Desert Air | Page 2

of Oxford undergraduate, the kind that takes a good
tutorship for a year or so after leaving the University, and then becomes
a schoolmaster or a clergyman. Marnier, by the way, intended to take
orders.

"Now, this sort of young man is not precisely my sort, and especially
not my sort in the Sahara Desert. But I did not want to be rude to
Marnier, who was friendly and agreeable, and obviously anxious to
increase his already considerable store of knowledge. So I put my
inclinations in my pocket, and, with inward reluctance, I agreed.
"We set off with Safti, my faithful one-eyed Arab guide, and after three
long days of riding and talking--as I had feared--Maeterlink and
Tolstoy, Henley and Verlaine (this last being utterly condemned by
Marnier as a man of weak character and degraded life) we saw the
towers of Beni-Kouidar aspiring above the shifting sands, the tufted
summits of the thousands of palm-trees, and heard the dull beating of
drums and the cries of people borne to us over the spaces of which
silence is the steady guardian.
"We were all pretty tired, but Marnier was, especially done up. He had
recently been working very hard for the 'first' with which he had left
Oxford, and was not in good condition. We were, therefore, glad
enough when we rode through the wide street thronged with natives,
turned the corner into the great camel market, and finally dismounted
before the door of the one inn, the 'Rendezvous des Amis,' a mean,
dusty, one-storey building, on whose dirty white wall was a crude
painting of a preposterous harridan in a purple empire gown, pouring
wine for a Zouave who was evidently afflicted with elephantiasis. Yet,
tired as I was, I stepped out into the camel market for a moment before
going into the house, emptied my lungs, and slowly filled them.
"'What air!' I said to Marnier, who had followed me.
"'It is extraordinary,' he answered in his rather dry tenor voice. 'I should
say like the best champagne, if I did not happen to be a teetotaller.'
"(The market, I must explain, was not at that moment in active
operation.)
"After a bain de siege--we both longed for total immersion--and some
weak tea, in which I mingled a spoonful of rum, we felt better, but we
reposed till dinner, and once again Marnier, in his habitually restrained

and critical manner, discussed contemporary literature, and what Plato
and Aristotle, judging by; their writings, would have been likely to
think of it. And once again I felt as if I were in the 'High' at Oxford, and
was almost inclined to wish that Marnier was the rowdy type of
undergrad, who ducks people in water troughs and makes bonfires in
quads."
"H'm!" said the doctor gravely. "Better, perhaps, if he had been."
"Much better," I answered. "At seven o'clock we ate a rather tough
dinner in the small, bare salle-à-manger, on the red brick floor of
which sand grains were lying. Our only companion was a bearded
priest in a dirty soutane, the aumônier of Beni-Kouidar, who sat at a
little table apart, and greeted our entrance with a polite bow, but did not
then speak to us.
"When the meal was ended, however, he joined us as we stood at the
inn door looking out into the night. A moon was rising above the palms,
and gilding the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe on the far side of the
Market Square. A distant noise of tomtoms and African pipes was
audible. And all down the hill to our left--for the land rose to where the
inn stood--fires gleamed, and we could see half-naked figures passing
and repassing them, and others squatting beside, looking like monks in
their hooped burnouses.
"'You are going out, messieurs?' said the aumônier politely.
"I looked at Marnier.
"'You're too done up, I expect?' I said to him.
"His face was pale, and he certainly had the demeanour of a tired man.
"'No,' he answered. 'I should like to stroll in this wonderful air.'
"I turned to the priest.
"'Yes, monsieur,' I said.

"'I come here to take my meals, but I live at the edge of the town.
Perhaps you will permit me to accompany you for a little way.'
"'We shall be delighted, and we know nothing of Beni-Kouidar.'
"As we stepped out into the market Marnier paused to light his pipe.
But suddenly he threw away the match he had struck.
"'No, it's a sin to smoke in this air,' he said.
"And he drew a deep breath, looking at the round moon.
"The priest smiled.
"'I have lived here for four years,' he said, 'and cannot resist my cigar.
But you are right. The air of Beni-Kouidar is extraordinary. When first
I came