Robert Hichens
Published: 2018-08-25
Total Pages: 442
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Excerpt from The Garden of Allah, Vol. 1 of 2 But Domini, with wide-open eyes, was staring from her big, square pillow at the red brick floor Of her bedroom, on which stood various trunks marked by the Officials Of the Douane. There were two windows in the room look ing out towards the Place de la Marine, below which lay the station. Closed persz'ennes Of brownish-green, blistered wood protected them. One Of these windows was Open. Yet the candle at Domini' s bedside burnt steadily. The night was warm and quiet, without wind. AS She lay there, Domini still felt the movement of the sea. The passage had been a bad one. The ship, crammed with French recruits for the African regiments, had pitched and rolled almost Incessantly for thirty-one hours, and Domini and most Of the recruits had been ill. Domini had had an'inner cabin, with a skylight Opening onto the lower deck, and had heard above the sound Of the waves and winds their groans and exclamations, rough laughter, and half-timid, half-defiant conversations as She shook in her berth. At Marseilles she had seen them come On board, One by one, dressed in every variety Of poor costume, each One looking anxiously around to see what the others were like, each one carrying a mean yellow or black bag or a carefully-tied bundle. On the wharf stood a Zouave, in tremendous red trousers and a fez, among great heaps Of dull brown woollen rugs. And as the recruits came hesitat ingly along he stopped them with a sharp word, examined the tickets they held out, gave each one a rug, and pointed to the gangway that led from the wharf to the vessel. Domini, then leaning over the rail Of the upper deck, had noticed the different expressions with which the recruits looked at the Zouave. TO all Of them he was a pheno menon, a mystery Of Africa and Of the new life for which they were embarking. He stood there impudently and indifi'erently among the woollen rugs, his red fez pushed well back on his short, black hair cut en 6mm, his bronzed face twisted into a grimace Of fiery contempt, throwing, with his big and muscular arms, rug after rug to the anxious young peasants who filed before him. They all gazed at his legs in the billowing red trousers; some like children regarding a Jack-in-the-box which had just sprung up into view, others like ignorant, but superstitious, people who had unexpectedly come upon a shrine by the way side. One Or two seemed disposed to laugh nervously, as the very stupid laugh at anything they see for the first time. But fear seized them. They refrained convulsively and shambled on to the gangway, looking sideways, like fowls, and holding their rugs awkwardly to their breasts with their dirty, red hands. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
