Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/138

122 who threw over them the ltam, or shielding veil, became citizens of the town and enjoyed the protection of the laws of the Koran."

"Did the earth here drink many tears of blood, Hafid?" asked Zofiette.

In answer the boy only gave an exclamation and covered his face with his hands, thus telling us more plainly than words that the merciless severity of the ancient sultans was written deep in letters of blood in the memory of the present population of Maghreb, where this separate and stormy empire of the sherifs has for centuries dominated these desert folk.

Coming out of the café we once more stood before Bab el-Maroukh, garbed in its ancient mantle of brown, indifferent as a centenarian who is burdened and haunted by memories of the past. This Gate of the Burned attracted us and established such sway over us that we often returned to it during excursions we made through the city without Hafid. We saw it at the hour when the disappearing sun threw upon it from the horizon its last effulgent rays and gave the impression that all the blood shed beneath it had risen through invisible channels and covered it, until it was all clothed in a scarlet of kingly glory, indifferent to the sufferings of man. We stood before Bab el-Maroukh at night, when the massive portal rose in the darkness like a black, powerful apparition, indistinct in form and contour but immense and threatening. At another time, when the moon threw upon it a sheaf of pale rays, the cornices were distinctly traced in outline upon the mass, while in the recesses the shadows moved and pressed together, and murmurs, half sighs and