She opened the bag
carefully, until it lay flat on the ground in front of her knees, the
sand piled in the middle, as much perhaps as could have been heaped on a
soup plate.
For a moment she sat gazing at the sand, her lips moving. She looked wan
as old ivory in the dying firelight, and in the hollows of her immense
eyes seemed to dream the mysteries of all ages. "Take a handful of
sand," she said to Victoria. "Hold it over thine heart. Now, wish with
the whole force of thy soul."
Victoria wished to find Saidee safe, and to be able to help her, if she
needed help.
"Put back the sand, sprinkling it over the rest."
The girl, though not superstitious, could not help being interested,
even fascinated. It seemed to her that the sand had a magical sparkle.
M'Barka's eyes became introspective, as if she waited for a message, or
saw a vision. She was as strange, as remote from modern womanhood as a
Cassandra. Presently she started, and began trailing her brown fingers
lightly over the sand, pressing them down suddenly now and then, until
she had made three long, wavy lines, the lower ones rather like
telegraphic dots and dashes.
"Lay the forefinger of thy left hand on any figure in these lines," she
commanded. "Now on another--yet again, for the third time. That is all
thou hast to do. The rest is for me."
She took from some hiding-place in her breast a little old note-book,
bound in dark leather, glossy from constant use.
Pages:
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