rt; but there was no desert
within many miles; and there was only one minaret rising in the
distance, like a long white finger to mark the beginning of the _Village
Negre_. Instead of bazaars, there were new French shops and a sinister
predominance of drinking places of all sorts: a few "smart" cafes, with
marble-topped tables on the pavement, but mostly dull dens, appealing to
the poorest and most desperate. The town was like a Maltese cross in
shape, the arms of the cross being wide streets, each leading to a gate
in the fortifications; Porte d'Oran, Porte de Tlemcen, Porte de
Mascarra, and Porte de Daya; and the one great charm of the place seemed
to be in its trees; giant planes which made arbours across the streets,
giving a look of dreaming peace, despite the rattle of wheels on roughly
set paving-stones.

There were middle-aged buildings, low and small and dun-coloured,
exactly like those of every other French-Algerian settlement, but big
new blocks of glittering white gave an air of almost ostentatious
prosperity to the place. There was even an attempt at gayety in the
ornamentation, yet there appeared to be nothing attractive to tourists,
save the Foreign Legion, which gave mystery and romance to all that
would otherwise have been banal. Noise was everywhere, loud, shrill,
insistent; rumbling, shrieking, rattling, roaring. Huge wagons, loaded
with purple-stained cases of Algerian wine, bumping over the stones;
strings of bells wound round the great horns of horses' collars jingling
like sleigh-bells in winter; whips in the hands of fierce-eyed carters
cracking round the heads of large, sad mules; hooters of automobiles
and immense motor diligences blaring; men shouting at animals; animals
barking or braying, snorting or clucking at men; unseen soldiers
marching to music; a town clock sweetly chiming the hour, and, above
all, rising like spray from the ocean of din, high voices of Arabs
chaffering, disputing, arguing. This was the "Arabian Night's Paradise"
that Sanda had dreamed of!

Presently the cab passed a great town clock with four faces (one for
each of the four diverging streets) and drew up before a flat-faced
building with the name "Hotel Splendide" stretching across its dim,
yellow front. Inside a big, open doorway, stairs went steeply up, past
piles of commercial travellers' show trunks, and an Arab bootblack who
clamoured for custom. At the top Max Doran and his charge came into a
hall, whence a b