She had
a native passion for a good horse, and riding was one of the joys,
and almost the keenest, of her life. She felt powerful when she had
a spirited, fiery animal under her, and the wide spaces of the desert
summoned speed as they summoned dreams. She and Batouch went away at a
rapid pace, circled round the Arab cemetery, made a detour towards the
south, and then cantered into the midst of the camps of the Ouled Nails.
It was the hour of the siesta. Only a few people were stirring, coming
and going over the dunes to and from the city on languid errands for the
women of the tents, who reclined in the shade of their brushwood
arbours upon filthy cushions and heaps of multi-coloured rags, smoking
cigarettes, playing cards with Arab and negro admirers, or staring into
vacancy beneath their heavy eyebrows as they listened to the sound of
music played upon long pipes of reed. No dogs barked in their camp.
The only guardians were old women, whose sandy faces were scored with
innumerable wrinkles, and whose withered hands drooped under their loads
of barbaric rings and bracelets. Batouch would evidently have liked to
dismount here.
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