Later, from the small station, I watched the day fade and dusk settling on the countryside. Slow-pacing camels were making their homeward way driven by young boys, whilst here and there a little group of workers was returning from the fields. The sky turned to a clear translucence in the West, the amphitheatre blurred to a formless mass of grey girdled about the knees with a blue haze of smoke from the Arab village. Dogs barked from behind its mud walls, and the pale stars began to peer from between the clouds. First here, then there, the warm flicker of a fire showed through an open doorway; and all these homely signs of village life seemed to make ever more and more remote the great outline of the ruins. For a time I could still see the sky through the top arches of the building, but even that faded by degrees, till at last night folded her mantle about the vastness of its desolation.
CHAPTER V
PASSING THROUGH
The dark trees along the centre of the boulevard looked almost artificial against the greenish glare of the electric lights. From every café streamed bands of revellers, their brilliant costumes adding to the theatrical appearance of the streets. Dominoes of every colour flitted about; orange, purple, emerald and lemon yellow. Showers of confetti made a pink and blue snow upon the ground, and the moving crowd passed in and out from the dark shadows below the trees to the clear-cut brilliance of the light. Rattles and toy trumpets sounded shrill above the under-note made by the murmur of the populace. From some building came the noise of dancing and the crash of a band. Groups of absurdly dressed figures pushed their way through the restaurants, here a Teddy bear linking arms with a Red Indian or an English jockey escorting a ballet-dancer.
And up and down the roadway went little knots of the poorer people in family parties, father and mother in dominoes from under which appeared cheaply-shod feet, whilst rather shabby small Pierrots trotted by their side. The few fiacres could only move at a foot’s pace, the trams had ceased running. Behind the noise of the carnival and the hum of voices the town itself was strangely hushed and the tideless sea down by the harbour made no sound. Through the foliage of the trees gazed the quiet stars.
There was a queer unreality about it all, thought the Englishman as he sat at a small table on the raised terrace of a café and looked down on the passers-by. Vaguely it struck him what a fine design it might make, the dark heavy mass of greenery carved against the glittering background of the lamps, and the coloured snake of people that wound amongst the stems, paused, coiled and uncoiled. They shared the unreality of the whole thing. He felt they could not be real, they were just a boxful of dolls taken out to be played with and to be swept back into oblivion when one was tired of them.
The air was soft and warm and it was pleasant to sit there and gaze dreamily at the shifting scene. A few Arabs passed, looking impassively at it all: and it was impossible to read the expression on their dark faces. A group of palms stood black against the star-freckled sky. The whole picture in its strangeness stirred his imagination. This was Africa, even though the country of Tunis were but the fringe of it. No sea stretched between him where he sat and the hot wide spaces of the Sahara. Were one to ride and ride into the far distance, at last one would escape civilisation altogether, would reach to the primitive roots of humanity. And it was a mere chance that had brought him here.
He loved the sea and hated all liners, so was taking a trip in the Mediterranean on a small steamer. There had been a slight breakdown of the engines, and the ship had put into this little port for repairs. The first night he spent on board watching the twinkle of lights on the shore, but to-day he had landed and found himself in the midst of Carnival rejoicings. He was the only Englishman on board, and it seemed to him that he was the only Englishman in this town. At any rate he had seen no other. He heard French, Italian and Arabic spoken round him, but nothing else. During the afternoon he had wandered about the native town, and climbing up a steep and narrow street that seemed just a gash in the white walls, he had come out on a height near the fort, from whence he looked down on the harbour spread below, dotted with tiny craft, beyond it the restless rim of the sea. He did not know the East, and the picturesqueness of the Arab town delighted him; the hooded groups that sat about the doorways, the statuesque folds of their drapery, the clash of women’s anklets, the glowing sunlight that seemed to pour into every nook and cranny like some rich golden wine. It was all new and strange.
And now to-night there was the feeling of being an onlooker at some fantastic theatre-scene. As he sat smoking and watching, a passing Columbine glanced at him and smiled; the Englishman in the grey tweed suit looked so alien in this stir and flutter. And he was young and good looking. Why should he be alone? But her glance was thrown away upon him. He sat watching the scene, absorbed.