The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ the light of many fires the prisoners saw. There were two big huts — long and low roofed. They were solidly built on stout, heavy stakes, and to each stake a man was fastened. A long chain clamped about his legs gave him liberty to sleep on the inside of the hut and work at the fire outside.

      There they sat, twelve men without hope, hammering spear heads for Likilivi, and each man was a skilled N’Gombi workman, artistically “drowned” for Likilivi’s profit.

      “Here shall you sit,” said Likilivi to the two silent watchers, “and if you work you shall be fed, and if you do not work you shall be beaten.”

      “I see,” said one of the captured.

      There was something strange in his tone, something dry and menacing, and Likilivi stepped back showing his teeth like an angry dog.

      “Put the chain upon them,” he commanded, but his relatives did not move, for the prisoner had dropped his blanket from his arm, and his revolver was plain to be seen.

      Likilivi saw it too and made a recovery.

      “You are one of Sandi’s spies,” he said thickly. “Now I swear to you that if you say nothing of this I will make you rich with ivory and many precious things.”

      “That I cannot do,” said the man, and Likilivi, peering at the brown face closely, saw that this N’Gombi man had grey eyes, and that he was smiling unpleasantly, just as Sanders smiled before he sent men to the Village of Irons to work in bondage for their crimes.

XIV. The Praying Moor

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      Abiboo told Sanders that an Arabi had come to see him, and Arabs are rare on the coast, though certain dark men of Semitic origin have that honorary title.

      Sanders came out to his stoep expecting to find a Kano, and was surprised to see, squatting by the edge of the raised verandah, a man of true Moorish type. He sat with his hands about his knees wrapped in a spotless white djellab.

      “You are from Morocco,”* said Sanders in Arabic, “or from Dacca?” The man nodded.

      “The people of Dacca are dogs,” he said, in the singsong voice of a professional storyteller. “One man, who is a cousin of my mother’s, stole twenty douros from my house and went back to Dacca by a coast boat before I could catch him and beat him. I hope he is killed and all his family also. Bismallah. God is good!”

      Sanders listened, for he knew the Tangier people for great talkers.

      The man went on. “Whether a man be of the Ali or Sufi sect, I do not care. There are thieves of both kinds.”

      “Why do you come here?” asked Sanders.

      “Once I knew a man who sat in the great sok.” (Sanders let him tell his story in his own way.) “And all the country people who brought vegetables and charcoal to the market would kiss the edge of his djellab and give him a penny.

      “He was an old man with a long white beard, and he sat with his beads in his lap reciting the Suras of the Koran.

      “There was not a man in Tangier who had not kissed the edge of his djellab, and given him five centimes except me.”

      “When the people from faraway villages came, I used to go to a place near the door of his little white house and watch the money coming to him.

      “One day when the sun was very hot, and I had lingered long after the last visitor had gone, the Haj beckoned me and I went nearer to him and sat on the ground before him.

      “He looked at me, saying no word, only stroking his long white beard slowly. For a long time he sat like this, his eyes searching my soul.

      “‘My son,’ he said at last, ‘how are you called?’

      “‘Abdul az Izrael,’ I replied.

      “‘Abdul,’ he said, ‘many come to me bringing me presents, yet you never come.’

      “‘Before God and His prophet,’ I swore, ‘I am a poor man who often starves; I have no friends.’

      “‘All that you tell me are lies,’ said the holy man, then he was silent again. By and by he spoke. “‘Do you say your prayers, Abdul?’ he asked.” ‘Four times every day,’ I replied. “‘You shall say your prayers four times a day, but each day you shall say your prayers in a new place,’ and he waved his hand thus.”

      Abdul Azrael waved his hand slowly before his eyes. Sanders was interested. He knew the Moors for born storytellers, and was interested. “Well?” he said.

      The man paused impressively. “Well, favoured and noble master,” he said, “from that day I have wandered through the world, praying in new places, for I am cursed by the holy man because I lied to him, and there is that within me which impels me. And, lord, I have wandered from Damaraland to Mogador, and from Mogador to Egypt, and from Egypt to Zanzibar.”

      “Very pretty,” said Sanders. “You have a tongue like honey and a voice like silk, and it is written in the Sura of the Djinn, ‘Truth is rough and a lie comes smoothly. Let him pass whose speech is pleasing.’”

      Sanders was not above taking liberties with the Koran, as this quotation testifies.

      “Give him food,” said Sanders to his orderly, “later I will send him on his way.”

      A little later, the Commissioner crossed over to the police lines, and interrupted the Houssa Captain at his studies — Captain Hamilton had a copy of Squire’s Companion to the British Pharmacopaeia open before him, and he was reading up arsenic (i) as a cure for intermittent fever; (ii) as an easy method of discharging himself from the monotony of a coast existence.

      Sanders, who had extraordinary eyesight, comprehended the study at a glance and grinned.

      “If you do not happen to be committing suicide for an hour or so,” he said, “I should like to introduce you to the original Wandering Jew from Tangier.”

      The Houssa closed his book with a bang, lit a cigarette and carefully extinguished the match.

      “This,” he said, addressing the canvas ceiling of his hut, “is either the result of overwork, or the effect of fishing in the sun without proper head protection.”

      Sanders threw himself into a long seated chair and felt for his cheroots.

      Then, ignoring the Houssa’s insult, he told the story of Abdul Azrael, the Moor.

      “He’s a picturesque mendicant,” he said, “and has expressed his intention of climbing the river and crossing Africa to Uganda.”

      “Let him climb,” said the Houssa; “from what I know of your people he will teach them nothing in the art of lying. He may, however, give them style, and they stand badly in need of that.”

      Abdul Azrael accordingly left headquarters by the store canoe СКАЧАТЬ