The Garden Of Allah

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All this information, not wholly devoid of a naive egoism, Batouch
poured forth gently and melodiously as they walked through the twilight
in the tunnel. And Domini was quite content to listen. The strange names
the poet mentioned, his liquid pronunciation of them, his allusions
to wild events that had happened long ago in desert places, and to the
lives of priests of his old religion, of fanatics, and girls who rode
on camels caparisoned in red to the dancing-houses of Sahara cities--all
these things cradled her humour at this moment and seemed to plant her,
like a mimosa tree, deep down in this sand garden of the sun.

She had forgotten her bitter sensation in the railway carriage when it
was recalled to her mind by an incident that clashed with her present
mood.

Steps sounded on the path behind them, going faster than they were, and
presently Domini saw her fellow-traveller striding along, accompanied
by a young Arab who was carrying the green bag. The stranger was looking
straight before him down the tunnel, and he went by swiftly. But his
guide had something to say to Batouch, and altered his pace to keep
beside them for a moment. He was a very thin, lithe, skittish-looking
youth, apparently about twenty-three years old, with a chocolate-brown
skin, high cheek bones, long, almond-shaped eyes twinkling with
dissipated humour, and a large mouth that smiled showing pointed white
teeth. A straggling black moustache sprouted on his upper lip, and long
coarse strands of jet-black hair escaped from under the front of a fez
that was pushed back on his small head. His neck was thin and long, and
his hands were wonderfully delicate and expressive, with rosy and quite
perfect nails. When he laughed he had a habit of throwing his head
forward and tucking in his chin, letting the tassel of his fez fall over
his temple to left or right. He was dressed in white with a burnous,
and had a many-coloured piece of silk with frayed edges wound about his
waist, which was as slim as a young girl's.

He spoke to Batouch with intense vivacity in Arabic, at the same
time shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and even
preternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with the
dignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy continued
for two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a quarrel, but
she was not accustomed to Arabs' talk. Meanwhile, the stranger in front
had slackened his pace, and was obviously lingering for his neglectful
guide. Once or twice he nearly stopped, and made a movement as if to
turn round. But he checked it and went on slowly. His guide spoke more
and more vehemently, and suddenly, tucking in his chin and displaying
his rows of big and dazzling teeth, burst into a gay and boyish laugh,
at the same time shaking his head rapidly. Then he shot one last sly
look at Domini and hurried on, airily swinging the green bag to and fro.
His arms had tiny bones, but they were evidently strong, and he walked
with the light ease of a young animal. After he had gone he turned his
head once and stared full at Domini. She could not help laughing at the
vanity and consciousness of his expression. It was childish. Yet there
was something ruthless and wicked in it too. As he came up to the
stranger the latter looked round, said something to him, and then
hastened forward. Domini was struck by the difference between their
gaits. For the stranger, although he was so strongly built and muscular,
walked rather heavily and awkwardly, with a peculiar shuffling motion
of his feet. She began to wonder how old he was. About thirty-five or
thirty-seven, she thought.

"That is Hadj," said Batouch in his soft, rich voice.

"Hadj?"

"Yes. He is my cousin. He lives in Beni-Mora, but he, too, has been in
Paris. He has been in prison too."

"What for?"

"Stabbing."

Batouch gave this piece of information with quiet indifference, and
continued

"He likes to laugh. He is lazy. He has earned a great deal of money, and
now he has none. To-night he is very gay, because he has a client."

"I see. Then he is a guide?"

"Many people in Beni-Mora are guides. But Hadj is always lucky in
getting the English."

"That man with him isn't English!" Domini exclaimed.

She had wondered what the traveller's nationality was, but it had never
occurred to her that it might be the same as her own.

"Yes, he is. And he is going to the Hotel du Desert. You and he are the
only English here, and almost the only travellers. It is too early for
many travellers yet. They fear the heat. And besides, few English come
here now. What a pity! They spend money, and like to see everything.
Hadj is very anxious to buy a costume at Tunis for the great _fete_ at
the end of Ramadan. It will cost fifty or sixty francs. He hopes the
Englishman is rich. But all the English are rich and generous."

Here Batouch looked steadily at Domini with his large, unconcerned eyes.

"This one speaks Arabic a little."

