Sawah

“ The horse stopped abruptly as she jerked on the reins and she slid off as if he had been greased, and landed in the soft grass beside the road.
“Here, let me try,” said Sahwah, impatient for her turn. “He isn’t either slippery,” she said, when she got on, “he’s bony, horribly bony. He’s just like knives.” She jolted up and down a few times on his hip bones and an idea jolted into her head. Getting off she ran into the house and came out again with a sofa pillow, which she proceeded to tie on his back. Then she rode in comparative comfort, amid the laughter of the girls. ”

“ The others never thought of stopping.
“But you aren’t fat,” she retorted when Sahwah protested against her dropping out. “You can run up and downstairs like a spider; no wonder you aren’t tired. I’m completely inside.”
“You’re what?”
“Completely inside. Classical English for ‘all in.’ ‘All in’ is slang, and we can’t use slang in Nyoda’s house, you know.”
[102]
Sahwah snorted and returned to the search, which was now centered in Uncle Jasper’s study.
“Now tell me about your getting rescued,” said Sylvia. ”

“ Sahwah knew that it was broken. But even then her presence of mind did not desert her. Shoving Gladys out ahead of her with her good arm, she propelled herself with her legs, swimming on her back, and slowly they began to move toward the distant shore. The half mile that was nothing to Sahwah ordinarily now became an endless stretch. The pain in her arm made her feel faint, and her limbs, tired from her long swim, seemed suddenly to have turned into lead. The clouds above turned black, then blood red, then every color of the rainbow. ”

“ That harp was hers, likewise the bed in which you are going to sleep, Sahwah. She was a young girl at the time of the Revolution, and her father and both her brothers fought in the war, as well as the man she was to marry. There is a story about her in Uncle Jasper's history of the Carver family, how she saved her lover from the Indians. This valley was the scene of many skirmishes between the Colonial troops and the Indians, who had taken sides with the British. ”

“ The territory of Siwah is of considerable extent; [5] its principal and most fruitful district is a well watered valley of about fifty miles in circuit, hemmed in by steep and barren rocks. Its soil is a sandy loam, in some places rather poached or fenny; but, assisted by no great industry of the natives, it produces corn, oil, and vegetables for the use of man or beast: its chief produce, however, consists in dates, which, from their great quantity and excellent flavour, render the place proverbial for fertility among the surrounding Arabs of the Desert. ”

“ The Siwans are town dwellers whose dominant principle has been a sort of communism, whereas the Arabs are nomads, who adopted patriarchalism as their method of rule. The Siwans fought on foot, the Arabs were essentially cavalry. There are sheikhs in Siwa, but they are more like the members of a town council, while the real Arab sheikh corresponds to the feudal lord of the Middle Ages. It is strange to find the Siwans, with such a definite, different scheme of living, existing in the midst of a desert whose Arab population regards them almost as foreigners. ”

“ Inside of five minutes after Sahwah left it was dark as midnight in the Punch Bowl, dark with an inky blackness that clutched at Oh-Pshaw as with hands while the hideous gurgling filled her ears and turned her blood to water. She was going to faint, she knew it; the strength went out of her limbs; icy drops gathered on her forehead. Then she remembered. She dared not faint. She must keep her hand pressed tightly over the wound in the man's head to keep the blood from flowing. Sahwah had said so. Sahwah said he would bleed to death if she did not. ”

“ The inhabitants of Siwah speak a dialect of the Berbery, and only a very few of them know any word [256] of Arabic; they are unquestionably an Aboriginal people, probably the descendants of one of the Nomad tribes, who inhabited the interior of Libya, and who may have succeeded to the possession of the Oasis of Ammon, after the extinction of the Roman power in this country. The entire population consists of the inhabitants of Siwah Proper, which is divided into east and west, and those of Agharmy, a small town about two miles to the east, in all little more than four thousand souls. ”

