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Next day, Lella M'Barka was well enough to begin the march again. They started, in the same curtained carriage, at that moment before dawn while it is still dark, and a thin white cloth seems spread over the dead face of night. Then day came trembling along the horizon, and the shadows of horses and carriage grew long and grotesquely deformed.
She recalled the night when she had been afraid of the storm, and he had sat by her through the long hours. Somehow, she did not know why, it helped a little to remember that. Ben Râana, graver and sterner than she had seen him, was waiting in the early dawn which struck out bleak lights from the dangling prisms of the big French chandeliers the ugly chandeliers of which Lella Mabrouka was proud.
All drank a little, for, said Lella Alonda, though strong drink was forbidden by the Prophet, the palms were dear to him, and besides, in the throats of good men and women, wine was turned to milk, as Sidi Aissa of the Christians turned water to wine at the marriage feast.
There might be a simple and innocent reason for what struck Lella Mabrouka as mysterious, but she determined to find out. In Ourïeda's green and gold bed from Tunis lay Sanda in a nightdress of Ourïeda's with her head wrapped up as Ourïeda's was often wrapped by Embarka as a cure for headache. Instantly the whole plot was clear to the mother of Tahar.
The bed was not uncomfortable, but Victoria could not sleep. She did not even wish to sleep. It was too wonderful to think that to-morrow she would be on her way to Saidee. Before morning light, Si Maïeddine was in his cousin's house. Hsina had not yet called Victoria, but Lella M'Barka was up and dressed, ready to receive Maïeddine in the room where she had entertained the Roumia girl last night.
"Dance then, in thine own way, O daughter," Lella Alonda was forced to say; for it did not even occur to her that she might disobey her husband.
"In the name of Lella M'Barka be thou welcome," she said. "My mistress has been suffering all day, and fears to rise, lest her strength fail for to-morrow's journey, or she would come forth to meet thee, O Flower of the West! As it is, she begs that thou wilt come to her. But first suffer me to remove thy haïck, that the eyes of Lella M'Barka may be refreshed by thy beauty."
"And though we poor Arabs are behind these modern times in many ways, we would die rather than betray a trust." That was a stroke well aimed under the roses of courtesy, and Sanda could but receive it in silence. She had supposed when Lella Mabrouka spoke of the caravan not going that it was only a threat.
If Aunt Mabrouka sends her own woman, Taous, up to listen and spy on us she will find us feeding the doves." "But why should Lella Mabrouka do such a thing?" Sanda ventured to ask, taking the grain, and seating herself beside Ourïeda. "You will understand that, and a great many other things, when I have told you what I am going to tell," answered the "Little Rose."
"I mean that my cousin, Lella M'Barka, can divine the future from the sand of the Sahara, which gave her life, and life to her ancestors for a thousand years before her. It is a gift. Wilt thou that she exercise it for thee to-night, when we camp?"
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