Domini made no reply. She was surprised by this piece of information.
There was something, she thought, essentially un-English about the
stranger. He was certainly not dressed by an English tailor. But it was
not only that which had caused her mistake. His whole air and look, his
manner of holding himself, of sitting, of walking--yes, especially of
walking--were surely foreign. Yet, when she came to think about it, she
could not say that they were characteristic of any other country. Idly
she had said to herself that the stranger might be an Austrian or a
Russian. But she had been thinking of his colouring. It happened that
two _attaches_ of those two nations, whom she had met frequently in
London, had hair of that shade of rather warm brown.

"He does not look like an Englishman," she said presently.

"He can talk in French and in Arabic, but Hadj says he is English."

"How should Hadj know?"

"Because he has the eyes of the jackal, and has been with many English.
We are getting near to the Catholic church, Madame. You will see it
through the trees. And there is Monsieur the Cure coming towards us. He
is coming from his house, which is near the hotel."

At some distance in the twilight of the tunnel Domini saw a black figure
in a soutane walking very slowly towards them. The stranger, who had
been covering the ground rapidly with his curious, shuffling stride,
was much nearer to it than they were, and, if he kept on at his
present pace, would soon pass it. But suddenly Domini saw him pause and
hesitate. He bent down and seemed to be doing something to his boot.
Hadj dropped the green bag, and was evidently about to kneel down, and
assist him when he lifted himself up abruptly and looked before him, as
if at the priest who was approaching, then turned sharply to the right
into a path which led out of the garden to the arcades of the Rue
Berthe. Hadj followed, gesticulating frantically, and volubly explaining
that the hotel was in the opposite direction. But the stranger did not
stop. He only glanced swiftly back over his shoulder once, and then
continued on his way.

"What a funny man that is!" said Batouch. "What does he want to do?"

Domini did not answer him, for the priest was just passing them, and she
saw the church to the left among the trees. It was a plain, unpretending
building, with a white wooden door set in an arch. Above the arch were
a small cross, two windows with rounded tops, a clock, and a white tower
with a pink roof. She looked at it, and at the priest, whose face was
dark and meditative, with lustrous, but sad, brown eyes. Yet she thought
of the stranger.

Her attention was beginning to be strongly fixed upon the unknown man.
His appearance and manner were so unusual that it was impossible not to
notice him.

"There is the hotel, Madame!" said Batouch.

Domini saw it standing at right angles to the church, facing the
gardens. A little way back from the church was the priest's house, a
white building shaded by date palms and pepper trees. As they drew near
the stranger reappeared under the arcade, above which was the terrace of
the hotel. He vanished through the big doorway, followed by Hadj.

While Suzanne was unpacking Domini came out on to the broad terrace
which ran along the whole length of the Hotel du Desert. Her bedroom
opened on to it in front, and at the back communicated with a small
salon. This salon opened on to a second and smaller terrace, from which
the desert could be seen beyond the palms. There seemed to be no guests
in the hotel. The verandah was deserted, and the peace of the soft
evening was profound. Against the white parapet a small, round table and
a cane armchair had been placed. A subdued patter of feet in slippers
came up the stairway, and an Arab servant appeared with a tea-tray.
He put it down on the table with the precise deftness which Domini had
already observed in the Arabs at Robertville, and swiftly vanished. She
sat down in the chair and poured out the tea, leaning her left arm on
the parapet.

Her head was very tired and her temples felt compressed. She was
thankful for the quiet round her. Any harsh voice would have been
intolerable to her just then. There were many sounds in the village, but
they were vague, and mingled, flowing together and composing one sound
that was soothing, the restrained and level voice of Life. It hummed in
Domini's ears as she sipped her tea, and gave an under-side of romance
to the peace. The light that floated in under the round arches of the
terrace was subdued. The sun had just gone down, and the bright colours
bloomed no more upon the mountains, which looked like silent monsters
that had lost the hue of youth and had suddenly become mysteriously old.
The evening star shone in a sky that still held on its Western border
some last pale glimmerings of day, and, at its signal, many dusky
wanderers folded their loose garments round them, slung their long guns
across their shoulders, and prepared to start on their journey, helped
by the cool night wind that blows in the desert when the sun departs.

