"That's where the party is--in that yard," said Nevill, beginning to be
excited. "Now, what sort of reception will they give us? That's the next
question."
"Can't we tell, the first thing, that we've come from Algiers with a
present for the bride?" suggested Stephen.
"We can if they understand Arabic," Nevill answered. "But the Kabyle
lingo's quite different--Berber, or something racy of the soil. I ought
to have brought Mohammed to interpret."
So steeply did the yard between the low houses run downhill, that,
standing at the top of a worn path like a seam in some old garment, the
two Europeans could look over the mud wall. Squalid as were the mud huts
and the cattle-yard connecting them, the picture framed in the square
enclosure blazed with colour. It was barbaric, and beautiful in its
savagery.
Squatting on the ground, with the last rank against the house wall, were
several rows of women, all unveiled, their uncovered arms jewelled to
the elbows, embracing their knees. The afternoon sunlight shone on their
ceremonial finery, setting fire to the red, blue and green enamel of
their necklaces, their huge hoop earrings and the jewelled silver chains
pinned to their scarlet or yellow head-wrappings, struck out strange
gleams from the flat, round brooches which fastened their gaily striped
robes on their shoulders, and turned their great dark eyes into brown
topazes. Twenty or thirty men, dressed in their best burnouses, draped
over new gandourahs, their heads swathed in clean white muslin turbans,
sat on the opposite side of the court, watching the "powder play"
furnished by two tall, handsome boys, who handled with delicate grace
and skill old-fashioned, long-muzzled guns inlaid with coral and silver,
heirlooms perhaps, and of some value even to antiquaries.
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