silver which must have lain for no one could tell how many years,
looking like a grey stone under a sheet of glass; nevertheless, the
neighbouring tomb had still remained inviolate, for Sidi Abou Ishad el
Taiyer was a much respected saint, even more loved than the marabout who
sent rain for the gift of a sacrificed fowl, or he who cured sore eyes
in answer to prayer. Only Sidi Bou-Medine himself was more important;
and presently (because the distance was short, though the car had
travelled slowly) they came to the footpath in the hills which must be
ascended on foot, to reach the shrine of the powerful saint, friend of
great Sidi Abd el Kader.

Already they could see the minaret of the mosque, high above the mean
village which clustered round it, rising as a flame rises against a
windless sky, while beneath this shining Giralda lay half-ruined houses
rejuvenated with whitewash or coats of vivid blue. They passed up a
narrow street redeemed from sordidness by a domed koubbah or two; and
from the roofed balconies of cafes maures, Arabs looked down on them
with large, dreamy eyes like clouded stars. All the glory and pride of
the village was concentrated in the tomb and beautiful mosque of the
saint whose name falls sweet on the ear as the music of a summer storm,
the tinkle and boom of rain and thunder coming together: Sidi
Bou-Medine.

Toddling girls with henna-dyed hair, and miniature brown men, like
blowing flower-petals in scarlet, yellow, and blue, who had swarmed up
the street after the Roumis, stopped at the portals of the mosque and
the sacred tomb. But there was a humming in the air like the song of
bees, which floated rhythmically out from the zaouia, the school in the
mosque where many boys squatted cross-legged before the aged Taleb who
taught the Koran; bowing, swaying towards him, droning out the words of
the Prophet, some half asleep, nodding against the onyx pillars.

In the shadow of the mosque it was cool, though the crown of the
minaret, gemmed with priceless tiles from Fez, blazed in the sun's rays
as if it were on fire. Into this coolness the four strangers passed,
involuntarily hushing their voices in the portico of decorated walls and
hanging honeycombs of stucco whence, through great doors of ancient,
greenish bronze (doors said to have arrived miraculously from across the
sea), they found their way into a courtyard open to the sky, where a
fountain waved silver plumes over a marble basin. Two o