Domini did not know of them, but she felt the near presence of the
desert, and the feeling quieted her nerves. She was thankful at this
moment that she was travelling without any woman friend and was not
persecuted by any sense of obligation. In her fatigue, to rest passive
in the midst of quiet, and soft light, calm in the belief, almost the
certainty, that this desert village contained no acquaintance to disturb
her, was to know all the joy she needed for the moment. She drank it
in dreamily. Liberty had always been her fetish. What woman had more
liberty than she had, here on this lonely verandah, with the shadowy
trees below?

The bell of the church near by chimed softly, and the familiar sound
fell strangely upon Domini's ears out here in Africa, reminding her of
many sorrows. Her religion was linked with terrible memories, with cruel
struggles, with hateful scenes of violence. Lord Rens had been a man of
passionate temperament. Strong in goodness when he had been led by love,
he had been equally strong in evil when hate had led him. Domini had
been forced to contemplate at close quarters the raw character of a
warped man, from whom circumstance had stripped all tenderness, nearly
all reticence. The terror of truth was known to her. She had shuddered
before it, but she had been obliged to watch it during many years. In
coming to Beni-Mora she had had a sort of vague, and almost childish,
feeling that she was putting the broad sea between herself and it. Yet
before she had started it had been buried in the grave. She never wished
to behold such truth again. She wanted to look upon some other truth
of life--the truth of beauty, of calm, of freedom. Lord Rens had always
been a slave, the slave of love, most of all when he was filled with
hatred, and Domini, influenced by his example, instinctively connected
love with a chain. Only the love a human being has for God seemed to her
sometimes the finest freedom; the movement of the soul upward into the
infinite obedient to the call of the great Liberator. The love of man
for woman, of woman for man, she thought of as imprisonment, bondage.
Was not her mother a slave to the man who had wrecked her life and
carried her spirit beyond the chance of heaven? Was not her father a
slave to her mother? She shrank definitely from the contemplation of
herself loving, with all the strength she suspected in her heart, a
human being. In her religion only she had felt in rare moments something
of love. And now here, in this tremendous and conquering land, she felt
a divine stirring in her love for Nature. For that afternoon Nature, so
often calm and meditative, or gently indifferent, as one too complete to
be aware of those who lack completeness, had impetuously summoned her
to worship, had ardently appealed to her for something more than a
temperate watchfulness or a sober admiration. There had been a most
definite demand made upon her. Even in her fatigue and in this dreamy
twilight she was conscious of a latent excitement that was not lulled to
sleep.

And as she sat there, while the darkness grew in the sky and spread
secretly along the sandy rills among the trees, she wondered how
much she held within her to give in answer to this cry to her of
self-confident Nature. Was it only a little? She did not know. Perhaps
she was too tired to know. But however much it was it must seem meagre.
What is even a woman's heart given to the desert or a woman's soul to
the sea? What is the worship of anyone to the sunset among the hills, or
to the wind that lifts all the clouds from before the face of the moon?

A chill stole over Domini. She felt like a very poor woman, who can
never know the joy of giving, because she does not possess even a mite.

The church bell chimed again among the palms. Domini heard voices quite
clearly below her under the arcade. A French cafe was installed there,
and two or three soldiers were taking their _aperitif_ before dinner
out in the air. They were talking of France, as people in exile talk of
their country, with the deliberateness that would conceal regret and the
child's instinctive affection for the mother. Their voices made Domini
think again of the recruits, and then, because of them, of Notre Dame de
la Garde, the mother of God, looking towards Africa. She remembered the
tragedy of her last confession. Would she be able to confess here to
the Father whom she had seen strolling in the tunnel? Would she learn to
know here what she really was?

How warm it was in the night, and how warmth, as it develops the
fecundity of the earth, develops also the possibilities in many men and
women. Despite her lassitude of body, which kept her motionless as an
idol in her chair, with her arm lying along the parapet of the verandah,
Domini felt as if a confused crowd of things indefinable, but violent,
was already stirring within her nature, as if this new climate was
calling armed men into being. Could she not hear the murmur of their
voices, the distant clashing of their weapons?

Without being aware of it she was dropping into sleep. The sound of a
footstep on the wooden floor of the verandah recalled her. It was at
some distance behind her. It crossed the verandah and stopped. She felt
quite certain that it was the step of her fellow-traveller, not because
she knew he was staying in the hotel, but rather because of the curious,
uneven heaviness of the tread.

