Chapter VII: Part 7

"We are great lovers," said Father Stork, when he had settled; "so well known that all the lovesick youths of Moorish cities ask us to give their messages to the well-beloved. They stand in the white street below and sing to us."

Once again Mother Stork sat on three eggs, once again Father Stork stood on one leg by the nest-side, his beak upon his breast, and helped in all love and loyalty to fetch the food when the babies came. The weeks hurried towards the summer, the birds were nearly fledged, and one morning when they were feeding in the gardens Father Stork came back hurriedly with another of his tribe. They talked vigorously upon the roof-top and then the newcomer went his way, leaving Father Stork angry and disturbed.

"What is the matter?" asked Tsamani uneasily. He felt sure that trouble was brewing, that some disaster was at hand.

"Matter enough!" said Father Stork gravely. "My companion came to give me and my wife notice that we must join in battle with the ravens on the fourth day from now."

"Why are you ill friends?" asked the boy.

"That is a secret of stork and raven life that I cannot attempt to explain," replied Father Stork. "We must fight them and prevail, or must leave this city. The battle will be a few miles from the Dukala Gate. I think we shall win and return. You will soon know."

* * * * *

All through the third day Tsamani watched and waited, seeing no grown stork on roof or in street, straining eyes and ears in vain. Even the townsfolk were alarmed, and crowded the Mosques, and prayed devoutly.[3] On the following morning he rose when the Mueddin called for the first prayer, and the guardian of the hareem allowed him to pass the door and to climb the steep steps to the roof. He saw the sun come up from the East and he heard the camels' bells as the caravan moved out to cross the desert, carrying salt, that it might return with slaves. He was listening to the earliest notes of stock-doves in the gardens, when with swift flight a stork swept over the Dukala Gate. He was one of the younger birds of that year's brood.

"We have won!" he cried. "We have won! The ravens are in full flight. The storks will return to Marrakesh; and my parents sent me to bid you good-bye."

"Are they well and safe?" cried Tsamani, sorely afraid, for he was old enough to know that he had no other friends.

"They live," replied the young stork, "but are sorely wounded, and are flying northward, slowly and carefully, to the City of the Sickle, the place of the hospital, where their wounds may be healed. I must return to them. Haply, we may all come back again."

"How the young stork chatters!" said Ayesha sleepily.

But Tsamani said no word as he went down the narrow stairs, for he felt that he was alone in the world.

-----

Footnote 3:

This incident occurred when I was in Southern Morocco where some
reliable observers told me that fights between the storks and ravens
are of almost annual occurrence.

THE WILD BOAR

He trotted along happily enough through the great open spaces of the Argan Forest,[4] parts well-nigh unknown to men. All around him the giant Argan trees defied the sun. Stray goats climbed their broad branches to eat the fruit, the tiny asphodel flowered in their shade, and the stock-doves cooed.

Little Tusker knew the forest better in darkness than by morning light, for the herd rested during the heat, and the grown up ones fed at night; but they often drank by day in that secluded place, and would seek the pools by the tiny river where trout flashed and otters fished and kingfishers shone in the bright sun. It was pleasant to go down to the pool in the middle of the hot night and listen to the nightingales in the woods around. By day the numbers of the herd stood in the way of complete enjoyment, for the strong ones got to the water first and the weakest had to wait.

"Why do we all go together like this?" asked little Tusker.

"For safety," replied the mother, who had no tusks and was naturally of a timid, shrinking disposition. "There are hyænas and other wild things in the forest. We might be attacked if we went by ourselves. You will remain with the herd until you are four or five years old, and then you will do as your father has done, and will live by yourself, for your tusks will have grown until you can protect yourself against anything but the Man."

"What is the Man?" he asked.

"He is the enemy who never tires," answered his mother. "He has two legs instead of four, he has no tusks, he does not know the forest as we know it, but he carries death with him, and the boar he follows is doomed."

All this was quite unintelligible to little Tusker, and the first few years of his life brought him no reminder of the warning. He travelled with the herd, but as soon as he was able to look after himself his mother's affection came to an end, and she would push him out of her way on the feeding grounds, as readily as though he had been a stranger. The herd went many miles in search of food, and did most of their travelling and eating by night, when only the jackals and hyænas made a noise in the forest. They rooted for sweet potatoes and wild turnips, tearing up great patches of ground, and they hunted for the young maize at the proper season of the year, ravaging the lands of the farmers to get the grain.

Luckily for them the farmers, being Moors, were without guns and full of superstition. They would not sit up at night to wait for the marauders, and so the herd grew fat. Every season saw some of the full-grown boars leave to live their solitary life, and in the early winter sows would go away for some months and bring their litter back with them later on.

On his nightly rambles little Tusker often met the porcupine who also fed after dark, and was quite harmless in spite of his formidable bristles. He heard the jackals crying and was amused; he saw the shining eyes of the hyæna and was afraid. Slowly he learned all the lessons that a boar must know, and the forest yielded him some of her many secrets.

