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As for Lella M'Barka, the Rose of the West need not fear, for the bassour was easy as a cradle to a woman of the desert; and M'Barka, rightfully a princess of Touggourt, was desert-born and bred. Queer little patches of growing grain, or miniature orchards enlivened the dull plain round the ugly Saharian town of Djelfa, headquarters of the Ouled Naïls.
No, he had seen no party of six horsemen riding from the direction of Djelfa. There were other oases scattered about possibly they had been journeying to one of these. Then there were the marauders in the mountains above they often rode north to Bou Saada in small parties, and even as far as Aumale and Bouira.
"Your hunting has not been very fortunate?" questioned the officer. "No," replied Tarzan; "the game hereabout is timid, nor do I care particularly about hunting game birds or antelope. I think I shall move on farther south, and have a try at some of your Algerian lions." "Good!" exclaimed the captain. "We are marching toward Djelfa on the morrow. You shall have company that far at least.
Here Tarzan purchased a better mount than the one he had selected at Bouira, and, entering into conversation with the stately Arab to whom the animal had belonged, learned that the seller was Kadour ben Saden, sheik of a desert tribe far south of Djelfa. Through Abdul, Tarzan invited his new acquaintance to dine with him.
Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa, two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera; and who, because he saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself in the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans.... Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"
After camping at Djelfa for two days the column moved to the southwest, from whence word had come that the marauders were operating against the tribes whose DOUARS were situated at the foot of the mountains. The little band of Arabs who had accompanied them from Bou Saada had disappeared suddenly the very night that orders had been given to prepare for the morrow's march from Djelfa.
Many Arabs worked with surprising briskness at the loading or unloading of great carts, men of the Ouled Naïls, with eyes more mysterious than the eyes of veiled women; tall fellows wearing high shoes of soft, pale brown leather made for walking long distances in heavy sand; and Maïeddine said that there was great traffic and commerce between Djelfa and the M'Zab country, where she and he and M'Barka would arrive presently, after passing his father's douar.
Beyond Djelfa, on the low mountains that alone broke the monotony of the dismal plain, little watch-towers rose dark along the sky-line watch-towers old as Roman days.
Maïeddine was uneasy until they were out of Djelfa, for, though few Europeans travelled that way, and the road is hideous for motors, still it was not impossible that a certain yellow car had slipped in before them, to lie in wait. The Caïd's house, where they spent that night, was outside the town, and behind its closed doors and little windows there was no fear of intruders.
Then came two days of driving to Djelfa, at first in a country strange enough to be Djinn-haunted, a country of gloomy mountains, and deep water-courses like badly healed wounds; passing through dry river-beds, and over broken roads with here and there a bordj where men brought water to the mules, in skins held together with ropes of straw.
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