“And women?” I asked.
“Ah! one misses them a little.”
“Only a little?”
“My God! Yes—a little. For even amongst the tribes, one always finds accommodating natives who wish to copy European ways.”
He turned to the Arab who was waiting on me, a tall dark fellow with black eyes gleaming under his turban, and said:
“Leave us, Mohammed; I will call you when I want you.”
Then, turning to me, he explained:
“He understands French, and I am going to tell you a story in which he plays a great part.”
On Mohammed’s departure, he began:
“I had been here about four years, still very little at home in this country whose language I was only just beginning to stammer, and compelled from time to time to spend several days in Algiers to avoid breaking right away from the pleasures that had in the past caused my downfall.
“I had bought this farmhouse, a bordj, as they call it, an old fortified guard house, some hundreds of yards from the native encampment whose men I employ in my fields. From this tribe—a branch of the tribe of Ulad Taadja—I had chosen for my personal servant a strapping fellow, Mohammed ben Lam’har, whom you have just seen, and he soon became extremely devoted to me. As he did not like sleeping in a house that he was not accustomed to, he pitched his tent a few steps from the door, so that I could call him from my window.
“My life, well, you can guess it. All day I supervised the clearing and planting, I hunted a little, and dined with the officers of the neighbouring stations, or they came to dine with me.
“As for … amusements—you have heard about those. Algiers supplied all the very best; and now and again an accomodating and sympathetic Arab would stop me in the middle of a walk, to suggest that he should bring me home a native woman in the evening. Sometimes I accepted his offer, but more often I refused, thinking of the trouble that might follow.
“One evening in early summer, on returning from a tour of inspection around the fields, I wanted Mohammed, and entered his tent without calling, a thing I often did.
“On a big, red, woollen rug—one of those made by Jebel-Amour—thick and soft as a mattress, a woman was sleeping, a girl in fact, almost nude, with her arms crossed over her eyes. Her white body gleaming in the light admitted through the raised flap, seemed to me to be one of the most perfect specimens I had ever seen. Round here women are very beautiful, tall and uncommonly graceful in form and features.
“Somewhat confused, I dropped the flap of the tent and returned to the house.
“I am very fond of women. That lightning vision had pierced me through and through, kindling again in my blood the old, formidable ardour which had obliged me to leave France. It was a warm evening in July, and I spent nearly the whole night at the window, my eyes fixed on the dark shadow on the ground which was Mohammed’s tent.
“When he came into my room the next day, I looked him full in the face, and he lowered his head like a man who feels ashamed and guilty. Did he guess what I knew?
“I asked him bluntly: ‘So you are married, Mohammed?’
“I saw him blush, and he stammered:
“ ‘No, sir.’
“I made him speak French and as he had given me lessons in Arabic, the result was one of the most incoherent jumbles imaginable.
“ ‘Then why is there a woman under your roof?’ I retorted.
“ ‘She is from the South,’ he murmured.
“ ‘Ah! she is from the South. That does not tell me how she comes to be in your tent.’
“Without answering my question, he continued:
“ ‘She is very pretty.’
“ ‘Yes, indeed! Well, the next time you have a very pretty woman from the South to stay with you, please show her into my cabin and not into yours. Do you understand, Mohammed?’
“He replied very earnestly: ‘Yes, sir.’
“I must confess that during the whole day my feelings were dominated by the memory of that Arab girl lying on the red rug, and on my way back to dinner, I wanted to go into Mohammed’s tent again. In the evening he waited on me as usual, coming and going with impassive face, and I was often on the point of asking whether he was going to keep this very pretty Southern maiden for long under his camel-skin roof.
“About nine o’clock, still haunted by the lure of the female, which is as tenacious as the hunting instinct in dogs, I went out for a breath of air, taking a short walk in the direction of the brown canvas tent, through which I could see the bright flame of a lamp. Then I wandered further away, lest Mohammed should find me near his quarters.
“On returning an hour later, I saw clearly his characteristic profile in silhouette on the tent. Then, taking my key from my pocket, I made my way into the bordj where there slept, as I did, my steward, two French labourers and an old cook brought from Algiers.
“I went upstairs and was surprised to notice a streak of light under my door. I opened it, and saw facing me, seated on a wicker chair beside the table on which a candle was burning, a girl with the face of a statue, quietly waiting for me, and wearing all the silver trinkets which the women of the South wear on legs and arms, on the throat and even on the stomach. Her eyes, dilated by the use of kohl, were looking at me; her forehead, her cheeks and her chin were studded with four little blue marks delicately tattooed on the skin. Her arms, loaded with bangles, rested on her thighs, which were covered by a kind of red silk jibbah which hung from her shoulders.
“Seeing me come in, she stood upright before me, covered with her barbarous
