The Garden of Allah

ade her wonder how he passed his solitary evenings when he went home from the hotel, and she fancied him sitting in some plainly-furnished little room with Bous-Bous and a few books, smo

r to passion-the cry of longing, the wail of the unknown that draws some men a

atouch, saying that he was a liar, inclined to theft, a keef smoker, and in a general way steeped to the lips

mini was not thinking of her, or of violence or danger. The sound of the tomtoms and hautboys seemed suddenly much louder now that the moon began to shine, making a whiteness among the white houses of the village, the white robes of the inhabitants, a greater whiteness on the white road that lay before them. And she was thinking that the moon whiteness of Beni-Mora was more passionate than pure, more like the blanched face of a lover than the cool, pale cheek of a virgin. There was excitement in it, suggestion greater even than the suggestion of the tremendous coloured scenes of the evening that prec

hop, which was lined from floor to ceiling with dull red embroideries and dim with the fumes of an incense brazier. He was talking to a little boy, but kee

ame, venez!

eized Dom

ht!" Domini

s there in the sand to-night. Je la vois, j

ttered a cry and hid her eyes with her hands. They we

ic is getting," D

s are not for Madame. For the Arabs, yes, but for a great lady of the most respectable

whose large face the artificer had c

" he said fiercely. "

ghed wit

s like a Mehari with a sw

is cousin, but he restrained himself and a slow, mal

who is modest, who is beautiful,

ck," said Ha

l not b

ate with his thin, delicate han

he Fontaine Cha

will be

. She cannot dance. For a week

sick? Is she at t

looked at his cousin sideway

know, Hadj-b

oul lek!"[*] growle

nothing to

houses of the ouleds, twinkling with starry lights, humming with voices, throbbing with the clashing music that poured from the rival cafes maures, thronged with the white figures of the desert men, strolling slowly, softly as panthers up and down. The moonlight was growing brighter, as if invisible ha

g in the dancing street," said Domini, rathe

stung, and looked at Domini as

exclaimed proudly. "Madame do

divined his cousin's wish to supplant him and was busily taking his revenge. Domini w

e here at night,

when I am alone.

, weren't you, with the t

visit the cafe of the story-teller, which is far mor

stures which filled Suzanne with horror and Domini with secret delight. She liked this abrupt unveiling of the raw. There had always lurked in her an audacity, a quick spirit of adventure more boyish than

barian in me,

" she sai

ed a distorte

dam

Take us to the

lance at Hadj and they went on

of desert humanity made it almost solemn. This crowd of boys and men, robed in white from head to heel, preserved a serious grace in its vivacity, suggested besides a dignified barbarity a mingling of angel, monk and nocturnal spirit. In the distance of the moonbeams, gliding slowly over the dusty road with slippered f

e of music came, small, intent crowds were gathered, watching the performance that was going on inside. The robes of the Arabs brushed aga

dam

d was pulling D

what

ancing-house. The c

efs, she saw a small wriggling figure between two rows of squatting men, two baby hands waving coloured handkerchiefs, two little feet tapping vigorously upon an earthen floor, for backgr

o see children," sh

her escort and

ch. "Madame wishes f

s second dancing-house Domini stopped again to see from outside what it was lik

me in here,

y, and Hadj uttered a

said Batouch, pushing the watc

room, bending forward and staring intently at a woman who was in the act of stepping down

the door," she whispered t

is much

" she said. "The lef

wall, waiting their turn to perform. Then suddenly he shook his head, tucked in his chin and laughed. His whole face was transformed from craven fear to vivacious rascality. While he laughed he looked at Batouch, who was ordering four cups of coffee from the negro attendant. The poet took no notice. For the moment he was intent upon his professional d

r a moment by the comedy of intrigue, complacently malignant on both sides, that was being played by the two cousins, but the moment passed and left her engrossed, absorbed, and not merely by the novelty of the surroundings, by the strangeness of the women, of their costumes, and of their movements. She watched them,

m and something so different and so powerful that it was likely, from moment to moment, to drive out the asceticism and to achieve the loneliness of all conquering things. This fighting expression made Domini think of a picture she had once seen representing a pilgrim going through a dark forest attended by his angel and his devil. The angel of the pilgrim was a weak and almost childish figure, frail, bloodles

ty and little mystery, unless-as happens now and then-an idol-like woman of the South, with all the enigma of the distant desert in her kohl-tinted eyes, dances it with the sultry gloom

audy clothes. Their bodies were well formed, but somnolent. Their painted hands hung down like the hands of marionettes. The one who was dancing suggested Duty clad in Eastern garb and laying herself out carefully to be wicked. Her jerks and wrigglings,

