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Updated: June 8, 2025
The day had been calm and beautiful, one of the most lovely days of the North African spring, and Batouch, resting from the triumphant labour of superintending the final preparations for a long desert journey, augured a morning of Paradise for the departure along the straight road that led at last to Tombouctou.
A thin youth, brooding above a wooden tray close by, held up in his delicate fingers a long bottle, sealed and furnished with a tiny label, but Batouch shook his head. "For perfumes you must go to Ahmeda, under the arcade." They crossed a sunlit space and stood before a dark room, sunk lightly below the level of the pathway in a deserted corner.
And afterwards it seemed to her as if her first real, passionate prayer in Beni-Mora had been almost like a command to God. Was not such a fierce prayer perhaps a blasphemy? She rose from that prayer to the first of her new days. After breakfast she looked over the edge of the verandah and saw Batouch and Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below.
She stood for a moment to look, then she turned away. There was an expression of disgust in her eyes. "No, I don't want to see children," she said. "That's too " She glanced at her escort and did not finish. "I know," said Batouch. "Madame wishes for the real ouleds." He led them across the street. Hadj followed reluctantly.
Madame is sad at leaving the desert, at leaving Beni-Mora." "Yes, Batouch. I am sad at leaving Beni-Mora." "But Madame will return?" "Who knows?" "I know. The desert has a spell. He who has once seen the desert must see it again. The desert calls and its voice is always heard.
At the same moment with the uproar of the tomtoms there mingled a loud knocking on the door. Hadj's lips curled back from his pointed teeth and he looked dangerous. "It is Batouch!" he snarled. Domini got up. Without a word, turning her back upon the court, she made her way out, still hearing the howl of the scorpion-eater, the roar of the tomtoms, and the knocking on the door.
In the gorge of El-Akbara, ere he prayed, Batouch had spoken of it as a vast realm of forgetfulness, where the load of memory slips from the weary shoulders and vanishes into the soft gulf of the sands. But was it everything then? And if it was so much to her already, in a night and a day, what would it be when she knew it, what would it be to her after many nights and many days?
He spoke to Batouch with intense vivacity in Arabic, at the same time shooting glances half-obsequious, half-impudent, wholly and even preternaturally keen and intelligent at Domini. Batouch replied with the dignified languor that seemed peculiar to him. The colloquy continued for two or three minutes. Domini thought it sounded like a quarrel, but she was not accustomed to Arabs' talk.
She knew nothing of what was necessary for such a journey, and tired of ceaseless argument, and too much occupied with joy to burden herself with detail, at last let Batouch have his way. "I leave it to you, Batouch," she said. "But, remember, as few people and beasts as possible. And as you say we must have camels for certain parts of the journey, we will travel the first stage on camel-back."
Batouch, who had emerged from a third-class compartment before the train stopped, followed them closely, and as they reached the jostling crowd of Arabs which swarmed on the roadway he joined them with the air of a proprietor. "Which is Madame's hotel?" Domini looked round. "Ah, Batouch!" Suzanne jumped as if her string had been sharply pulled, and cast a glance of dreary suspicion upon the poet.
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