A marabout, black as a coal, rode on a white horse
towards the great mosque, followed by his servant on foot.
Native soldiers went by to the Kasba on the height, or strolled down
towards the Cafes Maures smoking cigarettes. Circles of grave men bent
over card games, dominoes and draughts--called by the Arabs the Ladies'
Game. Khodjas made their way with dignity towards the Bureau Arabe.
Veiled women, fat and lethargic, jingling with ornaments, waddled
through the arches of the arcades, carrying in their painted and
perspiring hands blocks of sweetmeats which drew the flies. Children
played in the dust by little heaps of refuse, which they stirred up into
clouds with their dancing, naked feet. In front, as if from the first
palms of the oasis, rose the roar of beaten drums from the negroes'
quarter, and from the hill-top at the feet of the minarets came the
fierce and piteous noise that is the _leit-motif_ of the desert, the
multitudinous complaining of camels dominating all other sounds.
As Domini and Androvsky rode into this whirlpool of humanity, above
which the sky was red like a great wound, it flowed and eddied round
them, making them its centre.
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