There was no real winter there. The forest enjoys almost perennial summer, but there is a rainy season when the days are cooler than at other times. Then the best lairs are under the Argan trees; when the greatest heat is on the land, the moist sandy places high up above the valley are best. Again, in the brief days of tempest the hollows and gorges are most sought for, since the wind cannot reach them.

Young Tusker learned to know how and when the weather would change. He knew if any stranger were coming down the wind ever so far away. The meaning of the cries that the herd uttered, the signs that showed if water was near, and the significance of the footmarks that crossed the forest in all directions; he learned all these things.

As he grew up, sleeping under the sun and feeding under the stars, finding food plentiful and life pleasant, Tusker gradually ceased to be little. His shaggy skin became covered with bristles, a bristly ridge covered his spine; his heavy head grew larger and heavier, and the milk-white tusks developed until the lower ones took the upward curve that made them formidable. He could fight now with his fellows, but little harm was done, for all boars learn to receive their neighbour's tusk-thrusts on their own tusks or on the shoulders, where the hard, coarse skin is not readily torn.

With consciousness of strength came the desire to travel, and when Tusker found any track that moved him to curiosity, he would leave the herd to follow it. One night, when he was rather more than three years old, he saw the mark of a boar, the track of a large hoof, and he followed it industriously, leaving the herd far behind. The big hoof-prints fascinated him, he tracked them all through the night, and through the next night, too. Then, under an Argan tree, he found the stranger in his lair.

"What are you doing here?" said Tusker rather rudely.

"I am a recluse from the mountains," said the stranger. "I have left family, friends and home, that I may live my life alone, and there is good feeding ground about here. I am three years' old, and it is time to lead the solitary life."

He spoke at length of the joys of the single state in which he lived all the year save for the brief period beginning with November, when he drove some charming young lady pig from the nearest herd to be his companion for a few weeks. He would tend her with all the care and love and affection of which a boar is capable, but leave her to rear the young and join the herd again when her litter was strong enough.

]

Thereafter Tusker made his home under an Argan tree, separated from the rest of the forest by a wide clearing where wild thyme and toad flax and dwarf palm grew, and creeping plants climbed over the double-thorn bushes. During the fine weather he never went out by daylight unless it was to drink, but when the rains came he would eat by day. He was so constituted that one visit to the pools would suffice him for two or even three days; but the visit was a prolonged one, accompanied by endless precautions, for since he had become solitary he had become more nervous than ever, and when he ate or drank he would make sudden pauses to make sure that nobody was about. He relied more upon hearing than sight. The slightest unaccustomed sound when he was coming to the pool would send him grunting into the thicket, but if all was well he would permit himself to enjoy a very lively time. First, he would drink deeply, and then he would wallow in the mud for two or three minutes to ease the irritation of his skin.

The forest was very quiet at night in spite of hungry jackals and stray hyænas, and Tusker made very little noise as he travelled to his feeding grounds, always working against the wind. There were a few duars, or native villages, in the forest, and one or two large farmhouses built on the sun-dried clay called tapia that glows so white under the light of the moon. Tusker avoided farm and village but he could not leave the crops alone, and for the chance of a meal of young maize he was content to go where no other food would have taken him.

His keener perceptions taught him now that there was a great, inexplicable danger in the forest--something his mother had spoken about when he first joined the herd by her side; and, though he had forgotten the details, the sense of fear was never really absent from him, and it was strengthened by one or two events that took place in his first solitary year.

One night he met the recluse from his mountains looking as he had never seen pig look before. His coarse hair was matted with perspiration, he breathed heavily, his little eyes were full of the terror that comes to the hunted beast.

"I must eat a little," said the recluse hoarsely, "my strength has almost gone," and so saying he fell to and found a number of Argan nuts which he ate eagerly, though he paused to sniff the breeze every moment and ate head to wind. Tusker was astonished and uneasy.

"What's the matter?" he said, when both had eaten.

"The Hunter of the Forest has been on my track these three days," said the boar of the mountains. "I cannot shake him off, and unless I can reach the hills where he will not follow, I must die. The hills are two day's journey and I am tired already. Twice I have broken through the pack."

"The pack? What is that?" said Tusker curiously.

"There are twenty or more of them," replied the mountain boar. "Dogs of mixed breed, some large, some small, all savage. With them come the stalkers, and in the track of the stalkers comes the hunter, and when he reaches me I must die. I have tried every trick known to me, you will learn in your time what they are, but now I am not sure if I shall get to the hills. I must seek a lair now and sleep. Perhaps this good food and a quiet rest will restore my strength." He shambled off into the darkness, leaving Tusker full of terror, so fearful indeed that he would not go back to his old home, but wandered for some hours in the darkest part of the forest.

Only in the spring-time did he become quite courageous, but with the coming of April every living thing in the forest took heart of grace; even the stock-doves were ready to fight in defence of nest and young. Tusker felt the full joy of life too in November, when he had fought with several brother boars for the sake of a sow who summed up for him all his understanding of grace and beauty. He drove her from the herd and followed her for days when her other lovers were routed, he pursuing and she retreating all through the wild places of the forest.

