“Now, smell it,” he commanded.
Domini obeyed. The perfume was faintly medicinal, but it filled her brain with exotic visions. She shut her eyes. Yes, that was a voice of Africa too. Oh! how far away she was from her old life and hollow days. The magic carpet had been spread indeed, and she had been wafted into a strange land where she had all to learn.
“Please give me some of that,” she said.
The merchant poured the amber into a phial, where it lay like a thread in the glass, weighed it in a scales and demanded a price. Batouch began at once to argue with vehemence, but Domini stopped him.
“Pay him,” she said, giving Batouch her purse.
The perfume-seller took the money with dignity, turned away, squatted upon his haunches against the blackened wall, and picked up the broad-leaved volume which lay upon the floor. He swayed gently and rhythmically to and fro. Then once more the voice of the drowsy bee hummed in the shadows. The worshipper and the Prophet stood before the feet of Allah.
And the woman—she was set afar off, as woman is by white-robed men in Africa.
“Now, Batouch, you can carry the perfume to the hotel and I will go to that garden.”
“Alone? Madame will never find it.”
“I can ask the way.”