Marah

“ When the morning came, the fakir landed, and brought with him the Koran, and ordered Marah Silu to read the Koran; and he read it. Then said the fakir to Sheikh Ismail, the Nakhoda of the vessel, "This is the land of Samadra, mentioned by the holy prophet." Then Sheikh Ismail landed all the royal accoutrements which he had brought with him, and installed Marah Silu, as raja, under the title of Sultan Malec al Salih. ”

“ And in the very torrent of the man's meditative and solitary passion, a very Phlegethon of agony and fury and ravenous hunger after the achievement of a desperate expiation, comes the sudden touch of sarcasm which serves as a momentary breakwater to the raging tide of his reflections, and reveals the else unfathomable bitterness of a spiritual Marah that no plummet even of his own sinking can sound, and no infusion of less fiery sorrow or less venomous remembrance can sweeten. ”

“ And Moses said unto them, ‘It is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.’”**
* Exod. xv. 23-25. The station Marah, “the bitter waters,” is identified by modern tradition with Ain Howarah. There is a similar way of rendering waters potable still in use among the Bedawin of these regions. ** Exod. xvi. 13-15.
“And the house of Israel called the name thereof ‘manna: ‘and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” * “And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited ”

“ Hamed Ali argued.
"But you will muddy your hand to the wrist fishing it out," came the priest's rejoinder. "Love without children is an indecency and a blasphemy"; and he reinforced his point by quoting lengthily from the religious precepts of the Marah al-Falah, and reinforced the latter by two paragraphs from the Sharh Aini.
"Shall I blame my wife because of fate?" asked Hamed Ali. "It is not the fault of the springtime that the leafless tree does not bring forth leaves. It is not the fault of the sun that the owl cannot see by daylight. ”

“ Marahgoo are man-shaped devils, to be recognised by the white swansdown cap they wear, and the red rugs they carry. Red is a great devil's colour amongst blacks some will never wear it on that account.
These Marahgoo always have with them a mysterious drink, which they offer to any one they meet. It is like drinking dirt, and makes the drinker dream dreams and see visions, in which he is taken down to the underground spirit-world of the Marahgoo, where anything he wishes for appears at once. The entrance to this world is said to be near a never-drying waterhole, in a huge scrub, near Pilliga. ”

“ Generations had lived and died since the ghost city of the other days had throbbed with life, still the stucco of the walls was yet ivory white, and creamy yellow, and it looked from the pine woods like a far reaching castle of dreams. ”

“ You have heard that laughter, and have lived, and have brought back your child out of the sands of death. It has given you the medicine for your son that is strong medicine. You have lived to walk with us and that is well. ”

“ Do you know what it is to absorb the elastic breath of the mountains at the awakening of day? To stand far above the levels and watch the faint amethystine peaks catch one by one their cap of gold flung to them from an invisible sun? ”

“ It is all well for you, Marquise, to scoff at the omens; you are too learned to believe in them; but it is in our blood, perhaps, and it’s no use us fighting against presentiments, for they’re stronger than we are. ”

“ You speak to me like a guardian angel of my people; your voice is like a trumpet, it stirs 207 echoes in my heart, and the next minute you laugh as though it were all a play, and I were a child to be amused.”
“‘And each man in his time plays many parts,’” quoted Judithe, thoughtfully, then with a mocking glance she added: “But not so many as women do.” ”

“ Kit’s gone loco on that attraction,” agreed the old prospector, and then with a reminiscent light in his tired old eyes he added, “I reckon there’s no other thing so likely to snare a man on a desert trail. You see, Billie-child, it’s just as if the great God had hid a treasure in the beginning of the world to stay hid till the right lad ambled along the trail, and lifted the cover, and when a fellow has youth, and health and not a care in the world, the search alone is a great game––And when he finds it! ”

