace, seduction, mystery,
and coquetry in her face and in all her movements. Her long black eyes
held fire and dreams. Her fluttering hands seemed beckoning us to the
realms of the thousand and one nights. I stood where I had got up, and
watched her.
“‘I say, aren’t we going?’ said Marnier’s voice in my ear.
“I cursed the day when I had agreed to take him with me, leaped down
to the earth, and struggled towards the door. As we neared it the girl
sidled down the room till she was exactly in front of Marnier. Then
she danced before him, smiling with her immense eyes, which she fixed
steadily upon him, and bending forward her pretty head, covered with a
cloth of silver handkerchief.
“‘Give her something,’ I said to him, laughing, as he stared back at
her grimly.
“He thrust his hand into his pocket, found a franc, stuck it awkwardly
against her oval forehead, and followed me out.
“When we were in the sandy street he walked a few steps in
silence, then stood still, and, to my surprise, stared back at the
dancing-house. Then he put his hand to his head.
“‘Is the air having its alcoholic effect?’ I asked in joke.
“As I spoke a handsome Arab, splendidly dressed in a pale blue robe,
red gaiters and boots, and a turban of fine muslin, spangled with gold,
passed us slowly, going towards the dancing-house. He cast a glance
full of suspicion and malice at Marnier.
“‘What’s up with that fellow?’ I said, startled.
“The Arab went on, and at that moment the faithful Safti joined us. He
never left me long out of his sight in these outlandish places.
“‘That is the Batouch Sidi, the brother of the Caïd of Beni-Kouidar,’
he said. ‘Algia, the dancer to whom Monsieur Henri has just given
money, is his _chère amie_. But as the government has just made him a
sheik, he dares not have her in his house for fear of the scandal. So
he has put her with the dancers. That is why she dances, to deceive
everyone, not to make money. She is not as the other dancers. But
everyone knows, for Batouch is mad with jealousy. He cannot bear that
Algia should dance before strangers, but what can he do? A sheik must
not have a scandal in his dwelling.’
“We walked on slowly. When we got to the door of the ‘Rendezvous des
Amis’ Marnier stood still again, and looked down the deserted, moonlit
camel market.
“‘I never knew air like this,’ he said in a low voice.
“And once more he expelled the air from his lungs, and drew in a long,
slow breath, as a man does when he has finished his dumbbell exercise
in the morning.
“‘Don’t drink too much of it,’ I said. ‘Remember what the aumônier told
us!’
“Marnier looked at me. I thought there was something apprehensive in
his eyes. But he said nothing, and we turned in.
“The next day I rode out with Safti into the desert to visit a sacred
personage of great note in the Sahara, Sidi El Ahmed Ben Daoud
Abderahmann. To my relief Marnier declined to come. He said he was
tired, and would stroll about the city. When we got back at sundown
the innkeeper handed me a note. I opened it, and found it was from the
aumônier, saying that he would be greatly obliged if I would call and
see him on my return, as he had various little curiosities which he
would be glad to show me. Marnier was not in the inn, and, as I had
nothing particular to do, I walked at once to the aumônier’s house.
As I have said, it was the last in the town. The dancing-house was on
the opposite side of the way; but the aumônier’s dwelling jutted out a
little farther into the desert, and looked full on a deep depression of
soft sand bounded by a big dune, which loomed up like a couchant beast
in the fading yellow light.
“The aumônier met me at his door, and escorted me into a pleasant room,
where his collection of Arab weapons, coins, and old vases, cups, and
various utensils, dug up, he told me, at Tlemcen, was arranged. But to
my surprise he scarcely took time to show it to me before he said:
“‘Though a stranger, may I venture to speak rather intimately to you,
monsieur?’
“‘Certainly,’ I replied, in some astonishment.
“‘Your friend is young.’
“‘Marnier?’
“‘Is that his name? Well, I would not leave him to stroll about too
much alone, if I were you.’
“‘Why, monsieur?’
“‘He is likely to get into trouble. The people here are a wild and
violent race. He would do well to bear in mind the saying of a
traveller who knew the desert men better than most people: “If you want
to be friendly with them, and safe among them, give cigarettes to the
men, and leave the women alone.” I see a good deal, monsieur, owing to
the situation of my little house.’
“I looked at him in silence. Then I said:
“‘What have you seen?’
“He led me to the door, and pointed towards the great dune beyond the
dancing-house.
“‘I saw your friend this afternoon talking there with one whom it is
especially unsafe to be seen with in Beni-Kouidar.’
“‘With whom?’
“‘A dancer called Algia.’
“‘Talking, monsieur! Marnier knows no Arabic.’
“The aumônier pursed his lips in his black beard.
“‘The conversation appeared to be carried on by signs,’ he responded.
‘That did not make it less but more dangerous.’
“I’m afraid I was rude, and whistled softly.
“‘Monsieur l’Aumônier,’ I said, ‘you must forgive me, but this air is
certainly the very devil.’
“He smiled, not without irony.
“‘I became aware of that myself, monsieur, when first I came to live in
Beni-Kouidar. But I am a priest, and—well, monsieur, I was given the
strength to say: “Get thee behind me, Satan.”’
“A softer look came into his sunburnt, wrinkled face.
“‘Better take your friend away as soon as possible,’ he added, ‘or
there will be trouble.’”