Even the Hunter laid down his rifle for a brief season knowing that should he find boar and sow together, the boar would send the sow to make her escape, and would stand and fight to the death to give his beloved time to get away. When the season of love and war had passed Tusker left his companion to raise her litter and shift for herself; while, all his love forgotten, he resumed his solitary life and his accustomed nervousness.

Seven long years passed in the forest, and then in the third year of his seclusion, when he was in splendid condition, and provided with tusks that made him respected by all his fellows, the Hunter of the Forest found his tracks. All the forest paths had tracks of boars, old and new, some of small animals, some of large, and every track was plain as print to the Hunter. When he first caught sight of Tusker's footmarks, he jumped off his horse.

"A great beast, Mohammed," he said to the wiry, muscular Moor who followed him; "leans to the left when he walks, and must have some defect in his right hind hoof, for it makes the faintest mark of the four, he goes so lightly on it." Then he made a few measurements and recorded them, and noted the exact position of the spot, and rode home very happy indeed, for his eyes, trained to the forest for nearly forty years, told him he was on the track of a very fine boar.

That night Tusker fed upon the green maize in the fields of a neighbouring farmer, returning before daybreak to his lair, where he slept until a slight rustle in the bushes near at hand startled him to wakefulness. A moment later, and a little lean mongrel dog showed at the entrance to his home.

"Come out and fight," said the little lean mongrel dog showing his white teeth.

"Show me something worth fighting," replied Tusker, showing his own terrible weapons, "and I'll talk to you."

"O Father of Tusks," replied the little mongrel, "wait until I summon my twenty-three brethren," and then he gave the call that summons the pack and gladdens the huntsman's heart. Tusker, hearing answering yelps near and far, knew in a moment that the dogs had been hunting for him with their heads to the wind, so that he could not scent them, and realised that he was face to face with the most serious trouble of his life. He dashed out at once, before the pack had found time to gather round him, and made off as hard as he could through the forest.

Tusker led the pack through the most difficult country. He ran at double thorn bushes and passed right through them; the little dogs of the pack followed on his heels, and the big ones kept well on either side of the cover. And while he used his legs Tusker used his brain as well. "The hunter cannot keep up with us," he said to himself, "if I turn to bay I'll hurt a few of these fellows, and while he attends to them I'll get further off."

Ten minutes later, he slowed down and allowed the foremost among the pack to reach him. Most were scratched and torn by the thorns that could not penetrate Tusker's hide, but they were game, and the first comers flung themselves upon him. Tusker enjoyed the next minute or two, bitten and worried though he was, and when he broke through the pack and started off again his tusks, that had been white, were red, almost as red as his angry little eyes, Three dogs were gasping on the ground, one dying and the other two so badly ripped that had they been in an air less pure they must have died before nightfall.

The Hunter came up before the sound of the pursuit had quite rolled away, examined each dog quickly but carefully, gave a surgical needle, some thread and a little bottle to one of the trackers, and started off with the rest of the company. The tracker washed and sewed the wounds of the two living dogs, made them as comfortable as he could and left them for one of the servants to bring home. As they had not been fed for four and twenty hours he knew they would recover from their wounds.

Meanwhile Tusker rumbled through a scrub so dense and prickly that, by taking a sudden turn in a thicket, he was able to let the pack pass him. Quick as thought he doubled on his own tracks a little way, then turned sharp to the right avoiding the huntsman and his party, and made straight for a little river. He paused on the brink and drank, but did not dare to wallow or cover his hot head with the cool mud, for he heard in the distance the cry of the hounds at fault and the voice of the huntsman cheering them to find the line again. He forded the river, landing some distance lower down on the opposite bank, and travelled a few hundred yards into the forest.

"Safe at last," said Tusker, and began to hunt for a lair, going backwards and forwards, sometimes travelling in a circle, and testing the softness of the ground with his snout. At last he found a soft sheltered thicket, and rested from his labours, resolving to wallow by the river at nightfall.

The Hunter was puzzled while his pack endeavoured in vain to find the line. The trackers went on to where the scrub became thin, and tracks could show, but there were no fresh marks to guide them. Then the Hunter cast back, guessing shrewdly that Tusker had doubled on his own line; but the ground gave him no help, and the luncheon hour found the party still perplexed.

"If he went to the north," said the Hunter, "we may not find his track for weeks. If he went in any other direction he must cross the river so we will work the banks." And when the simple meal was over the Hunter led his trackers to the water, and they studied every mark on the bank. Several times the trackers thought they had found their quarry, for they met perfectly fresh prints among others that were any age from a day to a week, but the Hunter's eye was looking for the marks of a certain set of hoofs, of which the right hind one made the least mark, while the balance was ever on the left side, and the distances were as recorded in his notes.

Some time about four o'clock the Hunter found the track, and forded the river; and, just before sunset, saw where it led to the forest. He summoned his admiring trackers, but forebore to proceed. "The day after to-morrow at daybreak," was all he said, and then the party made its way home in the fast failing light, by no means dissatisfied with the day's work.