What was he doing? Looking over the parapet into the fruit gardens,
where the white figures of the Arabs were flitting through the trees?

He was perfectly silent. Domini was now wide awake. The feeling of calm
serenity had left her. She was nervously troubled by this presence near
her, and swiftly recalled the few trifling incidents of the day which
had begun to delineate a character for her. They were, she found, all
unpleasant, all, at least, faintly disagreeable. Yet, in sum, what was
their meaning? The sketch they traced was so slight, so confused, that
it told little. The last incident was the strangest. And again she saw
the long and luminous pathway of the tunnel, flickering with light
and shade, carpeted with the pale reflections of the leaves and narrow
branches of the trees, the black figure of the priest far down it, and
the tall form of the stranger in an attitude of painful hesitation. Each
time she had seen him, apparently desirous of doing something definite,
hesitation had overtaken him. In his indecision there was something
horrible to her, something alarming.

She wished he was not standing behind her, and her discomfort increased.
She could still hear the voices of the soldiers in the cafe. Perhaps he
was listening to them. They sounded louder.

The speakers were getting up from their seats. There was a jingling of
spurs, a tramp of feet, and the voices died away. The church bell
chimed again. As it did so Domini heard heavy and uneven steps cross the
verandah hurriedly. An instant later she heard a window shut sharply.

"Suzanne!" she called.

Her maid appeared, yawning, with various parcels in her hands.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"I sha'n't go down to the _salle-a-manger_ to-night. Tell them to give
me some dinner in my _salon_."

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"You did not see who was on the verandah just now?"

The maid looked surprised.

"I was in Mademoiselle's room."

"Yes. How near the church is."

"Mademoiselle will have no difficulty in getting to Mass. She will not
be obliged to go among all the Arabs."

Domini smiled.

"I have come here to be among the Arabs, Suzanne."

"The porter of the omnibus tells me they are dirty and very dangerous.
They carry knives, and their clothes are full of fleas."

"You will feel quite differently about them in the morning. Don't forget
about dinner."

"I will speak about it at once, Mademoiselle."

Suzanne disappeared, walking as one who suspects an ambush.

After dinner Domini went again to the verandah. She found Batouch there.
He had now folded a snow-white turban round his head, and looked like
a young high priest of some ornate religion. He suggested that Domini
should come out with him to visit the Rue des Ouled Nails and see the
strange dances of the Sahara. But she declined.

"Not to-night, Batouch. I must go to bed. I haven't slept for two
nights."

"But I do not sleep, Madame. In the night I compose verses. My brain is
alive. My heart is on fire."

"Yes, but I am not a poet. Besides, I may be here for a long time. I
shall have many evenings to see the dances."

The poet looked displeased.

"The gentleman is going," he said. "Hadj is at the door waiting for him
now. But Hadj is afraid when he enters the street of the dancers."

"Why?"

"There is a girl there who wishes to kill him. Her name is Aishoush. She
was sent away from Beni-Mora for six months, but she has come back, and
after all this time she still wishes to kill Hadj."

"What has he done to her?"

"He has not loved her. Yes, Hadj is afraid, but he will go with the
gentleman because he must earn money to buy a costume for the _fete_ of
Ramadan. I also wish to buy a new costume."

He looked at Domini with a dignified plaintiveness. His pose against
the pillar of the verandah was superb. Over his blue cloth jacket he
had thrown a thin white burnous, which hung round him in classic folds.
Domini could scarcely believe that so magnificent a creature was touting
for a franc. The idea certainly did occur to her, but she banished it.
For she was a novice in Africa.

"I am too tired to go out to-night," she said decisively.

"Good-night, Madame. I shall be here to-morrow morning at seven o'clock.
The dawn in the garden of the gazelles is like the flames of Paradise,
and you can see the Spahis galloping upon horses that are beautiful
as--"

"I shall not get up early to-morrow."

Batouch assumed an expression that was tragically submissive and turned
to go. Just then Suzanne appeared at the French window of her bedroom.
She started as she perceived the poet, who walked slowly past her to the
staircase, throwing his burnous back from his big shoulders, and stood
looking after him. Her eyes fixed themselves upon the section of bare
leg that was visible above his stockings white as the driven snow, and a
faintly sentimental expression mingled with their defiance and alarm.

