THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 HF.CTOR FRANCE 
 
 ■f \\\ tl)C 
 
 Cl)rtsttj0fment 
 
 of 
 
 som 
 
 
 PARIS 
 
 Cljarles ffiarrtn^ton 
 
 13, FAUnOlRC, MOXTMAHTRE 
 18.98
 
 AfriN^^^ 

 
 L'Amour an Pays Bleu 
 
 By 
 
 Hector prance 
 
 Translated ty ALFRED ALLINSON, 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY J. WELY (OF PARIS) 
 
 Gharles Carrington 
 
 13 faubourg Montmarfre 13 
 
 1898
 
 Rights of Reproduction reserved
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 To Camille Delthil 
 
 On horseback, riding among my comrades of the red 
 cavahy, I jotted down the first outlines of this book. 
 Then I forgot all about the flying leaves that, burned 
 brown by the sun, stained by rain and damp, frayed 
 against the saddle, torn and tumbled, lost in cantonments 
 and found again, had lain by me so long. 
 
 But on an evening in December, when the London fog 
 hung heavy on the lungs, entering — and the English spleen 
 along with it — at every chink and crevice ofiTl-fitting 
 door or window, I was fain to forget a while my exile--—^^ 
 and my surroundings and the inexorable flight of time. 
 
 And like a mare that heat of blood spurs on, my 
 thought burst its shackles and escaped, and fled to the 
 wide spaces of the past, tracing the da}-s gone by to the 
 far-off" horizon where the sky shines blue. 
 
 Ah ! the wild gallops down the valleys and between the 
 hills where dwarf-oaks grow and olives, pomegranates and 
 cactus; the merry rides over the plain, following the long 
 line of oleanders that clothe with their graceful festoons 
 the sterile river-banks of crumbling chalk ; the long halts 
 under the bushy tamarinds beside the cool spring, whither 
 the dark-eyed maids of the desert come to draw water. 
 Then asrain on the outskirts of those vast solitudes that
 
 VI PREFACE 
 
 the caravans penetrate, the mad hunts after the gazelles, 
 while far away against the horizon blazing with the glow 
 of sunset, the white profile of the minaret of the Ksour 
 and the tangled heads of the date-palms of the Oasis 
 tremble in the transparent air. 
 
 I collected the papers, and during long night hours, 
 when the cold north-wind rattled at my door, I would 
 stop my ears, and ensconced in my dreams, caressed by 
 the golden rays of memory, obliterate the present, and 
 live wholly in the past. 
 
 Puritans who have been scandalized by my other books, 
 may take heart of grace and be re-assured. They will 
 find no dangerous matters touched on here. 
 
 Here are pictures of pastoral life, which I dedicate to 
 you, my poet ! I speak here of Nature, that }'ou love, of 
 wide desert solitudes, of black-haired maids and golden 
 harvests ; I tell the tale of rude, simple-hearted loves, such 
 as you sing in your " Poemes Rustiques ", such as your 
 compatriot and our friend, Leon Cladel, has thrown, — a 
 garland of wild flowers, round the granite plinth of his 
 rugged "Paysans". 
 
 But it is not along cool woodland paths, " all bathed in 
 morning-dew", I would guide your steps, where: 
 
 A child and fancy-free, 
 Singing in simple glee 
 She goes ; you love to see 
 Her face 
 And rustic grace. 
 
 She bears in antique pose 
 
 Her amphora; and knows 
 
 Nothing of worldly shows, — 
 
 And yet 
 
 A bom coquette !
 
 PREFACE 
 
 VII 
 
 Rather would I lead you over vast, bare plains, the 
 land of the palm-tree, the land where the rustic child of 
 nature, clad in the tunic of Rebecca, offers in trusting 
 innocence her bosom, her arms, her limbs, naked to the 
 sun's kisses. I would introduce you to the tent of skins 
 where dwell the peasants of the Tell, more stately under 
 their ragged burnouse than ever were patricians the most 
 noble, to the home of the peaceful, pastoral Bedouins, whom 
 the sabre of conquering civilization, has so often and so 
 suddenly swooped down upon to awaken them from their 
 quiet dreams and old-world loves. 
 
 HECTOR FRANCE.
 
 PROLOGUE
 
 I told you all, 
 When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling 
 ' Twould fall upon ourselves. 
 
 King Henry VIII. Act V. Sc. 2.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 On the horizon, blue hills that fringe the curtain of the 
 setting sun with their gently undulating outlines •.'beyond 
 them the sky all a-blaze as with the conflagration of some 
 titanic City of the _Plain; the reflections of its furnace-fii;es ^^^ 
 reddening the lofty cloud-crests of the Eastern heavens. / 
 
 The lurid lights was still about us, as we rode ; but the 
 desert was already darkening under the on-coming shadows 
 of night. Darkness, deep and impenetrable, was creeping 
 over the plain and hiding every detail,— wild sombre 
 ravines, burnt patches of barren earth, green clumps of 
 brushwood, sand-hills piled by the wind, the dark surface 
 of the swamps of Am-Cliabrou, the laurels hanging 
 precariously to the crumbling slopes along the course of 
 the torrent and reflected in its brown waters, the long 
 white ribbon of the track winding deviously towards the 
 palm-trees of the Ksour. 
 
 The Ksour! — Djenarah, the pearl of the Sou/! From 
 the mountain slopes of the DJebel, my guide had pointed 
 out its lofty minaret, rising like a slender mast of alabaster 
 amid the blue waves of the distant horizon. For miles 
 we watched its white needle-like shaft glittering in the 
 rays of the setting sun. Little by little it disappeared
 
 XII THE CHASTISEMENT OF AIANSOUR 
 
 from sight, as we descended into the plain and were 
 engulfed in the gloom. 
 
 Indistinct shapes would suddenly cross our path; and 
 giant bats, darting from the ravines, fluttered round our 
 heads. 
 
 Now and again two glowing sparks would shine out in 
 some dark thicket, and the deep covert by the road-side 
 shake with a low rustling sound. 
 
 The desert was peopled with invisible foes, the silence 
 broken by weird, mysterious noises. I was listening 
 mechanically to the heavy, monotonous beat, beat of the 
 horses' hoofs, as they paced wearily over the ston)' soil, 
 and the shrill croaking of the marsh-frogs that now and 
 again reached our ears from the bottom of the valley, 
 when my Spahi's voice broke the dreary spell, bursting 
 gaily into song : 
 
 From Skikdad to Constantine, 
 From Constantine to Bathna, 
 Who's the maid of the gaj-est mien, 
 Of all the maids of Fathma ? 
 
 'Tis Kreira ! 
 
 My KreYra ! 
 'Tis Kreira, my peerless queen, 
 'Tis the rose-bud of Ouargla ! 
 
 One of the wanton love-songs the Arabs delight in, and 
 which they sing on weary journeys, when hour after hour 
 plain succeeds to plain, and the eye can find nothing to 
 relieve the grey monotony of the sun-baked sand but the 
 blue of the distant horizon that ever flies before the way- 
 farer as he advances. 
 
 We had but just reached the level of the plain, and I 
 was dozing in the saddle, my senses lulled at once by
 
 TPIE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR XIII 
 
 the Spahi's song and by the reguhir movement of my 
 horse, when far away across the silence of the desert I 
 seemed to hear cries of distress. 
 
 " Hush ! " I cried to Salah. 
 
 I was not mistaken. Again the same cry was raised, — 
 solemn, mournful, drearv. No single word reached us 
 clearly, but the tone of despair, sounding through the 
 night, was inexpressibly sad. 
 
 The voice ceased; and deep silence fell upon the desert. 
 Beasts and reptiles, all the host of creatures that prowl 
 by night, seemed to stand still and listen. 
 
 " Did you hear it? " 
 
 "Oh! yes," replied the Spahi; and again struck up: 
 
 'Twixt her bosoms as I lie, 
 Eyes a-swoon, all drunk with love, 
 Peerless houri ! shall I sigh 
 For the joys of Heaven above? 
 
 O! Kreira! 
 
 My Kreira! 
 O! Kreira, the flower of love, 
 The fairest rose of Ouargla ! 
 
 " Silence ! " I cried again indignantly. " Some one calls 
 for help." 
 
 " I know. There is nothing to be done. 'Tis the voice 
 of Sidi-Messaoud (INIy Lord the Happy Man)." 
 
 The Happy Man ! The irony of it ! My heart was 
 stirred by the grim cr}- ringing from afar like the dying 
 echoes of some calamitous disaster. Who can the happy 
 man be that groans so unhappily ? 
 
 We pursued our way, and though an hour and more 
 had elapsed, my thoughts still obstinately refused to leave
 
 XIV THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the spt)t where I had heard the mournful cry. Salah 
 continued his love-song, couplet after couplet, as if he 
 could never weary ; but of a sudden he stopped. 
 
 The voice rang out again nearer than before ; and we 
 could distinguish a name sobbed forth. We heard it 
 plainly, three times repeated: 
 
 "Afsia! Afsia! Afsia!" 
 
 The cry was heart-rending. For a moment it seemed 
 to touch the Spahi, piercing even the soldier's rude ex- 
 terior, for he drew rein and stopped. 
 
 I could see his shadow, big and black, relieved against 
 the grey of the sandy road, musket resting across the 
 Kerbotik of his saddle, and sabre under thigh,, the steel 
 scabbard and hilt of copper glittering in the surrounding 
 darkness. 
 
 His head wrapped in his pointed hood, the burnouse 
 wound tightly round his body, he sat leaning forward in 
 the saddle, motionless and thoughtful. 
 
 "What is it? what does it mean?" I asked him, when 
 for the third time the despairing accents fell silent again. 
 "Who is it calls at this hour of the night and in the 
 lonely desert ? " 
 
 " 'Tis nothing that need trouble you," he answered, and 
 laughed. " It is Sidi-Messaoud calling for his bride." 
 
 And he struck up his song once more : 
 
 Her lips are a cup of pleasure, 
 Brimmed full of blood-red wine; 
 Pressed to her bosom's treasure, 
 To die were bliss divine, 
 
 With Kreira, 
 
 Fair Kreira, 
 With Kreira, were she mine, were she mine, — 
 Were she mine, the rose of Ouargla !
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR XV 
 
 I could draw nothing further from him ; and during my 
 sojourn at the Ksour the men of Djenarah always found 
 one excuse or another for not answering my enquiries on 
 the subject. Presently amidst the manifold events of a 
 soldier's life in Africa the recollection faded from my 
 memory. 
 
 It was not till several years later, on my return to 
 Constantine, that by mere chance I heard from the Thakb 
 El-Hadj-Ali-bou-Nahr the tragic history of The Happy^aii. 
 
 The Thaleb, Ali-bou-Nahr, enjoying the honourable title 
 of El-Hadj, as do all Mussulmans who have made the 
 pilgrimage to Mecca, was a familiar figure with all the 
 French Spahis in Africa, — all I mean who were quartered 
 at Constantine about the year i860. At that time we 
 occupied the barracks of Suii-Nemdil, in the very centre 
 of the native town, and immediately opposite a small, 
 picturesque mosque, that has long since vanished before 
 the pickaxe of improvement. 
 
 The Thaleb had established himself within a few yards 
 of our doors. His business was to hire out his pen and 
 the charms of his style to illiterate lovers, to copy out 
 for sale verses from the Koran in his beautiful handwriting, 
 to cup patients in need of his assistance, — and the sale of 
 amulets. In other words he was at one and the same 
 time scrivener, barber, surgeon and in a mild way, sorcerer. 
 
 Ali-bou-Nahr was a man of honourable life and high 
 repute for wisdom. He was well-read in philosophy and 
 letters ; and on returning from Mecca had travelled in 
 several European countries. A devout man, he would 
 quote the Koran with unction, but like the English Puritans 
 with the Bible, he had his own interpretations of its 
 meaning. He observed the great fast of Ramadan to
 
 XVI THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 outward appearance, and never drank wine— till after dark. 
 " The Laws of the Prophet," he would say, " are made 
 for the vulgar. We are wise men ; our law is our con- 
 science. Still appearances must be kept up, for the sake 
 of the ignorant masses. If the Koran did not forbid 
 wine, every camel -driver would lie drunk by the roadside." 
 
 The sale of amulets was, as I have said, a part (jf his 
 business, — and the most lucrative part. Did a man 
 encounter a big toad at moonrise lying in ambush by the 
 roadside, or a tiny snake lurking in the grass and darting 
 at him a glance of its evil yellow eyes, his first thought 
 was to apply to a seller of charms, and for choice to 
 Ali-bou-Nahr. 
 
 Every good woman from Philippeville to Tuggurt, every 
 herdsman of the Tell, every camel-owner of the Souf, 
 every ass-driver of Constantine, knows that the Djenouns 
 (Demons of the Night) choose these shapes in preference 
 to all others so as to shoot their poison the more readily 
 at the unsuspecting wayfarer. Then, woe to him ! unless 
 he run with all haste to the nearest Marabout, or failing 
 him to his neighbour the Tebib, to buy a talisman, — the 
 only antidote against the Evil One. 
 
 The magic formula is traced on a little square of paper, 
 linen or parchment, of the same size and shape as the 
 sacred scapularies of our own monks. 
 
 The patient fastens it reverently with a cord round 
 his neck, and — always provided he have faith, the remedy 
 is infallible. 
 
 There are charms for all diseases and all evil spells. 
 They are sovereign against the itch and the plague, sudden 
 death and ophthalmia, foul women and unfaithful wives, 
 bullets and vermin. All depends on the price.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR XVH 
 
 "Strange! Men call you learned," I would sav to him, 
 " and a sage ; yet you are not ashamed to trade thus on 
 the folly of the vulgar." 
 
 " My son ! " the Thaleb would reply, " you speak after 
 the fashion of the unbelievers, who ever use swelling 
 words to hide the emptiness of their thoughts. Did I make 
 the vulgar fools ? Nay I they are fools from the beginning, 
 and it is but rigHt their folly, like other human weak- 
 nesses, should be turned to the advantage of the wise and 
 learned. The physician is not the cause of fever and 
 ophthalmia; but he lives by them. He lives by the drugs 
 that kill, and the lotions that make men one-eyed. I 
 live by my amulets; if they do not cure folly, at least 
 they cure the mischief folly causes. We are all of us, my 
 son, charlatans more or less. 
 
 " The physician is a scientific charlatan, the magistrate a 
 moral one, the soldier is a charlatan in gallantry, the 
 priest in virtue. Each of them lives by his trade; let me 
 live by mine. The sun shines for all alike ; but so long 
 as the mass of men remains stupid and ignorant, they 
 will continue to be the victims of the more astute." 
 
 Like every true INIussulman, Ali-bou-Nahr entertained a 
 profound contempt for all Christians, — not because thev 
 were Christians, but because he held their religion to be 
 childish, narrow and absurd. If he honoured me with his 
 good opinion, it was because I chanced one day to declare 
 myself a fatalist and my belief that the Koran was far 
 preferable to the Gospel, — considering the delights of the 
 Mohamedan paradise. 
 
 " Yes ! " he would say, " good men shall enjoy beauties 
 everlastingly virgin, streams everlastingly pure, shade ever-
 
 XVIII THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 lastingly cool and refreshing; is not this better than ever- 
 lastingly to be singing hymns? The son of Abdallah 
 understood human nature better than the son of Mary. 
 But hymns or houris, all this appeals only, and applies 
 only, to the common herd wise men despise. 
 
 " You believe in fatalism. Well and good ! but the 
 strong man can shape his course athwart the will of fate." 
 
 And he quoted these words from the Book : 
 
 " ' They that do good, shall find good above measure. 
 There shall be no blemish and no shame shall tarnish the 
 brightness of their countenance. They that do evil, shall 
 find retribution to match the evil ; shamed-facedness shall 
 cover them as with a garment, and their countenance shall 
 be black as night.' 
 
 " It may well be that the short-sighted crowd will say, 
 seeing only the surface of things: Behold yonder man; 
 he makes his passions his god, he chooses evil for good, 
 his heart is cold and his hand tight-shut, others' misery 
 is his gain, — yet he flourishes exceedingly and waxes fat, 
 he is finely clothed and luxuriously lodged, he is happy! 
 Wait, short-sighted fools ; and your eyes shall be opened, 
 and you shall see punishment striding towards him with 
 swift avenging steps. Retribution dogs his way. He shall 
 bow his proud head to the ground, like a penitent that 
 prays forgiveness for his crimes. 
 
 " For Fate, when its hour has come, stays not to 
 chastise till the flesh be loosened from the bones, but 
 strikes the evil-doer in his might. 
 
 "I know one whom the folk of the Tell, and of the 
 Souf, and of the Sahara, have for long years sumamed 
 The Happy Man; and he is an object of pity to the 
 meanest and the most unfortunate."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 XIX 
 
 " Ah ! " I exclaimed, " I remember. Once, not far from 
 Djenarah, I heard his voice. Afsia ! Afsia ! Afsia ! he 
 cried. The name has long hamited my memory." 
 
 And whilst I told my tale, he listened gloomily, only 
 interrupting me to interject: Allah Kebir ! Allah Kebir! 
 (God is Great!) 
 
 When I had finished, he said : 
 
 "Come this evening, and bring two goat-skins of the 
 good wine of Spain that makes the heart laugh. Safe 
 from slandering tongues and prying eyes, from the envy 
 of men and the blandishments of women, behind the bolts 
 and bars of my house, I will tell you the history of the 
 Thaleb El-Mcssaoud."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR
 
 Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, 
 But lust's effect is tempest — after sun ; 
 Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain. 
 Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done ; 
 Love surfeits not ; lust like a glutton dies ; 
 Love is all truth ; lust full of forged lies. 
 
 VENUS AND ADONIS.
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 M E R Y E M
 
 To even her with gieeny bough were vain; 
 
 Fool he who finds her beauties in the roe : 
 
 When hath the roe those hvely lovely limbs 
 
 Or honey dews those lips alone bestow ? 
 
 Those eyne, soul-piercing eyne, which slay with love. 
 
 Which bind the victim by their shafts laid low ? 
 
 My heart to second childhood they beguiled ; 
 
 No wonder : love-sick man again is child ! 
 
 "aiabian migbts' 
 
 (Burton's Trans.)
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 MERYEM 
 
 " There is no God but God, and Mohammed is 
 the Prophet of God." 
 
 " His are the East and the West ; which way 
 soever a man turneth himself, there shall he meet 
 His face." 
 
 Such the words written in the Book, but I can 
 tell a word that is not written, — what they amongst 
 us tliat are called wise men rehearse. 
 
 There is God, and there is the Prophet; but 
 between them is a Master, almighty. He it is that 
 makes, and unmakes; he that gives light, and 
 takes it away. 
 
 Some name him all-pervading Life ; but his true 
 name is Love all-pervading. 
 
 From man to mite, from towering palm-tree to 
 lowly blade of alpha-grass, nought exists, nought 
 lives, but by him. The World bends beneath his 
 will, as the bull-rushes bend before the hurricane.
 
 4 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 He scatters the races of mankind over the surface 
 of the globe, as the sower scatters the grain over 
 the seed-field. 
 
 His temple is the universe, its high altar woman ; 
 there is nothing more perfect our sun shines upon. 
 
 So in place of the words of the Prophet, we say : 
 
 " His are the East and the West; and which 
 way soever a man turneth himself, there shall he 
 meet the power of Love." 
 
 He is the arbiter of all things, sorrow and joy, 
 death and life. He makes us wise or foolish, happy 
 or unfortunate, heroes or felons. 
 
 Without Love man is emasculate; as much a 
 eunuch all his life through as the negro guards of 
 the Harem. 
 
