“Eh?” I said.
He repeated his question.
“Oh, she has gone back to Scotland,” I replied.
“Why did she go?” again asked the old man.
“Oh, I suppose she wanted to see her family and get back to this sort of weather,” I answered vaguely.
“She was a very nice girl,” said the bash agha. “She was full of gaiety. I liked her.”
He lapsed into silence again. I followed on, wondering how the brain of Jelloul ben Lahkdar, bash agha of all the Larbas, reasoned, that he should suddenly ask me the whereabouts of an English friend of mine while descending the slopes of the mountains of Chellala in a Scotch mist. The working of an Oriental mind has always been and always will be a mystery to me.
However, the mist was beginning to clear and the rain was abating when suddenly, from nowhere, the sun, brilliant in its setting, burst through the clouds, and we looked out on to the smiling village of Chellala nestling among its green trees, and out on to the great plains of the Sersou, right away to the blue mountains of the Atlas in the distance. That wonderful Algerian climate, where there is never a day without a little sun to keep one’s spirits alive to the glories of nature!
Every one seemed to cheer up.
I turned round and looked at the kadi and I mercifully restrained my laughter, as the picture of wretchedness he presented was too genuine to admit of more jests.