Near by, a little to the
left of the Zaouia hill, such an oasis lay, and the woman on the white
roof could look across a short stretch of sand, down into its green
depths. She could watch the marabout's men repairing the sloping
sand-walls with palm trunks, which kept them from caving in, and saved
the precious date-palms from being engulfed in a yellow tide. It was the
marabout's own private oasis, and brought him in a large income every
year. But everything was the marabout's. The woman on the roof was sick
to death of his riches, his honours, his importance, for she was the
marabout's wife; and in these days she loved him as little as she loved
the orange garden he had given her, and all the things that were hers
because she was his.
It was very still in the Zaouia of Oued Tolga. The only sound was the
droning of the boys' voices, which came faintly from behind iron
window-gratings below, and that monotonous murmur emphasized the
silence, as the humming of bees in a hive makes the stillness of a
garden in summer more heavy and hot.
No noises came from the courts of the women's quarters, or those of the
marabout's guests, and attendants, and servants; not a voice was raised
in that more distant part of the Zaouia where the students lived, and
where the poor were lodged and fed for charity's sake. No doubt the
village, across the narrow river in its wide bed, was buzzing with life
at this time of day; but seldom any sound there was loud enough to break
the slumberous silence of the great Zaouia.
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