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We could only ask Z to keep an eye on her, for interference in the Moorish domestic hearth on the part of a European would be a fool's work indeed. It was March 19 when we began to wander once more, having handed the keys of Jinan Dolero back to its owner and cleared out the little white house. S`lam looked forward to feasting with his brother at Tangier, and started off with a good grace.
Only lately a boy was shot twice in the thigh, happening to be in the way in a scuffle. S`lam and Tahara were often amusing, if not interesting: never commonplace or "well-meaning." One corner of the roof of Jinan Dolero had been left unwhitewashed, the whitewashers' ladder was still there, and one morning S`lam came to say in his best French, "Deux mesdames. Pour arranger en haut."
A white jasmine almost hid our white steps and pillars: a rose grew with lavish prodigality; as Jinan Dolero stood there, in the middle of the Garden of the Slothful, a certain imperious dignity was given to the little white-walled structure by means of its magnificent situation.
Bewicke was offered a house and garden for seven pounds ten a month: some time after the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came down to thirty-nine shillings. Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee, he had Jinan Dolero done up, whitewashed at least, outside and in, from top to toe a rite performed on every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like spring-cleanings at home.
Splendid muscats, we were told, our vines would produce: branches are spread over them in the summer as a slight protection from the sun, but the grapes are left on the ground and often soiled; nor has a Moor the slightest idea of picking them, or of preserving their bloom. Besides the vines, there were fruit-trees in Jinan Dolero.
The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to Miss Z . This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a syllable out of her.
Tahara slipped into her slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the fast-deepening dusk we started. It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a dispensary. Miss Z had had some medical experience, and was a clever woman.
And in the end the vote was given against the little windowless dwelling in the Moorish Quarter. No doubt a courtyard house is bizarre, but it has its imperfections. A Scotch proverb has it that "Where twa are seeking, they are sure to find." In time we found. A certain Moor of Tetuan, named Ali Slowee, a Spanish protected subject, was guardian, uncle, and stepfather to a boy named Dolero.
Thus, with all their locks and bolts, garden doors were often left open, and the cane fences were full of gaps. But none of our lemons were stolen not, at least, after we got rid of the guard of soldiers which for the first week the basha insisted on sending to Jinan Dolero every night. They ate them.
We were told tales of people who had met with terrifying adventures, but personally our expeditions had no such thrilling incidents connected with them. It would have been unwise to stay out after sunset, and that time always saw us back at Jinan Dolero.
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