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These dunes were of a sharp lemon yellow in the evening light, a yellow that was cold in its clearness, almost setting the teeth on edge. They went away into great rolling slopes of sand on which the camps of the nomads and the Ouled Nails were pitched, some near to, some distant from, the city, but they themselves were solitary.
The Ouled Naïl tinkled at the slightest movement, even with the heaving of her bosom, as she breathed, making music with many necklaces, and long earrings that clinked against them.
They were playing the bendir, the tomtom, the Arab flute, as well as the räita; but the räita laughed the other music down. They were waiting, eager-eyed. If Max had not known beforehand that something was expected, he would have guessed it. At last she came, the great desert dancer said to be the most beautiful Ouled Nail of her generation.
"Miss Verbena in Algiers!" "Eugenia!" said Mr. Greyne in a husky voice, "what is this you say? This lady is the Ouled." A sardonic laugh came from the doorway. They turned. There stood Abdallah Jack. He advanced roughly to the Ouled. "Come," he said angrily. "Have we not earned the money of the stranger? Have we not earned enough?
She seemed so wrapped in the ecstasy of the dance that it did not occur to Domini at first that she was imitating the Ouled Nail who had laid her greasy head upon the stranger's knees. The abandonment of her performance was so great that it was difficult to remember its money value to her and to Tahar, the fair Kabyle.
He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a great longing to unburden himself overcame him. "An Ouled," he replied, "is a dancing-girl from the desert of Sahara." "Mon Dieu! How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?" "No. Would that it were!" And Mr.
Greyne had never seen the Ouled since his first evening in Algiers, but he still paid her a weekly salary, through Abdallah Jack, who explained to him that the interesting lady, in a discreet retirement, was perpetually occupied in arranging the exhibitions of African frailty at which he so frequently assisted. She was, in fact, earning her liberal salary.
Moreover, the Ouled spoke a word or two of uncertain French. Thus, therefore, things fell out, and such was the precise situation when Mrs. Greyne flicked a crumb from her chocolate brocade gown, tied her bonnet strings, and rose from table to set forth to the Kasbah with Abdallah Jack. It was a radiant night.
The woman before whose dwelling Domini had stopped was an Ouled Nail, with a square headdress of coloured handkerchiefs and feathers, a pink and silver shawl, a blue skirt of some thin material powdered with silver flowers, and a broad silver belt set with squares of red coral.
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