, which drove his secret into the illumination of the hanging lamps and gave it to a woma

other half century, Domini could never know the shape of t

he glanced almost guiltily to right and left of him as if he expected the hooded Arab spectators to condemn his presence there now that the dancer drew their attention to it. The dancer noticed his confusion and seemed pleased by it, and moved to more energetic demonstrations of her art. She lifted her arms above her head, half closed her eyes, assumed an expression of languid ecstasy and slowly shuddered. Then, bending backward, she nearly touched the floor, swung round, still bending, and showed the long curve of her bare throat to the stranger, while the girls, huddled on the bench by the musicians, suddenly roused themselves and joined their voices in a shrill and prolonged twitter. The Arabs did not smile, but t

raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, and presented her face to him, while the women twittered once more in chorus. He still stared at

," Batouch whispered to Domini.

ed her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on the floor. Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, glided close to the stranger, and falling dow

k that came into the stranger's fa

she wants!" she whispered to

lody, and through the room there went a stir. Almost everyone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his hood and settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to his lips. Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a flower, lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite still. With the stranger's act

in fear, perhaps,

tely to turn her though

part of his face, unbuttoned his jacket, took out some matches and busied himself in lighting a cigarette. She knew he had felt her concentration on him, and was angry with herself. Had she really a spy in her? Was she capable of being vulgarly curious about a man? A sudden movement of Hadj drew her attention. His face was distorted by an expression that seemed half angry, half fearful. Batouch was smiling seraphically as he gazed towards the platform. Suzanne, with a pinched-up mouth, was looking virginally at her lap. Her whole attitude showed her consciousness of the many blazing eyes that were intently staring at her. The stomach d

who wished to kill Hadj, and she was glad that a new incident ha

ly Hadj caught his burnous round him with his thin fingers, dropped his chin, shook his hood down upon his forehead, leaned back against the wall, and, curling his

face and hung with brilliant draperies. Her hair, which was thick and dark brown, was elaborately braided and covered with a yellow silk handkerchief. Domini thought she looked consumptive, and was bitterly disappointed in her appearance. For some unknown reason she had expected the woman who wished to kill Hadj, and who obviously inspired him with fear, to be a magnificent and glowing

nearest to her, and then remained quite still staring at the floor, utterly indifferent to the Arabs who were devouring her with their eyes. No doubt the eyes of men had

ttle, murder and sudden death. Careless of onlookers, she sometimes scratched her head or rubbed her nose without ceasing her contortions. Domini guessed that this was the girl whom she had seen from the tower dancing upon the roof in the sunset. Distance and light

r," whispered Batouch, compla

beautiful as the moon on the

ink a man who can be afraid of such a little thi

is tall as a fema

al

ena was unusually tall, but her excessive narrowness, her tiny bones, and the delic

of her? Why, I could pick her up and

is the most terrible girl in all Beni-Mora if she loves

i lau

ask the Arabs. Many of the dancers of Beni-Mora are murdered, each seas

crimes as if they were perfectly natural, and in no way to be condemned

er the dancers?"

