Sidi

“ Nor is our friend the dark Sidi wanting to the throng: and he is followed by the Arab with his well-known head-gear, by the handsome Afghan, and by the broad- shouldered native of Bokhara in his heavy robes. Mark too the hurried steps of the brocade-worker from Surat, and note the contrast of colour as the grimy fitter or black-smith passes through the porch side by side with the spotlessly-clad Konkani Musulman, whose high features and olive skin betray his Indo-Arab origin. Rich and poor, clean and unclean, all pass in to prayer. ”

“ Don't forget that life here in Sidi is a great deal better than life in a desert station in the South. It is supportable anyhow; there--it simply isn't; and those who don't desert and die, go mad and die. The exceptions, who do neither, deteriorate horribly, and come away very different men.... Make the most of Sidi, my boy, while you are here, and remember that foreign service, when in Tonkin, Madagascar, or Western Africa, inevitably means fever and dysentery, and generally broken health for life.... ”

“ The Sultan—God prolong the life of our merciful lord—he then comes to my people, to my Basha, to my bashalic, and he says, 'Pay me back my forty thousand dollars'—do you hear me, Sidi, forty thousand!—'for the Nazarene who is dead.' All right. But we can not pay. Good. The Sultan—Allah save him!—he comes, he takes all we have, he puts every man of my people to the sword. We are gone, we are wiped out. Did I not say, Sidi, to be a thief in Barbary is to be a fool?"
It was cold comfort. That the man Larby was following me I was confident, and that he meant to rob me I was at first convinced. ”

“ REDBROOK. Sidi el Assif: this is one of the mighty women Sheikhs of Franguestan. She goes unveiled among Kings; and only princes may touch her hand.
LADY CICELY. Allah upon thee, Sidi el Assif! Be a good little Sheikh, and shake hands.
SIDI (timidly touching her hand) . Now this is a wonderful thing, and worthy to be chronicled with the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Is it not so, Osman Ali?
OSMAN. Allah upon thee, master! it is so.
SIDI. Brassbound Ali: the oath of a just man fulfils itself without many words. The infidel Cadi, thy captive, falls to my share. ”

“ I met Sidi Mahmoud while you were away. I grew to like him very much. He is absolutely modern—a perfect darling——"
"How many wives has the darling?"
"Three."
"There you are! Polygamous, eh? And you call him modern, my beloved aunt!"
"Can anything be more up to date—in Paris?" Mademoiselle de Tourcoing had smiled. "And the Sidi shows such exquisite taste in choosing his wives."
"How do you know?"
"Last year I was in Algiers for a few weeks. I met his youngest wife. Fathouma. Adorable name, don't you think?" ”

“ The round of Old Biskra and its villages is readily made on foot or by carriages; and one may even continue farther afield to the sandy, wavy dunes of the desert, and to the “Fontaine Chaude,” or to the Shrine of Sidi-Okba, twenty kilometres out over the camel trail of the open desert. This excursion to Sidi-Okba is classic.
Sidi-Okba sits in the midst of a fine oasis of some seventy thousand date-growing palms. It is a miserable, unlovely enough little village, but the memory of the Arab conqueror, Okba-ben-Nofi, has made it famous. ”

“ After he became a shade my association with him beguiled many dull periods.
[24] “After Sidi’s time there was a celebrated sea robber on the Ægean who was called Red Beard. Sidi and I were with him four years. He was thick set and bullet headed. His heavy jutting lips, cruel eyes, and long fiery red whiskers gave him a rough and wild look. He was an excellent and formidable pirate. Wherever there was wealth to loot, involving wholesale massacre, he was always equal to the situation. ”

“ In this persuasion, Sidi-Molut related that the sultan of Morocco had made an agreement with the sultan of the christians for the exchange of prisoners of both sexes; and that, by this treaty, a christian was to be exchanged for ten Musulmans, or a thousand piastres. The moment Body heard that the price of a christian slave was fixed at this sum, he interrupted Sidi-Molut, and said: “Well, we must sell Sidi-Abdallahi,” pointing at me with his finger. The other replied that I was not a christian but a Musulman, and that a Musulman was worth all the gold in the world. ”

