VI
It was three o’clock in the morning when I went out to start on the return under the stars. The streets were dark and silent as we drove out; but the heavens were brilliant, and the twin lights of Tougourt shone behind us like lighthouses as we made out into the sandy plain. A few miles on we passed a company of soldiers convoying a baggage-train—strong, fine faces above their heavy cloaks, marching along in the night. The stars faded and day broke quietly—a faint green, a dash of pink, a low, black band of cloud, and the great luminary rolled up over the horizontal waste. The morning hours found us soon in the heavy sands of the upland, with the old gray mosque and stretches of the bois, the desert drin, and we descended into the country of the marine views, the land of the mirage, mirror-like waters shoaling on banks of palm, dreaming their dream; and now it was Ourlana and the school, fresh horses and an early arrival at Mraïer, and sleep in the caravanserai amid horses and camels and passing soldiers, a busy yard. The chotts looked less melancholy as we passed over the lowland in the bright forenoon, and again there shimmered the far salt—the ocean look where there was no sea, close marine views, and there was much mirage; and we climbed the ascent and glided on over the colored quartz, and the range of the Aurès rose once more above the horizon, beautiful and calling, and Aïn Chegga seemed a familiar way-station. Fresh horses, and the last start, and Bordj Saada seemed a suburb; and as we drove into Biskra, with its road well filled with pedestrians and carriages, it seemed like a return to Europe—so soon does the traveller’s eye become accustomed to what at first was “rich and strange.” And Hamet went to his baby boy.
SCENES AND VISIONS
V
SCENES AND VISIONS