On that night Tusker wallowed long and comfortably, and uprooted a fine lot of wild radishes and turnips. His new lair was comfortable and he was no worse for his adventure, but he was ill-pleased on the morning of the second day when without word or warning a mongrel, whose face seemed familiar, showed at the entrance to his lair and called on him to fight.

Quick as thought, without word of parley Tusker rushed out and sought the impenetrable covers that had helped him before. He crossed the river and gained on his pursuers.

In a clearing amid the thickets he came suddenly upon a herd that scattered in all directions as he gave word of the following pack.

Once more dogs were at fault, but the Hunter was not. Within an hour after, careful scrutiny of a score of tracks, he had picked out that of a boar that ran with a list to the left, and trod lightly on its right hind hoof, and moved at a certain recorded pace with certain recorded distances between the hoofs.

Within two hours the hounds were closing in on Tusker whose way to comparative safety lay over a large expanse of forest that was more or less open. Beyond that part the thicket was the worst in the forest, and the Hunter knew that the chances would be with the boar if he could reach that stronghold. When Tusker heard the pack bearing down upon him, he realised that the Hunter was his master, and that only good luck could save him now. He thought of the solitary pig from the mountains and wondered if he looked like him in the hour of his distress.

"I'll try again," said Tusker to himself, as he found the dogs gaining on him in the more open country. "The Hunter may be far behind," and then he set his fore-legs firmly on the ground and faced the furious howling pack, using his terrible tusks with all the force he could put behind them.

A few moments later he saw the Hunter emerging from the bush, and broke through again with the dogs, cut and wounded, upon his heels, encouraged by their master's voice.

He could not go far now. Once again he turned and faced his adversaries, forgetting everything now in his rage and conscious only of a lust for blood.

Suddenly there was a shrill whistle, and before it ceased to echo, the pack opened to the right and left, leaving Tusker alone. He looked up uncertain what to do, saw the Hunter standing sixty or seventy yards away from him with a shining barrel at his shoulder, felt a sudden violent shock, heard as in the far distance a sharp strange sound, knew that the dogs were upon him again, but could not feel their teeth or the ground he was lying on.

Another whistle, the dogs parted again, the Hunter came up knife in hand, his trackers following.

"No need," he said, thrusting the shining steel into its case. "The bullet went to the heart. A splendid fellow."

-----

Footnote 4:

The Argan Forest is in Southern Morocco, and takes its name from the
Argan, a species of olive tree.

THE STORY OF A SLAVE

In the early days Marzuk saw life from a secure position on his mother's back. So soon as morning dawned, the pair would leave their mud hut beyond the northern gate of Timbuctoo, and seek the market, there to spread out and arrange such produce as had been collected overnight for the day's sale.

In their season Aminah, the mother of Marzuk, sold the three fruits we have never seen in our western world, the rich karita or butter fruit, the satisfying nata which yields a sort of sweet flour in pods, and the cheese fruit, upon which a man may dine and not go hungry.

Marzuk's mother was a black woman from below the Niger, in the Soudan, and very ugly to the eyes of all save her little boy. But her white loin cloths and shifts were cleaner than those of most of her neighbours, and worn with some nicety.

She wore her hair in three rolls on the top of her head, supported by a white fillet about her brows, and she was so industrious and cheery that the day's end seldom found any of her market stock unsold, and generally saw quite an imposing heap of cowries in the old calabash that was kept for use as a till. Money was unknown.

So Marzuk, well-fed, grew strong and straight and comely, learning to help his mother in her work, and to play truant from his duties and adventure alone into Timbuctoo itself, and to the Niger banks beyond. When he returned Aminah would beat him soundly, and cry over him in mother fashion, while painting for him luridly the dangers of the road.

She spoke with rolling eyes and bated breath of the fierce Touaregs, the brigands from the Sahara, who went through the streets of Timbuctoo veiled against the glare of the African sun; of the hippopotami by the Niger's bank that were ever lying in wait to make meals of naughty boys; of the treacherous and pathless sand-dunes to the north, and of hungry monkeys chattering in the trees--monkeys that were really little children changed from their natural shape for disobedience to parents. But neither stripes nor warnings could keep Marzuk's feet from straying.

The grass lands near the river, where the sheep pastured, were Marzuk's favourite resort, because of the white ospreys that dwelt there. These birds loved to follow the sheep from place to place, taking no notice of shepherds or farmers, but ever intent upon the actions of their four-footed friends.

Yet the boy kept well out of the way of all Touaregs, the veiled men of the desert of whom his mother had spoken. He watched them from a safe distance when they roamed through the city, spear in hand, ready and willing to quarrel with any native who should cross their path.

They wore a head-dress that covered their fore-heads and helped to shade their eyes, and a veil that shrouded the lower part of the face and kept the mouth free from sand.

Their true home was the desert, where they reared vast flocks on scanty pasture, but they held the natives of Timbuctoo in no respect, and would stalk through the market-place, spear at the ready and sword beside them, and call the men of the city "Sand-eaters," because they went with mouths and nostrils uncovered. On their side the natives spoke of the Touaregs as the "Abandoned of God," and would have kept them from the city altogether, had their strength been equal to their will.