“ Sidi sat down again. The basket was opened, and Edgar produced some bread and some cold kabobs (kabobs being small pieces of meat stuck on a skewer) . Sidi eat some bread and fresh fruit, but he shook his head at the meat.
"I shall do better without it," he said. "Meat is for the strong. My wound will heal all the faster without it." ”

“ With regard to the things which he saw and heard in non-Mussulman circles and districts in India, his accounts are poor compared with the descriptions of Ibn Batuta and other Moslem travelers. Sidi Ali has had hardly any intercourse with Hindus, and his route lay almost entirely through districts where the ruling caste, with whom he principally had to deal, were adherents to the Mohammedan faith. ”

“ Sidi Ahmed, the conqueror, had heard many fine things about the fabulous wealth of Barak Hageb, and more especially about his choice collection of wives; and when he was told that Barak and his women had taken to flight he thought he could not do better than start at once in pursuit. Till late at night two clouds of dust might be discerned scudding along one behind the other: the foremost raised by Barak and his wives, the second by Sidi Ahmed's horsemen. ”

“ We’ll talk of all this more fully ... when you get back from Mogador. Remember that Mr. Spink will be here before sunrise. I advised him to get away as early as possible on account of the Feast of Sidi Oman. It’s always a poor day for foreigners to be seen about the streets.”
172 VI At a quarter before four on the morning of the Feast of Sidi Oman, Willard Bent stood waiting at the door of the Mission.
He had taken leave of Mr. Blandhorn the previous night, and stumbled down the dark stairs on bare feet, his bundle under his arm, just as the sky began to whiten around the morning star. ”

“ I make each day an exquisite mosaic of gentle little habits, dove-tailing into one another, each a guarantee for the happiness of the entire day——”
“Arab materialism, Sidi?”
“No, Monsieur le Marquis! Just the logic which France taught me!”
Again they gossiped about Paris. But Roger de Villemot's psychic uneasiness, his feeling that here he was an intruder, returned when Sidi Mahmoud struck the small darbouqa drum at his elbow and shortly afterwards a lithe, golden-skinned girl, not much older than a child, entered in answer to the summons. He addressed her as Lotus Petal. ”

“ There was an Arab café where he sat, late into the night, drinking musk-flavored coffee. There was a book shop where he purchased Hebrew and Arab pamphlets which he could not read. There were always his eyes, staring at the house—he looked away, hid in the shadows when Sidi Mahmoud came or went. There was always his hope, thrusting an eager lance to the challenge of his desire.
He became a familiar figure in the neighborhood.
The people, Orientals all, shrugged their shoulders. They did not mind. They, Moslems as well as Jews, had the comfortable theory that all Christians were mad. ”

“ But at length Nature asserts her sway; and after the dancing has lasted almost without interruption for three hours, the Sidi Patel, Hassan, gives permission for a brief recess, during which he introduces to the spectators the son of the Sidi chief Makanda,—a fine specimen of manhood whose six-foot stature belies the fact that he is still according to Sidi views a minor incapable of looking after his own interests. ”

“ You learnt that many Arabs had been killed when we poured out of the city, and that others had been taken prisoners. Wounded yourself, you lose no moment in finding my two followers. All night you search among the dead for me, and carry me off to a place of safety. Then, without rest, without pause, you return to the city and begin to take measures to rescue Sidi. He was in the citadel, strongly guarded by French troops. ”

“ He slid the drum back in his burnouse, rose, pounced upon the snakes, picked them up, two in his right, the male reptile in his left hand, crammed them quickly into the basket, closed it, tied it with a stout rope and turned to Burton with a smile and an outstretched hand.
“Is the Sidi satisfied?” he asked in the fluent English which he had learned years earlier in an American circus.
“Bully! Here you are.” There was the clink of money “But——”
“Yes, Sidi?”
“I've seen you do your little parlor trick before. You usually get the brutes up again—force them to do a second dance.” ”