 True, to the weak he is a stumbling-block; but 
 to the strong man he points the road and says: 
 " I am on thy side, carve out thy destiny. " 
 
 For the strong man, unless harassed and hampered 
 b_v the accursed and fatal consequences of crime or 
 cowardice on the part of the fathers whose blood flows 
 in his veins, is master of his fate in this world of 
 ours. He holds in his own hands good luck and 
 ill. And on the threshold of old age, should cares 
 settle down like the shades of night upon his head, 
 let him blame none but himself, let him ransack 
 the foul memories of his past to find the reason. 
 
 II. 
 
 The men of Djenarah would not tell you the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 5 
 
 story of the Thaleb El-Hadj-Maiisoiir El-AIessaotid, 
 for there are stiU hving at the Ksour men and women 
 who have cause to blush at the mention of his 
 name. The doom that has fallen upon him is 
 terrible; but anger still survives in the hearts of 
 many. The more generous have forgiven him, but 
 even they cannot forget. 
 
 For me, I honour Sidi-Maiisour, and respect his 
 misfortunes, and if God prolong my days after his 
 are ended, I shall offer at the tomb where his 
 ashes repose the gifts due to a great Marabout. 
 
 Yet this man, who it may be after death will be 
 revered as the equal of Sidi-Ibrahim or Abd-cl- 
 Kader, was in his youth a great sinner. 
 
 They say he \vas full of cleverness, — as wise as 
 Satan. Every enterprise was crowned with success, 
 he was so cunning; but his enterprises were too 
 often evil. 
 
 Love was his pastime, and on it he lavished all \ 
 his skill and dauntless intrepidity. Who can count 
 the tale of husbands and fathers he deceived, of 
 wives cajoled and maidens dishonoured ? Not even 
 the folk of Djenarah could tell them all; for a man 
 seldom knows his own shame. / 
 
 Not alone Djenarah the Pearl, but the douars 
 (encampments, villages) of the Nememchas and the 
 Oiiled-Abid, and the plains of the Souf to far away 
 Ouargla and Rhadames, rang- with the scandal of 
 his lawless loves. 
 
 His boast was: ''No man is a match for me." 
 
 V^
 
 6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 And it was true, for none could stay him in his 
 dissolute courses. 
 
 When the old men of the city reproved him, 
 and said : 
 
 " O Mansour ! he who takes Satan for comrade, 
 chooses a bad travelling companion," or "]\[ansour! 
 a day will come when shame shall be spread about 
 your head like a tent; " then, swollen with the pride 
 of Eblis the Accursed (the Devil), he would answer: 
 " I have but to lift my head, and burst through the 
 shame; I am not of those that tamely bow the neck." 
 
 Th6n they would say : " Beware ! it will be too 
 late when at last you cry, I repeiit ! Though you 
 implore forgiveness seventy times, as it is written 
 in the Book, though you invoke God by his ninety 
 and nine names, it will be too late ! " 
 
 " Remember the words of the Prophet, — ' Soul 
 for soul, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, 
 tooth for tooth.' The law of retaliation is the 
 law of God." 
 
 But he would answer, and laugh : " Only God 
 knows what to-morrow may bring forth ! " 
 
 Beneath the tents of the Beled-el-Djerid (Country 
 of Dates), as under the roofs of the Ksour, many a tale 
 is told of his youthful adventures ; and I will relate 
 the first of them, for it aifected all his after life. 
 
 O God ! blind the eyes of the wicked, tear his 
 tongue from between his lips, cut his virility from 
 between his thighs, that he may not beget others 
 as wTcked as himself. But have pity on him whose
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 7 
 
 crimes have been expiated before the hour of his 
 death ! 
 
 III. 
 
 He was barely sixteen, but, already he understood 
 how to clothe falsehood in the specious guise of 
 truth. In other words he was a man. He was bold 
 and enterprising, and his looks pleased the maidens 
 of the tribe. He used Tus advantages to sow dis- 
 order broadcast, — to creep between loving hearts 
 and disunite them. 
 
 His intrigues remained long undetected : for he 
 was expert in keeping- them a secret. But vague 
 suspicions were rife. 
 
 At this time his father, AJnucd-ben-Rahan. Sheikh 
 of the Oitled-Ascars, a subordinate tribe of the 
 OuledSidi-Abid, married his fourth wife. 
 
 The second and third wives had died more than 
 a year before, and the first wife, the mother of 
 ]\Iansour, was left alone. Then she said to the 
 Sheikh : 
 
 " My Lord ! I grow old and weary. My thirty- 
 fifth year draws nigh, and from the age of twenty 
 I have been thy faithful slave, a humble and indus- 
 trious wife to thee. Ever have I guarded as my 
 most precious treasure what God bids a woman 
 guard for her husband ; and thou hast found no 
 cause of complaint ag-ainst me. 
 
 " God has blessed mv bed with increase, for I
 
 8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 have borne thee a son — the handsomest and proudest 
 youth of all the Ouled-Ascars. Now, listen ! I am 
 fain of rest. I will ever be thy handmaid and thy 
 wife. But I pray thee, take another to help me 
 make thy life pass pleasantly. Choose a fair bride, 
 that she may be a delight to thine eyes; a young 
 and strong one, that she may live long- to be thy 
 slave. " 
 
 So the Sheikh chose a young girl from the sandy 
 plains of the Boii-Mzab, who had not yet seen 
 I J ■' the date-palms fourteen times in flower. Her lips 
 had the colour of the scarlet pomegranate ; her eyes 
 the glitter of the yatagans when the blades flash 
 in the sunliglit. 
 
 Her name was Mcryeni. 
 
 From the first moment Mansour beheld this fair 
 star shining in the twilight of his father's tent, his 
 heart was stirred ; and when one day she let fall 
 her face-cloth in his presence, he found her beauteous 
 as one of the houris the Prophet promises to the 
 elect of God. 
 
 He hastened from the tent in strong agitation, 
 
 and wandered away he knew not whither. He was 
 
 J fain to hide his face from all men, lest the troublous 
 
 thoughts that moved him should be legible in his 
 
 eyes. 
 
 The following day he said to Kradidja, his mother:
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR g 
 
 "Mother, I must away from here." 
 
 " Wherefore, my son ? You cannot quit your 
 father's tent at the very time a new inmate has 
 entered it. The wedding-rites are not yet ended, 
 and you talk of leaving us? Would you anger 
 your father, who will suppose you wish ill to the 
 stranger? " 
 
 " Wish her ill ? Who could imagine such a thing ? 
 Would to God, mother, you might find me so fair 
 a bride." 
 
 " I will find you a fairer, my son ! " 
 
 But he only shook his head. 
 
 Then she looked him in the eyes. He was her 
 son, the son she loved and admired, in whom were 
 centred all her joy and mother's pride. For him 
 she was weakly indulgent, as mothers are. 
 
 Alore than once already she had heard reports 
 of Mansour's ill-doings, at the hour when the women 
 visit the fountain and repeat amongst themselves 
 secrets that husbands must not know. She would 
 listen to the tales . and grievances, and smile to 
 herself. 
 
 In her mother's selfishness, she thought: 
 
 " Pray God, no harm touch the lad ; for others, 
 'tis their own affair. Heaven is over us all; but 
 each must guard his own." 
 
 No word of reproof was ever uttered to the son, 
 no word of warning to the father of his son's evil 
 courses. 
 
 But noiv she was afraid, and taking the boy's
 
 lO THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 head fondly between her hands, she drew his Hps 
 down to hers: 
 
 " My child ! I understand. Yes ! you must from 
 home. Go, dwell beneath the tent of my brother, 
 the Caid Abdallah. Enrol Jyourself one of the horse- 
 men of his Go7i??i (Company) ; and if God so will, 
 you shall return to us with a fair wife. This very 
 day will I speak to Ahmet ; meanwhile be watchful, — 
 watch your acts, nay ! watch your very looks. The 
 prophet says, " Take not to wife such as have 
 been your brothers' brides, — it is a vile thing." But 
 the Prophet nowhere speaks of him who should 
 steal his father'' s bride; who could conceive an 
 outrage so abominablel" 
 
 ]\Iansour, trembling and confused, would have 
 defended himself; but Kradidja put a finger on his 
 lips, and repeated the word, "An outrage!" 
 
 V. 
 
 However when Kradidja spoke of sending him 
 away, the Sheikh replied he could not consent just 
 then to part with his eldest son. He needed him to 
 guard his flocks, and above all he required his help at 
 the approaching harvest ! She dared not press the 
 point, and Mansour remained an inmate of the tent. 
 
 On learning the Sheikh's decision, he could not 
 check the flash of exultation that glittered in his eyes. 
 
 "Beware, headstrong boy!", his mother said 
 to him.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I I 
 
 " Beware of what ? In all the tribes of all the 
 Souf there is no woman more fond and foolish than 
 you, my mother ! What is it you fear ? And sup- 
 posing your fear w^ell-founded, would Meryem, think 
 you, ever yield her consent?" 
 
 " A woman is like the reed that grows by the 
 fountain-side," Kradidja replied; "she bends at the 
 will of him in whose hands she is." 
 
 " But she is not in mine ; she is my father's 
 bride. " 
 
 " A woman has but one heart, and her heart is 
 his, who has the wit to win it . . . Enough, my 
 child ! but beware ! " 
 
 Far from terrifying him, her words seemed but / 
 to encourag-e Mansour. Many a time a mother's '■ 
 weak complaisance is the direct cause of a son's 
 vicious follies. 
 
 Be this as it may, — one morning when the vSheikh 
 had left the tent, Mansour slipped noiselessly within, 
 and hiding behind the hamals (sacks) of corn that 
 held the year's supplies for man and beast, lay there 
 silent and motionless, pretending to be asleep. But 
 he was watching Meryem through the openings 
 between the sacks; soon growing bolder, he would 
 raise with one finger the border of the striped tag- 
 ox curtain that divides the Arab's house of skins 
 into two apartments, and himself invisible, saw every 
 detail of the new-wed bride's toilette. \1 
 
 Her skin was olive-hued, with golden gleams 
 where the light was reflected from the lustrous
 
 12 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 surface ; and her rich dark hair fell in thick wavy 
 masses below her waist, so that his gaze was lost 
 in its depths. His thoughts tossed to and fro in a 
 very tempest of longing, while the heady odours 
 characteristic of brunettes mingled with the scent 
 of rose and musk, and made his brain dizzy. He 
 felt his strength going from him, and knew he 
 could resist no more. Then he would rise noise- 
 lessly, run to where his flock fed on the plain, — 
 seeming still to breathe from afar the intoxicating 
 odours, his soul a prisoner in the meshes that had 
 entangled his eyes. 
 
 VI. 
 
 He ceased to lie in wait for the w^omen, when 
 they went to gather the dry branches of the broom 
 and the chicJiJi for fuel, or to fetch the supply of 
 water for the household in the black goat-skins ; 
 and was no longer to be seen, as of old, guiding 
 his flock to the river-side at the hour when half 
 naked they perform the great ablution. 
 
 Then the young girls would blush and whisper 
 amongst themselves, when suddenly they espied the 
 burning eyes of the Sheikh's son peeping from 
 some clump of oleanders. 
 
 Some feigning not to see him, quietly continued 
 their bath, others more modest, would leave the 
 water hurriedly and let down their gandourah 
 (outer robe), terrified and covered with shame. But
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 1 3 
 
 the older women wovild fall into a passion and cry 
 shrilly : 
 
 "What are you looking at, child of the devil?" 
 
 " Not at you, " he would reply, " You may bathe 
 in security." 
 
 " Go to ! go to ! eternity were too short for you 
 to wash out the stains of your abominations." 
 
 " Or you the marks of your uncomeliness, old 
 hags ! Quick ! Cover up your ugliness ; it makes 
 me shudder!" 
 
 " y^ou will be old some day; then the young will 
 loathe you, and spit on your beard." 
 
 " Is it because the young loathe you, that yo2i. 
 spit your venom at them?" 
 
 At this they would foam with rage and spit at 
 him in scorn, and pursue him with curses, as he 
 retreated, still taunting them as he went: 
 
 " Son of a dog ! accursed Jew ! you shall be the 
 laughing stock of your wives once and again, and 
 they shall heap mountains of shame upon your head! 
 A scorn to every true believer, may you never pass 
 the Sirak.^ May you roll down, down from depth 
 to depth of hell! Jew! cuckold! huckster! dog!" 
 
 At other times, hid in the thickets of juniper, he 
 used to watch for the young girls to pass by. 
 Then when they were so near he could see their 
 light robes stirred by the evening breeze, he would 
 call them softly by name: 
 
 * The narrow bridge over the abyss, which everj- Behever must 
 cross to reach Paradise.
 
 14 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 " Ho ! Fathma, I love thee ! " 
 
 " Embarka, I die of love ! " 
 
 " Yamina, 1 am thine. " 
 
 " Mabrouka, I would give my life for a look." 
 
 And so on to them all; for he loved them all, 
 as boys do who feel the first down of manhood 
 mantling on their cheeks. 
 
 VII. 
 
 But now the maids of the Ouled-Ascars met him 
 no more in their path. No more did they feel his 
 burning eyes fixed on them, eyes that seemed to 
 look through and through them and follow them 
 everywhere ; no more did they hear those ardent 
 declarations they loved to make a jest of, nor the 
 furious abuse of the older women that made them 
 laugh. 
 
 And folk said to Kradidja: "Tell us, Kradidja! 
 Has the spirit of order breathed a good word in 
 thy son's ear? or is he in love?" 
 
 His mother knew too well what passion held him 
 in its grip, but she dared not say. To gratify her 
 son, she would have sacrificed everything, the 
 maidens of the tribe, the honour of families, Meryem 
 — her husband's bride, Ahmet himself. 
 
 However she essayed yet another attempt. 
 
 " O Sheikh ! " she said to Ahmet, one night that 
 he came to visit her and lie in her couch, — for 
 propriety requires a husband to give equally to
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I 5 
 
 each of his wives the share of his favours due to 
 her, and it is written : ' He that has two wives, 
 and incHnes to the one rather to the other, that man 
 shall appear at the Judgment on the Last Day 
 with buttocks one bigger than the other.' " O 
 my husband ! I demand nought ! I waive my rights. 
 Thou art my lord and master ; but keep thy vigour 
 for Meryem, for I know well what the Prophet 
 says: 
 
 " 'Thou mayest give good hope to whichsoever 
 wife thou wilt, and take to thy bed whichsoever 
 thou preferrest, — even her whom thou hast afore- 
 time shghted, but now thou desirest after her anew. 
 Let them never be aggrieved at what thou doest ; 
 but let each be well content with that thou givest 
 her.' 
 
 " I am well content with thy good will. What 
 charm can my faded beauty have for thee after the 
 intoxication of Meryem's youthful loveliness. I am 
 not jealous; I have had my share, and it was the 
 best, for I enjoyed thy youth and the fulness of 
 thy manly vigour. But hearken to the advice of ! 
 thy first and fondest wife. Send away thy son 
 from home. In the peaceful plains of the Ouled- , 
 Ascars young men fall asleep in sloth. Despatch 
 him to the land of the Ksour ; let him join the house- 
 hold of the Caiid of the Nememchas, to be trained 
 in the learning of the Tolbas, * or to be enrolled in 
 the ranks of his viokalis (warriors). Here he but 
 
 * Learned Men, Scholars; pi. of Thaleb.
 
 1 6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 wastes his time in dalliance with the maids, and 
 presently will bring down some evil scandal on our 
 name. " 
 
 The Sheikh pondered a while before he an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Kradidja, beloved! who wert the fountain of 
 refreshment of my youth, and art now the stay and 
 resting-place of my head, knowest not that all young 
 men are so? It is the mother's task to safeguard 
 her daughters, not the father's to watch his sons. 
 But since thou art so fain the boy should leave us, 
 perhaps it is really for his good. Later, when the 
 harvest is gathered in, we will speak of the matter 
 further. Come, beloved ! the new bride cannot make 
 me forget the old and faithful wife." 
 
 " Alas me ! " thought Kradidja, " 'tis to hinder his 
 gathering the harvest of thy field, that I longed to 
 see the child gone. Well! be it as thou wilt." 
 
 But she dared not give utterance to her thoughts, 
 dreading to bring down his father's curse on the 
 head of the son she loved so fondly. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Old husbands are suspicious, and a cruel jealousy 
 pricks them night and day. There is a djin, a 
 mischievous, mocking spirit, that loves to torment 
 the guilty man; for he is guilty, who nips with 
 the frost of his wintry years the sweet buds of 
 springtime.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 17 
 
 The Sheikh was already hastening- fast towards 
 his fortieth year when the^^hild he_was to wed had 
 but just been born. He watched and guarded her, 
 like the miser who has" heaped a pile <:>{ daiiros 
 (dollars) in a fojidouk (strong box). Day and night 
 his vigilance never relaxes, and he dies with the 
 words on his lips, "No robber shall have my gold!" 
 Then some stranger, his heir, kicks his dead body 
 on one side, forces the strong-box, and squanders 
 the hoard. 
 
 He could not keep her sewn in a sack, nor tied 
 to his bicniouse, but his eyes were ever on the 
 alert. Meryem never went to the fountain with the 
 other women, nor to the plains to tear up the 
 withered stalks of the hardy desert-grasses and 
 break off the dead boughs of broom for fueL At 
 earliest dawn she would be turning the mill- 
 stone that grinds the wheat for the day's use, always 
 careful to raise a corner of the tent, so that her 
 husband might see her. The latter stretched half- 
 awake, half-asleep, on the soft fleeces of the bed she 
 had just quitted, followed with his eyes the slow, 
 graceful movements of the young wife, whose slender 
 figure stood out in brilliant relief in the clear light 
 of early morning. Soothed by the gracious sight 
 and lulled by the monotonous grinding of the mill, 
 he would sink into a happy lethargy of false secur- 
 ity. 
 
 Soon the douar awoke, full day was come, and 
 Meryem busied herself with the household cares of 
 
 2
 
 l8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the tent. This was her allotted task, one the women 
 always leave by common consent to the new wife, 
 that the husband may have full enjoyment of her 
 society. Perhaps too they think, " familiarity breeds 
 contempt", and he will thus the sooner grow weary 
 of her. 
 
 There he would remain, seated motionless and silent 
 near the tent, his eyes gazing into space, letting 
 the hours slip by in calm enjoyment of the happi- 
 ness of the moment. 
 
 IX. 
 
 It was seldom Mansour could find an instant when 
 he could be alone with her; but there were such 
 moments now and again. His father felt no distrust 
 where he was concerned; and actually one day 
 when obliged to leave the tent at a time at which 
 all the women were away, he called him in and 
 said, "Come, keep Meryem company." 
 
 Mansour sat silent, striving to hide his agitation. 
 He dared not speak or even raise his head, for fear 
 she should observe his emotion and read the longing- 
 he felt, in his eyes. When the Sheikh at length 
 returned, she exclaimed. " Your son is timid as a girl ! " 
 
 Kradidja reported her words to him, and rallied 
 him on his supposed shyness. This made him 
 desperate, and one evening as he was bringing 
 home his flock, and Meryem came forward a few 
 steps to meet him in pursuit of a she-goat that was
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR ig 
 
 wild and refused to obey her call, he threw a 
 blossom into her bosom. 
 
 She plucked it out, laughing, and fastened it in 
 her hair. 
 
 Next day he said to her : 
 
 " I long for a wife like you, Meryem. Tell me 
 where to find one." 
 
 " Go," she answered, " go to the land of the Beni- 
 Mzab, as your father did. You will find one there." 
 
 " Have the maids of the Beni-AIzab long hair as 
 soft as silk like you, and eyes that sparkle so?" 
 
 " Yes ! all this they have, — and more. " 
 
 " O Meryem ! every gesture you make scatters 
 a keen perfume that burns my senses like a flame ! " 
 
 "Hush, boy! — for you are but a boy. Your 
 father is coming." 
 
