The desert beasts moved delicately, on legs
longer and more slender than those of pack-camels, their necks swaying
like the necks of swans who swim with the tide. Victoria thought them
like magnificent, four-legged cousins of ostriches, and the
superciliousness of their expressions amused her; the look they had of
elderly ladies, dissatisfied with every one but themselves, and
conscious of being supremely "well-connected." "A camel cannot see its
own hump, but it can see those of others," she had heard M'Barka say.
As Victoria stood alone in the dawn, laughing at the ghostly meharis,
and looking with interest at the heavily laden pack-camel and the mule
piled up with tents and mattresses, Maieddine came riding round from
behind the great tent, all in white, on a white stallion. Seeing the
girl, he tested her courage, and made a bid for her admiration by
reining El Biod in suddenly, making him stand erect on his hind feet,
pawing the air and dancing. But Roumia as she was, and unaccustomed to
such manoeuvres, she neither ran back nor screamed. She was not ashamed
to show her admiration of man and horse, and Maieddine did not know that
her thoughts were more of El Biod the white, "drinker of air," the
saddle of crimson velvet and tafilet leather embroidered in gold, and
the bridle from Figuig, encrusted with silver, than of the rider.
"This is the horse of whom I told thee," Maieddine said, letting El Biod
come down again on all four feet.
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