"No. Truly it is a cradle," she answered. "I had read that to ride on a camel was misery, but this is like being rocked on the bough of a tree when the wind blows."
"To sit in a bassour is very different from riding on a saddle, or even on a mattress, as the poor Bedouin women sometimes ride, or the dancers journeying from one place to another. I would not let thee travel with me unless I had been able to offer thee all the luxuries which a sultana might command. With nothing less would I have been content, because to me thou art a queen."
"At least thou hast given me a beautiful moving throne," laughed Victoria; "and because thou art taking me on it to my sister, I'm happy to-day as a queen."
"Then, if thou art happy, I also am happy," he said. "And when an Arab is happy, his lips would sing the song that is in his heart. Wilt thou be angry or pleased if I sing thee a love-song of the desert?"
"I cannot be angry, because the song will not really be for me," Victoria answered with the simplicity which had often disarmed and disconcerted Maïeddine. "And I shall be pleased, because in the desert it is good to hear desert songs."
This was not exactly the answer which he had wanted, but he made the best of it, telling himself that he had not much longer to wait.
"Leaders of camels sing," he said, "to make the beasts' burdens weigh less heavily. But thy mehari has no burden. Thou in thy bassour art lighter on his back than a feather on the wing of a dove. My song is for my own heart, and for thine heart, if thou wilt have it, not for Guelbi, though the meaning of Guelbi is 'heart of mine.'"
Then Maïeddine sang as he rode, his bridle lying loose, an old Arab song, wild and very sad, as all Arab music sounds, even when it is the cry of joy:
"Truly, though I were to die, it would be naught,
If I were near my love, for whom my bosom aches,
For whom my heart is beating.
"Yes, I am to die, but death is nothing
O ye who pass and see me dying,
For I have kissed the eyes, the mouth that I desired."
"But that is a sad song," said Victoria, when Maïeddine ceased his tragic chant, after many verses.