CHAPTER XII
The market of El-Ammeh was situated in the centre of the city. It was surrounded by a huddle of whitewashed houses, of varying heights and shapes, leaning one against the other, with here and there, over some high wall, a glimpse of greenery—the feathery head of a palm, the shiny leaves of a camphor tree, a pomegranate, an orange or a fig tree. On the side overlooking the square the houses were practically without windows, and the few there were were small and iron-barred.
Under most of the buildings were dim, cave-like shops hung with rare silks and ostrich feathers, or littered with articles in beaten silver, copper, and iron. There was quaint leatherwork and coarse pottery and a good sprinkling of European goods.
Several narrow, passage-like streets led into the square, entering it, in some cases, under dark archways. Sometimes these ways were barred to the mere public—the poorer people who daily sold produce in the square—and only those with special permits were allowed to enter: men of wealth and substance.
Every month a sale of slaves was held in the market, generally of Arab and negro girls; but occasionally something very different figured there—perhaps some black-haired, black-eyed, creamy beauty brought right across the Sahara from the Barbary States, a thousand miles away; or some half-caste girl from the Soudan, even further afield.
When this happened there were always plenty of buyers. Men of wealth flocked in from hundreds of miles around, for any skin lighter than brown was a rarity.
Within the last few weeks word had gone round the district, blown hither and thither in the desert, that a girl even more beautiful than those creamy beauties from the Barbary States was to be on sale at the next auction—a girl hailing from, Allah alone knew, what far land—Paradise, if her description were a true one. A girl with a skin white as milk, hair golden as the sunshine, and eyes of a blue deep as desert night; a maid, moreover, not another man's discarded fancy.
For days before the sale, as flies are drawn towards a honey-pot, the caravans of wealthy merchants came trickling in from the desert.
When the day itself arrived they hurried with their retinues to the square; some to buy, if possible; others, less wealthy, to see if the maid were as beautiful as report said.