Domini got up from her chair and leaned over the parapet. A streak
of yellow light from the doorway of the hotel lay upon the white road
below, and in a moment she saw two figures come out from beneath the
verandah and pause there. Hadj was one, the stranger was the other.
The stranger struck a match and tried to light a cigar, but failed. He
struck another match, and then another, but still the cigar would not
draw. Hadj looked at him with mischievous astonishment.

"If Monsieur will permit me--" he began.

But the stranger took the cigar hastily from his mouth and flung it
away.

"I don't want to smoke," Domini heard him say in French.

Then he walked away with Hadj into the darkness.

As they disappeared Domini heard a faint shrieking in the distance. It
was the music of the African hautboy.

The night was marvellously dry and warm. The thickly growing trees in
the garden scarcely moved. It was very still and very dark. Suzanne,
standing at her window, looked like a shadow in her black dress. Her
attitude was romantic. Perhaps the subtle influence of this Sahara
village was beginning to steal even over her obdurate spirit.

The hautboy went on crying. Its notes, though faint, were sharp and
piercing. Once more the church bell chimed among the date palms, and
the two musics, with their violently differing associations, clashing
together smote upon Domini's heart with a sense of trouble, almost of
tragedy. The pulses in her temples throbbed, and she clasped her hands
tightly together. That brief moment, in which she heard the duet of
those two voices, was one of the most interesting, yet also one of the
most painful she had ever known. The church bell was silent now, but the
hautboy did not cease. It was barbarous and provocative, shrill with a
persistent triumph.

Domini went to bed early, but she could not sleep. Just before midnight
she heard someone walking up and down on the verandah. The step was
heavy and shuffling. It came and went, came and went, without pause till
she was in a fever of uneasiness. Only when two chimed from the church
did it cease at last.

She whispered a prayer to Notre Dame de la Garde, The Blessed Virgin,
looking towards Africa. For the first time she felt the loneliness of
her situation and that she was far away.



CHAPTER V

Towards morning Domini slept. It was nearly eight o'clock when she
awoke. The room was full of soft light which told of the sun outside,
and she got up at once, put on a pair of slippers and opened the French
window on to the verandah. Already Beni-Mora was bathed in golden beams
and full of gentle activities. A flock of goats pattered by towards the
edge of the oasis. The Arab gardeners were lazily sweeping small leaves
from the narrow paths under the mimosa and pepper trees. Soldiers in
loose white suits, dark blue sashes and the fez, were hastening from
the Fort towards the market. A distant bugle rang out and the snarl of
camels was audible from the village. Domini stood on the verandah for
a moment, drinking in the desert air. It made her feel very pure and
clean, as if she had just bathed in clear water. She looked up at
the limpid sky, which seemed full of hope and of the power to grant
blessings, and she was glad that she had come to Beni-Mora. Her lonely
sensation of the previous night had gone. As she stood in the sun she
was conscious that she needed re-creation and that here she might find
it. The radiant sky, the warm sun and the freedom of the coming day and
of many coming desert days, filled her heart with an almost childish
sensation. She felt younger than she had felt for years, and even
foolishly innocent, like a puppy dog or a kitten. Her thick black hair,
unbound, fell in a veil round her strong, active body, and she had the
rare consciousness that behind that other more mysterious veil her soul
was to-day a less unfit companion for its mate than it had been since
her mother's sin.

Cleanliness--what a blessed condition that was, a condition to breed
bravery. In this early morning hour Beni-Mora looked magically clean.
Domini thought of the desperate dirt of London mornings, of the sooty
air brooding above black trees and greasy pavements. Surely it was
difficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One would
tune one's lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm tree
beside a water-spring. She took up a little vellum-bound book which she
had laid at night upon her dressing-table. It was _Of the Imitation of
Christ_, and she opened it at haphazard and glanced down on a sunlit
page. Her eyes fell on these words:

"Love watcheth, and sleeping, slumbereth not. When weary it is not
tired; when straitened it is not constrained; when frightened it is
not disturbed; but like a vivid flame and a burning torch it mounteth
upwards and securely passeth through all. Whosoever loveth knoweth the
cry of this voice."