The Book of the Seven Delights Read Online Free PDF Page B

stretching off into the Sahara…
    Past the vivid blue water and fringe of white surf, the sand of the beaches was a thousand shades of red and gray and tan. Dark rock jutted up through the uneven shoreline, ragged spires pocked with holes that provided roosts for seabirds. Here and there, ruddy stuccoed walls enclosing clusters of flat-topped buildings extended the tops of cliffs overlooking the sea. Below those villages, fleets of wooden fishing boats with patched sails plied the waters or were pulled up around fires on the beaches.
    As the Star drew nearer to the coast, the sea grew calmer and a land breeze reached the ship, bringing with it a faint but tantalizing scent of sand and spice. A reassuring sense of completion settled over her.
    She had survived the voyage to Casablanca and had learned a few things in the process. Her confidence in her ability to carry on Professor Chilton's search for the great library was renewed.
    As the city walls came into view, Haffe appeared with a cup of tea and a mixed linguistic pot of descriptions of the city. He pointed out the minarets of the great mosque, the Bab el-Marsa or "sea gate"

    in the great city wall, and below that, the area of makeshift warehouses and taverns and enterprises catering to just-paid sailors. Between that area and the ships waiting to unload cargo stretched a number of stone quays and wooden docks that swarmed with activity. Off to the south sat a separate walled complex the little steward called a sqala … a bastion built a century ago and now occupied by an uneasy alliance of Moroccan forces and a regiment of the French Foreign Legion.
    With butterflies in her stomach, she retired to her cabin and began to repack her garments, books, and papers.
    Emily Lowe, in Unprotected Females in Norway , was emphatic that a single woman traveling alone should never attempt to travel with more luggage than one portable carpetbag, in the event she might have to serve as her own porter. Since she would be traveling with a guide and porters of her own, Abigail favored Mariana Starke's better-equipped approach. She had dutifully acquired the items suggested in Travellers on the Continent , but—conceding to Emily that horse and camelback travel might require some flexibility—had secured three capacious carpetbags and had them reinforced with leather and fitted with interior pockets. Her trunk would be stored at her hotel in Casablanca until she returned.
    Yes, she was well prepared, she told herself as she transferred the last of her personal items from her trunk to a carpetbag. All that remained was asking the captain to have someone summon a carriage to take her to the British Consulate. The British Foreign Office had assured her the consulate would be more than happy to recommend comfortable lodgings and a trustworthy guide.
    The water around the docks was dark with slime, bilge oil, fish offal, and rotting God-knew-what.
    Apollo Smith fought both to breathe and to keep from breathing as he swam toward the dock, towing his leather valise behind him. It was a foul end to a long journey, but it was either this or risk arrest by the retrieval squad he had seen prowling the dock as the Star approached its berth.
    He had expected no less. The Legion was fiercely protective of its enlistees… especially those whose enlistments were less than voluntary. And his own enlistment five years ago had been about as involuntary as they came. After a night of drinking and carousing, he'd awakened in a metal box in a prison yard…
    arrested for killing a man in a fight. He was given the choice of remaining in that stifling cell until he was roasted to a turn or joining the Legion.
    He resisted at first, demanding to sec the British Consul, demanding a trial, and demanding to at least send a message to his uncle… all of which amused his jailors. After two weeks of searing heat, starvation, and the occasional beating, he finally surrendered and signed an enlistment that placed