ars. She is not afraid. She sleeps. She dreams. Her throat is like that"-he threw back his head, exposing his great neck. "Just before dawn you draw your knife from your burnous. You bend down. You cut the

at hidin

sipped his coffee. Domini

to cry of the Jewess rose up, with its suggestion of viole

at hidin

of God, the great hiding-place of murderers! She had called it, on the tower, the home of peace. In the gorge of El-Akbara, ere he prayed, Batouch ha

would it be when she knew it, what would it be to her after many nights and many days? She be

voice of the Jewess ceased in a shout. The ha

almost satisfaction, "for Irena is going to dance. Loo

rm with two long, pointed knives in his hand. He laid them on the table before Ir

r till she could hardly breathe. It poured fire into her veins and set fire about her heart. It was triumphant as a great song after war in a wild land, cruel, vengeful, but so strong and so passionately joyous that it made the eyes shine and the blood leap, and the spirit rise up and clamour within the body, clamour for utter liberty, for action, for wide fields

ger. For the moment indeed she had forgotten him. Her attention was fastened upon the thin, consumptive-looking creature who was staring at the two knives laid upon the table. When the great tune had been played right through once, and a passionate roll of tomtoms announced its repetition, Irena suddenly shot out her tiny arms,

f the Sebaou. How had she drifted so far from the sharp spurs of her native hills and from the ruddy-haired, blue-eyed people of her tribe? Possibly she had sinned, as the Kabyle women often sin, and fled from the wrath that she would understand, and that all her fierce bravery could not hope to conquer. Or perhaps with her Kabyle blood, itself a brew composed of various strains, Greek, Roman, as well as Berber, were minglin

ce while Agamemnon was passing to the bath, Delilah's when Samson lay sleeping on her knee. But all these imagined faces of named women fled like sand grains on a desert wind as the dance went on and the recurrent melody came back and back and back with a savage and glorious persistence. T

and all the vigorous dreams that must come true: Love of woman that cannot be set aside, but will govern the world from Eden to the abyss into which the nations fall to the outstretched han

tured men and women who had cast away terrible recollections in the wastes among the dunes and in the treeless purple distances, and who had been granted the sweet oases of forgetfulness to dwell in: ardent beings who had striven vainly to rest content with the world of hills and valleys, of sea-swept verges and murmuring rivers, and who had been driven, by

give to her; that in the Desert she would learn more of the meaning of life than she could ever learn elsewhere. It seemed to her suddenly that she understood more clearly than hitherto in what lay the intense, the over-mastering and hypnotic attraction exercised already by the Desert over her nature. In the Desert there must be, there was-she felt it-not only light to warm the body, but light to illuminate the dark places of the soul. An almost fatalistic idea possessed her. She saw a figure-one of the Messengers-standing wi

as much a fatalist as any one of them.

e into the crowd that thronged about the Desert having receiv

praying. And, while he prayed, Liberty stood by him smiling, and her fiery c

tand her heart began to beat fast, and sh

dinary music, that this amazi

daggers above her head, had sprung from the little platform a

fe, her love and all the mysteries in her, to an imagined being who dominated her savage and ecstatic soul, there was a vivid suggestion of the two elements in Passion-rapture and melancholy. In her dance she incarnated passion whole by conveying the two halves that compose it. Her eyes were nearly closed, as a woman closes them when she has seen the lips of her lover d

of this dance and of the music that accompanied it. Now that Irena was near she was able to see that, without her genius, there would have been no beauty in her face. It was painfully thin, painfully long and haggard. Her life had written a fatal inscription across it as their life writes upon the faces of poor street-bred children the one word-Want. As they have

. She took out her purse but did not give the money at once. With the pitiless scrutiny of her sex she noticed all the dancer's disabilities. She was certainly young, but she was very worn. Her mouth drooped. At the corners of her eyes there were tiny lines tending downward. Her forehead had what Domini secretly called a martyred look. Nevertheless, she was savage and triumphant. Her thin body suggested force; the way she held herself consuming passion. Even so near at hand, even while she was pausing for money, and while her eyes were, doubtless, furtively reading Domini, she shed round her a powerful atmosphere, which stirred

irit b

t. With a swift turn of her thin hands she tore back the hood, and out of the bundle came Hadj's head and face livid with fear. One of the daggers flashed and came up at him. He leaped from the seat and screamed. Suzanne echoed his cry. Then the whole room was a turmoil of white garments and moving limbs. In an instant everybody seemed to be leaping, calling out, grasping, struggling. Domini tried to get up, but she was hemmed in, and could not make a movement upward or free her arms, which were pressed against her sides by the crowd around her. For a moment she thought she was going to be severely hurt or suffocated. She did not feel afraid, but only indignant, like a boy who has been struck in the face and longs to retaliate. Someone screamed again. It was Hadj. Suzanne was on her feet, but separated from her mistress. Batouch's arm w