 She called him a boy, though he was two full 
 years older than herself; but she was fain to stay 
 his too ardent words, — and indeed a younger sister 
 is already a woman when her brothers are still 
 only children. 
 
 He blushed and fell silent ; but that evening he 
 said to the Sheikh, "Father! to-morrow is the day 
 of the great fair of the Beni-Mzab; I should love 
 to go and see it." 
 
 "Well then, go! but do not tarry long from 
 home." 
 
 He stayed away for more than a week, and said 
 on his return that Meryem's father had kept him 
 as his guest.
 
 20 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Meryem smiled, and as soon as they were alone, 
 asked him : 
 
 " And when is the wedding to be, son of Ahmet? " 
 
 "Wedding? I shall never wed," he cried. 
 
 " What ! could you find no fair girls amongst all 
 the women of my tribe? are you so hard to please 
 that none of my countrywomen satisfied you? yet 
 I know some that are light and graceful as the 
 gazelle, and their eyes as large and soft as the 
 white cow's that gives us so much milk." 
 
 "It may be so," he said, "I never looked at 
 them. Yes! some maids I saw that half withdrew 
 their veil from their faces to pleasure me, but my 
 thoughts went not with my eyes. I sat under your 
 father's tent; I wandered over the plains where you 
 were born ; I lay beneath the laurels by the ri\'er- 
 side where you went to play as a child ; I traced 
 the outlines of the hills on the horizon that your 
 eye first rested on when you awoke at dawn ; I gazed 
 long at all these things, andio! I am returned." 
 
 She pretended not to understand, and with a 
 shrug of the shoulders, " ]Mansour-ben-Ahmet is 
 surely mad." 
 
 But only too well she knew what his madness 
 was, and kept ever on her guard. Yet the young 
 man's words pleased her ; come whence it may, flat- 
 tery is sweet in the ears of a woman. 
 
 It may be too that in her secret heart she thought 
 she would have slept softer cradled in his lusty 
 arms than with her white-haired husband.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 2 1 
 
 " Why cannot we be suffered to choose as our 
 heart dictates? are we bound to take from our 
 father's hand the man he chooses to buy us?" 
 
 The complaint was a just one ; and it is a just 
 subject of reproach against us. Amongst the Rou- 
 mis, your countrymen, is it not the same, — or 
 worse ? We buy a woman for her own worth, you 
 value her for the dowry she brings. 
 
 This is why there are so many ill-assorted mar- 
 riages in the world, — among believers and unbelievers 
 alike. The young should mate with the young; 
 such is the Law. 
 
 The greybeard who buys a young wife, does an 
 abomination. 
 
 The father and mother who sell their daughter's 
 maidenhood to a husband stricken in years, do an 
 abomination. 
 
 What matter that the cadi (judge) or the priest have 
 blessed the union. It is a prostitution none the 
 less. The words he reads from his book over the 
 heads of the bridal pair cannot wipe out the stain 
 of the shameful bargain. 
 
 The man does an abomination who sanctions 
 such a scandalous traffic in human flesh. The 
 richer the old bridegroom is, the more guests come 
 as witnesses to the marriage-feast, the more public 
 the act of prostitution, the more abominable the crime. 
 
 And if the young bride, legally handed over to 
 gratify the passion of a greybeard lover, sickens 
 of his odious caresses and takes a disgust to hus-
 
 22 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 band and to marriage alike, she deserves the pity 
 of all good men. She has been bought and sold; 
 and the loathing she feels now at the dishonouring 
 touch of her lord and master, is at once the cause 
 and the excuse of the vicious follies she is bound 
 to commit at a later time. 
 
 So is it written, or to this effect, in the book of 
 our Lord Ali the Sublime, the husband of Fathma, 
 Gateway of Knowledge and Lion of God, who 
 says in the chapter that is called the Kotiffa : " Ho ! 
 all true believers, repeat often the name of Allah, 
 yea! celebrate his name morning and evening." 
 
 X. 
 
 But now he had once dared to speak, his reckless 
 love burst all bounds, and welling from his heart 
 overflowed his lips again and again. 
 
 " Meryem ! " he said, " if you had to choose be- 
 tween my father and me, which would you have 
 rather ? " 
 
 She answered blushing, but showing no signs of 
 anger : 
 
 " Hush ! son of Ahmet, it is not becoming to 
 speak so." 
 
 He said no more, obedient to her words, or per- 
 haps afraid; and ]\Ieryem, surprised that she felt 
 no annoyance at such audacious speeches, resolved 
 for the future to avoid the dangerous proximity, 
 and never to be alone with him. But at the .same
 
 THE CHASTISEAIENT OF MANSOUR 23 
 
 time her eyes gazing over the far-away stretches of 
 the plain, she stood silent and pensive, — blind and 
 deaf to all else but one thought, that had possessed 
 her whole soul for days, " Oh ! why did not the son 
 come first to ask my hand in place of the father? " 
 
 Why indeed? Fate only could have told the 
 answer. The course of many lives would have 
 been different. Weak man wanders at random in 
 the sea of the unknown ; and each passing minute 
 may make the compass-needle of his destiny sw^erve. 
 
 If the son of Ahmet had gone first to the land 
 of the Beni-Mzab, and taken the fair Meryem to 
 his bed, the vast solitudes of Djenarah would not 
 after thirty years have re-echoed the cry of despair 
 you heard in the darkness: 
 
 " Afsia ! Afsia ! Afsia ! " 
 
 XI. 
 
 Meanti:me the young' larks were fluttering in 
 noisy, merry flocks in the ripening corn, the air 
 was laden with warm, scents, everywhere man and 
 maid felt the languorous breath of summer in their 
 blood. 
 
 This was the time Kradidja dreaded ; it is the 
 happy season of stolen kisses and stealthy meetings 
 amongst the waving yellow corn that clothes the 
 plain. As soon as the young shoots begin to 
 sprout and hide the brown earth, lovers' eyes meet, 
 and they sigh and say : " Summer will soon be
 
 24 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 hero!" Then the ripe corn-fields will make fine 
 hiding-places. Starting fi-om opposite points, lovers 
 can glide along the furrows, slip between the stalks, 
 to meet at last at the trysting-place, amid the waving 
 golden grain. 
 
 Oh! the kisses, — stolen and found again, given 
 and given back! 
 
 The blue sky looks down on them laughing; life, 
 gay and abundant, murmurs, and sings, and whistles, 
 and chirps, all round them ; sudden shivers run 
 along the standing corn ; corn-flowers and poppies 
 spread their petals, while the twittering nestlings, 
 for a moment scared at the first fierce embraces, 
 grow bolder and gaily sing their loves: 
 
 Oh ! merry time, 
 When lovers meet 
 Among the wheat, 
 In summer's prime i 
 
 The goodman's fain 
 To catch the knave; 
 Nought can he save. 
 Nought but his grain. 
 
 Nought can he find; 
 The treasure's gone, 
 Help there is none; 
 Both eyes are blind ! 
 
 Oh! merry lay. 
 The lark's fresli song; 
 The wheat among 
 Two lovers strav.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 25 
 
 "With bated breath 
 They whisper low ; 
 Nought doth he know, 
 Both ears are deaf ! 
 
 "Wheat harvest's nigh ; 
 Oh! the glad year. 
 Oh ! the ripe ear, " 
 The blue, blue sky I 
 
 Oh ! merry time, 
 "When lovers meet 
 Among the wheat, 
 In summer's prime ! 
 
 And when the harvester comes by to-morrow, 
 he will lift the trampled corn with the point of his 
 sickle, with a laugh or a curse, according as he is 
 a young man or an old, —never dreaming that may 
 be here his own honour has been trampled in the 
 earth, never to rise again. 
 
 XII. 
 
 So the young larks disported themselves in the 
 corn-fields, and Kradidja grew every day more and 
 more anxious. She kept her suspicions secret, 
 however ; it was not for her husband she feared so 
 much as for her son. 
 
 The latter never left the douar now. He was to 
 be seen all day wandering near the tents, and 
 became the focus of all eyes. Already men whis- 
 pered together, and would soon be talking openly.
 
 26 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 She took Mansour on one side, and making sure 
 no one was within hearing : 
 
 "My son," she said, "beloved, too fondly beloved 
 fruit of my womb ! I beseech you, stay the calamity 
 that threatens to overwhelm you, and me, and all 
 of us. Go back again to the river-side as of old; 
 lie hid, as you used, among the broom, waiting for 
 the girls to pass by. Let them all see you there, 
 all hear your words of love. What! is there not 
 one of them all you care to choose? There are 
 fair maids and gentle that blush at sight of you . . . 
 Why long for the only fruit forbidden you, when 
 you can pick and choose from so dainty a garden 
 of girls? Hear your mother's words, Mansour! 
 Two men there are walking in darkness, — that 
 cannot see what passes round them, or hear what 
 is said of them, — Ahmed and the son of Ahmed. Ah 
 me ! The young are headstrong, the old unheeding ! 
 and love is very strong ! " 
 
 Kradidja wept; and her tears made the young 
 man thoughtful and afraid. To put scandal off the 
 scent, he went back to his old follies. Once again 
 he lay in wait for the young girls at the river-side, 
 and made fierce love to them. 
 
 They laughed merrily once more, and once more 
 the old women cried : 
 
 " Oh ! the villain ! here he is back again ! Ha ! ha I 
 the fruit your lips watered for was out of reach, was 
 it ? What an ado ! Why, of course your vile flesh 
 must be gratified! Bah ! 'tis but food for worms! "
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 27 
 
 On her side Kradidja redoubled her vigilance, 
 and kept repeating to the Sheikh, " Never leave 
 Meryem alone! " 
 
 And when he expressed surprise at her advice, 
 she added: 
 
 " Solitude is no safe companion for young heads. 
 When a young wife is alone, Satan comes and tempts 
 her, and is fain to make her trip. Watch her, my 
 lord! Meryem is but a child. " 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Such was the state of things when one morning 
 two horsemen of the Nememchas arrived. They 
 had ridden hard all night, for the news they brought 
 was of the gravest. 
 
 The Sheikh and the men of the douar went out 
 to meet them, to bid them welcome and lead them 
 to the guest-tent. 
 
 Meanwhile the women had got ready the dar- 
 diaf (guest-tent), and spread the large carpets of 
 thick soft wool. The corners of the tent were raised 
 and secured to the tent-pegs, so as to establish through 
 currents of air and keep the interior cool ; and great 
 jars or alcarasas of earthenware containing fresh 
 water were suspended by cords of camel's hair, 
 gladdening the eyes of the thirsty travellers. 
 
 They stretched their limbs in the shade, and 
 as soon as they had quenched their thirst with 
 water and with the milk their hosts offered in the
 
 28 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 scttlas (jars) of lacquered iron, and had tasted the 
 cakes of dates and barley-meal served whilst the 
 C01LSC021S (mess of flour boiled in milk) was cooking, 
 the men of the tribe took their seats in a circle 
 round them, and the strangers spoke. 
 
 Bad news ; and a chorus of exclamations of dismay. 
 The Caid Hasseim, brother-in-law of Ahmed-ben- 
 Rahan, sent to warn him of the approach of the 
 dreaded Roumis. They were encamped already on 
 the plains of the Afeskiana, and in such numbers, 
 the messengers declared, that a grain of barlay 
 could not have fallen from the sky without striking 
 an enemy's head, whilst their tents whitened the 
 desert like snow in bad winters. 
 
 It was fate at its darkest hour! 
 
 " What ill have we done the Roumis ? " cried the 
 Sheikh; "what is it they want of us? we are men 
 of peace ; we ask nothing save to live in quietness 
 with our flocks and herds. We owe nothing to 
 any man ; we claim nothing of any. The men of 
 the Souf who have for ten seasons driven our flocks 
 to the North, can still remember the day when first 
 they heard the name of Roumis. Till then we 
 knew not that Franks dwelt beyond the blue sea ; 
 yet now these same Franks are set up as masters 
 of the soil of our fathers! They ravage our har- 
 vests, spoil our flocks and herds, burn down our 
 palm-trees, and destroy our villages, — because for- 
 sooth Turks of Algiers we know nought of, twenty 
 years ago, attacked their ships, as they allege.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 29 
 
 What is it they seek? Their own land, men say, 
 is rich and fertile, their plains bear wheat and 
 barley in abundance, they have noble gardens and 
 many wealthy cities. But we are poor men ; we 
 have nought but the wide bare desert to call our 
 own. What is it they hope to find in our sandy 
 wastes ? Silver ? Nay ! we have but little ; yet, to 
 save our lives, we will send them our scanty hoard, 
 for they are mightier than we. Only let them leave 
 us in peace ! " 
 
 " And the men of your tribe, do they think as 
 you do ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " replied the Sheikh ; " but if any think 
 otherwise, then let him speak." 
 
 But all held their peace. 
 
 Then, wrathful and indignant, the horsemen of 
 Hassein cried : 
 
 " Cowards ! are these your thoughts ? Are these 
 fit words for the sons of Islam? Is it in vain our 
 lord, the Caid, counted on you for help? He said, 
 'The Ojilcd-Sidi-Abid are men;' what will he 
 say, when we tell him your reply, that we blush 
 ever to have heard spoken ! 
 
 " Even now the tribes of the northern Tell are on 
 foot. Will you only stay behind in slothful ease 
 with your women? Will you only be left solitary 
 in your shame, the scorn of all brtive men ! O 
 Sheikh ! you cannot be one of those who say :
 
 30 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 ' The plague is come to our land ; 
 Allah ! let it spare my tribe ! 
 The plague is come to our tribe ; 
 Allah ! let it spare my douar ! 
 The plague is come to our douar; 
 Allah ! let it spare my tent ! 
 The plague is come to our tent; 
 Allah ! let it spare my head ! ' 
 
 " Silver for the Roumis ! of a surety God has left 
 you to your own devices ; and they are wicked 
 and foolish. The sole metal they must win of us 
 is lead." 
 
 " Yes ! lead, lead ! " the word was caught up by 
 many voices. 
 
 "And your wives? Have you thought of them? 
 What will they say when the warriors of the tribes 
 of the Tell inscribe your name on the list of wave- 
 rers and cowards ? " 
 
 " We will march with you," cried the young men. 
 
 But their elders pondered, and shook their heads. 
 
 The discussion lasted long; and the Sheikh lis- 
 tened full of gloomy forebodings, and gave his 
 opinion with a grave face and serious voice,— and 
 forgot the very existence of fair Meryem. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Midday, — the hour when the steed treads his own 
 shadow. Not a cloud floats in the liquid blue, not 
 a breath bends the heads of barley and wheat in 
 the ripening fields. The blanched stalks of the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 3 I 
 
 alpha-grass writhe under the intense heat of the 
 sun's rays, while here and there the parched earth 
 opens in cracks. 
 
 The hour of deepest stillness ; the lark falls silent, 
 the partridge sits motionless under the daffodils, the 
 brown hare is fast asleep in the furrow. Only the 
 harsh, shrill note of the cicadas is heard in the scorched 
 grass, and the snap of the juniper seeds bursting in 
 the heat. 
 
 The women have gone to fill the water-skins at 
 the brook, and now seated on its banks under the 
 shade of the laurels, they wait for the first breath 
 of the evening breeze before returning. 
 
 Children, old w^omen and dogs are all asleep in 
 the tents, overpowered by the heat, and but for 
 the men assembled in the dar-diaf the douar seems 
 deserted. 
 
 At this hour, Mansour, leaving his flock to the 
 charge of his young brothers, returned to the village 
 in haste. He had seen from a distance the arrival 
 of the horsemen, and was eager to know the news 
 they brought. 
 
 Or perchance this was not the real motive urging 
 him, but the wish to be near Meryem at a time 
 when he knew his father could not but be occupied. 
 Love had grown fiercer and fiercer in his untamed 
 heart; and now nothing could assuage his desires 
 but their fulfilment, nothing cure his longing but 
 flight. But he could not fly ; instead he hurried to 
 find her, reckless and agitated. He had noted that
 
 32 THE CIIASTISEIMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 jMeryem avoided him, and the fresh obstacle but 
 roused his passions further. Doubtless he did not 
 realize the enormity of such an intrigue, the foul- 
 ness of the crime he contemplated. He thought 
 not of consequences ; his one idea was to be near 
 her, to feed his eyes on her beauty, to feast on 
 her smile, to gaze at the grace of her slender form 
 and the beauty of her limbs beneath the light robe 
 that fluttered in the wind. 
 
 I judge him not; I but report what befell, and 
 say : 
 
 " Love is very strong, very strong! " 
 
 XV. 
 
 He glided through the high stalks of the ripe 
 barley, making a furrow through the grain, till he 
 was in front of his father's tent. There, stretched 
 full length on the hot ground, he fixed his burning 
 eyes on Meryem, following each slow languorous 
 movement of her form. In the half-light, beneath 
 the ha'ik (veil) of white silk, she seemed to him to be 
 clad in a robe of sunshine. Presently she threw 
 herself on the cool mat of woven alpha-grass, and 
 he could vaguely distinguish, only half hidden 
 beneath the thin gauze, the lovely curves of her 
 shape, burning in the sun and seeming more than 
 ever beautiful to his excited senses. 
 
 The hard, sun-warmed surface of mother-earth 
 touched his bosom with a rough caress, while the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF JSIANSOUR 33 
 
 rays of the sun, father of all living things, blazed 
 down on his fevered head like flames of fire. Red- 
 hot sparks quivered in the overheated air, and 
 myriads of insects moved swiftly and silently in 
 the grass. The very stones he touched scorched 
 his limbs. Sudden starts and sighs seemed to fill 
 the air around him. The wanton earth laid bare 
 her bosom to the fertilizing embraces of the sun. 
 
 His senses were on fire. Suddenly he rose to 
 his feet; then, after hesitating for a few seconds, 
 his long- shepherd's staff in his hand, he moved 
 towards the tent. 
 
 At the noise, slight as it was, his footsteps made 
 on the dry soil, Meryem raised her head quickly, 
 and gathering her lia'iks with all haste about her 
 over the g^auzy mosquito robe that was her only 
 covering, cried angrily : 
 
 " What do you here ? I tell you, begone ! " 
 
 " Why are you angry, Meryem ? " he said, hu- 
 miliated at his reception. " I am thirsty, and I 
 was coming to crave a scttla of sour milk." 
 
 " There is no milk ; begone ! " 
 
 He looked at her shoulders, her arms, her neck, 
 and a fierce longing filled him to feast his lips on 
 them ; but her flashing eye held him back, and he 
 left her, making for the guest-tent. 
 
 The men were still there, discussing the terrible 
 question that had suddenly sprung up like a nightmare 
 to disturb the quiet of their peaceable existence. 
 
 The edges of the great tent were raised breast- 
 
 3
 
 34 thp: chastisement of mansour 
 
 high all round, so iis to let the air blow in freely 
 on. all sides, and to give each man his share of 
 shade. Many however were left in the sun outside. 
 The sweat rolled from their bronzed foreheads, 
 trickling down the deeply lined cheeks on to their jet- 
 black, square cut beards. But none felt heat or thirst ; 
 so absorbed were all by the peril that threatened. 
 
 Mansour approached the group silently, and sat 
 down on his heels within hearing of the speakers. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Sheikh Ahmed-ben-Rahan felt himself deeply 
 aggrieved. The news of coming war was doubly 
 hateful to him ; he was a man of peace by nature, 
 and he was but newly-wed. Not that he was a 
 coward ; like all the sons of Islam a warm and valiant 
 blood coursed in his veins. But age had chilled 
 his early enthusiasm. Besides no man cares, when 
 he is running the risks of battle, to be exposed to 
 other risks, — that threaten old men with young 
 wives. War is like love ; it is for the young. To 
 be a father and a good soldier at one and the same 
 time is hard. When the critical moment comes, the 
 thought of children and wife will obtrude itself, and 
 paralyses the bravest arm. Men that subordinate 
 family to country are a small minority; the major- 
 ity, and it is the majority that tells on the field of 
 battle, think, though they do not say, — Family first, 
 country second!
 
