“Yes, but I am not a poet. Besides, I may be here for a long time. I shall have many evenings to see the dances.”
The poet looked displeased.
“The gentleman is going,” he said. “Hadj is at the door waiting for him now. But Hadj is afraid when he enters the street of the dancers.”
“Why?”
“There is a girl there who wishes to kill him. Her name is Aishoush. She was sent away from Beni-Mora for six months, but she has come back, and after all this time she still wishes to kill Hadj.”
“What has he done to her?”
“He has not loved her. Yes, Hadj is afraid, but he will go with the gentleman because he must earn money to buy a costume for the fete of Ramadan. I also wish to buy a new costume.”
He looked at Domini with a dignified plaintiveness. His pose against the pillar of the verandah was superb. Over his blue cloth jacket he had thrown a thin white burnous, which hung round him in classic folds. Domini could scarcely believe that so magnificent a creature was touting for a franc. The idea certainly did occur to her, but she banished it. For she was a novice in Africa.
“I am too tired to go out to-night,” she said decisively.
“Good-night, Madame. I shall be here to-morrow morning at seven o’clock. The dawn in the garden of the gazelles is like the flames of Paradise, and you can see the Spahis galloping upon horses that are beautiful as—”