“ The palm groves of Siwa are very beautiful. It seems a veritable Garden of Hesperides when one arrives there after a long trek on the waterless desert which surrounds the oasis. One appreciates the slumberous shade of the luxuriant gardens, long, lazy bathes in the deep cool springs, and feasts of fruit on the banks of little rushing streams. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Siwans are lazy and indolent, for their country is in many ways a land of Lotus Eaters. The natives have a happy-go-lucky Omar Khayyámish outlook on life which is accentuated by the place they inhabit. ”

“ His eyes reviewed his surroundings without any of the surprise of unaccustomedness; obviously the scene was not strange to him. He smiled at Jew and Moslem, Christian and Infidel, with a pleasant patronage which one or two itinerant pedlars and shop touts returned with obsequious affability. One man, indeed,—a bronzed, hawk-nosed specimen of the desert Arab clad in a ragged djelab of brown,—laughed gaily, plucked a carnation from behind his ear, and flung it to his small admirer as he passed. ”

“ While Moh-Kwa is wondering an’ growling, there comes walking Shaw-shaw, the Swallow, who is a young man of the Sioux. The Swallow has a good heart; but his spirit is light an’ his nature as easily blown about on each new wind as a dead leaf. So the Sioux have no respect for the Swallow but laugh when he comes among them, an’ some even call him Shau-goh-dah-wah, the Coward, for they do not look close, an’ mistake lightness for fear. ”

“ Berthe Louison had not reached the idle luxury of employing a dozen Hindus in infinitesimal labors near her person. For she fathomed easily Ram Lal’s devotion to Major Alan Hawke.
The presence of keen-eyed Marie Victor’s brass camp-bed in My Lady’s sleeping-room was a source of wonder to the velvet-eyed spy who was Ram Lal’s especial “Bureau of Intelligence.” “Strange ways has this Mem-Sahib,” murmured the Hindu when he craved to know if the Daughter of the Sun and Light of the World desired aught. “I will then have two to watch. The waiting woman has the eye of a tiger.” ”

“ And a very effective method he had taken, too, for the play without the statue of Joan of Arc would have been nothing.
Sahwah stood still on the street and tried to get her bearings. She was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. She walked up the street. Coming toward her was a man. Sahwah breathed a sigh of relief. Without a doubt he would see the trouble she was in and free her. Now Sahwah did not know it, but in the scramble with the dog the button had been pushed which worked the halo. ”

“ Two hours ago a band of the Beni M'Geel, Berbers, left by the eastern gate as for Ber Rechid. They had with them two Arabs and a woman under the canopy of which I spoke. Arab and Berber, especially if the latter are of the Beni M'Geel, do not usually travel together."
"You observed the men?"
"Not narrowly, my Major. One was of a smiling countenance, hook-nosed, and clad in a djelab of brown. He walked beside the arba and his talk, as I judged it, was to the woman, who, however, made no reply. The other had the hood of his haik pulled far over his face. I did not see it." ”

“ They have a number of purely local customs and practices which are entirely different to those which are prevalent in Egypt, or among the Arabs of the Western Desert. The Siwans are Mohammedans, and strictly religious in most of their observances, but in some of their habits one can trace a faint resemblance to rites that [208] have survived from former times, long before the people adopted their present religion. But most of the apparently meaningless practices are founded on the inherent fear of evil spirits, which are implicitly believed in by all the inhabitants. ”

“ I know they have killed him!"
"Sahib! Sahib!" called voices loudly on the verandah.
The coolies pulling at the punkha joined in a chorus of "Sahib, Sahib!"
"We are sent to call the Bara Sahib. Haste and wake him. A great calamity hath befallen."
"A murder has been committed, wake the Sahib!"
"Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Bright springing from his bed. "What are they saying? A murder? Where?"
"At Captain Dalton's bungalow. The doctor has been murdered!—how terrible! Honor always said people were plotting against his life," said Mrs. Bright, horror-stricken. ”

“ As the room looks cluttered with those odd pieces in there I have kept it locked.”
[39]
“Your uncle’s study!” exclaimed Sahwah. “Oh, I wonder if there wouldn’t be a concealed door in there! It seems such a likely place. Would you care very much if we went and looked there?”
Nyoda laughed at Sahwah’s eagerness in her quest. “You’re a true Winnebago,” she said fondly. “Never leave a stone unturned when you’re looking for anything. I might as well say yes now as later, because I know you will never rest until you have investigated that room. You’re worse than Bluebeard’s wife. ”