 THE CHASTISEMEXT OF MANSOUR 3 5 
 
 Ihe Sheikh moreover had just heard other words 
 that angered him. They were counting- the number 
 of horsemen the tribe could furnish, and Ahmed had 
 just mentioned the name of his son. But one of 
 the old men of the douar exclaimed scornfully : 
 
 " Oh ! for him, best not count him ! His proper 
 place is tied to our daughters' skirts." 
 
 The father, furious at the insulting speech, had 
 demanded what was meant ; then all had answered 
 with one accord: 
 
 " He speaks truth. Sheikh ! What ! are you the 
 last to know of your eldest son's ill courses?" 
 
 And in the midst of listening to the complaints of 
 fathers and husbands, the Sheikh perceived Mansour. 
 "What do you here?" he cried. "How comes 
 it you are not at the river-side, watching- the 
 women ? I have but now heard shameful tales of 
 you. All men accuse you ; and now you are here, you 
 shall receive your chastisement publicly before all." 
 
 " Chastisement ! " the young man repeated the word 
 incredulously. 
 
 " Yes ! chastisement, that I shall give you with 
 my stick, — while I think of some punishment fitter 
 for your conduct. Take heed! know you not your 
 head is shaking on your shoulders?" 
 
 " Not it ! " returned Mansour with a laugh, eager 
 
 to cover the affront with a jest. " My head sticks 
 
 firm on my neck, and will want a flissa (long 
 
 knife) wielded by a strong- hand to loosen it." 
 
 But not one of the group echoed his laugh, while
 
 36 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the envoys of the Caid Hassein looked at him coldly 
 and sternly. 
 
 "There are strong hands among' the Sidi-Abid" 
 said a grave voice. 
 
 "There are," added another voice, "and some 
 day one of us will go to see Ahmed-ben-Rahan and 
 will say: 'Sheikh Ahmed, I am 3'our friend, and 
 I esteem you, but your son Ma.nsour has insulted 
 my sister, my daughter; and, lo! I have killed him. 
 See! yonder the village dogs lick the blood that 
 flows from his neck.' And Ahmed-ben-Rahan will 
 have to bend to the blow, and say: 'You have 
 done well. The law is just ; what is written must 
 be fulfilled!'" 
 
 "Of a surety, I will say so; I swear it by the 
 tomb of the Prophet! But enough said of such 
 ma,tters; they sound but ill in the ears of a father. 
 For you, hearken ! The Roumis draw near. As 
 they advance, they destroy all before them like a 
 cloud of locusts. They have burned the villages 
 and the crops of the Tell, and destroyed the olives 
 and pomegranates and vines; now they,. are cutting 
 down the palm-trees, those good gifts of God,- — the 
 palms that need the heat of twenty summers before 
 they fruit. The messengers here declare the plain 
 of the JMeskiana is covered with their tents as thick 
 as the firmament with stars, that wherever the eye 
 falls, nothing is to be seen but the blue cloaks of 
 the Franks. The tribes of the Tell appeal to us of 
 the Beled-el-Djerid to unite with them to drive out
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 37 
 
 the Unbelievers. But when the young men mount 
 and ride against the foe, you must stay at the tent- 
 door with the Httle children and watch them go. 
 Yes! all proclaim you unworthy to hear the sound 
 of arms, you that love only to hear women's loose 
 talk. In this matter are sure signs for such as 
 reflect, and already the men of the Sidi-Abid begin 
 to say, when they see you : ' He will never be a 
 warrior to ride with us in days of danger.' " 
 
 "They lie," cried the young man, trembling with 
 passion. " They lie, and I will show them they lie!" 
 
 But no one heeded the boast, and a smile hovered 
 over the lips of many. 
 
 " You talk like a new-made wife, that boasts and 
 tells her companions, ' I am the fairest of you all ;' 
 but it wants more than fine words to make folk 
 fair, — or brave. It wants deeds to prove what you 
 can do, and your deeds heretofore have been those 
 of a slave to fleshly lusts. Even as the, daughters 
 of Fathma, the handmaidens of sin, you shall be 
 treated like them. AVhy shave your head? Nay! 
 let your lo.cks grow long. I will give you circlets 
 of silver for your arms and ankles, ear-rings for 
 your ears. Meanwhile, go take a pitcher ; away to 
 the fountain to join your sisters." 
 
 "Sheikh," exclaimed Mansour, boiling with rage 
 and shame, " one day I shall know how to prove 
 you wrong in reckoning me among the women ; 
 I will prove you all mistaken. Not another night 
 wiU I sleep in this douar where the men reject me
 
 38 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 from their gom/i. On your heads, on all your heads, 
 be it ; you shall repent of your words, you shall repent 
 of them and wish they had never been spoken, the 
 day you come to kiss my stirrup and call me lord." 
 
 'Jliere was a shout of laughter, but he continued : 
 
 " Sheikh ! give me a horse and a musket, and I 
 will go join the Caid Hassein. He will welcome 
 me in his gotun, and as you have rejected me, 
 henceforth I will serve under him. By the tomb of 
 the Prophet, from to-day you may blot out my 
 name from among the Sidi-Abid .... Warriors of 
 the Nememchas, I will follow you whither you go. 
 They will still be deliberating what they have to do 
 next, when young and old in this land shall hear 
 tell of Mansour-ben- Ahmed's prowess in the war." 
 
 All laughed again mockingly, and one of the old 
 men said softly : 
 
 "The lion's skin on the ass's back!" 
 
 Another* said. " He has a tongue of gold, like a 
 Thaleb. From henceforth we agree to call you 
 Sidi. Lo ! Sidi-Thaleb-]Mansour-ben-Ahmed, I am 
 your serv^ant ! " 
 
 " Good ! " addsd the Sheikh ; " but the Tolbas * are 
 but curs in war. The noise they make hinders them 
 from doing much. They bark, but they never bite." 
 
 "/ mean to bite," said the young man. 
 
 " My son, I see fury in your eyes, and I hear 
 furious words from your lips. Your anger pleases 
 me ; he who feels an insult bitterly, will learn how 
 
 ' Plural of Thaleb.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 39 
 
 to avenge it. I know your demand, and I give 
 my consent. Your mother has long been urging it. 
 You may yet distance our young- warriors in the 
 race. You will confirm by word of mouth what 
 we have just delivered to the envoys of Hassein, 
 'So soon as he shall ask its aid, he shall have 
 our gown.' Go, saddle the black colt. He was 
 the first foal of my good mare Haavia, and may 
 you one day say : ' he has carried me well and faith- 
 fully.' When you return from the battle-field, the 
 wife you have chosen shall take his head between 
 her arms, and unfasten her haik to wipe the foam 
 from his lips. Go, and my blessing- go with thee!" 
 And as he was retiring, the Sheikh called after him : 
 " Bid Meryem open the fondoitk, and give you 
 two douros and five and twenty cartridges. For 
 the rest, God will provide." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Mansour's retreat w^as followed by a burst of 
 merriment. The men of the douar were saying to 
 one another : " Ha ! ha ! the Roumis will fly when 
 they see him ! " 
 
 He looked back, and a smile was on his father's 
 face. The sight cut him to the heart, and made 
 his fury boil up once more, for he did not hear the 
 words his father added : " Have patience ; the boy 
 is of a good stock, and when his beard is grown, 
 he will know well how to hold his own among- 
 brave men."
 
 40 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Arrived at the entrance of the tent, he threw down 
 his herdsman's staff, and it rolled to Aleryem's feet. 
 
 " What ! returned again ? " she exclaimed. But then, 
 terrified at the fierce light that burned darkly in his 
 eyes, she drew back into the interior of the dwelling 
 of skins, and leant against one of the tent-poles. 
 
 She had just completed her toilette, and her face 
 was freshly painted. Her great dark eyes, that the 
 koheul (black pigment) yet further magnified, were 
 deep wells of lo\^e ; and the lovely arched brows were 
 prolonged at the extremities till they reached the 
 temples, and united by a slender dark line. She had 
 chewed the souak, that lends the lips the scarlet of 
 the pomegranate-seed, and fixed on her cheeks tiny 
 spangles of gold, that Mansour devoured with his 
 eyes and burned to touch with his lips. The ample 
 turban of the women of the Souf crowned the grace- 
 ful head, framed in the heavy ringlets of its dark 
 tresses, from which her great silver ear-rings peeped 
 out with brilliant effect. The gandourah of striped 
 silk was half open in front and allowed a glimpse 
 of her small, firm breasts, that a husband's kisses 
 and the fatigues of child-birth had had no time to 
 wither. Her bosom rose and fell rhythmically 
 beneath the light robe that was confined at the 
 waist by a girdle of gold embroidery. Arms and 
 limbs were bare. Her hands were stained yellow 
 with henna to the wrists, her feet to the ankles ; 
 and the delicate nails of fingers and toes were like 
 the berries of the jujube-tree.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 4 1 
 
 It is written : " When a woman has made beau- 
 tiful her eyes with kohcul and her fingers with 
 henna, and has chewed the branch of the souak, 
 that perfumes the breath, making the teeth white 
 and the Hps of purple, then is she more pleasant 
 in the sight of God, for that she is more loved of 
 her husband." 
 
 And when she raised her arm to grasp the tent- 
 pole, against which she leant her head in an attitude 
 of careless grace, Mansour's burning eyes fixed on 
 the ravishing hollow of the armpit, from which the 
 hair had been scrupulously removed, and on the 
 harmonious curves of neck and bosom. 
 
 No ! never before had he seen her so charming ; 
 never since her marriage day had her beauty so 
 dazzled him. 
 
 And trembling with emotion, he stood speechless 
 before this epic of loveliness. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Meryem blushed under his gaze that was more 
 eloquent than any words of love, and felt the deli- 
 cious flattery of his admiration of her beauty. 
 
 " What, you ! you returned again ! Surely I bade 
 you begone." 
 
 She strove to give her voice a tone of anger; 
 but she could not. The sentence that began in 
 wrathful tones died away softly into silence ; and 
 with more of surprise than of displeasure she saw
 
 42 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Mansour draw from his girdle a little ring of silver 
 and seize her hand. 
 
 His look was so beseeching, she dared not refuse 
 the gift. Covered with blushes, she let him put it 
 on her finger, laughing to hide her agitation. 
 
 " Is this our betrothal ? " she asked. 
 
 His only purpose had been to beg her keep the 
 ring as a souvenir, and bid her farewell. Possibly 
 too he had dreamt of snatching a kiss from her rosy 
 mouth. In any case Meryem's laugh emboldened 
 him, and he replied at once : 
 
 " Yes ! it is our betrothal. Are you not decked 
 out for the coming wedding?" 
 
 " Wedding! ah! it was over long ago. You know 
 that. Your father has not divorced me yet, so how 
 can I marry again ? " 
 
 The words ended in a sigh, and Mansour sprang 
 forward to catch it as it left her lips ; but his courage 
 failed him. He merely took possession of the little 
 hand he had dropped after slipping the ring on her 
 finger, and pressed it in both his own. 
 
 Then he sat down at the feet of his idol, and 
 laying his forehead in the soft hand, began to 
 weep. 
 
 Stirred with pity, she .stooped and touched his 
 shoulder : 
 
 " Why do you weep, INIansour ? " 
 
 He made no answer, and she felt his tears trickle 
 over her fingers. 
 
 "Why weep like a little child his mother scolds?
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 43 
 
 You are no more a child ; I am not your mother, 
 and I do not scold you. Up ! Alansour. What 
 would the Sheikh think, if he saw you so? What 
 would Kradidja think, who is so suspicious ? ]Man- 
 sour ! Mansour ! What would the men of the douar 
 say ? " 
 
 " What care I ? Let me lie at your feet, I am 
 happy there." 
 
 "Mansour! up! I beseech you." 
 
 " You ask what men would say, " he returned. 
 "Why! what could they say but what has been 
 said many a time already, ' The son of Ahmed 
 is dying for the love of the Rose of the Ouled- 
 Sidi-Abidr'' 
 
 She withdrew her hand sharply, and gazed at him 
 overwhelmed by his words. 
 
 "Tell me! have they seen that 5'ou loved me?" 
 
 " Yes!" he cried, embracing her limbs and kissing 
 her feet madly, " I love you, love you ; and you 
 always knew it! " 
 
 " I do not know it, I ivill not know it. Up ! up ! 
 Mansour. Are you mad? " 
 
 " Yes ! I am mad ; I must be mad, for I have 
 done all I could to tear up the thought of you from 
 my heart. I have rolled among the sharp prickles 
 of the broom ; I have spent long hours in tears hid 
 in the oleander-thickets. But in spite of me, my 
 lips kept murmuring all the time, ' Meryem ! 
 Meryem '. I strove to love the maids of the douar, 
 but I could not. 'Twas you I loved, even when I
 
 44 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 was whispering words of love in their ears; and 
 when I sighed, 'twas to you my sighs flew. Yes! 
 Meryem, yes! I am mad," 
 
 " Hush I child, hush ! " 
 
 " Ever since the day you came, a guest thrice 
 blessed and thrice accursed, to dwell beneath my 
 father's tent, and I beheld you lift your veil and 
 show the dazzling loveliness of your face ; ever since 
 the day the warriors of the tribe fired their merry 
 salute to welcome you, while you, you sat in thought 
 with pensive eyes, not hearing the crash of the 
 guns nor the neighing of the fiery steeds nor the 
 women's cries of joy, seeing nothing, when all saw 
 nought but you ; ever since the horrid night I heard 
 you utter your first cries of pain, that my father's 
 kisses could not stifle, — I have indeed been mad ! " 
 
 " You make me die of shame. " 
 
 " Let me tell you all, Meryem I I counted them, 
 your cries, yes ! e^'ery one. And when the other 
 women whispered low, and laughed among them- 
 selves, I was tearing my breast with my nails. 
 Look ! you may yet see how often, for since that 
 time the dates of the oasis have but barely had 
 space to ripen." 
 
 He rose to his feet, and opening his gandotirah 
 showed his chest torn with long red marks. 
 
 " Go ! go ! Have pity on me. I cannot, I must 
 not, listen to you longer. Go! " 
 
 She tried to escape, but he stood in front of her, 
 his arms wide open to seize her.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 45 
 
 " ]\Iy love! my life!" he cried; "I long for the 
 sweets of your bosom, I long to drink there, I 
 long to die there ! " 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A FRENZY of passionate love had seized him, fierce 
 and irresistible, that made him deaf to every appeal 
 of conscience. 
 
 Women plead in his excuse, — he was so young 
 and did not think. They throw the blame on 
 Meryem, and say she was a coquette and weak. 
 But there ! women are the bitterest enemies of 
 women ; if the plain were empanelled as judges, 
 they would condemn all the fair to death. Men, 
 colder and more impartial critics, declare Mansour 
 the guilty one. Thus human justice sees the same 
 act in different lights; the Immutable alone can 
 read the heart. 
 
 You of the North, you cannot understand these 
 whirlwinds of fiery passion. 
 
 In your cold land love is a puny dwarf; it makes 
 humble slaves of you, with bent head and down- 
 cast eyes. You flutter round w^omen like foolish 
 gaudy butterflies ; you coo like doves, and mince 
 your words as wantons do. Truly it is a question 
 which are the more womanish, your women or 
 your men. No wonder if the manly sons of the 
 Prophet, seeing your young men, slim and all but 
 beardless, with rouged faces and hair perfumed and
 
 46 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 curled, take them for girls, and would make lov'e 
 to them. 
 
 Your sun has no heat ; your life knows no fatigue 
 or danger. What wonder your love is thin and 
 weak as water. 
 
 'Tis thus your women dare to display the allure- 
 ments of gesture and of dress, of words and 
 looks, they do. They fear not to expose their faces 
 in public, and even to heighten the beauty of them 
 for greater enticement ; nay ! in your salons they 
 go farther and display their opulent shoulders, and 
 the velvety hollow of the back between them that 
 entices wanton thoughts to follow its downward 
 curve, and bare their bosoms, by secret devices 
 making them yet more prominent and seductive to 
 the prying eye. And the charms they cannot show, 
 these they complacently suggest by artful tricks of 
 toilette, to better excite desire. 
 
 Desire ? yes ! but what are your desires worth ? 
 
 Supposing, enticed by the beauties you have 
 seen, or guessed, the charms they have shown you, 
 or hinted at, you whisper in humble and adoring 
 accents, "I love you, fair lady!" — why! they are 
 insulted, and reply with scorn, " Sir ! I have a hus- 
 band." Then, like a child his mother threatens 
 with the whip, you slink away ashamed. 
 
 But what is it all to me? Only I ask, — if you 
 have a husband, woman, why does he make a show 
 of you, like a tradesman with his wares to sell? 
 Let him keep your nakedness and your fair flesh
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 47 
 
 for himself alone. Satiated g'lutton, let him not 
 tantalize hungry men with the exhibition of the 
 rich fare he revels in. 
 
 Hide your treasure ; 'tis the surest way not to 
 have it stolen. 
 
 But, the fact is, among you Franks all this leads 
 to little or nothing, — good or bad. You look and 
 sigh, — and that is all! But it is very different 
 with the sons of Arabia, whom the Simooui scorches 
 with its breath of flame, and fires the blood. 
 
 I am not speaking of the CJiaouias or the Bcdoiih, 
 whose women may be seen by every strang'er cul- 
 tivating the fields of the Tell. They are beasts of 
 burden, that work half-naked, exposing to public 
 view their thin toil-worn shapes and dangling breasts 
 like a she-goat's dugs. Such are not women, but 
 mere creatures of misery that from infancy have 
 been enslaved to heavy manual labour too hard 
 for them, and as mere children fouled and brutal- 
 ized by premature vice. But the fair daughters of 
 the Souf are very different; and no man can look 
 on them without peril. Pale or golden-olive in 
 complexion, their great dark eyes are wells of love ; 
 and the young man of our r^ce who is privileged 
 by fate to catch a glimpse of one of these dazzling' 
 forms, cries, with an oath by the head of the Prophet : 
 " Oh ! to kiss her sweet mouth, and die ! " 
 
 So did Mansour ; and strove, his eyes flashing 
 with the frenzy of desire, to grasp Meryem in his 
 arms.
 
 48 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 XX. 
 
 She pushed him back, confused and terrified by 
 his vehemence. "What are you doing? Mansour, 
 listen to reason. You are not in your senses. The 
 old witches of the tribe have cast a spell over you. 
 Do not hurt me ! do not force me to cry for help ! 
 Consider, — the least sound will bring your father 
 here, and everybody; and there will be a scandal 
 that will ruin all. Remember whose wife I am. 
 Mansour ! Mansour ! " 
 
 He saw at once force would be of no avail, and 
 that he must resort to stratagem. 
 
 " Hear me, Meryem. It is my duty to tell you 
 what I am going to reveal. The men you see 
 yonder are horsemen sent by the Caid Hasseim to 
 summon the tribe to fight for our country. All 
 are ready. But one of them said jeering the Sheikh, 
 ' No ! Ahmed-ben-Rahan is not ready. He has 
 married a young wife, and he loves the perfume 
 of her petticoats better the smell of powder.' My 
 father protested indignantly ; then the Sheikh of 
 the Ouled-Rabah took up the word : 
 
 " 'By all I have been told, Ahmed, this flower 
 of the Souf would bloom more luxuriantly at your 
 son's lips than planted in your grey beard ! Each 
 is free to please himself; yet is it a pity when a 
 young wife is tied to an old warrior's arm. She 
 makes his blows feeble and uncertain, for the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 49 
 
 thought of her will be with him even on the battle- 
 field." 
 