“ Seven thousand—and not another centime!"
"Very well, Sidi."
"Come to the Grand Hotel for the money."
"Shall I bring the necklace, or will you take it now?"
"Neither. Give it to the woman when you see her."
"She comes every day," smiled the Maltese.
"I know. Any idea who she is?"
"Who can tell? These veiled women all look alike, Sidi."
"All right. You give her that necklace." He thought quickly. "No tricks, eh? You won't cheat?"
"Would I dare," laughed the trader, "with all my competitors looking on and listening?"
"I don't suppose you would." Maturin turned to go. ”

“ The chief of the Sidi-Embarek, a family which, although of Arab race, had enjoyed great respect and influence in the country for some centuries before Turkish rule was terminated by French usurpation, had actively stimulated the persecution of the family of Omar, whose personal enemy he was. M. de Castellane gives the following account of the founder of the Sidi-Embarek:—"In 1580, a man of the Hachems of the west, named Si-Embarek, left his tribe, with two servants, and went to Milianah. ”

“ The rest of the escort scattered themselves along on each side of the long column [Pg 162] of camels. Sidi's party left at the same hour. The sheik up to that time had been engaged in superintending the arrangements for shifting camp, and asked Sidi and Edgar to stop behind for an hour or two in order that he might hear a full account of the events at Cairo. When the story was finished they partook of a meal, and then, after saying adieu, mounted and rode off, and in an hour's time overtook the slow-moving cavalcade. ”

“ We are all in God’s hands. Let my brother give thanks to Allah the most Merciful that he came to a man so friendly disposed as Salaam son of Absalaam. It shall be even as thou wishest, Sidi. But first thou and thy son must come to my village, for your bird yonder is too heavy to be carried without much preparation. It will need the shoulders of a great number of men. ”

“ Then he took off its saddle and led it to a spot Mulick pointed out, and then watched [Pg 34] the boy tether it, and took off the bridle and carried it back to the tents. A woman came out from the largest of these. She was not veiled, for except when they go into the towns the Bedouin women seldom conceal their faces.
"Ayala," the sheik said, "this is the young white lord who saved Sidi from those who attacked him; henceforth he is as one of our tribe."
"May the blessings of Allah fall upon you!" the woman said. "Sidi is our only child. ”

“ All that I could guess was, that the men had the worst of it; for every one present said something harsh to them, as disapproving the action.
I heard the name of Hassan Sidi Hassan often in the dispute. I began to suspect something, and desired in Arabic to know what that Sidi Hassan was, so often mentioned in discourse, and then the whole secret came out. The reader will remember, that this Arab, Abdel Gin, was the person that seized the servant of Hassan, the Captain of the Caravan, when he was attempting to steal the Turk's portmanteau out of my tent ”

“ You must know best. And by the second message she means that between the onion and the peel, between the Sidi's older two wives, Lella Meryem and Lella Nefoussa bent-Daoud, would she be fool enough to risk—ah—the smell? The smell of suspicion, belike of danger. Aywah, aywah, Christian! God grant us all no neighbor with two eyes!"
"Go back to her," said the Frenchman, "and tell her——"
"How much?"
"Here you are!" He paid. "Tell her that——"
"I know! Allah! The fly knows the face of the seller of milk!"
Three times within the next week Bibi Kenza went to the house of Sidi Mahmoud. ”

“ On the 28th, Sidi-Boubacar, who was become much attached to me, sent me an invitation to his house, where he waited to receive me. He seated me on a fine carpet, spread in the court, under a little shed, and then requesting me to wait a moment, he went for a friend of his, a Moor of distinction. Soon afterwards a slave brought, upon a very clear copper waiter, a meat pasty fried in butter, and a fine slice of melon, bought on the preceding day at the market of Boheim: Sidi-Boubacar broke the pasty and his friend and I as well as himself did justice to it. ”

“ A hundred of my men will ride with them as a guard, and to drive the animals.
"With the others I shall, if the Franks do damage here, harass them on their retreat, and by dashing among them at night will do them such harm that they may regret the day that they came hither. Sidi will start in the morning with the women and camels of his father's branch of the tribe. I shall send in the morning two horsemen with a white flag to meet the Franks, and to tell them, in my name, that none of my followers have aught to do with the affair in Cairo, and that I desire to live in peace with them. ”