Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1891-07-14

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OF half starved fanatics, he yawned, .all
Of which is very bad-very bad--bahl give
me some more kouscoussow.n
We were aroused by the sudden stop
page Of the scow
A detachment Of 'Zephyrs,p near US
upon the right bank. scrambled together
in hollow square A battalion of Cou-
lougltA with haiks and bournous ripping,
scuttled by us at a gallop and the Twenty
third Chasseurs d Antique in the front line
halted at a carry on the crest of a sand
ridge, which hid the horizon from sight;
the still, hot air of the Sahara was sud
denly pervaded with something that reused
us to our feet in an instant Santanaer
whipped out his ever ready sketch tAsk
and began blocking in the landscape and
the position Of the troops, while Thevenot
snatched his note book and ''stylograph."
Of the scene which now gathered upon
us can, in respect to time, place or rela-
1--WE succession of detail remember moth
ing, only out Of that dark chaos can res
cue few detached and fragmentary inn
pressions-all the more vivid, neverthe-
less, from their isolation, all the more dis.
tinct from the gray blue Of the background
against which they trace themselves.
Instantly, somewhere disquietingly near,
an event, or rather a whirl OF events that
rushed and writhed themselves together
into quivering maze of dizzying complex
ity, suddenly evolved and widened like the
fierce, quick rending open of some vast
scroll, and there were zigzag hurryings to
and fro and surging heavenward of a
torrent Of noises-noises Of men and noises
of feet, noises Of horses and noises of arms
noises that hustled fiercely upward above
the brown mass and closed together in the
desert air, blending or joining one with
another, joining and separating, reuniting
and dividing; noises that rattle; noises that
clanked; noises that doomed or shrilled or
thundered or quavered, and one well
known noise that, at regular intervals, was
dominant over all as of a mighty flood OF
planBs and boards falling from some vast
height upon the earth beneath. And then
came sight of blue-gray tremulous curtains
but whether of smoke or dust | could
not say-tumbling and billowing, bellying
out with the hot tempest breath of the
battle demon that ragged within and whose
outermost fringes were torn by serrated
files of flashing steel and wagering ranks
of red.
And this was all at first. | knew we had
been attacked and that behind those boil.
ing smoke pillows, somewhere and some.
A
could not tell, men, Infatuated into beasts,
were graphing and struggling, each man,
with every sinew on the strain. honestly
striving to kiln his fellow.
And now we were in the midst OF hoi-
low square of our soldiery, yet how we
came there | cannot recall, though / re-
member--trivial enough as it was-that
the water of the Jelitfe made my clothes
heavy and clingng and uncomfortable
remember this although a mortal fear sat
upon me of being shot down by some Of
our own frenzied soldiers. And then came
that awful rib cracking pressure, as from
some outward, unseen cause, the square
was thrown back upon itself
The smell of sweat, of horses and men,
the odor of the powder smoke, the blind
ing, suffocating, Supplying clouds Of dust,
the horrible fear-greater than all others
Of being pushed down beneath those thou
sands Of trampling feet, the terrible pitch
Of excitement that sickens and weakens,
the momentary consciousness--vanish
as soon as felt-that this was what men
called war" and that we were experience
ing the stern reality Of what we had 50
often read
1t was not inspiring, not thrilling; there
was no romance, no poetry about it; there
was nothing in it but the hideous jar, one
against the other, Of men drunk with the
blood lust that eighteen hundred years had
not quenched, and all its so called sublim
ity and glory faded out of sight at the
magic Of its real presence.
looked at Bah Azzoun, he was stand
ing at the gunwale of the scow-somehow
we were back on the scow again-with an
unloaded pistol in his hand. He was
watching the battle on the bank. His
nostrils quivered, and he shifted his feet
exactly like an excited thoroughbred. On
a sudden trooper of the Eleventh Cuiras-
siers came spinning round and round out
Of the brown Of battle, gulping up blood,
and pitched, wheeling, face downward,
into the soft ooze where the river licked at
the bank, raising rudy bubbles in the
same rs he blew his life breath in gasps
into it, and raking it into gridiron pat
terms as his quivering, blue fingers closed
into fists.
Instantly afterward came mighty rush
across the river beneath our very bows.
Forty odd cuirassiers burst into it, fol-
lowed by eighty or a hundred Kabyles.
can recall Just how the horse hoofs ratified
on the saucer like cakes OF dry mud and
1 flung them up in countless fragments be-
hind them. They were a fine sight, those
Kabyles, with their fierce, red horses, their
/ dazzling white bournous, their long, thin,
murderous rifle barrels, laundering and
! splashing past, while from the whole mass
| of them, from under the shadow Of every
white haik, from every black bearded lip,
was rolling their war cry, "Allah. Allah-il-
| Allahw
What long dormant recollections stirred
1 in Bah Azzoun at this old battle shout
AS he faced them now he was no longer
1 the cold, cynical boulevardier Of the morn
ing. He looked as he must have looked
when he played-a sixteen-year-old boy
about the feet Of the horses in his fathers
black tent. He saw the long lines Of the
douars Of his native home; he saw the
camels and the caravan crawling toward
the sunset; he saw the women grinding
meal he saw his father, the bearded sheik
he saw the Arab horsemen riding down to
battle; he saw the palm broad spear points
and the blue yataghans. He was no longer
the Parisien, the product OF civilization, =
the race problem" In an instant Of time
all the long years Of culture and education
were as a garment stripped away. Once
more he stood and stepped the Kabyle
and with these recollections his long for
| gotten native speech came rushing to his
tongue, and in one long, shrill, exultant
cry he answered his countrymen in theii
own language, "Allah-il-Allah. Moham
med ressOu AllahW
He passed me at a bound, leaped from
the scow upon the back Of a rderless horse
and, mingling with the band of the Ka
byles, sped out Of sight.
And that was the last ever saw of Bal
Azzoun. -Argonaut.