 " 'You speak truth,' replied my father, ' the devil 
 tempted me that day I first longed to have her in 
 my bed. She is but a child without a thought or 
 care but to paint her eyebrows and stain her fingers 
 and toes with henna. I had done better to have 
 told my son, " Take her, you ! " ' " 
 
 " He said that?" 
 
 " By my head, did he ! And the Sheikh of the 
 Ouled-Rabah added, 'Yes! you are right. The 
 young for the youngs ! ' " 
 
 " If he really said those words, I will ask a divorce ; 
 but you are lying, you know you are lying." 
 
 " I can prove what I say is true. I had been 
 standing aloof, but at this I came forward." 
 
 " I saw you. " 
 
 "And I said, ' P'ather, it is not yet too late; and 
 if you are tired of your bride .... I am ready to 
 take her.' Then they all laughed." 
 
 "How rashi" cried Meryem. "Yes! I heard 
 them laugh." 
 
 " But my father answered, ' The Law- forbids it.' " 
 
 " What ! is that the only reason he gave against 
 it?" the simple-minded girl asked. 
 
 "The only reason. Is it not sufficient? Oh! 
 Meryem, Meryem, how could you endure the caresses 
 of a man of his age without loathing ? Cannot you 
 see that the sheets of your bridal bed but make a 
 death-cold shroud? But / am young like you. 
 
 4
 
 50 THE CHASTISEiMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Hear how wildly my heart beats, and taste how 
 my lips burn with fire." 
 
 " .V curse be on my head, if ever I commit a 
 sin so grievous ! A curse on your wicked head ; 
 you would stain the bed of the father that begot you !" 
 
 " Rose of Peiradise ! there is no stain, for my 
 father himself repents that he ever married you." 
 
 " You lie, child of the devil. What you tell me 
 is impossible. You are like the Christians, that 
 juggle with words and distort their meaning of set 
 purpose, making confusion worse confounded with 
 their false tongues." 
 
 " I swear by the Prophet I speak truth. Shamed 
 by the jeering speeches of the Sheikh of the Ouled- 
 Rabah, my father said before them all, — I repeat 
 word for word: 
 
 "'Some day we will have a divorce; then I will 
 give her to you for handmaid, even as King Solo- 
 mon received from his father David's bed his hand- 
 maid Abisiig.' " 
 
 " He could never have said that! It is a false- 
 hood." 
 
 " How should I dare to lie, when you can convict 
 me of the falsehood instantly?" 
 
 "I repeat, it is a falsehood." 
 
 "O! Meryem, you are more beautiful than the 
 gazelle, but you are not gentle like it. You are 
 obstinate, as the she-goat is obstinate ; and will not 
 believe the truth." 
 
 And without giving her time to think, he seized
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 5 I 
 
 her arm, and drawing her from the tent, called to 
 the old Sheikh who was haranguing the assembled 
 crowd. 
 
 "Sheikh! O, Sheikh! Ahmed-ben-Rahan." 
 
 "Well?" asked the old man, annoyed at the 
 interruption. 
 
 " Meryem will not believe me. She says it is a 
 falsehood I speak." 
 
 Then the Sheikh, furious at his young wife thus 
 showing herself unveiled before strangers, cried in 
 passionate tones: 
 
 " The boy speaks the truth. Hear him, I com- 
 mand you. And trouble me no more." 
 
 Humiliated at these rough words addressed to her 
 in public, and still more at the yet greater insult 
 she believed herself to have received, she sprang 
 back into the tent, furious and amazed. 
 
 "Now" you see," cried Mansour, "sooner or later 
 you will be mine. Let it be sooner; let me have 
 my rights now." 
 
 And he had kissed her neck and arms and lips 
 madly, before she recovered self-possession. 
 
 " I will make complaint to the Cadi. Mansour, 
 your father is a villain. Leave me, leave me." 
 
 "Yes! fair flower of the morning, he is a villain, 
 and the curse fall on his head." 
 
 He glided to her feet, and drew her to the ground 
 by his side. 
 
 "Oh! leave me," she kept repeating, "I will 
 complain to the Cadi ! I will complain to the Cadi .^"
 
 52 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 But her resistance grew weaker and weaker in 
 proportion as her lover became more bold. Soon 
 it ceased altogether, and ]Mansour heard only a 
 last feeble protest that escaped the lips of the des- 
 perate girl, a low, murmured, " I will complain 
 to the Cadi . ..." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The outrage once accomplished, the evil was beyond 
 remedy and complaints useless. 
 
 When Meryem discovered the trick that had 
 helped to her undoing, she did not cry out or tear 
 her hair. Neither did she say, " You have undone 
 me ! You are a villain ! " 
 
 She knew herself to be as guilty as her incestuous 
 lover, and putting a finger on her lip, looked 
 Mansour in the face : 
 
 " All is over now. You must go, and never 
 return. Your presence is a pollution. We must 
 see each other no more. Swear, sw^ear, you will 
 not come back." 
 
 " I will never come back," he repeated after her. 
 
 " What faith can I put in your words? You have 
 shown yourself a master of cunning lies." 
 
 But Mansour repeated simply : " I swear that I 
 will never come back again." 
 
 Then she helped him to saddle the black colt. 
 
 In his interest no less than for her own sake, she 
 wished him g'one. Well she knew that, if he stayed,
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 53 
 
 their first fault would not be the last. It would 
 infallibly be followed by many another, till at long 
 last punishment overtook the guilty pair. 
 
 For punishment always does overtake the guilty, 
 and the slower its coming, the more terrible is it 
 at the last. 
 
 When she saw him mount the black colt, she 
 wept. But Kradidja, who more than once afterwards 
 found her in tears, could not tell whether it was 
 her sin she wept for, or the hurried departure of 
 the lover that took her heart with him. 
 
 The horsemen of the Caid Hasseim were waiting 
 for him ; and soon they made a start. 
 
 " Farewell ! " said the Sheikh, " the blessing of 
 God, and mine, go with you." 
 
 "Prosper, and come back soon," cried his com- 
 rades. 
 
 But he could not answer a word. Already he 
 felt a remorse, that seemed to choke him, and made 
 him dumb. 
 
 " Forgive him, " said his father, " he is still indignant 
 at the insult he received. But we shall hear great 
 things of him yet ; I know what blood is in his veins. " 
 
 The rest smiled. 
 
 Meryem, standing at the threshold of the tent, 
 gazed long after him, one hand pressed to her bosom 
 and her face still red from his fierce kisses. She 
 seemed no longer to feel her heart beat, and cried 
 in anguish : 
 
 '* My heart is bound to his, and has gone along
 
 54 
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 with him. And I made him swear never to come 
 back again." 
 
 When now far away, to disappear in a moment 
 behind the first swell of the plain, he drew rein, 
 and turning round stood a moment motionless, 
 illuminated by the dying fires of the setting sun. 
 
 Then the men of the douar, who had all risen to 
 their feet, laughed and shouted to him : 
 
 '' Sidi-Thaleb I Sidi-Thaleh ! we salute you." 
 
 But he neither saw them nor heard them. He 
 did not even see his father who was wildly waving 
 his hirnoiise in a last farewell, nor his mother who 
 cried through her tears, " ]\Iy son, may your belly 
 never want bread ! " , nor the maidens of the douar 
 who sent their good-wishes after him. All he saw 
 was a silken haik that a little hand shook from the 
 door of his father's tent, and two tears coursed 
 down his cheeks. 
 
 AVhen he had disappeared from sight, the fair 
 ]\Ieryem turned and looked on her husband, who 
 still stood, his eyes fixed on the horizon, straining 
 to catch another glimpse of his son's vanished form. 
 
 " Oh ! may he never know, " she murmured to 
 herself, " the sin we have been guilty of ! May his 
 days be spared that sorrow ! Yes ! better that my 
 darling never, never return ! " 
 
 XXII. 
 
 He joined the ranks of the gotim, and in the hour
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 55 
 
 of battle when the sabre is red with blood and eye 
 meets eye in hate, he bore himself in such wise 
 that the old warriors said to him after the fight, 
 " Well done ! " 
 
 His valour raised the repute of his tribe. Men 
 said, " He is brave ; he is one of the Ouled-Sidi- 
 Abid r The old Sheikh Ahmed trembled with pride 
 one day when he overheard the words, " Look I the 
 father of Mansour the Bra\'e. " 
 
 But he never returned ; nor was IVIeryem ever to 
 see him more. .She strove to forget, but in vain. 
 Long she waited for him, and many a time she 
 watched the plain, looking to East and West, North 
 and South, and asking, " From what quarter will 
 he come, and when ? " And if she saw far away 
 at the horizon a troop of horsemen appear, or a 
 little cloud of dust rise, she would tremble throug^h 
 all her being, and cry, " 'Tis he ! " 
 
 " 'Tis he ! " the Sheikh would repeat, whose 
 eyes also scanned the desert, and a tear of joy 
 would trickle down his wrinkled cheek. 
 
 " 'Tis he ! " the aged Kradidja would repeat, and 
 shake with excitement. "God has heard my prayer; 
 I shall not die before I have seen once more the 
 first and fairest fruit of my womb." 
 
 And men-servants and maid-servants, and the 
 men of the doicar, would look over the plain, and 
 say, " 'Tis he ! " 
 
 But it never was. Weeks, months, years passed and 
 neither Alansour nor the black colt came back again.
 
 56 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Once, however, all were sure they saw him ; and 
 joy and excitement filled their hearts to over- 
 flowing. A horseman approached riding a steed 
 the whole douar knew for the foal of Naama, clie 
 devourer of Space. 
 
 " It is he! it is! Kradidja! Meryem ! Go, kill the 
 fattest sheep. It is my son! Unroll the Tunis carpet, 
 and spread it on the floor. My children, I can die 
 in peace. It is Mansour! My son! O, my son ! " 
 
 All the village was astir, shouting: 
 
 "Ho! young men! up, up! High day and holi- 
 day ! A salvo of your muskets to welcome Mansour 
 the Brave ! 'Tis Mansour-ben-Ahmed come back ! " 
 
 They no more called him the Thaleh in mockery, 
 but all shouted in chorus: 
 
 " Mansour the Brave ! Mansour the Brave ! Ala- 
 rhahabek! MarJiababck ! Welcome! thrice wel- 
 come ! " 
 
 Meryem turned pale and shuddered, as if the 
 fever of El-]\Ieridj were in her veins; but Kradidja 
 shook her roughly and chid her: 
 
 "What! Meryem. Come, courage! Courage! or 
 your shame will be an open secret. You will betray 
 yourself " 
 
 But the horseman had stopped a gunshot away, 
 and sat there motionless. 
 
 He watched the preparations making in his honour, 
 but came no nearer. 
 % Then the old Sheikh went forward to greet him, 
 followed by a group of the men of the tribe : but
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 57 
 
 when to his surprise he saw him still motionless in 
 the same spot, and holding in his horse, that danced 
 with impatience and saluted the tents of the Oiiled- 
 Ascars with joyous neighs, he waved his burnouse 
 and cried in a loud voice : 
 
 " Come nearer ! come nearer, Mansour ! " 
 
 And he stretched his arms towards him, then 
 pointed to his heart. 
 
 His companions also waved their burnouses, and 
 shouted : " Mansour ! Mansour ! J\Iarhababek ! 
 Marhababek ! " 
 
 Of a sudden they saw the horseman raise his 
 right arm. 
 
 Long he held it outstretched, pointing towards 
 the dollar \ then putting his hand to his lips, he 
 threw a kiss in the same direction, that seemed to 
 carry his very soul with it. 
 
 It was Mansour's first greeting, and his last fare- 
 well, to his father's venerable countenance and white 
 beard, to his mother who called his name, to a 
 light brilhant form that stood beside her, to the 
 great brown tent with its yellow stripes, that had 
 seen his birth and had sheltered his slumbers for 
 many a year, to the maidens he had made love to, 
 now doubtless wives and mothers, to men, to women, 
 to flocks and herds, to all. He cried: 
 
 " Greeting to you all ! God's blessing is with 
 you; lo! I will not bring down misfortune on 
 your heads, for I am accursed! accursed!" 
 
 And filled with amazement they saw him wheel
 
 58 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 his horse sharply round, spur him into a furious 
 gallop, and disappear, without one backward glance, 
 in a cloud of dust that glittered golden in the 
 setting sun, 
 
 iMansour had been very near breaking his oath, 
 but sudden remorse stayed him. He dared not sleep 
 beneath the tent he had polluted, his father's tent, 
 nor see once more the woman he had wronged ; 
 he dared not meet the calm eye of the father he 
 had betrayed. This was his punishment. God 
 punishes in such wise as seems good to God. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Time slipped by without destroying the hope of 
 his return. Now and again his name reached the 
 douar, born by the din of battle ; but that was all. 
 
 They were still waiting and watching for him, 
 when one morning the douar was swept away, as 
 by a whirlwind of the fierce simoom. At day-break, 
 the hour when a man is unarmed, a horse unbridled 
 and a woman ungirdled, the Roumis passed that 
 way ; and the sun was not yet high in the heavens 
 when all was over and not a living thing left on 
 the plain. 
 
 Of the douar and its seventy tents, of the flocks 
 ]\Iansour had guarded of old, of the fair Meryem 
 and the haughty Kradidja, of the old Sheikh and 
 the Ouled-sidi-Ahid not a vestige remained, — only 
 a memory of what had been.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAX SOUR 59 
 
 At twilight came the marauders that prowl under 
 cover of night, to rob the dead. They saw the 
 corpses of women that the horsemen of the Magzen 
 had violated and then ripped up. They had already 
 been stripped of their silver circlets, their brace- 
 lets and finger-rings. Such is war. If men risk 
 their lives, they must have their reward. Soldiers 
 must have their amusement when the fight is won. 
 
 Still a little silver ring had escaped their notice. 
 It lay wrapped in the folds of an amulet over the 
 heart of one of the dead women. 
 
 There was nothing else left to loot but a few 
 blood-stained burnouses, a few tattered tents, a few 
 torn ha'i'ks. These they carried off; and the jackals 
 had the rest. The poor must live. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Mansour was ever in the thickest of the fight in 
 every battle. He had his people to avenge, and 
 his past to forget. 
 
 Death, who takes cowards by the throat, slinks 
 away abashed before those who defy him. Gun to 
 shoulder, and sword in hand, Mansour sought death. 
 The Roumis could not count the victims of his 
 blade ; his ball, men say, never touched the ground. 
 
 But what cared he for glory ? To forget was all 
 he wished. 
 
 When we were at last vanquished by the supe- 
 rior strength, numbers and discipline of the enemy,
 
 6o THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 and also, it must be owned, by the treachery of 
 our own people, like the rest he bent his head 
 before the storm. 
 
 What use to strive against fate? Fate is like a 
 raging- mountain torrent that of a sudden sweeps 
 down from the heights. Wise men avoid its course ; 
 it is only fools that try to bar its progress, and 
 their dead bodies soon go to swell the mass of 
 debris scattered over the plain. So he drew aside, 
 and avoided the fury of the storm. 
 
 But it is in perils that a strong man's soul is 
 tempered. The man who sits still at the doorway 
 of his tent, watching the hours go by, contented with 
 what God gives him, will never have Fame and 
 Fortune for companions. 
 
 They are women, and surrender only to the lover 
 who is bold and enterprising. Mansour found 
 both in the course of his restless wanderings up 
 and down the highways of life in search of forget- 
 fulness. 
 
 He found them in the land of the Souf; he chased 
 them across the boundless solitudes of the desert, 
 and seized the intangible skirts of these hotiris that 
 men so long after. 
 
 He forced them to his \\'ill, there on the desert 
 road, beset with perils, that the caravans follow, the 
 caravans that cross the Sahara to the wild regions 
 beyond in search of buffalo-skins and gold-dust, and 
 ivory and handsome negro slave-women. 
 
 He had made himself a man of renown among 
 
 I
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 6 1 
 
 the brave ; and he did the Hke again among rich 
 merchants and bold traders. 
 
 Every enterprise succeeded with him, and he won 
 the surname of Sidi-Messaoud, or " My Lord the 
 Happy Man" ; for among Behevers ahke and Un- 
 beHevers, the crowd worships success. 
 
 " The Happy Man!" He might have been happy, 
 could he have forgotten the past ! 
 
 He might well have been happy, for wiser than 
 many rich men, whose first and only idea is to heap 
 up douros upon doiiros, to accumulate a hoard and 
 then never use it, he employed the reward so nobly 
 won by his toil and intrepidity on his pleasures, 
 those crumbs of happiness the Master throws us to 
 reconcile us to life. 
 
 Then for a little while he would forget. Inexor- 
 able memory ceased for a while to torture him ; 
 the viper of remorse for a while was still. He was 
 able to forget that he was accursed. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Returning from those \'ast solitudes where a trav- 
 eller may journey for months together and find no 
 limit to the desert, he would often meet on the 
 borders of the Souf caravans of the traders of the 
 Sahara, who as summer approaches, halt in the 
 northern plains to pasture their flocks and buy the 
 corn of the Tell in barter for ostrich-feathers and 
 dates from the oases. Then he would ask leave to
 
 62 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUK 
 
 join his caravan to theirs; and weary of the monotony 
 of the long march, they would accept the offer with 
 delight, for he was well-known as a promoter of 
 hunting parties and merry doings. 
 
 Then would the firing of many guns break the 
 eternal silence of the desert, for El-Messaoud was 
 no niggard of powder; then the women from their 
 palanquins would strike their fingers on their mouths 
 and laugh and make the air throb again with loud, 
 shrill, staccato cries of joy, cries modulated in a 
 certain rhythmical melody that has power to stir 
 men's hearts and intoxicate the senses like the for- 
 bidden thing, wine; then the camels, tossing their 
 heads aloft, would stretch out their great tawny 
 necks eagerly, while flocks and herds in terror 
 would gallop away in front. Then the proud, strong- 
 chested stallions of the Haymour and the mares 
 with their ample loins, all trembling with excitement, 
 would dance and curvet over the sand. 
 
 Then salvo after salvo ! Volley after volley in quick 
 succession. Horsemen dash wildly to and fro; the 
 long chelils (ornamental horse-cloths) of silk toss their 
 gold fringes in the wind ; muskets are thrown high in 
 air, and caught again by nimble hands. Young men 
 and old, straining over their horses' manes, sweep off 
 at a tearing gallop, and disappear, pursued by the wild 
 shouts of the women in a yellow whirlwind of dust. 
 
 And far away on the golden levels of the plain 
 ostriches fly in terror, and troups of gazelles bound 
 out of sight.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 63 
 
 " Fair land that Heaven loves, — a land of freedom, 
 remote from Romnis and .Sultans ! Fair unknown 
 land!" 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But his chief pre-occupation was — Love. In this 
 too he was a warrior of approved valour, and 
 successful as became so intrepid a campaigner. 
 
 The black slave-girls of the Soudan had satiated 
 him with the mad intoxication of their fierce caresses, 
 and he would feel the craving to refresh his appetite 
 on the fragrant bosoms of the fair daughters of the 
 Souf, — the softest, sweetest pillow for a man's head 
 that God has given. 
 
 Wonder of wonders ! fair daughters of the Souf 
 and the Belcd-cl-Djcrid, whose eyes are wells of 
 passion and have the bright gleam of yatagans ! 
 The sight of your beauty warms the blood like the 
 outposts' camp-fire, when dawn is just breaking over 
 the hills and the morning air is chill. 
 