“ Migwan was almost beside herself to think that anything had happened to Sahwah while she was staying with her. The day dragged along like a nightmare. In the afternoon Calvin had an inspiration. “Why didn’t I think of it before?” he almost shouted. “Here’s Pointer; he’s a hunting dog and can follow a trail. We’ll set him to find Sahwah’s trail.” ”

“ Sahwah had never dreamed how many friends she had until this misfortune overcame her. Boys and girls, as well as old people and little children, horrified at the calamity, came by the dozen to offer cheer and comfort. Her room was filled to overflowing with flowers. Even "old Fuzzytop," whom Sahwah had tormented nearly to death, came to offer his sympathy and present a potted tulip. Stiff and precise Miss Muggins came to say how she missed her from the Latin class. Aunt Phoebe forgave all the jokes she had made at her expense and sent over a crocheted dressing jacket made of fleecy wool. ”

“ Lifting up the weighty tins and drawing up the skins of water gives the girls an opportunity for coquettish displays of neat arms and ankles, but an infinitely more modest expanse is exhibited by these Arabs than by the average young woman in England to-day. But in Siwa if one rode past a spring where women were washing clothes they would run off into the gardens as fast as they could, and even when a Siwan man came to the pool they retired hurriedly with shawls pulled over their faces, and waited some distance away. ”

“ It is not very deep, and the volume of water which it discharges is so small, that it was emptied in two days, some few years ago, by persons in search of treasure. All, or nearly all, the walls of Siwah are of the same description; they were once more numerous than they now are; but the mechanical genius of the present inhabitants is so deficient that some of the wells, even within the memory of man, have been allowed to get [282] stopped up by the falling in of their sides—one, for instance, on a hill to the south, to which medicinal virtues were ascribed. ”

“ I was roughly aroused from my reflections by Rama Ragobah.
“Come, Sahib,” he said, as his thick lips curled sneeringly, “suppose you try your spells upon me? You will never have a better chance than now to show your power,” and again he made a slight movement toward me with the gleaming knife. The moon, low down upon the horizon, sent a broad beam of light into the entrance of the cave and over the head and shoulders of the Indian. ”

“ Of the women there is hardly one who understands anything but the Siwy Berbery.
They are a singularly ugly race, with dark-brown complexion, and a truly bestial expression, but with no trace of the negro type, while they are still further removed from the Arab and Copt. Their fierce disposition makes them dreaded by the Arabs, who come to Siwah to buy dates, and who are subjected during their stay there to a most rigorous police. Those of the women whom I saw through my telescope on the roofs of the houses, were not more agreeable in appearance than the men ”

“ The old Sahib is very generous to the child. And the dragon loves trinkets, too!” Then Alan Hawke’s eyes gleamed.
“She knows your shop here?”
“Perfectly,” replied Ram Lal, “and comes alone—on the master’s business. You know I had many dealings with Sahib Hugh Fraser in the old days,” mused the jeweler. “He always admits my men. I have valued gems for him for twenty years.”
“Good!” cried the happy Major. “I want to send a man now to her with a note. I am going to put up at the United Service Club, but I must see this woman first. ”

“ Brothers, my blood is red with Siwash, but my heart is white. To the faults of my fathers I owe the one, to the virtues of my friends the other. A great truth came to me when I was yet a boy. I learned that to your kind and you was given the earth; that the Siwash could not withstand you, and like the caribou and the bear, must perish in the cold. ”

“ These precautions of the Siwy are said to be as efficacious as those of the Djin, who kept his lady-love in a box; and the moral character of the Siwah fair is such, that had he reigned here, Pheron would probably never have recovered his eye-sight.
The men are notoriously bad, at the same time that they are among the most fanatical Moslemin in Africa. In fact, I had good reason to believe correct what was said to me of them:—“Every vice and every indulgence is lawful (Hellal) to the Siwy. Nothing is forbidden to them (Haram) , but the presence of a Christian.” ”