“ A squaw possessed of shyness was such a direct contradiction of those she had seen, that the white girl found herself watching the Indian one with a sort of curiosity—in fact, she rode her horse over in the direction of the ponies, thinking the form she had a glimpse of was only a child; but it was not, for back of the ponies it lay flat to the ground as a snake, only the head raised, the eyes meeting those of Miss Hardy with a half scowl, and the bright-beaded dress outlining the form of a girl perhaps twenty years old, and dressed much neater than any she had seen in the camp. ”

“ The girl had deliberately stood watching that little scene with a curious smile in her eyes, a semi-cynical gaze at the lingering fondness of voice and touch. There was no envy in her face, only a sort of good-natured disbelief. Her cousin Clara always averred that Rachel was too masculine in spirit to ever understand the little tendernesses that burnish other women's lives. ”

“ The Vijil family was scattered around in the open, most of them under the ramada, and after a frowning moment of mystification the young fellow resumed his task, but in silence.
Then, after a still minute, more than the whisper of a whistle came to him––the subdued sweet call of a meadow lark. ”

“ But for all the daring brightness of her glances, it was not a joyous face, such as one would wish a girl of seventeen to possess. A little cynical curve of the red mouth, a little contemptuous glance from those brown eyes, showed one that she took her measurements of individuals by a gauge of her own, and that she had not that guileless trust in human nature that is supposed to belong to young womanhood. ”

“ The confessor of superlative wickedness droned his avowal in diminishing volume as the burros pattered along the white dust of the valley road, then the curve to the west hid them, and all was silence but for the rustle of the wind in the mesquite and the far bay of Singleton’s hounds circling a coyote. ”

“ And, my dear, good, innocent little lady, just so long as you all try to persuade me that I should go out among young people of my own age, just so long must I be forced to think of how different my life has been to theirs. ”

“ To feel the cool crispness of the heights, tempered by the soft "Chinook" winds? To feel the fresh wet dews of the morning on your hands and on your face, and to know them in a dim way odorous—odorous with the virginity of the hills—of the day dawn, with all the sweet things of form or feeling that the new day brings into new life?
A girl on Scot's Mountain seemed to breathe in all that intoxication of the hill country, as she stood on a little level, far above the smoke of the camp-fire, and watched the glowing, growing lights on the far peaks. ”

“ This day as the young man sat smoking in such silence, viewing idly the passing Indians whose dark faces were lit by the rosy glow of the lowering sun, and watching the circling doves whose white wings caught flashes of pink from pink clouds above, the older man, regarding his thoughtful face, asked after a quiet interval, "What is it, my friend?" ”

“ The startled boy made a movement as if to run again as Kit rode up, then halted, fear and fateful resignation changing the childish face to sullenness.
“Buenas tardes, Narcisco.”
“Buenas tardes, señor,” gulped the boy.
“I turned back to catch the horse of the señorita for you,” observed Rhodes. “It is best you tie him when you lead him back, but first give him water. Thirst is perhaps the cause he is restless.” ”

“ In the far-away time when the giant aliso had flourished there by the cañon stream, its height might have served to mark the special ravine where it grew, but the lightning sent by pagan gods had annihilated that landmark forever, and there was no other.
The glint of tears shone in the eyes of Tula, and she rode with downcast eyes, crooning a vagrant Indian air in which there were bird calls, and a whimpering long-drawn tremulo of a baby coyote caught in a trap, a weird ungodly improvisation to hear even with the shining sun warming the world. ”

“ A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of golden haze. All that radiance touched the land and sea as the carriage of Don Eduardo, preceded by Rafael and Doña Angela, and followed by Fernando and Juanita, who had been a guest of Doña Maria, and back of all the rest the Indian servants and the nurse for the child on the carriage cushion. ”

“ It was high tide, and the beach road was deep [70] enough for a horse to swim. Raquel had ridden far ahead, and now stood on the brink of a torrent cutting its way down from the hills to the sea.
The girl glanced back at the swaying chariot-like carriage on a far hill, and wondered what would be expected of their broncos in this crisis.
The animal she herself rode danced and fretted with fright at the roar of the surf and the dash of the hill stream, but she sat the saddle with ease, answering to every curve or side leap as lightly as a gull that floated on the incoming wave. ”

