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Updated: June 4, 2025
There was a long silence in which they paced slowly up and down on the sand between the palm trees. The twilight was dying into night. Already the tomtoms were throbbing in the street of the dancers, and the shriek of the distant pipes was faintly heard. At last the priest spoke again. "Madame," he said, "when you came to me this afternoon there was something that you could not tell me." "Yes."
One evening, after halting on the banks of the Platte, we heard distant sounds of tomtoms on the other side of the river. Jim, the half-breed, and Louis differed as to the tribe, and hence the friendliness or hostility, of our neighbours. He was quite willing to go over and talk to them if we had no objection.
I I should not like Mam'zelle to go without me. But " "Come and protect me from the knives then. Bring my jacket any one. I don't suppose I shall put it on." As she spoke the distant tomtoms began. Suzanne started nervously and looked at Domini with sincere apprehension. "We had better not go, Mam'zelle. It is not safe out here. Men who make a noise like that would not respect us." "I like it."
We crossed the large parade-ground, and picked our way over a rough and pathless country, lighted only by the stars above. Arriving at the edge of the ravine, what a scene was before us! We looked down into a natural amphitheatre, in which blazed great fires; hordes of wild Apaches darted about, while others sat on logs beating their tomtoms.
And the city was full of music, of tomtoms throbbing, of bugles blowing in the Kasba, of pipes shrieking from hidden dwellings, and of the faint but multitudinous voices of men, carried to them on their desolate and treeless height by the frail wind of night that seemed a white wind, twin-brother of the sands.
Well, the enthusiasm increased in measure as the contents of the demijohn disappeared, and towards evening the courtyard within the fort was invaded, to a great beating of tomtoms and clucking of women's tongues, by a huge crowd of Dahomeyan negroes, preceded by a sort of corps de ballet of young negresses, wriggling themselves about in every conceivable manner.
All the luminous eyes in the room were steadily fixed upon the man leaning back against the hideous picture on the wall and the gaudy siren curved almost into an arch before him. The musicians blew their hautboys and beat their tomtoms more violently, and all things, Domini thought, were filled with a sense of climax.
On the hot earth over which, whenever there is any wind from the desert, the white sand grains sift and settle, were laid innumerable rugs of gaudy colours on which were disposed all sorts of goods for sale; heavy ornaments for women, piles of burnouses, haiks, gandouras, gaiters of bright red leather, slippers, weapons many jewelled and gilt, or rich with patterns in silver pyramids of the cords of camels' hair that bind the turbans of the desert men, handkerchiefs and cottons of all the colours of the rainbow, cheap perfumes in azure flasks powdered with golden and silver flowers and leaves, incense twigs, panniers of henna to dye the finger-nails of the faithful, innumerable comestibles, vegetables, corn, red butcher's meat thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellow cakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelming even than that produced by haschish musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, and plaits of false hair.
And beneath these voices of living things, foundation of their uprising vitality, pulsed barbarous music, the throbbing tomtoms that are for ever heard in the lands of the sun, fetish music that suggests fatalism, and the grand monotony of the enormous spaces, and the crude passion that repeats itself, and the untiring, sultry loves and the untired, sultry languors of the children of the sun.
It was fair that he, too, should have a wife if he wanted one, and the men cared as little what became of the white girl they had not seen as Stanton cared about the fate of their strapping females. The mad music of the tomtoms and räitas played as Max, with his own hands, set up Sanda's little tent. "For the last time," he said to himself. "To-morrow night her tent will be Stanton's."
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