rowded with painted women looking down towards the cafe she had left and chattering in shrill voices. She saw the patrol of Tirailleurs Indigenes m

out," she said rather bl

fore us with you

d looked at them hard,

eren't

nds quickly. "Oh,

is episode she knew that she was capable of going back to the door of the cafe and hitting out right and left at the men who had nearly suffocated her. Any violence done to her bo

she said. "What

patrol pushed its way r

e always like

him, then she

speak

onsidering whether he should answer "Yes" or "No." Such hesitation abo

es

t she saw by his face that

ried out shrilly to learn the exact history of the tumult, and the men standing underneath, and lifting up their bronzed faces i

lishwoman,"

some blood on one of his hands and a streak of blood on the front of the loose shirt he wore under his burnous. He kept on shooting out his arms towards Irena as he walked, and frantically appealing to the Arabs round him. When he saw the women on their balconies he stopped for a moment and

j," Domini said. "Ba

ld try to do a thing and fail would have seemed contradictory. And the streak of blood she had ju

," she said to her c

finite line this time, and not to run the chance of a second desertion. She start

etting me out," she said, looking st

w that though he might be hesitating, uneasy, even contemptible-as when he hurrie

h you, Madam

hy

s ni

not a

with you,

shly and kept his ey

d, wondering whether she w

llow you

noon. Why should she wish to deprive him of the reparation he was anxious to make-obviously a

th me,"

nt on t

everal of them, gathered together in a little crowd, were quarrelling and shouting at the

uld be better to take a

is bound to bring us to the hotel as it run

sta

?" he said in his

es

to a tiny alley.

the thin man wit

Mad

d from the desert and tell

made n

a visit?" Domini

do not care f

she sto

strange! And there are ot

he moment there was not an Arab in sight. The sense of loneliness and peace was profound, and as the rare windows of the houses, minute and protected by heavy gratings, were dark, it had seemed to Domini at first as if all the inhabitants were in bed and asleep. B

it, and, immediately below, a girl, thickly painted, covered with barbarous jewels and magnificently dressed, her hands, tinted with henna, folded in her lap, her eyes watching under eyebrows heavily darkened, and prolonged until they met just above the bridge of the nose, to which a number of black dots descended; her naked, brown ankle

some thin material powdered with silver flowers, and a broad silver belt set with squares of red coral. She was sitting upright, and would have looked exactly like an idol s

watchful silence, each one alone on her stair waiting in the night. But as she looked and saw the gaudy finery

ont of Domini, and went up to the woman, holding out something in his scaly hand. There was a brief colloquy. The woman stretched her arm up the staircase, took the candle, held it to the man's open hand, and bent over counting the money that lay in the palm. She counted it twice deliberately. Then she nodded. She got up,

ed at the man, but only at

to him any more. She was too conscious of the lighted stairways, one after one, succeeding each other to right and left of them, of the still figures, of the watching eyes in which the yellow rays of the candles gleamed. Her companion did not speak; but as they walked he

he said. "That is why I am liable to fall into mistakes in such a place as this. Ah, there

e hotel door in the road. The ma

t of hardly controlled excitement, "I-I

hy

med to the society of ladies-like you. Anything I have done I have not done

almost trembling

she said. "Besides

erstand that. I am not so coarse-

the matter, exaggerated though it was, would

he said, "but I shall fo

, and again she felt as if a furnace

d-ni

t, Madame.

to the hotel door

ni Enfilden," sh

ted him to tell her his name. There was a silence. At last he s

Boris-Bori

e you were Engl

my father was a Russian fr

he were insisting like a man making a

t," Domini

ly, leaving him standi

up at the deserted verandah upon which the moon-rays fell. Then he turned and looked towards the village, hesitated, and finally