Moors from across
the frontier--fierce men with eagle faces and striped cloaks--grouped
together, whispering and gesticulating, stared at with suspicion by the
milder Arabs, who attributed all the crimes of Tlemcen to the wild men
from over the border. Black giants from the Negro quarter kept together,
somewhat humble, yet laughing and happy. Slender, coffee-coloured youths
drove miniature cows from Morocco, or tiny black donkeys, heavily laden
and raw with sores, colliding with well-dressed Turks, who had the air
of merchants, and looked as if they could not forget that Tlemcen had
long been theirs before the French dominion. Bored but handsome officers
rode through the square on Arab horses graceful as deer, and did not
even glance at passing women, closely veiled in long white haicks.
It was lively and amusing in the sunlight; but just as the two friends
were ready to go out, the sky was swept with violet clouds. A storm
threatened fiercely, but they started out despite its warning, turning
deaf ears to the importunities of a Koulougli guide who wished to show
them the mosques, "ver' cheap." He followed them, but they hurried on,
pushing so sturdily through a flock of pink-headed sheep, which poured
in a wave over the pavement, that they might have out-run the rain had
they not been brought to a sudden standstill by a funeral procession.
It was the strangest sight Stephen had seen yet, and he hardly noticed
that, in a burst of sunlight, rain had begun to pelt down through the
canopy of trees.
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