Day by day camel caravans reached Timbuctoo, coming across the desert from Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. Marzuk's one interest in his home district was connected with these caravans.

Twice a year, in midwinter and midsummer, the camels would arrive in huge convoys. There would be many hundreds of the unhandy supercilious beasts there at one time, enjoying their longed-for rest, and making hearty meals on the more succulent growths of the dwarf forest.

The camel-drivers themselves, gaunt, hard-lived men, with faces like birds of prey, had many adventurous tales to tell, and Marzuk was a very ready listener. He heard how the veiled thieves of the desert held up whole caravans and taxed them, helping themselves moderately if unopposed, but quite ready for wholesale killing if resisted in any way. He heard, too, of the great salt country, visited by all caravans coming from Morocco.

"It is a wonderful place," said Hadj Abdullah the camel-driver, on a day when he arrived at Timbuctoo after six months' absence, "and Allah has set it in the midst of the desert where no unbeliever may see it. The houses are fashioned out of salt, and so is the mosque, there are camel-skins over all the buildings, and the people live on their salt."

"Oh, my master, do they eat it?" asked Marzuk.

"Silence, little empty head," said Aminah, his mother, who listened beside him. And the camel-driver continued:--

"Twice a year we go there, carrying away the white salt, which is the best, and the red-veined if the other supply has failed. In return we leave dates and corn and cotton, and so these people live.

"So terrible is the glare of the salt," added the camel-driver, "that if we have women or children, we leave them in the oases, a day's journey from the city."

Besides the precious salt of El Djouf, which was stamped in Timbuctoo and sent down the Niger to districts where it was worth its weight in gold, the caravans brought indigo, blue cotton and white, mirrors for the women, calico, sugar, tea and coffee, and white paper for the Marabouts. On their journey home they were supposed to take gold dust and ivory, the long feathers of the wild ostrich and undressed leather. But the head of the caravan knew of a commodity more valuable than these, and some of the panniers that had carried salt to Timbuctoo had living freight on the way back.

Hadj Abdullah employed agents in the city, and well he knew how to arrange such business as he had, of whatever kind it might be, without exciting the suspicion of the natives.

* * * * *

The camels slowly recovered their strength, the produce of Hadj Abdullah's great caravan had been disposed of profitably by barter, and the goods he had received in exchange would afford plenty of work for his beasts.

One morning the Moor stopped before the calabashes where Aminah's stores were placed. Marzuk was by his mother's side for once. Already in his thirteenth year, he looked strong, healthy and intelligent. Hadj Abdullah noted these things, whilst seeming to examine Aminah's little store.

"Oh, my mother," he said with grave courtesy, "have you any cheese-fruit, or has all gone for the year?"

"I fear it has been eaten, my lord," replied the black woman respectfully.

"The pity," he replied. "For a plentiful supply such as my house (family) desires, I would give a whole piece of fine blue cloth--the last that is left me. Perhaps some fruit remains yet in the plantations by the river. Can the boy go seek it?"

"I will send him, my lord," replied Aminah, delighted beyond measure at the idea of getting a piece of the cloth that cowries could not buy.

"He must be back before the second day at sunrise," said the Moor, and resumed his walk.

So Marzuk set off at daybreak on the following morning with many warnings of the ill that would befall if his return were delayed. He passed through the town, leaving it by the southern gate before anybody but the guard was awake, and was soon knee-deep in the meadows that the Niger keeps ever green.

He tramped along merrily enough, quite unconscious that two Arabs had followed him from the huts beyond the southern wall. The ospreys were everywhere--Marzuk saw nothing but the white birds, and the shining river, and the butterflies, blue and gold, that fluttered over the meadows.

On a sudden he heard footsteps, and saw the Arabs hurrying in his direction. He stood to see them pass, and as they reached him they turned suddenly and flung themselves upon him. There was no struggle, only the white birds heard one choked cry of terror, and some few rose from the meadow to the comparative safety of a neighbouring tree.

His captors carefully gagged Marzuk, and bound legs and arms tightly with cords of palmetto, then he was rolled in sacking and carried back to a hut. When the Arabs returned to the city they carried what seemed to be a bale of raw cotton slung on a pole between them, and they made unchallenged way to the caravan quarter, beyond the city's northern gate.

Within the vast enclosure of thorn and cactus that inclosed the caravanserai only the last great bales of merchandise remained for the camels, and among these Marzuk was left to pant for breath in an atmosphere that would have stifled any but a negro. Towards the afternoon, when he had seen his latest acquisition safely stored, Hadj Abdullah sought the market-place by the mosque.

"Oh, mother," said he to Aminah, "has the lad returned with the cheese-fruit?"

"No, my master," she replied angrily. "I am cursed in the boy. He goes on errands and returns when he likes."

"I am sorry, mother," replied Hadj Abdullah, "for by Allah's grace to-morrow's sunrise will see us on the road again."

