"I wish that I may find her safe and happy," he said over the pinch of earth before putting it into what Josette named his "poche du cœur."
"As for me," remarked Madame de Vaux, "I will not derange any of their Moslem saints, thank you. I have more influential ones of my own, who might be annoyed. And it is stuffy in this tomb. I am sure it is full of microbes. Let us go and see the ruined palace of the Black Sultan who, Josette says, founded everything here that was worth founding. That there should be a Black Sultan sounds like a fairy tale. And I like fairy tales next to bon-bons and new hats."
So they made their pilgrimage to the third treasure of the hill-village; and then away to where the crumbling walls of Mansourah, and that great tower, which is one of the noblest Moorish relics in all Algeria, rise out of a flowering plain.
Cherry blossoms fell in scented snow over their heads as the car ran back to Tlemcen, and out once more, through the Moorish Porte de Fez, past the reservoir built by a king for an Arab beauty to sail her boats upon. Sunset was near, and the sky blazed red as if Mansourah burned with ten thousand torches.
The way led through vast blue lakes which were fields of periwinkles, and along the road trotted pink-robed children, whose heads were wrapped in kerchiefs of royal purple. They led sheep with golden-gleaming fleece, and at the tombs of marabouts they paused to pray, among groups of kneeling figures in long white cloaks and turbans. All the atmosphere swam with changing colours, such as come and go in the heart of a fire-opal.
Very beautiful must have been the city of Mansourah, named after murdered Sultan el Mansour, the Victorious, who built its vast fortifications, its mosques and vanished palaces, its caravanserais and baths, in the seven years when he was besieging Tlemcen. And still are its ruins beautiful, after more than five centuries of pillage and destruction. Josette Soubise loved the place, and often came to it when her day's work was done, therefore she was happy showing it to Nevill and—incidentally—to the others.
The great brown wall pricked with holes like an enormous wasp's nest, the ruined watch-towers, and the soaring, honey-coloured minaret with its intricate carvings, its marble pillars, its tiles and inset enamels iridescent as a Brazilian beetle's wing, all gleamed with a splendour that was an enchantment, in the fire of sunset. The scent of aromatic herbs, such as Arabs love and use to cure their fevers, was bitter-sweet in the fall of the dew, and birds cried to each other from hidden nests among the ruins.
"Mussulmans think that the spirits of their dead fly back to visit their own graves, or places they have loved, in the form of birds," said Josette, looking up at the minaret, large marguerites with orange centres embroidering her black dress, as she stood knee-deep in their waving gold. "I half believe that these birds among the lovely carvings of the tower are the priests who used to read the Koran in the mosque, and could not bear to leave it. The birds in the walls are the soldiers who defended the city."
As she spoke there was a flight of wings, black against the rose and mauve of the sunset. "There!" she exclaimed. "Arabs would call that an omen! To see birds flying at sundown has a special meaning for them. If a man wanted something, he would know that he could get it only by going in the direction the birds take."
"Which way are they flying?" asked Stephen.