open, stepped to one side, and beckoned to someone
outside to enter.
His manner impressed me, and I sat up with a
vague feeling, as they say in ghost stories, that
something unusual was about to happen.
- What is it, Aissa ? ’ I asked.
A'issa said nothing, but beckoned again.
There was a lurking smile about his face, and his
manner was so mysterious that I began to wonder
what was going to happen. I turned towards the
door.T
here came from outside a sound of slow heavy
footsteps, and then a black shadow fell across the
patch of brilliant sunlight by the entrance and
stayed there motionless. Someone was standing in
the doorway.
Aissa crushed himself against the wall to allow
him to pass, and beckoned a third time.
I expected to see something extraordinary, but I
was by no means prepared for the uncanny creature
which actually entered.
There was a pause, and then a huge black-masked
figure, stooping his head to avoid the lintel, stepped
over the threshold and stood for a moment grim
and forbidding by the entrance.
He was enormously tall. He towered literally
head and shoulders over my little guide.
From the crown of his head to his feet he was
dressed, even in this country where everyone for the
sake of coolness clothes himself in white, entirely
in black. A pair of remarkably well-shaped hands
and a few snaky-looking locks of black hair protruding
from above his head-coverings were the only
portions of his person to be seen.
His face was entirely concealed by a black mask
consisting of a strip of black cotton wrapped twice
round his head in such a manner that the edges of
the two folds met over the bridge of his nose.
A pair of loose black trousers concealed his legs,
and a long black robe, worked over his chest in a
sort of smoking, which reached down to below his
knees and covered a body as supple and sinewy as a
ferret’s, completed his attire.
A rosary hung round his neck, and a profusion
of charms sewn up in leather packets and little
talismans and amulets of metal and coloured glass
covered his breast.
His hands at once arrested my attention. They
were white, whiter than many Sardinians and
Italians that I have seen. I tried hard to catch a
glimpse of his face through his mask, but was unable
to do so. The occasional glint of an eye
between its folds was all that there was to be seen.
In his hand was a slender eight-foot lance of
iron. A huge broadsword hung from his shoulder
by a black camel’s-hair cord and banged against his
thighs as he moved. A murderous-looking dagger,
secured to his wrist by a leather ring, lay in its
sheath along his left fore-arm with its cross-shaped
hilt concealed in the palm of his hand.
‘ He’s a Tawarek,’ said Aissa triumphantly, * I
found him wandering about in the town, so I brought
him here for you to see.’
He spoke about him exactly as though he had