From the mosques of the city the Mueddin called for the prayer said by devout Moslems at the hour of the false dawn. On walls and battlements the early wakened doves were fluttering sleepily, the guards at the gates still slept, the life of the city had not stirred. But beyond the caravan quarter the camels and mules of Hadj Abdullah were moving out slowly in single file.

There were seventy or eighty camels in all and ten mules, some of which carried Arab women who sat in the comfort born of habit, smoking pipes of the native tobacco.

First on the road were six camels, each carrying two children in what had been salt-panniers.

Marzuk, whose thongs had been loosened, and whose thirst had been assuaged, was but one of the twelve whom Hadj Abdullah had bought secretly or stolen, and, beyond the men engaged by him and the natives he had bribed, none knew aught of the camel's freight.

Frightened as never in his life before, bruised and sickened by the camel's irregular stride, his flesh scarred and his bones aching from the pressure of the raw hide thongs that had bound his limbs, faint for lack of food, and with nerves strained almost to breaking point, Marzuk was never in doubt about what had befallen him. He had been captured to be sold as a slave.

From the resting-place of the caravan the last camel had started on the road to Morocco, across eight hundred miles of desert, steering a north-north-westerly course over a track marked by the skeletons of men and beasts that had fallen by the way.

In her mud hut Aminah, never suspecting the truth, thought angrily and fearfully of the absent boy, and prayed that he might safely escape the hippopotami coming for their nightly prowl along the river banks.

As day succeeded day, other caravans arrived from the desert, but never a sign of the lad from the riverside came to relieve a mind grown weary now from anxiety and self-reproach. Weeks passed, and months, until Aminah knew that her prayers had failed to prevent evil spirits sacrificing her boy to the wild beasts of the river. And then she grew old suddenly, and within the year her place in the market was vacant.

Hadj Abdullah's caravan made slow progress. The dwarf forest left behind, the sand waves of the Sahara stretched out before them, and in traversing this dry and burning sea the caravan endured days and weeks of travelling that taxed men and beasts to the uttermost.

Once a day, at sunset, the caravan halted, and then Marzuk and his eleven companions were taken from their panniers and fed. The Hadj feared to travel by starlight, save when forced to it by anticipation of an attack by the veiled brigands of the desert, lest the track should be missed.

Marzuk's companion, a girl younger than himself, proved unable to endure the camel's irregular stride, the scanty food, and the blinding sunlight. Before they had been two weeks on the road she could not eat. One morning she broke out into a fit of screaming that passed gradually into moans, and then stopped abruptly. In the evening, when the baskets were lowered, Hadj Abdullah was summoned in haste, but he could do no more than curse the man who had sold the child to him for half a bar of salt, and had sworn that she was sound and fit for the caravan journey. A little hole was scooped out in the sand; the tally of the caravan had been reduced by one. Next morning the burdens were rearranged, and Marzuk was carried in a basket with another lad, the camel that had carried him being requisitioned to carry one of the drivers who had fallen sick.

For many years the hardships of the journey remained fresh and vivid in Marzuk's memory. Oases were long days apart, the brackish water was always hot and never plentiful, they saw no living things unless a viper ran across their path, or a few desert antelopes showed for a moment on the horizon. Sometimes, when the eyes ached behind tight-closed lids from the cruel glare of sky and sand, Marzuk would wake with a start at his companion's cry--"See, Marzuk! they are taking us home again". Then they saw Timbuctoo spread before them, the mosques clearly to be distinguished, the tall palm trees and clay-built houses seemingly but a few miles away. The camels would raise their heads and lengthen their stride. But the visionary city would come no nearer, and gradually it would fade before their longing eyes--the mirage that had set it down amid the sands had vanished into aching sun-scorched space.

Weeks passed slowly, so slowly that Marzuk's pannier mate, a weakling at best, succumbed to the trials of the road, and was left to rest under a little mound of sand that the first wind would level. Marzuk, too, began to lose strength, and passed long hours in a state of semi-consciousness, but he had been reared well and generously, and before he had time to break down altogether, the oasis of Tindouf was reached.

The back of the weary journey was broken. Thereafter oases were more frequent, the caravan passed great weekly markets, the country of the Touaregs was quite left behind, and the natives met were men of fair skin, though sunburnt. The Atlas Mountains appeared on the eastern horizon, filling Marzuk with brief terror, for he had never seen snow, or imagined hills like those that filled the far distance. To the little black boy from Timbuctoo, the great mountain range appeared as the awesome wall of a new world, but his curiosity helped him to pluck up spirit and prepare to face whatever the future might have in store. The Draa country was left behind, the Sus country reached and passed, Tarudant being seen hull down on the western horizon, like a ship far out at sea; and one fine morning, when rosy light peeping over the snow-filled caverns of the higher Atlas found the caravan already upon the road, the Moors raised their voices and praised a saint whose name the lad had never heard.

Marzuk rubbed sleepy eyes and saw in the plains a long way before them a great city in a forest of palm. Countless minarets glittered in the early light, the sun lighted some river of size and importance.

"Oh, my master!" cried Marzuk to the Moor who led a camel by his side, "is that a real city?"

