Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1913-01-08

against the evil day When one has
money in the pocket the hand is quick
and eager to find it. But jewelry is
| protected by certain quality Of
j caution; it is not too readily passed
over bars and gaming-tables. While
i the pawnbroker stands between the
| passion and the green-baize, there's
food for thought.
Having settled these questions to
his satisfaction, there remained but
! one other, how to spend his time. 1t
would be useless to seek the English
! Bar before noon. Might as we'll ram
! BILE through the native town and the
| bazaars. He might pick up some little
curio to give to Fortune. So he
beckoned to an idle driver, climbed in
to the carriage, and was driven off as
if empires hung upon minutes
Ryanne never wearied of the ba-
zaars of Cairo They were to him no
less enchanting than the circus-pa-
rades Of his youth. In certain ways,
| they were not to be compared with
those in Constantinople and Smyrna;
but, on the other hand, there was
! more light more charm, more color
Perhaps the magic nearness of the
desert had something to do with it,
the rainless skies, the ever-recurring
suggestions of antiquity His lively
observation, his sense of the pictur-
esQue and the humorous, always close
i to the surface, gave him that singular
/ impetus which makes man a prowler
! This gift had made possible his sue
cess in old Bagdad Some years be
4 fore he had prowled through the mar
row city streets, had noted the wind
lngs, the blind-alleys, and had never
/ forgotten. Faces and localities were
written indelibly upon his memory
One rode to the bazaars, but walk
/ ed through them or mounted donkeys.
\ Ryanne preferred his own legs. So
| did Mahomed. Once, so close did he
come that he could have put his two
brown hands round the inf1del's throat
But, patience. Did not the Koran
teach patience among the higher laws
! Patience. He could not, madly as he
had dreamed, throttle the white liar
/ here in the bazaars. That would not
bring the Holy Yhiordes to his hands.
He must wait. He must plan to lure
the man out at night, then to hurry
him into the desert. Out into the des-
ert, where no man might be his mas
ter. oh. the Holy Yhiordes should be
his again; it was written.
The cries, the shouts, the tower of
Babel reclaimed; the intermingling of
the races of the world: the English
man, the American, the German. the
Italian, the Frenchman, the Greek, the
Levantine, the purple-black Ethiopian,
the bronze Nubian; the yelled women.
the naked children; all the color-tones
known to art. but predominating, that
marvellous faded tint of blue. the
Cairene blue, in the heavens, in the
waters, in the dyes
Make way, Q my mother!" bawled
a donkey-boy to the old crone ped
ding matches.
'Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" in the
eight tones of the human voice. From
the beggar, his brother, his uncle,
his grandfather, his children and his
children's children. ''Blacksheesh.
backsheesh!"
''To the right" was shrilled into
Ryanne's ear; and he lodged. A
troop of donkeys passed, laden with
tourists, unhappy, fretful, self-con-
scious. A water-carrier brushed
against him, and he whitfield the fresh
dampness of the bullying goat-skin. A
woman, the long, black head-veil
streaming out behind in the clutch of
the monkey-like hand of toddling
child, carried a terra-cotta water-iar
upon her head. The grace with which
she moved, the abruptness of the col
exchanges, caught Ryanne's rowing
eye and filled it with pleasure.
Dust rose and subsidized, eddied and
settled; beggars blind and one-eyed
squatted in it, children tossed it in
play, and beasts of burden shufled
/ through it.
The roar in front of the shops. the
pressing and crowding of customers,
the high cries Of the merchants; the
gurgle Of the water-pipes, the pleasant
fumes Of coffee, the hardy loafers
lolling before the khans or caravan
saries; a yelled face at a lattice-win-
dow; the violet shadows in a doorway;
the sunshine upon the soaring
mosques; a true believer, rocking and
mumbling over his tattered Koran;
gold and silver and jewels; amber and
copper and brass; embroideries and
rugs and carpets; and the pest of fleas,
the plague Of flies, the insidious
smells.
Rarely one saw the true son of the
desert, the Bedouin. He disdained
streets and walls, and only necessity
brought him here among the polyglot
and the polygon.
Ryanne found himself inspecting
''the largest emerald in the world,
worth twelve thousand pounds" which
looked more like a fine hexagonal Of
onyx than gem. It was one of the
curiosities of the bazaars, however,
ana tourists were generally round it