 None better skilled than he, at the hour when 
 the heavens are like molten brass, to watch for the 
 timid daughters of Hagar, when as the caravan is 
 on the march they peep out inquisitively by the 
 taka (curtained opening) of their litter, and show them, 
 unseen by every other eye gay kerchiefs striped with 
 golden braid or necklaces of coral or circlets of silver 
 of cunning workmanship or magic amulets, — the 
 keys that like the Sesainc of our Arab tales unlock 
 the gates bolted and barred by jealous husbands.
 
 64 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 By the time evening was come, and the long- 
 winding caravan was ghding silently through the 
 blue haze, as the sun descended behind the swelling 
 hills on the western horizon and shot broad rays 
 of golden light across the sky, while the horsemen 
 in front with musket on shoulder drove before 
 them the tired flocks, peering into the distance to 
 find the palms that mark the long-sought well, — 
 Mansour had made his choice. 
 
 This is the moment when a bold lover may scale 
 the red litter perched on the docile camel's back, 
 hidden from the husband's eyes. 
 
 Then the fair maid of the Desert, trembling and 
 exhaling the very perfume of love, would stretch 
 her rounded arm to help him, her silver bracelets 
 clashing together with a merry chime, and would 
 shut close the yellow curtain, and welcome him to 
 her breast. 
 
 Thus many a sweet hour was his, — of those hours 
 that heaven is so niggardly in giving, and which 
 fly by so swiftly they do not count in the lapse 
 of time. 
 
 On long and tiresome journeys, \vhen the sun 
 dazzles and the sand scorches, amid the stifling dust 
 raised by the camels' slow, heavy feet, amid dangers 
 and weary watchings and burning thirst, he had 
 wit to drain these drops of the refreshing dew of 
 life that is called Love. 
 
 So would he win forgetfulness. 
 
 Time with its vicissitudes is in a strong man's
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 65 
 
 hands. He can do with it what he will, and. after 
 God, is arbiter of his life. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ]Many a time too on moonless nights when the dogs 
 alone guarded the sleeping douar, he prowled, 
 a dauntless thief that recked not of husbands' rights, 
 round the tent containing the object of his lawless 
 passion. 
 
 He possessed the sorcery of intrepid men ; he 
 knew the signs that silence watch-dogs' barking, 
 the magic words that force the invisible djinjis to 
 sweep the path clear of obstacles. 
 
 Naked as our father Adam, the sharp fiissa between 
 his teeth, he would glide into the tent w^here the 
 fair one he had chosen for his favours awaited him 
 in terror. Then close to the husband whose very 
 breathing he could hear, he w^ould enjoy in ample 
 measure the sweets of stolen love. 
 
 After that he left the trembling woman, never to 
 return. For this was his invariable habit ; never 
 twice did he drink of the same cup. When the 
 pitcher was flawed, he discarded it. 
 
 This he had sworn to do, sworn it by the fond 
 memory of Meryem. 
 
 And the young envied him, and would say, when 
 they saw him ride by on his beautiful mare Ottreka, 
 daughter of the black colt his father had given him : 
 
 " Look ! look ! the man who can command the 
 djiiins, and they obey!" 
 
 5
 
 66 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 But age came, a hated guest. Age came and 
 knocked at his door one morning. 
 
 Mansour awoke with a start ; he had been dreaming 
 of his old father, and raising himself on his elbow, 
 he found his limbs all stiff. 
 
 He was surprised, and asked himself what this 
 might be. Then for the first time he noted that 
 his beard was no longer black. One by one the 
 hairs whitened, and his days grew dark with grief 
 
 Till now he had never thought of counting the 
 wrinkles under the ha'ik that hid his brow. The 
 fancy took him to examine them, and standing 
 before his mirror, a dumb inexorable witness, he 
 pondered and marvelled what was the heavy plough 
 that cut these furrows. 
 
 It was the plough of self-indulgence. No seed 
 fills the furrows it makes, and no harvest ripens 
 there ! 
 
 One day a woman whom he had long been 
 pursuing in vain, told him to his face, " You are 
 an old man, leave me alone!" 
 
 So then, he was an old man, — he who had dreamed 
 his youth would be eternal. Yes! he must be an 
 old man, for a woman had dared to tell him so. 
 Love had given him of its riches in exuberance ; 
 but here was bankruptcy at last. It was a stunning 
 blow I
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 67 
 
 His brain was yet dizzy from its effects. What! 
 was he, the "Happy Man," to be happy no longer ? 
 AVas he, so long accustomed to bend Fortune to 
 his caprices, was he to become in his turn the sport 
 of caprice? 
 
 He would not, could not, believe it. He tried 
 again in other quarters, but everywhere the reply 
 w^as the same : " You are an old man ! " 
 
 " It is a plot they have contrived to mock me, " 
 he thought. For he felt himself still young, in spite 
 of grey hair and stiifened limbs. The body might 
 have aged, but the heart had remained untouched, 
 and was the heart of a young man of twenty. 
 
 However he found himself more and more 
 isolated. All seemed to hate him ; his old companions, 
 his flatterers of former da3^s, were now husbands and 
 had long sedulously kept him at arm's length. A 
 bachelor, childless and jealous of others' happiness, he 
 saw himself the object of g'eneral distrust and dislike. 
 
 What was he to do? He had long regaled 
 himself at the expense of his neighbours; now he 
 must feast at his own cost and risk. Of a surety, 
 notwithstanding the large hole twenty years of self- 
 indulgence had made in his property, he was still 
 rich enough to buy a wife, and a fair wife. But 
 it was a matter for serious reflection. 
 
 He had had the laugh of so many husbands ! 
 would not he be made a laughing stock in his 
 turn? Was he, intrepid and astute as he was, ^it 
 last to find a master?
 
 68 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 It is written, " He that liath betrayed, shall be 
 betrayed; he that hath beaten, shall be beaten; he 
 that hath robbed, shall be robbed; and he that hath 
 polluted his neighbour's wife, the same shall fall 
 asleep wrapped about with pollutions. Evil must 
 needs be repaid by evil." 
 
 XXiX. 
 
 Yet more than ever isolation and solitude weighed 
 heavy upon him. He was weary of his roving- life. 
 Women wanted his favours no more, but he wanted 
 and longed for the solace of a woman's presence. 
 
 "Man cannot live alone." He needs a gentle 
 hand to soften his rugged exterior, the ray that 
 shoots from a loving woman's eye to warm his 
 hearth and brighten his life. The wise men of all 
 times have said, " A man that is companionless 
 must needs grope his way, and wander from the 
 path; then he stumbles and rolls in the mire." For 
 on the rough, dark road of life, it is ever the wife 
 that holds the torch, the husband that takes the 
 ead. 
 
 The thoughtless have said : " A wife's girdle is 
 a girdle of vipers, and her hair is full of scorpions. " 
 
 "A woman, 'tis the accursed thing." 
 
 Nay ! she is only accursed because man has 
 thrown on her the pollution of his lusts; the vipers 
 of her girdle are but the creation of her master's 
 passions.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 69 
 
 "Man nuist not live alone." Nor yet must he 
 sit silent but with envious eyes, a parasite on others' 
 happiness. He must have a fireside of his own, 
 wife and children of his own. Such is the law. 
 An intruder at the fireside is as water to put out 
 the fire. 
 
 Mansour realized all this, but too late. The 
 man they called happy and ashitc, found himself 
 wretched, and knew his cunning had been mere 
 foolishness. His house was empty, and he felt 
 his life to be as empty as his house. 
 
 His passing- loves have left no more lasting trace 
 behind than the flash of the drawn sword leaves 
 in the air it cleaves. 
 
 In sooth he needs must take a wife. He would /7vj "^ 
 love her with a young man's love, the heart and 
 vigour and energy of a young man. He would 
 love her to the end, till his last hour sounded; 
 then he would depart, saying": "There is no hap- 
 piness I have not tasted ! " 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But day after day he hesitated, full of doubt and 
 apprehension. 
 
 What he dreaded was that he should not enhale 
 the first perfume of the flower he would fain pluck 
 to lend sweetness to his declining years. 
 
 To be deceived during marriage is shameful, — at 
 least so the world thinks, attaching shame to an act
 
 70 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 in which the sufferer has no part, — but to be deceived 
 before marriage ! what a triply distilled shame ! 
 
 To pay the price of a new piece of goods, and 
 find it damaged ; to buy an orange whose juice 
 another has sucked; to cut a melon, and there is 
 nothing under the rind; to open a pomegranate 
 and lo ! the pips are eaten ; to pour one's happiness 
 in a goblet, and discover a crack in the glass! 
 
 This he would never do ; he swore it by the 
 ashes of his father. But he forgot he had to reckon 
 with the eternal Justice of Heaven. 
 
 The prophet said: " The woman should be 
 humble and obedient. She should guard, when her 
 husband is abroad, the treasure that pertain eth to 
 him and to no other. Such a woman is virtuous, 
 she is the joy of her mate, the pride of her family, 
 and her acts are writ in the book of Good Works. 
 Honour her; she is equal in honour to the angels." 
 
 " Yes ! but where is such a woman to be found ? " 
 
 He had searched long, defying the law of the 
 Koran that punishes adultery. He had searched 
 from South to North, in the vSahara and in the 
 Tell, beneath the tent of the Bcdoui and in the 
 stone house of the Hadar, and everywhere he had 
 found wives that were of easy virtue. With the 
 most prudish, success had been but a question of 
 address and time and money. Perhaps they were 
 the evil doors he knocked at, but at any rate he 
 heard each man say : " My wives at least are 
 faithful."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 7 I 
 
 And for the maids, the same easy victory, — 
 heart and body ready to yield to the first who 
 presents himself. More, a man must present himself 
 in good time to be the first. 
 
 How hope to find a pure woman ? Again and 
 again he had known men take for wives girls whose 
 honour he had bought, and had heard them boast 
 after the wedding-night : " My darling was as virgin- 
 pure as Lalla-Fathrfia. " 
 
 The proud and happy husband spoke with con- 
 viction; and Mansour would say to himself with a 
 smile, "It is not in cities only there are matrons 
 possessed of cunning arts." 
 
 So he pondered, and forgotten incidents came 
 back to memory. There is ever a penalty to pay 
 for groping among the ashes of the past. 
 
 "Meryem! Meryem!" — The name came back to 
 him at once sad and sweet, a joy at once and a 
 sorrow. 
 
 He had hoped to obliterate its memory in the 
 wild orgies of his early manhood and the vigorous 
 passions of his maturity. 
 
 He had hoped to dig its grave for ever, to bury 
 its dead corpse and throw over its cofiin, spadeful 
 after spadeful, the names of all the many mistresses 
 he had loved for an hour. He thought it well 
 buried and well forgotten, and lo ! now his manhood 
 wa.s on the wane, now he was already knocking 
 at the portals of old age, the memory of a sudden
 
 72 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 arose from its grave, and throwing aside its shroud 
 of obHvion, showed, not dead at all but alive and 
 vengeful, the dread skeleton of his old sin, — " Mer- 
 yem ! Meryem ! " 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Meryem! Meryem! — Fatal name that confronted 
 him in all the fiercest storms of his life, — incest and 
 adultery! treason and rape! 
 
 Meryem! Yes! but which Meryem? For there 
 were two, both ruined by him, both forced b}- him 
 from the path of virtue. His memory confused the 
 two, when he thought of them, under the one sweet 
 name Meryem, name of the Virgin undefiled ! 
 
 He could not recall the face of the one, without 
 the image of the other straightway springing to 
 his memory. 
 
 Beginning and end, first act and last of his love- 
 drama, first page and last of the book of his heart. 
 All that came between seemed but as mire and 
 foulness. 
 
 The last act ! TJicii he was strong and vigorous ; 
 yes! he remembered it well. His beard was still 
 black, and his leg muscular. He had already drunk 
 deep of the cup of life ; but women's eyes still smiled 
 at him, and no one dreamed of telling him, " You 
 are an old man !" 
 
 Was it so long ago ? Nay ! his memory of it all 
 was fresh. Yesterday ! it was a thing of yesterday !
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 73 
 
 Yet ten times since then the palm-trees of the Beled- 
 el-Djerid had yielded the peaceful dweller of the 
 plain his double harvest of dates. Ten years! a 
 yawning chasm in life's course ! a fleeting moment 
 to look back on ! 
 
 Yes ! he remembered it all so well. The happy 
 vision had vanished like a dream ; but now it came 
 back to his memory in clear and distinct outlines, 
 and stood before him. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 It was evening. He was seated under one of the 
 low walls that separate the gardens of Msilah from 
 each other, engaged in deep and anxious thought, 
 alone in the deserted path. 
 
 Suddenly the deep voice of the Muezzin sounded 
 from aloft, slow and solemn. Mechanically he listened 
 to the priest, who cried from the summit of the 
 minaret to the four quarters of the horizon : 
 
 " There is no God but God. His are the East 
 and the West ; which way soever a man turneth 
 himself, there shall he meet His face. 
 
 " God is one God; lift up your hearts and worship 
 Him!" 
 
 Kneeling down and turning towards the East, 
 his forehead bowed in the dust, he repeated the 
 prescribed evening prayer. This done, he sat down 
 once more, rested his back against the stones of 
 the wall and watched between the stems of the palms
 
 74 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 the purple cloudlets that floated in a golden haze 
 above the range of the blue Eastern hills. 
 
 A deep stillness reigned. The sounds of daily 
 life had one by one fallen silent in the Ksour ; in 
 the gardens of the oasis he could hear the low calls 
 of the jackals that slipping through where the walls 
 had fallen, were beginning their nightly prowl in 
 search of food. 
 
 Of what was he dreaming? Perhaps of the fair 
 daughter of the Muezzin El-Ketib, whose voice had 
 called up her image to his mind. Men called her 
 the Pearl of the Ksour, and only the day before 
 he had seen her on the terrace of her father's house, 
 unveiled, with great dark eyes and breasts like a 
 houri. She was watering the pomegranates that 
 were in flower in the terrace-garden, and for a 
 quarter of an hour and more, he had watched her 
 graceful movements, hidden himself behind the trellis 
 of a window in his host's dwelling. Xow stooping 
 over the great flower-pots, delicately pruning the 
 trees, now standing upright, with head bent over 
 the shoulder, she directed on the plants a thin stream 
 of water from an urn of red earthenware. 
 
 Presently, with careless step but with that delicious 
 swaying of the hips that marks a young girl when 
 she first begins to feel the time of love near, she 
 would go to the well to re-fill her djo2iiia (water-pot). 
 
 He was a connoisseur to appreciate these charm.ing 
 signs ; he was not the man to be deceived in matters 
 of the sort !
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 75 
 
 Thus he found himself deeply enamoured. " I 
 shall love that maiden," he said to himself, "more 
 than all the rest; my heart shall be true to her." 
 For indeed he always said so, whenever he coveted 
 a new prey. 
 
 So from that very day, he began, as a cunning 
 strategist should, to study the place he was to lay 
 siege to. 
 
 The Muezzin, a one-eyed old man, miserly, pious 
 and austere, guarded his daughter as the apple of 
 his only remaining eye. She was his youngest, and 
 in all probability he would not have another child. 
 So having increased his substance by the rich sadoukas 
 (marriage-gifts) given by the love-sick bridegrooms 
 of his elder daughters, he was counting on the last, 
 and fairest of all, to round off finally his capital. 
 Accordingly he watched over her like a miser with 
 a bag of gold. 
 
 But Mansour was not the man to be scared by 
 obstacles and shirk an enterprise. In many a former 
 adventure he had burst through more formidable 
 barriers and braved greater dangers. 
 
 XXX III. 
 
 He was just calculating as he stood there in the 
 bye-road, what might be the extreme price one of 
 her waiting-maids would ask for her connivance in 
 aiding him to gain access to her mistress, when 
 he heard a light step approaching and caught sight
 
 76 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 of a man, whom he seemed to recog-nize in spite 
 of the twihght. 
 
 It was the son of El-Arbi-ben-Soua/a, once Caid 
 of the Ouled-Amdou, whose flocks had been looted 
 by the Roumis, At dawn he had been a rich 
 and powerful chief, by sunset he was a poor man, 
 poor among the poorest. The young man was a 
 favourite with Mansour. His face was gentle and 
 pleasing in expression, and the calamity recently 
 fallen on his family added to the interest he in- 
 spired. He was barely twenty, and lacking any other 
 means of livelihood, he proposed to enlist with the 
 Mokalis of the Caid of Msilah. 
 
 Mansour was on the point of accosting the young 
 man as he passed, when the latter suddenly stopped, 
 cast a look over the neighbouring gardens, but 
 without perceiving the Sheikh, then climbed the 
 wall. 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! " thought Mansour, " is his poverty so 
 extreme he must needs pilfer the pomegranates in 
 the Muezzin's garden ? " 
 
 But he soon discovered his mistake, and under- 
 stood what fruit it was that Lagdar wanted to steal ; 
 for after some confused and inaudible whispering, 
 he distinctly heard the words: 
 
 " Four hundred doiiros ! He claims four hundred 
 douros, my white gazelle ! Verily all the palms of 
 all the oases, all the flocks that graze the plains 
 of the Tell and the mares of the Ouled-Xayl to 
 boot, were not price enough for one of your glances ;
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 77 
 
 were I the Lord of the Universe, I would spread it 
 for a carpet before your feet, to w^in one smile. 
 
 But for me, son of El-Arbi a ruined man, where 
 
 does he suppose, your flinty-hearted father, where 
 does he suppose I can get four hundred douros ? " 
 
 "Nay? I have never learned to count," said a 
 soft voice, that made Mansour tremble ; " it is a very 
 large sum, is it,— — four hundred douros f 
 " It would buy four mares of the Haymour ! " 
 " Allah help us ! . . four mares of the Haymour ! " 
 " And I that have not wherewithal to buy an 
 ass of Biskara." 
 
 " Lagdar, I am fain to be yours for nothing ! " 
 
 " Oh ! joy of my eyes, moon of my soul, sun of 
 my heart, rose and perfume of my life, I thought, 
 I dared to think, you would say so . . . Well then ! 
 we will fly. I will take you to the ksour of 
 El-Djciiia, to my mother's house. Let the Aluezzin, 
 El-Ketib, come there and tear you from my arms, 
 if he can. Yes! we will fly. Had I to make the 
 journey on my knees over the sand with you in 
 m}^ arms, I should find the way short and the 
 burden light." 
 
 " She is virgin still, " said IMansour to himself. 
 "But we must act speedily," continued Lagdar; 
 to-morrow perhaps your father will close with some 
 rich wooer's offers. Every hour adds a stone to 
 the wall between us, and soon it will be impassable. 
 We must fly to-morrow. What says your heart ? " 
 " My heart trembles, but it says Yes ! "
 
 78 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " And your will ? " 
 
 " I will what you will. " 
 
 There was a moment's silence. But lips that lay on 
 lips moved softly still, though no w^ord was said. 
 
 " To-morrow then I will be here at the same 
 hour, with a friend whose devotion I can trust, a 
 man of the DjebelSaJiari. He will bring with him 
 for you a grey mule whose pace is swift and sure, 
 and please God, at sunrise we shall be at the Ksottr.'' 
 
 "Please God it be so!" 
 
 " Now, let me taste the sweets of your lips once 
 more." 
 
 They fell in each other's arms. It was long 
 before they could tear themselves away; at last 
 they separated, each with the murmured word " To- 
 morrow". 
 
 Mansour, motionless in the shadow, stood aside 
 to let the happy lover pass. 
 
