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Again, in a dark corner, John assumes an Arab covering, while his conductor proceeds to alter his own looks so that any whom they meet may not know who the tall Arab is. So they tread the lanes of the hill-side town. Just as on the previous night, they meet Arabs, Moors, Kabyles, Jews and negroes.
Among the few who escaped was the Sheik Sidi ben Abed. No one knew where he had disappeared to, and when the call to retreat had been sounded, Coucou declared he would remain behind to find out where the Kabyles were. "They will kill you," his comrades warned him. "Bah! a Parisian child does not fear the devil!" said Coucou, laughing. In a few minutes he had disappeared.
Their summits were purple, deepening where the clouds came down to ebony. Journeying towards these terrible fastnesses were caravans on which Domini looked with a heavy and lethargic interest. Many Kabyles, fairer than she was, moved slowly on foot towards their rock villages. Over the withered earth they went towards the distant mountains and the clouds. The sun was hidden.
As the road sprang into its level flight like magic, the peeping Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they were conquered, laughed in derision. "It is to help the cowards to run away," they said. In due time rose the pale walls of the citadel, with mountains above and hills below. The Kabyles call it the White Phantom.
There were brown-skinned Berbers in black goat-hair cloaks that were made in one piece with a cowl and decorated by a lozenge of red or orange colour on the back, their shaven heads encased in skull-caps or simply bound in a cord of plaited camel-hair; there were black Saharowi who went almost naked, and stately Arabs who seemed overmuffled in their flowing robes of white with the cowls overshadowing their swarthy, finely featured faces; there were dignified and prosperous-looking Moors in brightly coloured selhams astride of sleek mules that were richly caparisoned; and there were Tagareenes, the banished Moors of Andalusia, most of whom followed the trade of slave-dealers; there were native Jews in sombre black djellabas, and Christian-Jews so-called because bred in Christian countries, whose garments they still wore; there were Levantine Turks, splendid of dress and arrogant of demeanour, and there were humble Cololies, Kabyles and Biscaries.
How many times she had dreamed, in the mists of her recollection, of that somewhat haughty smile that curled his delicate mustache, and those keen-edged teeth gleaming though his reddish beard, as if greedy to bury themselves deep in flesh! But where was the duke now? Among the Kabyles or the Mormons? At Tahiti, Greenland, or gone to the devil?
His appearance at once brought back the Kabyles of Nedrouma to their allegiance, and their example was followed by other tribes, with the result that his army was increased to the number of three thousand cavalry and five thousand infantry.
Taking it all in all, I do not mind that; I fight with the Kabyles, and when one day my end approaches, nobody will have to mourn for me. But you appear to me so kind and trustworthy, that Satan urged me on, and as I shall probably never see you again " "Ah, and why not?" "I bid you farewell, for to-morrow morning it will be all over."
To the Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the blazon of increasing prosperity.
Carrying water, so characteristic a female office in the East, as the artists are constantly reminding us, is none the less so among the Kabyles. But it becomes a more serious matter when the wells or streams are three or four hundred feet lower than the site of the dwelling to be supplied.
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