He and his
brother-in-law, a stately dark man with a short black beard under an
eagle nose, exchanged courtesies which seemed elaborate to Victoria's
European ideas, and Si Abderrhaman did not glance at the half-lowered
curtains behind which the women sat.
The men talked for a few minutes; then Maieddine got into the carriage
again; and surrounded by the riders, it was driven rapidly towards the
tents, rocking wildly in the sand, because now it had left the desert
road and was making straight for the zmala.
The Arab men on their Arab horses shouted as they rode, as if giving a
signal; and from the tents, reddened now by the declining sun, came
suddenly a strange crying in women's voices, shrill yet sweet; a sound
that was half a chant, half an eerie yodeling, note after note of
"you-you!--you-you!" Out from behind the zeribas, rough hedges of dead
boughs and brambles which protected each low tent, burst a tidal wave of
children, some gay as little bright butterflies in gorgeous dresses,
others wrapped in brilliant rags. From under the tents women appeared,
unveiled, and beautiful in the sunset light, with their heavy looped
braids and their dangling, clanking silver jewellery. "You-you!
you-you!" they cried, dark eyes gleaming, white teeth flashing. It was
to be a festival for the douar, this fortunate evening of the son and
heir's arrival, with a great lady of his house, and her friend, a Roumia
girl.
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