Merla was beautiful, with the perfect beauty of line that
belongs to her race, and possessed the straight, high forehead, the
broad, calm brow that tells of its intelligence and nobility. She
knew, however, nothing of her own beauty. She never cared for
staring into the little squares of glass that the girls of the
village would buy in the market-place, nor coveted the long strings
of blue glass beads that the Bishareens brought in such numbers to
sell in Omdurman; nor did it specially please her to lay the beads
against her neck, and see them slide up and down on her smooth skin
as she breathed, though her companions would thus sit for hours
cross-legged before their little mirrors, breathing deep to note
how their beads rose and fell and glistened in the light.
Merla loved much better to steal out of the hut at night, when the
oil-lamp smoked against the mud wall and the air was heavy, into
the pure calm darkness of the desert, and gaze up at the stars, and
listen to the far-off tom-toms beating fitfully against the
stillness. And if ever any little coins came into her possession,
it seemed unkind to spend them on glass or beads when there was
always milk and oil needed in the house. And if, when these were
bought, there was any coin left, then her real luxury was to buy
food for the poor thin camel that lay at night in the mud-yard
behind their hut, and to go and feed it secretly in the starlight.
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