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"'But, mademoiselle said impatiently, 'there's nothing at all now only sand. "'Mademoiselle dreams, said Tahar. 'The mirage is always there. "They rode forward. That night they camped near Sidi-Okba.
"Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how the army of Sidi-Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous.
The ostrich country, says Ben-Kaddour, may be described as a rectangle, of which the towns of Insalah, Figig, Sidi-Okba, and Warklah form the angles; that is, it comprises the northern skirts of the Saharian desert, where water and herbage are plentiful in comparison with the arid plains of the centre.
"Biskra, I suppose," he rejoined, "and the nearest oasis, Sidi-Okba, and so on?" I nodded. I saw I was in for another tale, and anticipated some history of shooting exploits under the salt mountain of El Outaya. "Well," he continued, "I know the Sahara pretty fairly, and about the oddest thing I ever could believe in I heard of and believed in there." "Something about gazelle?" I queried.
Then I replied in the negative. "No more have I," he said. "And I believe it's a very rare occurrence. Now mark the mirage that showed itself to mademoiselle on the first day of the desert journey of the Parisians. She saw it on the northern verge of the oasis of Sidi-Okba, late in the afternoon.
'It is always so in the mirage of Sidi-Okba. "'I see no houses, no water, cried mademoiselle, straining her eyes. 'The Arab rides fast, like the wind. He is in a hurry. One would think he was being pursued. Why, now he's gone! "She turned to her companions. They saw still the fairy houses of the mirage standing in the haze on the edge of the fairy water.
On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka. What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which was Berber, and perhaps Christian." "I understand," I murmured. "So far, so good," said Morhange.
In leaving Sidi-Okba they left behind them the last traces of civilisation the French man and woman who keep the auberge in the orange garden there. To-day, as they journeyed, a sense of deep mystery flowed upon the heart of mademoiselle. She felt that she was a little cockle-shell of a boat which, accustomed hitherto only to the Seine, now set sail upon a mighty ocean.
We ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our déjeuner out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keef smokers in Hadj's painted café. We listen to the songs of the negro troubadour, and we smile at Algia's dancing when the silver moon comes up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads' tents begin their serenades.
"'Why, a sort of faint landscape, through which a man an Arab, I suppose is riding, towards Sidi what is it? Sidi-Okba! He's got something in front of him, hanging across his saddle. "Her relations looked at her in amazement. "'I only see houses standing on the edge of water, said her sister. "'And I! cried the husband. "'Houses and water, assented Tahar.
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