Her whole attitude showed her consciousness of the many blazing eyes that were intently staring at her. The stomach dance which she had just been watching had amazed her so much that she felt as if she were the only respectable woman in the world, and as if no one would suppose it unless she hung out banners white as the walls of Beni-Mora's houses. She strove to do so, and, meanwhile, from time to time, cast sideway glances towards the platform to see whether another stomach dance was preparing. She did not see Hadj's excitement or the poet's malignant satisfaction, but she, with Domini, saw a small door behind the platform open, and the stout Kabyle appear followed by a girl who was robed in gold tissue, and decorated with cascades of golden coins.
Domini guessed at once that this was Irena, the returned exile, who wished to kill Hadj, and she was glad that a new incident had occurred to switch off the general attention from the stranger.
Irena was evidently a favourite. There was a grave movement as she came in, a white undulation as all the shrouded forms bent slightly forward in her direction. Only Hadj caught his burnous round him with his thin fingers, dropped his chin, shook his hood down upon his forehead, leaned back against the wall, and, curling his legs under him, seemed to fall asleep. But beneath his brown lids and long black lashes his furtive eyes followed every movement of the girl in the sparkling robe.
She came in slowly and languidly, with a heavy and cross expression upon her face, which was thin to emaciation and painted white, with scarlet lips and darkened eyes and eyebrows. Her features were narrow and pointed. Her bones were tiny, and her body was so slender, her waist so small, that, with her flat breast and meagre shoulders, she looked almost like a stick crowned with a human face and hung with brilliant draperies. Her hair, which was thick and dark brown, was elaborately braided and covered with a yellow silk handkerchief.
Domini thought she looked consumptive, and was bitterly disappointed in her appearance. For some unknown reason she had expected the woman who wished to kill Hadj, and who obviously inspired him with fear, to be a magnificent and glowing desert beauty. This woman might be violent. She looked weary, anaemic, and as if she wished to go to bed, and Domini's contempt for Hadj increased as she looked at her. To be afraid of a thin, tired, sleepy creature such as that was too pitiful.
But Hadj did not seem to think so. He had pulled his hood still further forward, and was now merely a bundle concealed in the shade of Suzanne.
Irena stepped on to the platform, pushed the girl who sat at the end of the bench till she moved up higher, sat down in the vacant place, drank some water out of the glass nearest to her, and then remained quite still staring at the floor, utterly indifferent to the Arabs who were devouring her with their eyes. No doubt the eyes of men had devoured her ever since she could remember. It was obvious that they meant nothing to her, that they did not even for an instant disturb the current of her dreary thoughts.
Another girl was dancing, a stout, Oriental Jewess with a thick hooked nose, large lips and bulging eyes, that looked as if they had been newly scoured with emery powder. While she danced she sang, or rather shouted roughly, an extraordinary melody that suggested battle, murder and sudden death. Careless of onlookers, she sometimes scratched her head or rubbed her nose without ceasing her contortions. Domini guessed that this was the girl whom she had seen from the tower dancing upon the roof in the sunset. Distance and light had indeed transformed her. Under the lamps she was the embodiment of all that was coarse and greasy. Even the pitiful slenderness of Irena seemed attractive when compared with her billowing charms, which she kept in a continual commotion that was almost terrifying.
"Hadj is nearly dead with fear," whispered Batouch, complacently.
Domini's lips curled.
"Does not Madame think Irena beautiful as the moon on the waters of the Oued Beni-Mora?"
"Indeed I don't," she replied bluntly. "And I think a man who can be afraid of such a little thing must be afraid of the children in the street."
"Little! But Irena is tall as a female palm in Ourlana."
"Tall!"
Domini looked at her again more carefully, and saw that Batouch spoke the truth. Irena was unusually tall, but her excessive narrowness, her tiny bones, and the delicate way in which she held herself deceived the eye and gave her a little appearance.
"So she is; but who could be afraid of her? Why, I could pick her up and throw her over that moon of yours."
"Madame is strong. Madame is like the lioness. But Irena is the most terrible girl in all Beni-Mora if she loves or if she is angry, the most terrible in all the Sahara."
Domini laughed.
"Madame does not know her," said Batouch, imperturbably. "But Madame can ask the Arabs. Many of the dancers of Beni-Mora are murdered, each season two or three. But no man would try to murder Irena. No man would dare."
The poet's calm and unimpassioned way of alluding to the most horrible crimes as if they were perfectly natural, and in no way to be condemned or wondered at, amazed Domini even more than his statement about Irena.
"Why do they murder the dancers?" she asked quickly.
"For their jewels. At night, in those little rooms with the balconies which Madame has seen, it is easy. You enter in to sleep there. You close your eyes, you breathe gently and a little loud. The woman hears. She is not afraid. She sleeps. She dreams. Her throat is like that"--he threw back his head, exposing his great neck. "Just before dawn you draw your knife from your burnous. You bend down. You cut the throat without noise. You take the jewels, the money from the box by the bed. You go down quietly with bare feet. No one is on the stair.
You unbar the door--and there before you is the great hiding-place."
"The great hiding-place!"
"The desert, Madame." He sipped his coffee. Domini looked at him, fascinated.