"Truly," was the grave reply, "it is Marrakesh[5] itself."

II.

The long file of camels came at last to rest outside the Dukala gate and Hadj Abdullah placed his praying carpet on the ground, turned towards Mecca and returned thanks. No brigand had claimed dues of his merchandise, and out of the twelve children he had bought or stolen eight remained alive--a higher average than most travellers could record.

Marzuk, used from early days to fend for himself, with no special ties, and a feeling of confidence in his own capacities that none but a Soudanee would have felt under similar circumstances, gazed about him in deep wonderment. Before him stretched a city far exceeding Timbuctoo in area and importance, a place surrounded by a wall that seemed without end; he saw more palms in one direction than his native place boasted on all sides together, and the minarets of countless mosques standing slender and erect as the palms themselves.

That night they slept within Morocco City, in a great fandak indescribably filthy. The tired mules were brought in with the slaves, the camels remaining in the outer market in charge of their owner. Hadj Abdullah hired his beasts in Morocco City, paying a sum equivalent to two pounds a head for the journey out and home. In the fandak he addressed a brief warning to the children. They would have three days' rest and all the food they could eat, and on the evening of the third day they would be sold. Let them do their best and all would be well with them, if they were rebellious--he closed his mouth abruptly, but his silence was significant enough.

Left in charge of the keeper of the fandak, the children lay at their ease in the reeking straw, and gave their three days to eating and drinking and singing odds and ends of songs they had heard at home. No sound of the city reached them, save at the hours of prayer, when from every minaret the faithful were called to acknowledge the Unity of Allah. On the afternoon of the third day they were taken to the baths by a strange man, and each child was arrayed in clean white linen garments, supplemented in the case of the girls by kerchiefs of many colours.

"Follow me, O slaves," said the Moor, when they were all ready to return. He led them unresisting through the heart of the city, through the bazaars with their roofs of palm branches and box-like shops, past the arcades of the workers in brass and linen and leather and sweatmeats, to a corner where the passage ended in a heavily barred gate.

The gatekeeper drew the bolts, and showed through the open door a bare circular market-place with a broken and dilapidated arcade stretching down the centre of it, and booths all round the walls. Marzuk cast one desperate look round, as a bird at the door of a cage, but the fear of Hadj Abdullah was upon him. In another moment they had been shepherded through the gate-way and commanded to stand still while their guardian went to a Moorish official, who sat cross-legged on a carpet, and gave the numbers and description of the party.

"Five boys, three girls, Timbuctoo," repeated the official, and wrote the details laboriously on a slip of paper with a bamboo pen.

"Follow," commanded the Moor, and the children marched obediently to one of the huts or booths built out from the wall like covered pens.

"Go within, and stay there until the market is opened. Let none stir beyond the entrance," he said curtly, and seeing them safely housed, went off.

Marzuk left his companions whose terror annoyed him, and going to the mouth of the pen looked out at the scene.

He saw at once that he and his little party were not alone in the slave-market. Nearly a dozen of the other pens were tenanted for the most part by adults, who could be heard chattering or singing happily enough, and in one pen, at least, quarelling violently. Certainly, they were in no way cast down, and their indifference helped to bring further confidence to Marzuk, who beckoned the most distressed of the party--a little nine-year-old girl--to come to his side and look out.

It was the eve of a great sale. The "Court Elevated by Allah" was about to leave the southern capital for the North; the great Wazeers would be seeking to make the last changes in, or additions to, their harems and households before leaving home. On this account Hadj Abdullah had not kept the slaves longer to fatten them, preferring to take the prices that would rule at a big sale for inferior goods, than what he would get for better material when the city was half empty.

The sun was beginning to decline, and a faint freshness was coming into the sultry air. The last batch of slaves had been entered; a group of auctioneers surrounded the Government official in charge of the market, and speculated hopefully upon the prices that would rule. The keeper of the gate flung it back, and Marzuk saw the arrival of the earliest buyers.

They came in singly for the most part--Moors whose wealth was indicated by their portly presence, and by their outer robes of white and blue cloth woven in the north of England. They walked into the market-place and sat down at their ease on the ground against the unoccupied pens, or the long arcade that bisected the market-circle. Some were very old men with white beards, and a few were of forbidding appearance; but most were fat and well-favoured, True Believers to whom life came easily.

The last buyer had arrived. There must have been thirty or forty in all, and Marzuk knew that the sale was about to begin. A very old slave walked over the dusty ground, with a goatskin watering-can, and sprinkled it liberally. The dilal (auctioneer) who had brought them to the pen came up hurriedly, counted them with raised fore-finger as though they had been sheep, and told them to be ready to follow him, using the native tongue of Guinea, since Marzuk alone of the little company had as much as a smattering of Arabic.

His instructions understood, the auctioneer hurried away to the centre of the market-place, where the other dilals surrounded their chief. He looked at the sun as though to tell the hour; it was sinking behind the saint's tomb on the edge of the market-wall. He gave a signal; the selling brethren formed themselves into a line, with their chief in the centre. Then the venerable leader lifted up his voice and prayed. He praised Allah; dilals and buyers said "Amen". He cursed Satan; the company reiterated the curse. He employed the blessing of Sidi bel-Abbas, the city's patron saint, friend of sellers and buyers. Might he bless the market, the dilals and the patrons. Might he send prosperity to one and all. The dilals stood with closed eyes and extended hands and said "Amen."