 " Not a boudjou (farthing) in his pocket, and the 
 creature dares to love!" he muttered. " Wait till you 
 have earned some money to know the price of a 
 woman. And I," he added bitterly, — "/am too late. 
 The Pearl of the Ksoiir is another's. A curse on 
 the young villain ! I was too late for Meryem, who 
 became my father's bride; and I am too late now!" 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Next day he was astir and in the great square of 
 the Ksour when [it was still very early. Already
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 79 
 
 the sun was shining brilhantly, and he sat down in 
 the shade of the penthouse in front of Ah-bou- 
 Nahr's shop, — your humble servant. I was then 
 making my first essays in the noble art of healing, 
 a poor trade in the Souf, where the barbers and 
 the farriers share the patients between them ! So 
 to employ my too abundant leisure, I used to write 
 charms, and make copies of passages from the 
 Koran in ornamental characters. 
 
 Mansour asked me for a light for his chibouk; 
 and presently after watching for a while the blue 
 coils of smoke as they rose slowly, and gradually 
 disappeared in the clear morning air, said: 
 
 "Do you sell love-philtres, Thebib (Doctor)?" 
 
 " I sell everything, — love as well as hate, I write 
 the magic words that turn bullets aside, and those 
 that make men proof against the fiissa of the in- 
 jured husband. Faith is the great healer ! But, 
 what! Do you, Mansour, you that are know^n as 
 the Happy Lover, do you need charms of the sort?" 
 
 He began to laugh, and said. 
 
 "Why, yes! sometimes." 
 
 " The best talisman is to be handsome and well- 
 made. " 
 
 "I know of a better still, — to be bold." 
 
 At the same moment a young man passed close 
 by us, looking hurried and excited. Mansour 
 accosted him: 
 
 " Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi, I thought you were already 
 enlisted in the Mag'zen."
 
 8o THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 "No! not yet," replied Lagdar. 
 
 " Well, perhaps you did well to wait. Your father 
 was my friend, and I wish well to you." 
 
 " Speak, sir ! Your words are like yourself, — 
 welcome. " 
 
 " You know- me, doubtless, by name, though I 
 am not native of the Ksour, I am called Mansour- 
 ben-Ahmed, but the Thaleb Ali-bou-Nahr yonder 
 will tell you how the folk of the Tell and the men 
 of the Bcled-el-Djcrid have added to my name the 
 title of Messaoild (The Happy Alan), because they 
 say I succeed in whatever I undertake." 
 
 " Yes ! I know, " answered Lagdar. 
 
 " Good ! Now listen. I am about to make another 
 journey to the land of the Negroes. You are aware 
 how full of danger and hardship such an under- 
 taking is; therefore I need young men, who are 
 hardy and resolute. I have thought of you. Will 
 you g'o with me?" 
 
 "Your offer is a compliment, Mansour ; and I 
 thank you for it. When are you to start?" 
 
 " I am only waiting for my camels, that are due 
 from Constantine with a freight of silk, chechias 
 (bright-coloured kerchiefs), biirnotises and hai'ks. 
 If they arrive to-morrow, I shall rest the beasts 
 one day, and then away." 
 
 "Alas! that makes it impossible," replied the 
 young man, " I am very grateful for your offer, 
 but I have an important matter that prevents my 
 starting so soon."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 8 1 
 
 " Important! and what can be more important 
 than making your fortune?-' A fortune, I tell you, 
 a fortune — with douros galore and golden sequins; 
 the voyage will make your fortune ! What more 
 important business can there be, when one is twenty, 
 — unless it be that curse of curses, love ! " 
 
 Lagdar cast a look of indignation and pity on 
 the profaner of so holy a name. 
 
 " You are filled with indignation and scorn for 
 me, because / scorn love. You are young, and 
 you presume on your ignorance. Yes! your ignorance; 
 but beware lest knowledge come to you all too soon. 
 I tell you, love — a poor man's love, is the bitterest 
 of bitter thing's. Better expose the delicate form 
 you love, without a shred of clothing, to the 
 scorching rays of the sun and the bites of the 
 mosquitoes than to the cold fang of poverty. Love 
 will wane under the blight, and beauty fade ; and 
 her frozen hands will have no more caresses to 
 bestow. When you would fain kiss her sunken 
 lips, you will feel only the teeth in her fleshless 
 gums, that tell of hunger .... Come, young sir ! 
 join my company, and you will soon find in the 
 Soudan the four hundred doiiros a miserly father 
 claims." 
 
 " By the nine and ninety names of Allah, who 
 told you of this?" exclaimed the young man in 
 amazement. 
 
 "Bah! I know all this, and many another thing 
 beside, Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi. The folk of this land 
 
 6
 
 82 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 
 
 call me the Happy Alan, but the men of my own 
 tribe have long given me the honoured name of 
 TJialcb. I was not yet your age, when the old 
 men of the Onled-sidi-Abid cried after me as I 
 left my home, ' Sidi-Thalcb, we salute you.' Ah, 
 me ! that is long ago, long ago ! " 
 
 He let his chin fall on his breast, and involuntarily 
 his lips let fall the name of Aleryciu. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Lagdar caught it, as he would a falling pearl. 
 He would have been glad to take it within his lips. 
 
 " Who told you her name?" he cried, furious that 
 another should have dared to utter it. " Speak, I 
 would know who it is mixes himself in my secrets." 
 
 Alansour raised his head. 
 
 "Did I speak her name? If I did, it was, I swear, 
 without intending to; the name escaped me, like a 
 bird that flies its cage. Would it might never come 
 back! But as you are angry and will have it. I 
 will tell you yet another thing. Come close ; let 
 us speak low. You are to carry her off this very 
 evening at the hour of the eucha. * Come, come ! 
 do not open your eyes so wide, like a Roumi 
 prisoner whose eyelids they have cut off. Better 
 listen to my advice : don't climb the Muezzin's 
 garden-wall again, or mayhap instead of his daughter's 
 
 * Lalat-el-eticha, the evening-prayer, — at eight o'clock.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 83 
 
 gentle eyes you may find the point of a fJissa to 
 greet you. I have spoken." 
 
 "I have been betrayed. A curse on the villain 
 that has spied on me and overheard my words. I 
 shall know how to punish him ! " 
 
 Mansour smiled to see the boy's beardless mouth 
 big with threats, and said, " Better think how you 
 may grow rich. Then you can buy the maid at 
 the price her father asks, . ... if you love her still, 
 and you deem her worth four hundred douros.'" 
 
 "She is worth four thousand doiiros; and I shall 
 love her forever." 
 
 " Four thousand is a large sum ; Sind forever, — to 
 love forever, ludicrous!" 
 
 " Ten thousand douros would be too small a price 
 for her!" 
 
 " We will not go beyond four hundred, " said 
 Mansour with a sneer; "four hundred is a good 
 sum. It makes two thousand francs, as the Roumis 
 count money, — too heavy a price for a girl whose 
 first favours you have enjoyed already." 
 
 " You lie," screamed Lagdar, trembling with rage, 
 "you lie! Who told you the falsehood, who told 
 you she had given herself to me? Who told you 
 I had ever done more than kiss the velvet of her 
 blushing cheek and the hem of her gandourah? 
 The curse of the Prophet on your head, who dare 
 .to sully with your baseless calumnies the Pearl of 
 Msilah'r 
 
 Mansour smiled afresh at the lover's furious in-
 
 84 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 dignation. It rejoiced his heart. " I was right, " 
 he thought, " she is virgin yet. " Then aloud : 
 
 " Your ang'er pleases me, son of El-Arbi ; I like 
 to see a champion of women's honour. It shows a 
 generous nature. Men of your ag'e as a rule speak 
 scornfully of women. They are of an easy virtue, 
 the fair ones of the oases and the ksours ; then 
 because they have not respected their future bride 
 themselves, young men say, ' Bah ! respect ! no 
 woman deserves it!'" 
 
 "But we, older men who have seen more of life, 
 and knocked in vain at many a door, we know the 
 truth. Yes ! by Allah, there arc virtuous maids, 
 and the Muezzin's daughter is one of them. She is 
 worth the four hundred douros / . . . . Yet, four 
 hundred douros ! 'Tis a big sum, and a heavy 
 one it takes long to save ! Remember how her 
 father has kept watch and ward over his daughter, 
 in hope of the day when he should reap his reward. 
 The labourer is worthy of his hire ; and indeed a 
 daughter's maidenhood is not kept safe without 
 nights of wakefulness, and care and anxiet}^ The 
 sower is entitled to expect a harvest, the sower of 
 good no less than the sower of evil. The Muezzin 
 has sown a wonder of the world ; and would you 
 rob him of the fruits ? . . . . Son of El-Arbi, your 
 father was an upright man ; his motto was, — Every 
 man should have his own. His words were straight- 
 forward, and his actions corresponded to his words. 
 Are you not his child ? Why then, if you are, these
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 85 
 
 tortuous ways ? Why tr}- to cheat this old man (^f 
 his hopes ? Why rob him at once of his daughter 
 and her sadoiika ? Ah ! it is ever an easy thing 
 to seduce a maid and lead her into dark ways. The 
 ancient text says to the woman : ' Thou shalt leave 
 father and mother to follow after thy husband. ' 
 But the command was futile, for it is written in the 
 Law of Nature from the beginning : ' There is no 
 maid but will leave father and mother to follow after 
 the first comer that has won her heart. ' Your 
 victory is an easy one ; but this will not be so 
 easy,— to stifle your remorse hereafter. Remorse ! 
 by our holy Prophet, I pray you may never know 
 what remorse is ! Remotse is a deadly poison that 
 withers the flowers of life, and destroys their beauty 
 and sweetness. Soon, the first transports over, the 
 sense of honour you inherit from your old father 
 El-Arbi will rise in revolt at the thought of the 
 hundred doiiros, — the sadoitka you w^ould rob an 
 old man of. " 
 
 " I begin to think you are right. " 
 
 " Will you stain your love, your first love, with 
 deceit ? At the very moment of your first kiss, shall 
 your name be written down in the Sid-djin '■•' along- 
 side those of knaves and swindlers ? Shall fraud be 
 the djinn to preside over your marriage-night ? 
 I swear by my head and by your own, that in the 
 very arms of your young bride, you will feel the 
 
 * Book in which are inscribed the evil actions of men. The Book 
 of the Righteous is the llliotirn.
 
 86 THE CHASTI5EMEXT OF MANSOUR 
 
 weight of the stolen gold like a millstone round 
 your neck. " 
 
 " Your words are of good counsel ; speak on, I 
 will do as you bid me. " 
 
 " I have merely to repeat my former offer. I said 
 I would take you with me to the land of the Negroes, 
 and I will. If you know your own good, you will 
 accompany me, and we will return with the sadouka 
 to buy your bride. " 
 
 " And how long will this journey last ? " 
 
 " Six months at longest, and you will be a rich 
 man. " 
 
 " Six months ! By then the Muezzin will have 
 given her to another. Shfe is almost a woman; she 
 will soon be fourteen ! " 
 
 " Be not afraid. It is not every day a suitor can 
 be found in the Beled-cl-Djerid able to give four 
 hundred donros for .... a girl's bright eyes. " 
 
 " Oh ! he will find wooers. He will find wooers 
 ready to pay more than that." 
 
 " Well then ! I will do more for you than gi\'e 
 you a piece of empty advice. I am anxious to 
 secure you, and I am willing to advance you a 
 hundred douros on the future gains of our enter- 
 prise. This sum you can pay by way of instalment 
 to the Muezzin." 
 
 " Can I believe my ears ? You would do me 
 such a kindness, most righteous and most generous 
 of true Believers ! " 
 
 " Come at the hour of the rue ha ; I will count
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 87 
 
 you out your hundred douros, and you can go and 
 knock at the old man's door without another 
 instant's delay. Never fear but they will open. 
 The door always flies open to the visitor who car- 
 ries a bag of money. Her father will be only too 
 glad to take the gold, and will find himself pledged 
 to the bargain." 
 
 " The eucha, did you say ? But I had fixed that 
 as the trysting hour! Cannot you choose another?" 
 
 "No! that is the only time I can find. I have 
 business all day long. Is it agreed?" 
 
 " But I tell you, Meryem will be there, and I 
 have neither time nor opportunity to warn her of 
 the change of plan." 
 
 "Well then! let her wait. Delay will only make 
 lier more fond, especially when she learns why 
 she has had to wait." 
 
 " My father ! " cried the young man, eagerly kissing 
 the hem of Mansour's burnouse, " may Allah's bless- 
 ing and the Prophet's meet on your kind head; 
 may you ever till the last moment of your life 
 deserve your surname of tJic Happy Alan ! " 
 
 " Be punctual ! So soon as the last syllables of 
 the Muezzin's call have rung out in the evening 
 air, knock at my door. Punctuality is twin-sister 
 of success." 
 
 "Please God, I shall be there."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 • 
 It was twilight. The Muezzin's voice had ceased ; 
 and in the great square, at the corners of streets, 
 by the fountain, everywhere, standing, kneeling or 
 prostrated full-length on the ground, men turned 
 their faces to the East. " For every man hath one 
 region of the sky to the which he turneth;" but the 
 East is the holy temple, the fountain-head of the 
 World. Under the rays of the Eastern sun have 
 germinated the seeds of things, and the nations of 
 the Earth developed. 
 
 Arms crossed over the breast or raised before 
 the face, the Faithful directed their thoughts to the 
 Master of twilight and of daybreak. It was the 
 silent, solemn hour allotted to prayer and adoration. 
 
 The vast profile of the minaret towered a white 
 mass against the darkening sky. The palms showed 
 their shaggy heads beyond the terraces, while be- 
 tween their black stems still flared the glories of 
 the sunset. Storks poised on one leg, motionless as 
 eternity itself, stood asleep on the edges of the 
 roofs, high above the silent, praying people ; and 
 women's shadowy forms glided without a sound 
 along the whitened walls. 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the door 
 of the house where Mansour dwelt. 
 
 Some minutes elapsed; then the usual questions 
 and answers:
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OE" MAXSOUR 89 
 
 " Who is there?" 
 
 " A man. " 
 
 " Who are you ? " 
 
 " Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi." 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "I want Mansour-ben- Ahmed." 
 
 " You wish to speak with him ? " 
 
 "Yes! if God will" 
 
 " Tell me your name again. " 
 
 " Lag'dar-ben-El-Arbi." 
 
 "Wait." 
 
 A boy introduced the visitor into the little paved 
 vestibule, with stone benches, that intervenes between 
 the street and the inner courtyard, and which no 
 foreigner ever goes beyond. 
 
 "Sit down," said the lad to Lagdar, "I will call 
 Mansour. " 
 
 He shut the door carefully; then in a moment 
 two or three women called one after the other, in 
 melancholy tones: 
 
 " Mansour ! Sidi-Mansour ! Master ! Mansour- 
 ben-Ahmed! la Radjcl ! Master! Sidi-Mansour- 
 ben-Ahmed ! " 
 
 Sidi-Mansour-ben-Ahmed not answering, the door 
 opened again, and the boy beg'ged the visitor to 
 wait an instant longer. 
 
 So Lagdar waited, devoured by impatience, for 
 the instant was of great length. He could not 
 help saying to himself he would have had time 
 twice over to keep his appointment with Meryem;
 
 go THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 however he was still full of reliance on Mansour, 
 and listened eagerly to the faintest sounds within 
 or without the house. At every footstep that came 
 near, he would get up and say, " Here he is at 
 last," and it was only after spending an hour thus, 
 a weary unprofitable hour, that vague suspicions 
 first crossed his mind. 
 
 Then the demon with the sharp claws, called 
 Anxiety, set on him and tortured him unmer- 
 cifully. 
 
 He knocked again, and shouted : 
 
 " Ho ! you women there, is Mansour-ben-Ahmed 
 within ? " 
 
 The voices began again with their melancholy 
 cadence : 
 
 " Mansour ! Sidi-Mansour ! la Radjcl / Master ! 
 Mansour-ben-Ahmed ! Sidi-Mansour-ben- Ahmed ! 
 Master ! " 
 
 Followed by confused noises. Steps could be 
 heard going up and down the stone stairway; then 
 an old woman called from a high balcony : 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 " Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi. " 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " I want to speak with Mansour-ben-Ahmed, if 
 God so will." 
 
 " He is not here ; he has gone out on affairs 
 of business, but he said he would come back." 
 
 Lagdar was furious, and refusing to wait another 
 minute rushed from the house. Perhaps he might
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANS(3UR 9 1 
 
 even yet find Meryem at the tryst? But he ran 
 against a tall negro, who seized him by the shoulder 
 and stopped him. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " Are you Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi ? " 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "God be praised! you are the man I seek." 
 
 "Do you bring me a message from Mansour?" 
 
 "Ah! mother of the Prophet! ah! blessed paps 
 that he sucked ! Mansour-ben-Ahmed, did you say? 
 — Mansour the Happy, Mansour father of the musket, 
 Mansour master of the sword, Mansour the TJialcb. 
 Yes ! Mansour is my master, the poor black man's 
 master, Mansour has not his match. You must 
 travel far — to Constantine, perhaps to holy Algiers, 
 who knows? to find the like of Bou-Zeb. For they 
 call him Bou-Zeb too. Ah ! ah ! Did you know 
 that?" 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! but be quick. What did he tell you 
 to say ? " 
 
 " I am as silly as a sheep. I ask you if you 
 know Mansour ! Why ! who does not know Man- 
 sour in all the Tell and the Beled-el-Djerid ? " 
 
 " Explain, explain. What message did he charge 
 you to give me ? " 
 
 "He told me, 'Salem', — my name is Salem, — 
 'you are to go to Lagdar-ben-Arbi, who is waiting- 
 at my house.' But arc 3'ou Lagdar-ben-Arbi?
 
 92 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Look you, it is so easy to cheat me ! I am a stranger 
 in the Ksour, like my master ; and we poor ignorant 
 negroes, we believe everything we are told." 
 
 " Go into the street, ask the first passer-by, and 
 he will tell you my name." 
 
 " Well, well ! I see you are the man. Now, what 
 am I to give you?" 
 
 " Yo2i-\ I don't know. I am waiting for your 
 master, who is to give me a hundred doiirosr 
 
 " A hundred douros ! mother of the Prophet ! a 
 hundred douros! The poor black man will never 
 have such a sum as that. If I owned a hundred 
 douros, I would buy all the girls in the Soudan." 
 
 " Be quick ! I say. Man ! be quick. " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I was sure you were the man. Now, 
 look here ; if I were bringing you a hundred lashes, 
 you wouldn't be so impatient. Oh, yes ! you are 
 the man. Praise the Prophet's name ! I was pray- 
 ing all the way as I came along that he would 
 make me find you without a long' search; for my 
 master, look you ! said just what you do, ' Be quick !' " 
 
 " You don't follow his orders any more than you 
 do mine." 
 
 " What ! don't you see how fast I've come ? Why ! 
 I run water like a fountain in a thirsty land. Yes ! 
 I am a fountain of running waters. But lo ! I 
 tasted myself, and I was salt. By the mother of 
 Aissa (Jesus), who was a virgin like mine the day 
 that she conceived me, the camels would not look 
 at me! Ha! ha!"
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 93 
 
 "To business, man, to business! for God's sake." 
 
 " The business is thuswise : My master, he said 
 to me, 'You see this bag, Salem? — Yes! master. 
 — There are a hundred doitros in it. — Yes! master. 
 — You are to carry them.... — Yes! master — To 
 the man called Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi. — Yes! master..' 
 Then away I went, but he called me back, and I 
 came back, and he said to me, said he, 'You will 
 add these words : You are to do as we agreed.' " 
 
 "And that is ah?" 
 
 " That is all. So here I am. I have told you the 
 words; and here are the hundred douros.'" 
 
 And he drew from under his b7irnousc a leather 
 bag. He grinned and shook it, and it gave out 
 a merry rattle of money. 
 
 " Plenty to buy all the maids in the Soudan ! Ha ! 
 ha! ha!" Then he began to dance and sing, waving 
 the bag over his head: 
 
 "A hundred dollars, — a hundred maids! 
 Seven limes seven 
 The joys of heaven ! 
 A hundred dollars, — a hundred maids!" 
 
