The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-06-21
616-618 Washington Ave.

conauerors in their descendants. the people
of Fec are often quite blond-Zaari. or fair
ones." as the Southern Moors with the adj
mixture of more or less negroid strains call
them in contempt. Time and again l had
thought l rode by that the next time 1
met this poor fellow 1 would stop and have
a talk with him.
Though clothed in fe.id Moorish rags.
there was something distinctly suggestive
Of tho European in his general appearance.
But one has many things to think about in
Fee, and about this time one OF the things
We thought about most was whether the
rumor that had reached our camp to the
effect that the Berbers had decided to stone
us to death at the end of the Ramadan
feast was rumor of substance or mere
bazaar talk
CREATURES WEARY EXPRESSION.
So I'VE passed the strange creature by and
had become quite familiar with the weary.
hunted look that never left his face. until
one day. by sudden effort which evident
ly cost him not a little pain, he sprang up
ing feet as we neared our garden camp
We Immediately slowed up. but he, seeing
US. stopped and made unmistakahle signs
We should go on and he would follow.
We filed through the garden gate and he
slipped In unobserved with the last of the
cavalcade
ing around. saw that he was in compare,
tive safety in the midst of friends. he fell
upon the ground unconscious, and so he re-
manned for an hour or two.
That evening we began to get from him in
that dialect which is spoken in Southeast
ern Spain odds and ends of his strange adj
ings which he had survived. But i was not
for q week that we could gather from him
his whole story and so understand what 1t
IS TO be white slave IN Morocco. for white
he was.
When we had him washed in the cool
waters of our fountain under the pome-
gTanate he came out as blond as the daisies
Little by little we learned that the poor
fellow who had taken refuge in our midst
was young Spaniard from Almeria; every
now and then he would begin the story of
his antecedents and adventures in the most
matter of fact way, only ten minutes later
to burst out into a paroxysm of historical
weeping or to fall on the ground In an at
tack of epilepsy. to which he had become
subject during his years of slavery among
the Moors.
here that We afterward received. ample con-
frmation from reliable sources Of every
statement he made-was wine grower and
had sent him one day four years before our
meeting to pay off the laborers who had
been working in his vineyard.
After paying, them Of he sat down and
had glass of wine with his men, as was
the custom. and then called for his horse to
ride back home.
But the wine had gone to the heads Of
those who entertained him and they refused
to let him go. claiming In drunken jest that
he was their prisoner.
When he insisted upon going. half in play,
az though to detain him. Seeing his mas
| ter attacked. a shepherd dog. who was the
young Spaniards inseparable companion.
| sprang upon the assailant who was nearest
| to hand. In a moment his sharp teeth were
| fastened in the drunken brute's throat.
The man let go and one of his fellow
| laborers drew a pistol and killed the dog.
ESCAPE AND CAPTURE
| A struggle ensued in which the young
spaniard in a paroxysm of passion. for he
| ~ anbai N tho
| the pistol from the man who had drawn 1t.
and in a moment. before he knew what he
| was doing, had fired with deadly effect.
| In the trial that followed Pepito as we
| called him although that is not his name),
our young Spanish protege, was sentenced
! TO ten years Imprisonment and sent to Me-
| leila, the penal settlement on the Moorish
coast He had the hope that the extenu-
ing in Almeria. which ran strongly in his
| favor, would at the end of two years bring
about his pardon as far as the remainder
\ of the sentence was concerned.
| Hope left him, however, as it had left
| many another man at the prison door, and
before six months had passed. maddened BY
| the heat. the incessant labor and the en-
! forced companionship with professional
| criminals. he decided to attempt an escape
| net that he thought there was much chance
of success-in fact. as he confessed. his hope
| was that the guards who stood over the
| convicts day and night with ready rifles
| would end the life that had become bur
4
| I'VE were breaking stones" he said, ''or
the narrow neck of land which connects
| the peninsula of Melela with the Moorish
| coast. One evening, at the end of the days
| work. / slid over the masonry wall and in
! moment was in the water. Apparently
| no one saw me. not shot was fired.
| chung to the slippery rocks until night came
| and then l swan across the narrow strip
| of water upon which they were playing. a:
| always. searchlights, but again no one saw
| me. or at least, no one fired, and l made
THAT night and all the following day
| wandered about the mountains, which rise
| sheer up from the sea, and on the evening
| of the second day, starving and almost
| dead with fatigue, fell in with a party o.
| Riff mountaineers.
They carried me to their village and helt
| council of tine elders as to what they
| should do with me- and their decision wa.
! made known the next day. Provided be
| came Mohammedan they would give mt
| food and receive me into their family as
brother: II not. they would torture me t.
DEATH"
TREATED AS RENEGADE.
This was the crucial POINT in the poo
fellows story. For days we could neve
get him beyond 1t. Then it was I mad
my mistake" he would cry. Then 1t wal
gave my soul to hell fire to save my body
should have remained steadfast to tn
faith, but / chose to live and become
Moor, and they-I do not blame them-the!