f dirty silver. Far away there
were always purple hills, behind which it seemed that hope and beauty
might come to life again; but travelling from morning to night they
never appeared any nearer. The evil magic of the black desert, which
Maieddine called accursed because of the M'Zabites, made the beautiful
hills recede always, leaving only the ugly brown waves of hardened
earth, which were disheartening to climb, painful to descend.

At last, in the midst of black squalor, they came to an oasis like a
bright jewel fallen in the trough of swine. It was Berryan, the first
town of the M'Zabites, people older than the Arabs, and hated by them
with a hatred more bitter than their loathing for Jews.

Maieddine would not pass through the town, since it could be avoided,
because in his eyes the Beni-M'Zab were dogs, and in their eyes he,
though heir to an agha, would be as carrion.

Sons of ancient Phoenicians, merchants of Tyre and Carthage, there never
had been, never would be, any lust for battle in the hearts of the
M'Zabites. Their warfare had been waged by cunning, and through
mercenaries. They had fled before Arab warriors, driven from place to
place by brave, scornful enemies, and now, safely established in their
seven holy cities, protected by vast distances and the barrier of the
black desert, they revenged their wrongs with their wits, being rich,
and great usurers. Though Mussulmans in these days, the schisms with
which they desecrated the true religion were worse in the eyes of
Maieddine than the foolish faith of Christians, who, at least, were not
backsliders. He would not even point out to Victoria the strange minaret
of the Abadite mosque at Berryan, which tapered like a brown obelisk
against the shimmering sky, for to him its very existence was a
disgrace.

"Do not speak of it; do not even look at it," he said to her, when she
exclaimed at the great Cleopatra Needle. But she did look, having none
of his prejudices, and he dared not bid her let down the curtains of her
bassour, as he would if she had been a girl of his own blood.

The extraordinary city, whose crowded, queerly-built houses were blocks
of gold in the sunlight, seemed beautiful to Victoria, coming in sight
of it suddenly after days in the black desert. The other six cities,
called holy by the Beni-M'Zab, were far away still. She knew this,
because Maieddine had told her they would not descend into the Wady
M'Zab till next day. Berryan and Gu