Morning journal and courier., 1890-11-26

Bah Azoun sneezed as he passed. The
Moorish merchants, on the contrary,
turned away from him with glance of
pity, and the pity hurt him more than the
laughter BE went his way, keeping close
to the walls and through the darkest lanes.
The spot where his cross had lam burned
him like an opeu wound, and all the time
he thought: t'what viii my cavaliers say,
what will be women sayf'
Then he was seized with a fit of rage.
He was himself preaching the "holy war;
on the frontier of Morocco, always red
with fire and battle, or roaming the streets
of Algiers at the head of his horsemen,
pillaging the jews, staying the Christians,
and falling himself in the great devasta-
ton where his shame would be forever
hidden. Anything seemed possible to
him rather than return to the tribe. All
at once, in the midst of his vengeance, the
thought of the elnberour flashed upon him
like light. The emberour, For 81 Sill
man, as for all the Arabs, all ideas of JUS
tice and of power were summed up in this
one word He was the true chief of the
faithful. He was a faith for these Mussul-
mans in their decline. That other one, he
of Stamboul, appeared to them from afar.
like an incarnation of good, sort of in
visible pope, who kept for himself only
the spiritual power, and in the Hegira in
which we live It is well known how much
that is worth
But the emberour, with his great can
non, his zouayes and his iron feet From
the moment he thought of him, Si-Sliman
believed himself saved. Surely the empe-
ror would give him back his cross 1t
was only sn affair of an eight days jour
ney, and he believed SO firmly in his sue
cess that he instructed his followers to
await his return at the gate of Algiers.
The next days packet started him towards
Paris, meditative and serene, as If for q
pilgrimage to Mecca.
Poor Si-Sliman, 1t was four months
since he left, and his letters to his wives
spoke not yet of return For four months
| the unhappy chief had been lost in the
| whirlpool of Paris, passing his life in run
| ming from one ministry to another, every
| where ridiculed, canght in the formidable
/ gear of the French administration, sent
| from bureau to bureau, soiling his burn
| ouse on the wooden seats OF the ante
chambers, ON the watch for an audience
| which he never obtained; then, in the
evening he might be seen, with his long.
\ sad face, ridiculed by its majesty, wait
ing for his key in a lodging house Office
and mounting to his room, weary with
wandering, but always proud, elnging to
hope and desperate as a gambler defend
\ ing his honor.
4 III tnc LnealNinle ms SAFaneles SquAtllnB
i at the Bah Azoun gate, waited with Orien-
tai fatalism; the horses, picketed out,
neighed from the sea-shore. In the tribe
| all was in suspense. The harvest withered
1 in the fields for lack of laborers. The
| women and children counted the days,
with eyes turned towards Paris. It was
| pitiful to see how many hopes and how
much despair and ruin followed already in
the wake of this bit of red ribbon. When
would it all ends
ssGod alone knows" said the old coffee
man, with sigh, and by the half open
door, above the sad purple plain, his bare
arm pointed to a young crescent moon
rising in the misty heavens.