s heart Maieddine felt a wish to blind
Abderrhaman, because his eyes had seen the intoxicating beauty of
Victoria as she danced. He was ferociously angry, but not with the girl.
Perhaps with himself, because he was powerless to hide her from others,
and to order her life as he chose. Yet there was a kind of delicious
pain in knowing himself at her mercy, as no Arab man could be at the
mercy of an Arab woman.

The sight of Victoria dancing, had shot new colours into his existence.
He understood her less, and valued her more than before, a thousand
times more, achingly, torturingly more. Since their first meeting on the
boat, he had admired the American girl immensely. Her whiteness, the
golden-red of her hair, the blueness of her eyes had meant perfection
for him. He had wanted her because she was the most beautiful creature
he had seen, because she was a Christian and difficult to win; also
because the contrast between her childishness and brave independence
was piquant. Apart from that contrast, he had not thought much about her
nature. He had looked upon her simply as a beautiful girl, who could not
be bought, but must be won. Now she had become a bewildering houri.
Nothing which life could give him would make up for the loss of her.
There was nothing he would not do to have her, or at least to put her
beyond the reach of others.

If necessary, he would even break his promise to the Agha.

While she danced inside the great tent, outside in the open space round
the fire, the dwellers in the little tents sat with their knees in their
arms watching the dancing of two young Negroes from the Soudan. The
blacks had torn their turbans from their shaven heads, and thrown aside
their burnouses. Naked to their waists, with short, loose trousers, and
sashes which other men seized, to swing the wearers round and round,
their sweating skin had the gloss of ebony. It was a whirlwind of a
dance, and an old wizard with a tom-tom, and a dark giant with metal
castanets made music for the dancers, taking eccentric steps themselves
as they played. The Soudanese fell into an ecstasy of giddiness, running
about on their hands and feet like huge black tarantulas, or turning
themselves into human wheels, to roll through the bed of the dying fire
and out on the other side, sending up showers of sparks. All the while,
they uttered a barking chant, in time to the wicked music, which seemed
to shriek for war and bloodshed; and now and then the