Part 4 (1/2)
”To whom then?”
”To the hidden force that directs all things.”
”I am your destiny.”
”Ah, Desmond--or Morocco. I feel to-day as if I shall never see England again, or a civilised audience such as I have known.”
And then she seemed to fall into a waking dream. Even Renfrew felt drowsy, the air was so intensely hot and the motion of the horses so monotonous. And Mohammed's deep voice was never silent. It buzzed like a bourdon in the glare of the noontide, till, far away on the hill-side, they saw white Tetuan facing the plain, the river moving stagnantly towards the sea, the great fields of corn in which strange flowers grew, and the giant range of s.h.a.ggy mountains, swimming in a mist of gold that looked like spangled tissue.
III
The camp was pitched beyond the city in the green plain that lies between Tetuan and the sea. From the tents Renfrew and Claire saw the trains of camels and donkeys pa.s.sing slowly along the high road towards the steep and stony hill that leads up to the lower city gate, the white-washed summer palaces of the wealthy Moors, nestling in gardens, among green fields and groves of acacias, olives and almond trees, the far-off line of blue water on the one hand and the fairy-like and ivory town upon the other. Clouds of brown dust flew up in the air, and the hoa.r.s.e cry of ”Balak! Balak!” made a perpetual and distant music. Far more strange and barbarous was this city than Tangier. All traces of Europe had faded away. Thousands of years seemed now to stand like a wall between the Continents, and the hordes of dark and fanatical Moslems gazed upon the great actress and her husband as we gaze at wild animals whose aspects and whose habits are strange to us.
”I know now what it is to feel like an unclean dog,” Claire said, as they sat at dinner under the stars that night, after their halting progress through the filthy alleys of the white fairyland on the hill-side. ”It is a grand sensation. I suppose children enjoy it, too.
That must be why they like making mud-pies.”
”To-morrow is market-day, Absalem tells me,” Renfrew said. ”We will spend it in the town, and you can feel unclean to your heart's content--you!”
He looked at her and laughed low, with the pride of a lover in a beautiful woman who is his own.
”They ought to fall down and wors.h.i.+p you,” he said.
”Moors wors.h.i.+p a woman! Desmond, you are mad!”
”No, they are--they are. See, Claire, the moon is coming up already. Can it be s.h.i.+ning on Piccadilly too, and on the facade of the theatre?”
”The theatre! I can't believe I shall ever see it again.”
”Nonsense!”
”Is it? This wild country seems to have swallowed me up, and I don't feel as if it will ever disgorge me again. Desmond, perhaps there are some lands that certain people ought never to visit. For those lands love them, and, once they have seized their prey, they will never yield it up again. Poor men must often feel that when they are dying in foreign places. It is the land which has taken them to itself as an octopus takes a drifting boat in a lonely sea. Africa!”
She had risen from her seat and moved out into the vague plain. Renfrew followed her.
”I wonder in which direction the desert lies nearest,” she said. ”All the strange people come in from the desert, as the strange things of life come in from the future, only one so seldom hears the tinkling bells of those deadly silent caravans in which they travel. If we could hear and see them coming, what emotions we should have!”
”There are premonitions, some men say,” Renfrew answered.
”The faint bells of the caravans ringing,--do you ever hear them?”
”No, Claire--never. And you?”
”I half thought I did once.”
”When was that?”
”Last night. Hark! The men have finished supper and are beginning to sing. That's a song about dancing.”
”To-morrow we are going to feast the soldiers, and have an African fire.”
”Splendid! I think I will leap through the flames.”