Their chief's prayer came to an end. Quickly as possible the dilals hurried to the pens they presided over.

"Come forward, all," cried the one in charge of Marzuk's pen, and the frightened children needed no second bidding.

"Do as you see the others doing," said the dilal, as, with deft fingers, he rearranged the shawls of the girls and set the boy's robes straight.

Marzuk seized his little girl friend by the hand; she took the hand of another girl; the dilal stood in the centre of the line of children, four on either side of him. Meanwhile, the other auctioneers had arranged their slaves in much the same way, and the companies stepped forward to walk slowly round the market.

They moved round the circle of the market, and the dilals called loudly upon intending buyers.

"O, Abdel Karim," cried a burly Moor, as Marzuk's dilal passed him for the first time, "let me see the lad who has your right hand."

Marzuk was pushed forward. Coarsely, rather than unkindly, the Moor laid his fat hands upon the boy, felt his muscles, opened his mouth to note the state of his teeth, and asked a dozen questions that the boy's Arabic could not have compassed had he been attending. But it happened that at the moment when he was thrust into the old man's arms Marzuk looked up, just as a company of white ospreys swept high over the market, and in a moment he saw the Niger rising before him, and the scented fields he knew so well. Brave though he was, his eyes were flooded, and the words could not pass his throat.

"Newly arrived from the South," admitted the dilal rather impatiently, in explanation of what he feared would be one of the outbursts that the market saw so often; "but he is strong and well, and knows a few words."

"Forty dollars, Salesman," said the Moor briefly; "let me see the girl."

Marzuk's little companion was pushed forward and, too frightened to speak, kissed the old man's hand. He handled her with an approach to gentleness, asking the auctioneer all he wanted to know.

"Forty dollars also," he said, when the last word was spoken.

Forthwith the dilal shifted the children for whom no bid had been yet made from the right to the left hand, and took the first vacant place in the line of auctioneers and slaves, proclaiming with a loud voice: "For the boy and the girl, forty dollars each".

A quarter of an hour passed, while the salesman marched round and round with his charges, and in that brief period two smaller children passed from the left to the right hand side of the dilal. They were the remaining girls, for whom seventy dollars were offered, an amount working out in English money at ten pounds.

"A bad price--a bad price," muttered the auctioneer sadly, and then he withdrew from the line and returned to the pen. "Wait here," he said to the four boys who had not yet been asked for; "wait till the rest are sold."

Then he hurried back to the line of auctioneers with Marzuk and the three girls, proclaiming the price and merits of his wares as loudly as possible. Several times Marzuk was summoned by an intending purchaser, and his price went slowly up to fifty-five dollars, while his companion stayed at forty-eight.

For the other two girl children, a bright, intelligent pair, and not without good looks of a kind, there was a very brisk bidding; three country Kaids were bent upon purchasing them. The three sat along the arcade some twenty yards from one another, and raised the price of the two little girls three, four, sometimes five dollars at a time, the auctioneer thanking them with a "Praise be to Allah the One!" every time the price was augmented.

At last the Kaid from a town on the far side of the Atlas Mountains raised the price to one hundred and thirty-five dollars at which figure the bidding ceased, and the two children were handed over to their new master.

Greatly elated at the thought of his commission, which, though but two and a half per cent., would be quite appreciable, the auctioneer took Marzuk in one hand and the girl in the other, and marched briskly round, declaring their merits and the last bid.

The girl caught up her companion in price, and, passing from hand to hand, was chosen at last by one of the Kaids, who had failed to purchase the pair of girls, at eighty-two dollars. Marzuk saw her frightened eye and quivering lip, she looked once at him and burst into a violent paroxysm of sobbing.

But there was never a big sale in the Sok-el-Abeed without tears in plenty. They were of no more moment to the crowd than the water that the carriers from the south country sprinkled over the sandy market-place.

The auctioneer fetched another boy from the pen and walked round with him and Marzuk.

The latter felt now that the end was coming, he knew that his purchase lay between a fat white-bearded Moor from the country and the keeper of the fandak. He heard the price raised slowly to seventy-five dollars, at which the keeper of the fandak declared with an angry word that he would go no higher.

* * * * *

It was to no hard servitude that Marzuk was taken in the early days when he went for the first time to a master's house. He was appointed to wait upon his master's son, a lad of little more than his own age, and if a few blows and some ill-usage were his portion from time to time, he was troubled but little so long as food was good and plentiful.

When the two boys grew towards manhood, their relations became more intimate and friendly, and Marzuk, who had been told off to the fields at every harvest time, was raised to a rather more responsible position, and called upon to superintend the labour of the others. They worked on the land, ploughing and reaping, cultivating the orchards and digging water-pits, or they carried the produce of their master's fields to the markets of the city.