“ This was the fourth day of the fasting. He, Tahn-té, had been strong as few men are strong, but suddenly in the night, earth and sky seemed to meet, and putting out his hands he groped through a thicket of the young pines, and fell there quite close to the dancing water––and all the life of earth drifted far. He, Tahn-té, the devotee of the Trues––the weaver of spells, and dancer of the Ancient Dance to the God of the Stone, lay at last in the stupor beyond dreams, helpless in the path of an enemy if any should trail him for battle. ”

“ Bryton could see her there surrounded by the gay people, almost nunlike with the strings of black pearls around her throat as sole ornament, and in the braids of her hair the white stars of the odorous jasmine, thrust there by Ana, to break the severity of her garb. Her eyes burned like purple stars, and the pink color crept, in spite of herself, to her cheeks, and stayed there. Somewhere, she knew, one man was watching her, and each moment the terror grew that some of their many friends would bring him to her and make it impossible for him to refuse to come. ”

“ I know you do not think of men—that it is to live ever in cloisters! But pray God that the man may never come, Raquel—for a girl is only a girl, after all!"
"Of course, but—"
"Oh, you would argue, because you do not know!" burst out Ana, with impatience. "Raquel, you are so good you are always beautiful; but I tell you truly, that if it should happen—all the saints could not help you. Between your vow for the soul of Rafael and your love for the one man—"
"Well, my Anita?"
"Well, you could not live through it and remain what you are. Any woman would go mad—any woman." ”

“ Another canoe, with a woman in it, skimmed over the waters in the twilight that evening—a woman with all the gladness of youth in her bright eyes, and an eagerness for the north country that far outstripped the speed of the boat.
Each dark tree-trunk as it loomed up from the shores, each glint of the after-glow as it lighted the ripples, each whisper of the fresh, soft wind of the mountains, was to her as a special welcome. ”

“ My child, you are as royal as they by nature. It is the cultivation, the training, the intellect built up through generations, by which they are your superiors today. If your own life is commendable you need not be ashamed because of your race. ”

“ All the good will of gift-bought friends helped the strangers not at all to the finding of the trail of gold. In the sands of the streams some fragments no larger than seeds of the grass were found, and in the cañon of Po-et-se some of the adventurers dug weary hours in the strange soil where the traces are yet plain of black ashes, and charred cinders far beneath the sagebrush growth of to-day. ”

“ Do they wish to lie, or do they not know? The heart does not laugh with love; it aches. The light and the glory of it comes, and after that comes the earthquake; and the life is shaken out of us, and all we can do is to make ourselves a sacrifice."
"Holy saints! I never knew love was all that!" acknowledged Ana. "It means also to dance, to listen to your lover's songs in the night under your window, and to go to sleep satisfied that he is not with some other girl. ”

“ Not rebels, señor, not prisoners of battle,––but herdsmen and ranch people, poor Indian farmers whom only devils would harm! Thus it was, señor, until little by little Don Adolf knew so much that José Perez awoke to find he had a master, and a strong one! It was not one man alone who caught him in the net; it was the German comrades of Don Adolf who never forgot their task, even when he was north in the States. They needed a man of name in Hermosillo, and José Perez is now that man. When the whip of the German cracks, he must jump to serve their will. ”

“ He may win seven heavens for aught I care. But, name of God! sing no praises of him for saving Raquel Estevan for me! She is not a woman, Anita! Never a woman for a man who wants a wife. By God, I think she is the devil turned saint; and the man who carries her to the hills is my friend and earns a herd of horses!"
"Santa Maria! You are mad over that other woman, Rafael Arteaga. Every one sees it but Raquel; and when she does see it—"
"She! she sees nothing but her saints on the altar! She has only the heart of a nun in that white breast of hers. ”