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Across the river, on the opposite bank, bands of women, enveloped in black and walking in Indian file on the yellow sands, carrying water-jars on their heads, were wending their way to their mud villages. The gleam of their metal anklets caught the sunlight. But the ferry-boat was drawing close to the bank; the next minute he would be able to distinguish Freddy's sister, with Abdul in attendance.
Close at hand in the shade of a brush-covered "leanto" hung three or four huge ollas, earthen water-jars, swathed in gunny sack and blanket. Beyond them, warped out of all possibility of future usefulness, stood what had once been the running gear of a California buck-board.
We went down to the gardens and pasture-land, and stopped to rest at the Village of Geba, which hangs on the side of the mountain. A spring of whitish but delicious water gushed out of the soil, in the midst of a fig orchard. The women passed us, going back and forth with tall water-jars on their heads.
"Now go, and when you have once more filled the water-jars come back to me, and fetch the letters. The sooner you can go the better, for it would be well that you should leave the path through the desert behind you before nightfall, for in the dark there are often dangerous tramps about.
Her love of flowers increased also, and the sense of smell seemed to come to her, for she filled the house with all fragrant flowers in their season, twining them in wreaths about the white pillars of the patio, and binding them in rings around the brown water-jars that stood in it.
How exquisitely she carried herself, mused the dreamer; no doubt this fine carriage was due in part to her wearing golden shoes with heels like stilts, and in part to her having been trained to bear heavy burdens upon her head. Rita remembered that Sir Lucien had once described to her the elegant deportment of the Arab women, ascribing it to their custom of carrying water-jars in that way.
She bade farewell to the child, left her comb stuck in his collar, donned her clothes and flew away. When her husband returned and learned how matters stood, he took his son and repaired to the fountain, where happily they fell in with some of his wife's servants who were sent thither to draw water. Engaging them in conversation, he caused his son to drop the comb into one of the water-jars.
As they bound the sheaves, and bore the water-jars, and went in groups through the seeding grass to chapel, or fountain, or shrine, they had the free, frank grace of an earlier time; just such as these had carried the votive doves to the altars of Venus and chanted by the waters of the Edera the worship of Isis and her son. But to Adone they had no charm. What did he desire or dream of?
The Turks being far too lazy to carry it for themselves, seized upon the water-jars when the women returned from the stream, and beat them severely upon their refusal to deliver them without payment. I found no difficulty, as I engaged a woman to bring a regular supply for a daily payment in beads.
He wanted to thank some one for building the quaint old convent, with its yellow walls washed to an orange tint, and black in spots with dampness; and for the fountain covered with green moss that stood before its gate, and around which were gathered the girls and women of the neighborhood with red water-jars on their shoulders, and little donkeys buried under stacks of yellow sugar-cane, and the negro drivers of the city's green water-carts, and the blue wagons that carried the manufactured ice.
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