A. E. W. Mason

“ We slept underground in close, earth dungeons, down to which we must crawl on our hands and knees; and at day we laboured in the sunlight, starved and thirsting, no man knowing when the whip of the taskmaster would fall across his back, and yet sure that it would fall. Luke was not to be blamed—to be pitied rather. He was of a finer, more delicate nature. What was pain to us was anguish and torture to him. One night I crept down into my earth alone, and the next day he walked about Mequinez with the robes of a Moor. He had turned renegade. ”

“ Dimoussi had chosen his opportunity well. He stood between two men, and rather behind them, and exactly opposite Challoner. All eyes were fixed upon the camera, even Challoner's. It was true that he did see the sun glitter suddenly upon something bright, that he did turn, that he did realise that the bright thing was the brass barrel of a big flintlock pistol. But before he could move or shout, the pistol was fired, and a heavy blow like a blow from a cudgel struck him full on the chest. ”

“ During the third week of his watching he saw advancing along the track mules carrying the baggage of Europeans. Dimoussi crouched in the bushes and let them pass with the muleteers. A good way behind them the Europeans rode slowly upon horses. As they came opposite to Dimoussi, one, a dark, thin man, stretched out his arm and, turning to his companion, said:
"Challoner, there is Mulai Idris."
At once Dimoussi sprang to his feet. He did not mean to be robbed of his great privilege. He shook his head.
"Lar, lar!" he cried. "Bad men in Mulai Idris. They will stone you. You go to Mequinez." ”

“ The shopman looked at Dimoussi, and looked at the pistol. Then he tossed it carelessly behind him into the litter of his booth.
"It is no good. As sure as my name is Mustapha, it would not kill a rabbit. But see! My heart is kind. I will give you three dollars."
He counted them out. Dimoussi stolidly shook his head. "Seven," said he.
Mustapha reached behind him for the pistol, and flung it down at Dimoussi's feet.
"Take it away!" said he. "I will not haggle with foolish boys who have stolen a thing of no value, and wish to sell it at a great price. Take it away! ”

“ And by those ruins once or twice a party of Europeans encamped.
Dimoussi visited each encampment, begged money of the "consools," and watched with curiosity the queer mechanical things they carried with them—their cameras, their weapons, their folding mirrors, their brushes and combs. But on each visit he became more certain that there were too many Europeans in Morocco.
"A djehad is needed," said one of the old men sitting outside the gate—"a holy war—to exterminate them."
"It is not easy to start a djehad," replied Dimoussi. ”

“ In the first place Dimoussi carried back with him from Mequinez the brass-barrelled pistol; and in the second place Arden, two years later, acted upon a long-cherished desire to penetrate the unmapped country south of Mequinez.
He travelled with a mule as a Jew pedlar, knowing that such a man, for the sake of his wares, may go where a Moor may not. Of his troubles during his six months' wanderings now is not the time to speak. It is enough that at the end of the six months he set up his canvas shelter one evening by the village of Agurai. ”

“ Sheshawan in the north, Tafilat in the south, and Mulai Idris. But Mulai Idris is safest. Once a party of them—Englishmen—came rising up the steep road to the gate even there, but from the walls we stoned them back. God's curse on them! Let them stay at home! But they must always be pushing somewhere."
Dimoussi, recognising in himself a point of kinship with the "consools," said gravely:
"I am an Englishman." ”

“ That is why I will sell it to you at the loss of a dollar."
"Liar, and son of a liar," replied the boy, without any heat, "and grandson of a liar. I sold it to you for five dollars four months ago. I will give you eight for it to-day." ”

“ Dimoussi and the Pistol
By A. E. W. Mason
Manchester Regiment
In the maps of Morocco you will see, stretching southwards of the city of Mequinez, a great tract of uncharted country. It is lawless and forbidden land. Even the Sultan Mulai el Hassen, that great fighter, omitted it from his expeditions.
But certain tribes are known to inhabit it, such as the Beni M'tir, and certain villages can be assigned a locality, such as Agurai, which lies one long day's journey from the Renegade's Gate of Mequinez. ”

“ I wonder what became of him?"
"I will take a photograph of that gate to-morrow," said Arden.
III The next morning Dimoussi came out of the Fondak Henna and walked to the little booth in the Sôk Kubba. Mustapha was squatting upon the and with a throbbing heart Dimoussi noticed the familiar pistol shining against the dark wall behind. It had not been sold.
"Give it to me," he said.
Mustapha took the pistol from the nail on which it hung.
"It is worth fourteen dollars," said he. "But, see, to every man his chance comes. I am in a good mind to-day. ”