XXX
In the morning he was still brooding over the message; and as they travelled through the black desert on the way to Ghardaia and the hidden cities of the M'Zab, he fell into long silences. Then, abruptly, he would rouse himself to gaiety and animation, telling old legends or new tales, strange dramas of the desert, very seldom comedies; for there are few comedies in the Sahara, except for the children.
Sometimes he was in danger of speaking out words which said themselves over and over in his head. "If I 'wait too long, I may wait for ever.' Then, by Allah, I will not wait." But he kept his tongue in control, though his brain was hot as if he wore no turban, under the blaze of the sun. "I will leave things as they are while we are in this black Gehenna," he determined. "What is written is written. Yet who has seen the book of the writing? And there is a curse on all this country, till the M'Zab is passed."
After Bou-Saada, he had gradually forgotten, or almost forgotten, his fears. He had been happy in the consciousness of power that came to him from the desert, where he was at home, and Europeans were helpless strangers. But now, M'Barka's warnings had brought the fears back, like flapping ravens. He had planned the little play of the sand-divining, and at first it had pleased him. M'Barka's vision of the dark man who was not of Victoria's country could not have been better; and because he knew that his cousin believed in the sand, he was superstitiously impressed by her prophecy and advice. In the end, he had forced her to go on when she would have stopped, yet he was angry with her for putting doubts into his mind, doubts of his own wisdom and the way to succeed. With a girl of his own people, or indeed with any girl, if he had not loved too much, he would have had no doubts. But he did not know how it was best to treat Victoria. His love for her was so strong, that it was like fear, and in trying to understand her, he changed his mind a dozen times a day. He was not used to this uncertainty, and hated to think that he could be weak. Would she turn from him, if he broke the tacit compact of loyal friendship which had made her trust him as a guide? He could not tell; though an Arab girl would scorn him for keeping it. "Perhaps at heart all women are alike," he thought. "And if, now that I am warned, I should risk waiting, I would be no man." At last, the only question left in his mind was, "When?"
For two days they journeyed through desolation, in a burnt-out world where nothing had colour except the sad violet sky which at evening flamed with terrible sunsets, cruelly beautiful as funeral pyres. The fierce glow set fire to the black rocks which pointed up like dragons' teeth, and turned them to glittering copper; polishing the dead white chalk of the chebka to the dull gleam of dirty silver. Far away there were always purple hills, behind which it seemed that hope and beauty might come to life again; but travelling from morning to night they never appeared any nearer. The evil magic of the black desert, which Maïeddine called accursed because of the M'Zabites, made the beautiful hills recede always, leaving only the ugly brown waves of hardened earth, which were disheartening to climb, painful to descend.
At last, in the midst of black squalor, they came to an oasis like a bright jewel fallen in the trough of swine. It was Berryan, the first town of the M'Zabites, people older than the Arabs, and hated by them with a hatred more bitter than their loathing for Jews.
Maïeddine would not pass through the town, since it could be avoided, because in his eyes the Beni-M'Zab were dogs, and in their eyes he, though heir to an agha, would be as carrion.
Sons of ancient Phœnicians, merchants of Tyre and Carthage, there never had been, never would be, any lust for battle in the hearts of the M'Zabites. Their warfare had been waged by cunning, and through mercenaries. They had fled before Arab warriors, driven from place to place by brave, scornful enemies, and now, safely established in their seven holy cities, protected by vast distances and the barrier of the black desert, they revenged their wrongs with their wits, being rich, and great usurers. Though Mussulmans in these days, the schisms with which they desecrated the true religion were worse in the eyes of Maïeddine than the foolish faith of Christians, who, at least, were not backsliders. He would not even point out to Victoria the strange minaret of the Abadite mosque at Berryan, which tapered like a brown obelisk against the shimmering sky, for to him its very existence was a disgrace.
"Do not speak of it; do not even look at it," he said to her, when she exclaimed at the great Cleopatra Needle. But she did look, having none of his prejudices, and he dared not bid her let down the curtains of her bassour, as he would if she had been a girl of his own blood.
The extraordinary city, whose crowded, queerly-built houses were blocks of gold in the sunlight, seemed beautiful to Victoria, coming in sight of it suddenly after days in the black desert. The other six cities, called holy by the Beni-M'Zab, were far away still. She knew this, because Maïeddine had told her they would not descend into the Wady M'Zab till next day. Berryan and Guerrara were on the upper plateau; and Victoria could hardly bear to pass by, for Berryan was by far the most Eastern-seeming place she had seen. She wondered if, should she ask him as a favour, Maïeddine would rest there that night, instead of camping somewhere farther on, in the hideous desert; for already it was late afternoon. But she would ask nothing of him now, for he was no longer quite the trusty friend she had persuaded herself to think him. One night, since the sand-divining, she had had a fearful dream concerning Maïeddine. Outside her tent she had heard a soft padding sound, and peeping from under the flap, she had seen a splendid, tawny tiger, who looked at her with brilliant topaz eyes which fascinated her so that she could not turn away. But she knew that the animal was Maïeddine; that each night he changed himself into a tiger; and that as a tiger he was more his real self than when by day he appeared as a man.