There was no answering sound, but after a wait of two or three
minutes the double gates of thick, greyish palm-wood were pulled open
from inside, with a loud creak. For a moment the brown face of an old
man, wrinkled as a monkey's, looked out between the gates, which he held
ajar; then, with a guttural cry, he threw both as far back as he could,
and rushing out, bent his white turban over Maieddine's hand. He kissed
the Sidi's shoulder, and a fold of his burnous, half kneeling, and
chattering Arabic, only a word of which Victoria could catch here and
there. As he chattered, other men came running out, some of them
Negroes, all very dark, and they vied with one another in humble kissing
of the master's person, at any spot convenient to their lips.
Politely, though not too eagerly, he made the gracious return of seeming
to kiss the back of his own hand, or his fingers, where they had been
touched by the welcoming mouths, but in reality he kissed air. With a
gesture, he stopped the salutations at last, and asked for the Caid, to
whom, he said, he had written, sending his letter by the diligence.
Then there were passionate jabberings of regret. The Caid, was away, had
been away for days, fighting the locusts on his other farm, west of
Aumale, where there was grain to save. But the letter had arrived, and
had been sent after him, immediately, by a man on horseback. This
evening he would certainly return to welcome his honoured guest.
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