Though the light was dim, Victoria could see as she went nearer a thin
face the colour of pale amber, and a pair of immense dark eyes that
glittered in deep hollows. A thin woman of more than middle age, with
black hair, silver-streaked, moved slightly and held out an emaciated
hand heavy with rings. Her head was tied round with a silk handkerchief
or takrita of pansy purple; she wore seroual, full trousers of soft
white silk, and under a gold-threaded orange-coloured jacket or rlila, a
blouse of lilac gauze, covered with sequins and open at the neck. On the
bony arm which she held out to Victoria hung many bracelets, golden
serpents of Djebbel Amour, and pearls braided with gold wire and coral
beads. Her great eyes, ringed with kohl, had a tortured look, and there
were hollows under the high cheek-bones. If she had ever been handsome,
all beauty of flesh had now been drained away by suffering; yet stricken
as she was there remained an almost indefinable distinction, an air of
supreme pride befitting a princess of the Sahara.
Her scorching fingers pressed Victoria's hand, as she gazed up at the
girl's face with hungry curiosity and interest such as the Spirit of
Death might feel in looking at the Spirit of Life.
"Thou art fresh and fair, O daughter, as a lily bud opening in the spray
of a fountain, and radiant as sunrise shining on a desert lake," she
said in a weary voice, slightly hoarse, yet with some flutelike notes.
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