On the third day there was great excitement at Oued Tolga. The marabout,
Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd el Kadr, came home, and was met on the way
by many people from the town and the Zaouia.
His procession was watched by women on many roofs--with reverent
interest by some; with joy by one woman who was his wife; with fear and
despair by another, who had counted on his absence for a few days
longer. And Victoria stood beside her sister, looking out over the
golden silence towards the desert city of Oued Tolga, with a pair of
modern field-glasses sent to her by Si Maieddine.
Maieddine himself went out to meet the marabout, riding El Biod, and
conscious of unseen eyes that must be upon him. He was a notable figure
among the hundreds which poured out of town, and villages, and Zaouia,
in honour of the great man's return; the noblest of all the desert men
in floating white burnouses, who rode or walked, with the sun turning
their dark faces to bronze, their eyes to gleaming jewels. But even
Maieddine himself became insignificant as the procession from the Zaouia
was joined by that from the city,--the glittering line in the midst of
which Sidi El Hadj Mohammed sat high on the back of a grey mehari.
From very far off Victoria saw the meeting, looking through the glasses
sent by Maieddine, those which he had given her once before, bidding her
see how the distant dunes leaped forward.
Then as she watched, and the procession came nearer, rising and falling
among the golden sand-billows, she could plainly make out the majestic
form of the marabout.
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