almost of everything that makes for comfort among a civilized people; humble and poverty-stricken, mean, contemptible and dirty, if you will-but they were none the less the treasured homesteads of a people rightly struggling to be free.' There could be no excuse here that this was a necessary work, inseparable from the march of civilization-for that has yet to be reimposed upon the Moors themselves-but it was simply a wanton and cruel raid, begotten of a thirst for plunder, and born of a fevered lust for slaughter, upon a people that have ever kept within their own. borders, and desire only to be allowed to live in their own way in their own land. Who could look without pity upon a spectacle of such ruthless destruction?

The treachery of the tribe to us was not the Moors' affair, and whether the Sultan has a right to this land of the Berber at all is a very open question; but in that day's savage work could be read the reasons of a once magnificent nation's decay, and the miseries and poverty of its people to-day.

In the afternoon a poor wretch was brought in, hardly able to stagger, and roughly held up by a captor on each side. He was an old man, poorly clad, and with a great gaping wound in his back, caused by a stab with a cumia. The point of the dagger had penetrated to the depth of an inch or two just by the shoulder, and his sulham was drenched in the blood that flowed from his wound. In spite of this, the poor wretch was roughly flung upon the floor, two iron collars fastened round his neck, and, heavily chained, he was left to die or recover as the seriousness of his injuries might decide. He ate nothing when the supper came-his only craving was for waterand his groans were pitiful to listen to. Presently his

1

blood began to form in pools upon the floor, and trickle in a dark red stream past our outstretched legs. It was doubtful whether he would live through the night. And in this hovel of horrors, chained with the still more unfortunate victims of the ferocity of a barbarous and cursed despotism, who in the extremity of their misery called aloud upon Allah for help, since the help of man was denied them, we had to seek our sleep.

Meanwhile the work of devastation in the surrounding country had continued all day long. Before sunset one of the soldiers pointed out to us a dark cloud of smoke wreathing up from a block of houses on a hilltop that could be seen from our open door. It was the village of Mulud and El F'kir Embarak, and as the sun went down and the silent stars shone out, the lurid flames shot up and outlined every hill and peak for many a mile away, and the house of a traitor was a heap of blackened ruins.

CHAPTER XIX.

ON THE ROAD NORTHWARD.

The order to march is given-Death of a prisoner-Sbooya stratagem-Magnificent country-We leave Sbooya land— Giluli's terms to the Imsti-The Sultan's 'paper-chase '— Al-al leaves us to our own resources-A Job's comforterThe Kaid's generosity-A touching incident-De Reya has a fall-Arrival at El Arba-We have a washing-day and a treat generally-We learn our destination-A venerable patriarch-The three-card trick-Camp beggars.

FOR Some days past, instead of asking when we should be on the move again, we had confined ourselves to inquiring how many rifles they had succeeded in collecting. As the last report gave the number as somewhere between twenty and thirty, we had hardly ventured to hope that we should resume the march. on the Saturday, as 'the Spaniard' had told us, but, to our agreeable surprise and relief, the order to start. was given by the Kaid at sunrise on that day, or, rather, the order was given the night before, and preparations were commenced at daybreak. Al-al brought us some barley khubs, and Bel F'kuk, with kindly forethought, sent Embarak with a bag full of small hard biscuits, which we crammed into our pockets to eat on the way.

The same order of march was observed as before.

First the tribesmen on foot; then the mules with the baggage, tents, etc., followed by the horsemen, prisoners, Kaid and his staff, and rear guard. When the native prisoners were ordered to come out into the courtyard, it was evident that the poor wretch that had been brought in the day before would be unable to either walk or hold himself on a mule, let alone a camel. He was faint and weak from loss of blood, and dropped on his knees as soon as he tried to stagger across the courtyard. The exertion caused the blood to flow from his wound afresh, and it would have been an act of mercy to have put a bullet through him and ended his misery at once. Instead of that, one of the soldiers roughly shook him, and, drawing his knife, threatened to cut his head off and send it to the Sultan if he didn't get up and walk. The poor fellow was too far gone for threats to move him, and in a tone of utter indifference merely murmured,

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Wakha.'* The march, however, could not be delayed by the mere trifling obstacle of a dying man, so while the other unfortunate prisoners were all chained together in one long line by the neck-collars, a fresh supply of which seemed to have been recently unearthed, he, whose only fault had been that he had stayed in his house when others had fled, and endeavoured to save his goods from the hands of marauders, was taken outside and flung upon a dungheap, while the Kaid, sitting on a house-top, calmly surveyed the scene.

As before, we were mounted on camels, and rode a little way ahead of the Kaid and his body-guard, while the Moslem prisoners walked barefooted or in slippers, urged on by blows and execrations from the soldiers.

* All right.

El F'kir Embarak and Muley Abdallah, either on account of their former rank or present feebleness, were allowed to ride on camels instead of being made to walk. Already a great change was observable in poor old Muley Abdallah. When he was first brought in a prisoner, his clothes were fairly clean. Now they were filthy; his face was begrimed with dust and dirt, and he looked haggard and ill.

As soon as I got an opportunity, I asked what had become of the wounded man. One told me they had left him there, but another afterwards said they had cut his head off to send it to the Sultan. After all, the latter was the more merciful. Left on his dungheap in the broiling sun, he would die miserably of exhaustion and loss of blood, and tortured with a raging thirst. For hours after the camp had broken up none would venture to approach the spot, and almost before the breath was out of the poor wounded captive's body the crows and vultures which hovered. over the army of the Sultan's ravagers would swoop upon him and tear the flesh from his bones.

We had scarcely been an hour on the road, when a block occurred in a narrow gorge in the mountains. We were following the course of a small stream that trickled through a deep valley, the rocky slopes of which rose up on either side to the height of about 1,200 feet. The Sbooyas, knowing the route Giluli would take, had piled up great stones across the narrow pathway in the ravine, and for nearly an hour the march was delayed. Had they gone a step further, and lined the upper slopes of the valley with armed men, while another party barred the retreat behind, Giluli's forces would have been like rats in a trap, and there would have been nothing to prevent a