The Agha had given orders that two sheep
should be killed. One was for his own household; his relatives, his
servants, many of whom lived under the one vast roof of red, and white,
and brown. His daughter, and her husband who assisted him in many ways,
and was his scribe, or secretary, had a tent of their own close by, next
in size to the Agha's; but they were bidden to supper in the great tent
that night, for the family reunion. And because there was a European
girl present, the women ate with the men, which was not usual.
The second sheep was for the humbler folk of the zmala, and they roasted
it whole in an open space, over a fire of small, dry wood, and of dead
palm branches brought on donkey back twenty miles across the desert,
from the nearest oasis town, also under dominion of the Agha. He had a
house and garden there; but he liked best to be in his douar, with only
his tent roof between him and the sky. Also it made him popular with
the tribe of which he was the head, to spend most of his time with them
in the desert. And for some reasons of which he never spoke, the old man
greatly valued this popularity, though he treasured also the respect of
the French, who assured his position and revenues.
The desert men had made a ring round the fire, far from the green
_daya_, so that the blowing sparks might not reach the trees. They sat
in a circle, on the sand, with a row of women on one side, who held the
smallest children by their short skirts; and larger children, wild and
dark, as the red light of the flames played over their faces, fed the
fire with pale palm branches.
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