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The white hat and hat-pins amused her, and when she had arranged the voluminous haïck in spite of the joltings of the carriage, she examined these European curiosities with interest. Whenever she moved, the warm perfume of amulets grew stronger, overpowering the faint mustiness of the cushions and upholstery. "Never have I held such things in my hands!" Hsina gurgled.
"O my mistress, Lella M'Barka, I have brought thy guest!" cried Hsina, in a loud, sing-song voice, as if she were chanting; whereupon one of the glass doors opened, letting out a rosy radiance, and a Bedouin woman-servant dressed in a striped foutah appeared on the threshold. She was old, with crinkled grey hair under a scarlet handkerchief, and a blue cross was tattooed between her eyes.
The end of this corridor also was masked by a curtain of wool, dyed and woven by the hands of nomad tribes, tent-dwellers in the desert; and when Hsina had lifted it, Victoria saw a small square court with a fountain in the centre.
This the negress placed on the maida, and uncovered a china bowl balanced in a silver stand, like a giant coffee cup of Moorish fashion. It contained hot soup, called cheurba, in which Hsina had put so much fell-fell, the red pepper loved by Arabs, that Victoria's lips were burned.
Hsina came close upon her heels; and as they reached the threshold of the house the white-robed black servants dropped their arms, followed the two women, and shut the nailed door. Then, despite the dimness of the place, they bowed their heads turning aside as if humbly to make it evident that their unworthy eyes did not venture to rest upon the veiled form of their mistress's guest.
As for Hsina, she, too, was veiled, though her age and ugliness would have permitted her face to be revealed without offence to Mussulman ideas of propriety. It was mere vanity on her part to preserve the mystery as dear to the heart of the Moslem woman as to the jealous prejudice of the man.
She would have unfastened the long drapery, but Hsina put down Victoria's luggage, and pushing away the two brown hands, tattooed with blue mittens, she herself unfastened the veil. "No, this is my lady, and my work, Fafann," she objected. "But it is my duty to take her in," replied the Bedouin woman, jealously. "It is the wish of Lella M'Barka. Go thou and make ready the room of the guest."
She was smiling, and pleasantly excited at the presence of a visitor whose arrival broke the tiresome monotony of an invalid's household. When she had set one of the pearly maidas in front of Victoria's seat of cushions, she held back the curtains for Hsina to enter, carrying a copper tray.
She did not know Algiers well enough to recognize landmarks; but after driving for what seemed like fifteen or twenty minutes through streets where lights began to turn the twilight blue, she caught a glint of the sea. Almost immediately the trotting mules stopped, and the negress Hsina, hiding Victoria's hat in the folds of her haïck, turned the handle of the door.
The room where she was to sleep was on another side of the court from that of Lella M'Barka, but Hsina took great pains to assure her that there was nothing to fear. No one could come into this court; and she Hsina slept near by with Fafann. To clap the hands once would be to bring one of them instantly. And Hsina would wake her before dawn.
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