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Show The Marabout smoked slowly and carefully, gazing at the smoke, as it curled away from his lips and evaporated, with an air of childish wonder. And presently Benchai'ilal began to watch him. He remembered when this man had been sane, when he had been respected for his wealth. A visit to Beni-Mora had been his ruin. In the dusty, dancing street, with its wailing music, its gleaming lights, its small, white houses, he had met his fate in the girl from the south, Ayesha. What a strange thing to go mad for a woman, to come to this! To sit with the Marabout was almost like sitting with an animal. Benchaalal's mind ran on women and the havoc they cause, and he wonwhether he would ever be re- For a moment the co:m1Jaruons11tp of this poor creature •• 6 ........ -...... almost moved him to a strange cision. What if he were to mount horse, set his spurs to its flanks, go out into the desert, go on and with never a look behind, never thought flung back to the Roumi- ~ woman in the gorge. Like to like! He belonged to the desert and the --- desert to him. It was as the ~ woman of the auberge had said. The Arab changes not. Bring him back to the sand and the veneer of Western civilization drops from him. He casts it away. He forgets it. drinks the fierce reel soup. He puts I his dark fingers to the cous-cous. He t1 I I smokes the keef. And it is gone, the M 1?1 ( pretence and the dream of other lands. It is shrivelled by the sun, his sun, the sun that shines upon the great, bare world of Allah and his Prophet. The Marabout stirred, whimpered. His cigarette was smoked out. He got up, balanced .h.i ,m self first on one |
