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Updated: June 5, 2025
This was the first Sahara city they had drawn near to, and their minds were full of memories of the stories of Batouch, told to them by the camp fire at night in the uninhabited places which, till now, had been their home: stories of the wealthy date merchants who trafficked here and dwelt in Oriental palaces, poor in aspect as seen from the dark and narrow streets, or zgags, in which they were situated, but within full of the splendours of Eastern luxury; of the Jew moneylenders who lived apart in their own quarter, rapacious as wolves, hoarding their gains, and practising the rites of their ancient and according to the Arabs detestable religion; of the marabouts, or sacred men, revered by the Mohammedans, who rode on white horses through the public ways, followed by adoring fanatics who sought to touch their garments and amulets, and demanded importunately miraculous blessings at their hands the hedgehog's foot to protect their women in the peril of childbirth; the scroll, covered with verses of the Koran and enclosed in a sheaf of leather, that banishes ill dreams at night and stays the uncertain feet of the sleep-walker; the camel's skull that brings fruit to the palm trees; the red coral that stops the flow of blood from a knife-wound of the dancing-girls glittering in an armour of golden pieces, their heads tied with purple and red and yellow handkerchiefs of silk, crowned with great bars of solid gold and tufted with ostrich feathers; of the dwarfs and jugglers who by night perform in the marketplace, contending for custom with the sorceresses who tell the fates from shells gathered by mirage seas; with the snake-charmers who are immune from the poison of serpents and the acrobats who come from far-off Persia and Arabia to spread their carpets in the shadow of the Agha's dwelling and delight the eyes of negro and Kabyle, of Soudanese and Touareg with their feats of strength; of the haschish smokers who, assembled by night in an underground house whose ceiling and walls were black as ebony, gave themselves up to day-dreams of shifting glory, in which the things of earth and the joys and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams were gliding silver.
He does me enough honour in sending out the pick of his goum, which is among the finest of the Sahara." Victoria had picked up a great deal of desert lore by this time, and knew that the "pick of the goum" would mean the best horses in the Agha's stables, the crack riders among his trained men fighting men, such as he would give to the Government, if Arab soldiers were needed.
Loading as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere be seen.
Years must pass before all was ready, and many more men, working heart and soul, night and day, were needed. If Maïeddine could help, well and good. But would the Agha yield to his influence? "Not the Agha," Maïeddine answered, "but the Agha's people. They are my people, too, and they look to me as their future head. My father is old.
Ourïeda would pretend to be ill with grief because her friend must leave her at such a time; already she had prepared the Agha's mind by complaining of weakness. She would take to her bed and refuse to see any one but her nurse, Embarka.
The more ground we can cover before we're come up with by the Agha's camels, who'll be superior to ours, the better it will be, won't it?" "Yes, for if the Agha lets Djazerta alone, Manöel may contrive to slip out of the town sooner than he dared hope, well disguised, in a caravan of strangers not of Ben Râana's tribe.
He asked no questions; and somehow that seemed worse than the ordeal for which Sanda had braced herself. The Agha's voice, politely speaking French, was studiously gentle, but icy contempt was in his dark eyes when they were not deliberately turned from the trusted guest who had betrayed him.
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