It smelled of moschus and heavy sweet Arabian cigarettes. In Arabic the alley was called the Street of the Seven Delights. Smith had told me that. One could but shudder at the contemplation of the seven delights.... Then the comedy became clear to me. The honest citizen of Sidi-bel-Abbès despised the soldier of the Legion--but he tolerated the horrors of the village nègre. Short commands sounded from afar and the steady steps of a patrol drew near. If I was discovered, it meant prison for me, so I dived into the protecting darkness of a small by-street. Stumbling and falling continually I felt my way forward in the pitchy darkness, till I heard low voices. The alley took a sudden turn. I found myself in the court of a Moorish house. Arabs in white robes crouched and squatted on the ground smoking their narghiles. Most of them hardly looked up as I came in, and an old man with a long white beard nodded and smiled to me. On the glowing fire stood a copper kettle with bubbling hot water, and an old negro was making tea for the Arabs. On the wall on one side of the court a cloth was hung up, of fine brocade, with golden embroidery, on a ground of red and yellow, in fantastical arabesques. Many cushions were spread on the white sand. The Arabs themselves sat on finely woven yellow mats. At respectful distance from the men girls stood and lounged about, wondrous youthful forms with veil-like robes and countless copper ornaments on arms and legs, which tinkled at their slightest movement. All were sipping tea out of tiny little cups. All at once I heard English words, an old nursery rhyme: Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall, And all the king's horses and all the king's men Could not put Humpty-Dumpty together again. Startled, I turned round and saw in the folds of an Arabian burnous the face of a white woman with fair hair and features who must once have been beautiful. Smoking an Arabian cigarette, she nodded dreamily with a happy smile and ever anew she would sing the nursery rhyme.... Suddenly a girl sprang up, bracelets jingling, a child almost, of the pure Arabian type. Fascinated, the Arabs and the other women stared at her; so still it was that one could hear the sound of one's own breathing. The girl let the thin veil of a garment she was wearing fall down to her hips and stood immobile as a statue for a minute or two, her arms stretched out, the head proudly thrown back, her eyes shining in triumph--courting admiration. She reminded me forcibly of a bronze statuette I had possessed in days gone by.... Very slowly the child of the South began to dance. The delicate veil swayed and waved in ever-changing folds around her body of pure copper colour. Her dancing was wondrously graceful--it was beautiful beyond dispute. A strange scene it was, enhanced by the very bright colours and the heavy sweet smells of mysterious perfumes.