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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Hadj can go home if he is afraid of anything in the dancing street," said Domini, rather maliciously. "Let us follow the soldiers." Hadj started as if he had been stung, and looked at Domini as if he would like to strangle her. "I am afraid of nothing," he exclaimed proudly. "Madame does not know Hadj-ben-Ibrahim." Batouch laughed soundlessly, shaking his great shoulders.
He then rose, burst into a flood of tears, and in the height of his emotion, instead of reciting the usual prayers of the visitor, only exclaimed, "O God, now take my soul, for this is Paradise!" The termination of the Hadj gives a very different appearance to the temple. Disease and mortality, which succeed to the fatigues endured on the journey, or are caused by the light covering of the
The Arab bows down instinctively before any dominating spirit, and such a spirit in a foreign woman flashes in his eyes like a bright flame. Physical strength, too, appeals to him with peculiar force. Hadj tossed his head upwards, tucked in his chin, and muttered some words in his brown throat as he noted the elastic grace with which the rejecting foreign woman moved till she was out of his sight.
He will take her to his room, and she will wear a veil, and work for him and never go out any more." "What! She will live like the Arab women?" "Of course, Madame. But there is a very nice terrace on the roof outside Hadj's room, and Hadj will permit her to take the air there, in the evening or when it is hot." "She must love Hadj very much." "She does, or why should she try to kill him?"
There is a small ruined stone tank close by the road. The caravan of the Yemen pilgrims, called Hadj el Kebsy, whose route lies along these mountains, used always to observe the ceremony here, and the tank was then filled with water for ablution.
Mohammed Aly, and Soleyman Pasha of Damascus, as well as several of their officers, had very handsome tents; but the most magnificent of all was that of the wife of Mohammed Aly, the mother of Tousoun Pasha, and Ibrahim Pasha, who had lately arrived from Cairo for the Hadj, with a truly royal equipage, five hundred camels being necessary to transport her baggage from Djidda to Mekka.
But when the coffee was brought, and set upon a round wooden stool between two bunches of roses, he had time to note Hadj's sudden gaiety and to realise its meaning. Instantly he spoke to the negro in a low voice. Hadj stopped laughing. The negro sped away and returned with the proprietor of the cafe, a stout Kabyle with a fair skin and blue eyes.
To acquire a perfect knowledge of the Bedouins, it would be necessary to examine them in Nedjed, where their manners continue unaltered by conquest, and retaining all their original purity: nor have they been contaminated by an influx of strangers; for, except the Hadj caravan coming from Baghdad, no foreigners ever pass through Nedjed.
Even a Minister, the representative of a great European Power, was warned by old Hadj Mohammed Torres, the resident Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that the Moorish Administration would not hold itself responsible for his safety if he persisted in his intention to go hunting among the hills. In the fatalism of our neighbours lies our safety.
Hadj laughed with a snarl: "He who smokes the keef is like a Mehari with a swollen tongue," he rejoined. The poet looked as if he were going to spring upon his cousin, but he restrained himself and a slow, malignant smile curled about his thick lips like a snake. "I shall show to Madame a dancer who is modest, who is beautiful, Hadj-ben-Ibrahim," he said softly.
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