 " Drunken beast ! " cried Lagdar, " then it was 
 you who kept me waiting so long. You stopped in 
 some pot-house on the way; you stink of anisette." * 
 
 " God of Heaven, that I should hear such things ! 
 /, who never in all my life drunk anything but 
 
 "^ A liquor extracted from onions, commonly known by the name 
 
 of anisrtte juive.
 
 ^4 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 spring-water, I ran my best, I tell you ; it is the 
 sweat you smell." 
 
 Lagdar put liis hand on the bag. 
 
 "No! no! no!" said the negro quickly, " we must 
 count the money first." 
 
 " Needless. Stink as you may of strong drink, 
 like a Christian, yet I will trust you. If you have 
 spent a douro by the way, I make you a present 
 of it" 
 
 " By the four breasts of my two wives ! Ask 
 me to give you my head, but don't ask me to give 
 you the bag, before we have counted the douros ! 
 You might lose one or two, and then you would 
 say : The villain has robbed me. God be my 
 witness, I would not pick up a date that had dropped 
 from the tree! My skin is black, but I have a 
 Avhite conscience. I will count the coins before 
 your eyes." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 A PI ! my son, it was a lf)ng- and arduous under- 
 taking ! First of all a light had to be fetched; then 
 when after much talking and many diflFiCulties one 
 was obtained at last, he emptied out the bag on the 
 stone bench so roughly that a considerable number 
 of the coins rolled away in every direction. 
 
 Lagdar boihng with impatience the while, the 
 negro groped after them on the floor, loudly cursing 
 his own clumsiness ; finally, when he thought he
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 95 
 
 had recovered them all, he proceeded to arrange 
 them in little piles of three. 
 
 " That's not the way to count money, " cried 
 Lagdar, " that's not the way " . . . . 
 
 " Hands off, let me do it my own way. There, 
 you've made me lose count ! " 
 
 So saying, he started afresh, this time with piles 
 of six. 
 
 " Count by fours, " said Lagdar. 
 
 " Oh ! let me do it my way ! I have a way of 
 counting of my own ; I'm not a mathematician ! 
 There now, you've made me lose count again ! " 
 
 He got more and more confused. First it was 
 g8 doitros, then 97. He finished up by making it 
 only 80. 
 
 Finally Lagdar cried, trembling with rage : 
 
 " Put it all back in the bag, fellow ; I will take 
 what there is, and not complain. " 
 
 " But my master would drive me from his service. 
 I have drunk a drop, look you, on the road. Needs 
 must allow it, as you find I smell of anisette ; but 
 by my mother's womb, that will never, never bear 
 another like me, I swear, and by your mother's 
 head, I have not touched one of your crowns. 
 Listen, listen ! I am going to tell you how it was. 
 I tasted strong drink for the first time in my life, 
 yes ! the first time in all my life, — just one little 
 drop of anisette. " 
 
 " No need, fellow ! your tales are nothing to mc. 
 Come now, hand over the doiiros /"
 
 q6 the chastisement of maxsour 
 
 " Never ! unless yoii verify the total while I look 
 on, for I see well enough I shall never get it right. 
 Yes ! yoii count the money, my son. I want you 
 to leave this house, your mind free of all suspicion. 
 Count it yourself, count it yourself ! " 
 
 Lagdar set to work, and found there were only 99. 
 
 " I will not complain, " he said as he threw the 
 coins into the bag again. " I will take them as a 
 hundred. Farewell. " 
 
 " No ! no ! Sidi, stop. No true Believer has ever 
 suspected me of theft. IVIy master gave me a 
 hundred douros, and a hundred douros I must hand 
 over to you .... Stop ! stop ! ah ! here it is. The 
 coin must have been bewitched ; here it is under 
 my scbate. Without a doubt it was an evil djin 
 hid it there. By the paps of my mother I sucked 
 as a babe, by the soft bosoms of my wives, it is 
 a devil's douro. If I were you, I should not put 
 it back with the others ; I should throw it to some 
 beggar. " 
 
 Lagdar, overjoyed to be done with it all at last, 
 tossed him the coin, and fled. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 From the time he entered Mansour's lodging to 
 the moment when the negro, laughing in his sleeve, 
 finally bolted the door behind him, all but two 
 hours had slipped by. The Ksour lay asleep. In 
 the great Square big brown camels crouched by the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 97 
 
 side of their loads, motionless with outstretched 
 necks, while the drivers, lying wrapped in their 
 huriiouses at full length on the dry ground, forgot 
 in sleep the fatigues of the past day and those they 
 had yet to face. He took it to be the caravan 
 ^Vlansour had spoken of, and the sight made him 
 run all the faster towards the gardens, full as he was 
 of a lover's sanguine hopes. He thought he would 
 even now^ find Meryem there in waiting for him. 
 It grieved him to imagine the girl's anxiety, and he 
 could not help saying to himself that the hundred 
 douros he held pressed to his breast, earnest of a 
 future happiness, were a poor equivalent to set 
 against her present suspense and the tears her bright 
 eyes must be shedding. 
 
 Who would exchange the delights of immediate 
 possession, he thoug-ht, for the promise of others 
 still in the future and uncertain? If he had never 
 met Mansour, at this very moment he would have 
 his mistress clasped to his heart instead of his bag 
 of douros. She would be lying warmly enfolded 
 in his protecting arms, happy and trusting, each 
 wrapped up in the other, no witnesses by but the 
 stars and the far-stretching plains. He would close 
 her eyes with the kisses of his mouth, while the 
 faithful mule bore them swift and sure over the 
 desert-sands. 
 
 Present happiness! Yes! let us keep it, whilst 
 it is ours, — keep it close guarded in our heart, close 
 as the love of the first well-beloved ; and never 
 
 7
 
 g8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 expose it to the ever-changing caprice of that 
 hungry, faithless thief men call To-morrow! 
 
 Fools, that hope to lay up in the garners of the 
 future a store of happy hours ! The storehouses of 
 the future are built in the clouds. They vanish at 
 the first puff of wind; the first storm disperses them. 
 Enjoy the passing moment wisely and well ; it alone 
 is yours to enjoy. To-morrow is in the hands of 
 God, who has numbered the hours of your life. 
 
 Lagdar was a fool, and ran to catch the very 
 happiness he had under his hand all the while. He 
 put off drawing his bill to another day, as if a man 
 should make Fate his broker, and peddle with his 
 life's happiness. He ran through the deserted streets, 
 where none was abroad, save perhaps his evil genius 
 following on his heels with a mocking laugh. 
 
 A few starving dogs were prowling about, and 
 slunk away to let this untimely disturber of the 
 peace pass by ; others were sawing with their hungry 
 teeth at the bones the half-famished camel-men had 
 gnawed already, and hearing his hurried steps and 
 dreading to lose their meagre feast, fled growling 
 along under the grey walls. 
 
 He left behind him the lofty minaret of the mosque, 
 that towered into the dark sky like a tall gciiic, 
 and seemed to be keeping watch and ward over 
 the little town sleeping below so peacefully amid 
 the vast solitude of the desert.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF ^FANSOUR QQ 
 
 XL. 
 
 Panting with haste, he reached the maze of narrow- 
 roads intersecting the oasis. Arrived there he 
 slackened his speed, and ghding behind the wall 
 of the Muezzin's garden, listened. The same deep 
 silence as in the lonely streets reigned amid the 
 greenery of the enclosures. 
 
 " Meryem ! Meryem ! " — but there was no answer. 
 
 He was more annoyed than really anxious. She 
 could not of course have waited for him till so late. 
 The evening star already blazed high in the heavens, 
 and the hour of the tryst was long past. He 
 climbed the wall, and walked up and down in the 
 garden. 
 
 "Meryem! Meryem!" he called again in a low 
 voice, but he was alone in the garden. 
 
 Some jackals barked in the distance ; and troubled 
 and thoughtful he turned homewards. What was 
 it made him sad ? He possessed a hundred doiiros, 
 — a deposit imposing enough to certainly insure the 
 Muezzin's consent ; he would come back from the 
 Soudan a rich man to win the pearl of Msilah. 
 What made him sad, when the future shone so 
 bright ? 
 
 He was sad, because the future was still distant, 
 — eight months distant, and eight months are two 
 hundred and fifty to-morrows. How many hours 
 and cares and surprises and uncertainties in eight
 
 lOO THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 months ! He was young, strong and bold. He 
 feared no fatigue, he feared neither thirst nor the 
 SiiHooiii, neither foe nor any other peril. But like 
 all lovers he was fain to enjoy at once ; he had 
 happiness in his grasp, and had let it go, — perhaps 
 for ever! 
 
 A traveller knows the hour of departure; but 
 who can foretell with certainty the hour of his 
 return ? 
 
 XLI. 
 
 He slept but little, and dawn found him astir. 
 He regretted not having followed Mansour's advice 
 to carry the deposit at once to the old man ; and 
 dreamed some more fortunate wooer anticipated 
 him. So the storks were only just awake, and the 
 sun's earliest rays slanting down on the tiled roofs 
 and touching the white terraces of the Ksour, when 
 Lagdar started for the Muezzin's abode, his bag of 
 gold under his burnouse. 
 
 But as he drew near, he heard the loud voices 
 and clamour of a crowd. 
 
 Notwithstanding the early hour the street was 
 full of people, conversing in excited groups of some 
 event, the very mention of which made the young 
 man shudder. He was still trying to understand, 
 yet afraid to enquire, when the door burst open, 
 and the Muezzin, with crimson face and swollen 
 cheeks, his bald head bare and his eyes blood-shot,
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR lOI 
 
 appeared on the threshold. His bony fingers tore 
 at his white beard as he cried: 
 
 " Robbed ! I am robbed ! Meryem ! my sweet 
 Meryem, pearl of the Oasis ! Five hundred douros. 
 I had refused five hundred douros for her, my 
 sons ! And now I lose both at once, my money 
 and my child. Justice, honest friends, justice ! Will 
 you stand by and see a father robbed? I know 
 the culprit, — that cursed jackal, that thief and vaga- 
 bond I refused her to, Lagdar. Lagdar, that dog 
 Lagdar, the Caid El-Arbi's son. Khaoui-ben- 
 Khaoui ! . . . . Bankrupt and bankrupt's son. I tell 
 you he has secreted her in a vile house kept by a 
 hideous old procuress. To the rescue, my sons! 
 Men of Msilah, to the rescue!" 
 
 And through the open door the women's piercing 
 cries could be heard, screaming all at once like a 
 flock of crows gone mad: 
 
 " To the rescue ! to the rescue ! " 
 
 And a tall negro brandishing a great stick cried 
 louder than all the rest. " To the rescue ! " 
 
 XLII. 
 
 It was an old, old memory, but Mansour delighted 
 in recalling it. He saw the whole scene again, as 
 if it had happened yesterday, for his faithful negro 
 had told him all that took place. Ha! ha! he 
 laughed still when he thought of the trick he had 
 played Lagdar, Then he sighed, for he saw once
 
 102 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAM SOUR 
 
 more the gentle form of jNIeryem. Almost featureless 
 at first, the shape gradually came back to him 
 clearer and clearer. Meryem ! the last of his loves 1 
 The first he could not recall so distinctly, if he tried. 
 
 A hundred doiu'os ! He had paid a hundred donros 
 for the glorious maid ! What a sum ; why ! he 
 would gladly give a thousand now. Lagdar had 
 spoken truth ; she was a maid indeed, as pure as 
 the other Meryem (Mary) before she bore the Prophet 
 Aissa, whose name the Roumis absurdly corrupt 
 into Jesus, and w^orship him as the son of God ! 
 
 God is one and unique. How should he have 
 a son? 
 
 The Christians are fools and idolaters, for they 
 bow down before a piece of wood. They worship 
 it and kiss it, and say, "It is God." 
 
 Mansour, without being a Christian, had become 
 an idolater; he idolized his own passions under the 
 name of Meryem. 
 
 She had made him forget the first Meryem, and 
 had remained long the object of his adoration. 
 
 Away ! aw^ay, over the boundless desert ! 
 
 God of Heaven ! what a night of wild intoxica- 
 tion, there in the vast solitude of the desert, when 
 far enough aw^ay to defy pursuit, he halted at the 
 fountain of El-Abiod and lifted her from his mule, 
 half dead with fatigue and terror. 
 
 There, six hours' ride from the Oasis, at the foot 
 of the three palms that are still to be seen standing 
 sentry over the precious water of the well, under 
 
 J
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 103 
 
 the stars fading' before the first gleams of morning- 
 hght, he had revelled in all the intoxicating delights 
 of sin. He lay bosom to bosom with her on the 
 tufts of the diss, twining' his arms about her body, 
 biting her dark tresses. The girl wept and cried 
 for mercy, fighting bravely for Lagdar and defend- 
 ing her virtue with all the strength she possessed ; 
 but in vain. Tears and screams were of no avail; 
 they roused not an echo, dying' away unheeded and 
 unheard over the desert sands. 
 
 She called, " Lagdar! Lagdar !" but it was Mansour 
 that answered. At length worn out by the useless 
 struggle, she yielded to the victor. When the first 
 ray of the sun slanted over the distant hills that 
 quivered on the Eastern horizon, the IMuezzin's child 
 had long ceased to resist. Mounted on the saddle 
 before the master who had vanquished her and now 
 held her pressed to his breast, she silently wept for 
 the love she had left behind, — her poor timid lost 
 love. She was terrified, yet submissive before the 
 resistless fate that tore her from her former lo\'er's 
 arms for ever. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 He carried her far away, hiding her for three 
 months in the cities of the Tell, at Batna, afterwards 
 at Setif, finally at Constantine. Maybe she had 
 ended by loving her unscrupulous overbearing lover, 
 and had forgotten the gentle Lagdar? At any rate
 
 I04 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 she never spoke of him. She grew reconciled to 
 •her Ufe, and one evening announced that she was 
 about to be a mother. At this news, news that 
 makes a husband's heart leap with joy, and causes 
 him to redouble his fond attentions to the woman 
 he loves, Mansour frowned. 
 
 And next morning, at the City Gate, he enquired 
 as to caravans that might be leaving for the Souf. 
 
 Some days later he put Meryem in a palanquin 
 and rode by her side on horseback as far as the 
 outskirt of the Beled-El-Djerid. 
 
 " Go back to your father, " he said, placing in the 
 litter a heavy leather bag, " look ! the price of your 
 sadouka.'" Then kissing her a last time on the 
 mouth, he entrusted her to the care of the camel- 
 men and bade her farewell. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 It is written in the Book : " Slay not your children 
 through fear of poverty. To do after this wise is 
 murder, and a mortal sin." 
 
 But the father who abandons to the chances of 
 life the child he has begotten on a woman commits 
 a sin equally mortal, and more cruel and abomin- 
 able. Nor had Mansour the excuse of poverty ; but, 
 like many another, he sought love, bvit shunned its 
 responsibilities. 
 
 " Children," he would say, " are ungrateful and 
 greedy. They have no memory for past kindnesses ;
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 105 
 
 and are an inexhaustible source of tears and vexa- 
 tions for their parents." 
 
 Then he shook his head, thought no more of the 
 matter, and started in search of fresh adventures. 
 
 Well! one night as he was riding across the 
 plain of Djenarah to pay a visit to his brother the 
 Caid, a man darted from a clump of brushwood, 
 leapt to his side, and stabbing him full in the chest 
 cried : 
 
 "My name is Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi." 
 
 At early dawn some camel-drivers found him 
 lying in a pool of blood. Death is a poll-tax levied 
 on us all, bvit often we forestall the debt. However 
 for once the Spectre that gathers in the taxes of 
 God, glanced at the prostrate man and passed by 
 on the other side. 
 
 Mansour returned to consciousness in his brother's 
 house. A Tcbib was bending over him, rehearsing 
 the healing words of a charm, while a young negro 
 woman he had brought from the Soudan seconded 
 the holy man's efforts by pouring over the wound 
 a decoction of flowers she had herself gathered. 
 
 He was often delirious, and asked for Meryem. 
 
 But no one knew the daughter of the Souf. 
 
 Then he cried: "Meryem! Meryem!" 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " said the negress, " there are as 
 fair maids in the Tell." 
 
 But he went on without hearing what she said: 
 
 " Meryem ! Meryem ! why must you be a mother ? 
 Children ! I wanted no children ! "
 
 lo6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " Hush ! " said the negress, " your words make 
 you feverish." 
 
 She passed her hand softly over his forehead and 
 eyes, till he fell asleep, still murmuring, " Meryem ! " 
 
 Since his separation from her, the name of the 
 young mother he had deserted had been but seldom 
 on his Hps, but the blow of Lagdar's dagger seemed 
 to have awakened a more Hvely regret. 
 
 The thought that his rival now possessed the 
 girl, having taken her of his own free will spite 
 of desertion and disgrace, inade his heart sore 
 within him, and he lay groaning heavily on his 
 bed. 
 
 " My lord ! " the negress would say, " are you 
 not Sidi-Messaoud? " 
 
 " The Happy Man ! Happy ! Oh ! yes, you 
 are right, my dusky beauty. Your words are soft 
 and sweet as evening twilight; you are beautiful 
 as a night of stars, AVhen I am well, I will rest 
 me on your ebon bosom, and forget my lost love." 
 
 "You are my lord and master, — all powerful." 
 
 He was long unable to rise from his bed; and 
 when fever kept him awake and restless, he would 
 repea.t over and over again the loved name of the 
 Muezzin's daughter. 
 
 This was his last intrigue. Death had come so 
 close, it made him thoughtful and afraid. He grew 
 more prudent, if not less vicious, and like a self- 
 centred selfish bachelor, henceforth bought his pleas- 
 ures, — the easy pleasures of an hour.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 107 
 
 Then he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and 
 after grovelling on the tomb of the Prophet, came 
 back a holy man. 
 
 But the lessons of maturity are powerless to 
 affect life ! They vanish at the first breath of pas- 
 sionate desire, like nests shattered by the hurricane. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Now that he thought of all this, now that his mem- 
 ory went back to this drama of love long since 
 forgotten, he beheld once more the lovely form of 
 the maiden he had carried off one summer night 
 in spite of father and of lover, and he was filled 
 with longing. 
 
 It was such a woman as this he needed, — a vir- 
 gin, undefiled in body, immaculate in mind, young, 
 fair, gentle, loving and docile. But to find her? 
 What land contained a treasure such as this ? 
 What roof of skins or of slates sheltered such a 
 wonder of the world? What mat or what carpet 
 was trodden by her naked feet? 
 
 Long he sought. He traversed the Tell and the 
 Beled-El-Djerid. He visited the douars. He made 
 enquiries in the towns. He conferred with the ma- 
 trons. He was no longer young, but he was rich, 
 and he soon perceived they were all eager to exploit 
 him. They would have foisted on him girls that 
 had been deflowered, nay ! women debased by the 
 life of the streets; but the same good luck, that
 
 Io8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 from his youth up had ever sat by his side and 
 ridden with him on every enterprise, remained his 
 faithful comrade and saved him again and again 
 from ridiculous mistakes. 
 
 The more he delayed, the more numerous grew 
 his grey hairs, the more doubtful and difficult became 
 the attainment of his object. But he only grew 
 more obstinate, and would repeat over and over 
 again, " I will find her yet. '' 
 
 As we get old, we get foolish. 
 
 At the last he had a wise thought : " The most 
 astute are often deceived. In matters of the sort, 
 'tis chance is master. Why search and select? 
 Truth is often found false, and falsehood true. Life 
 is a mill-wheel, ever turning, turning ; and a woman 
 one of those light sheets of metal that men of the 
 North set up on the roof of their houses to tell 
 them the quarter of the wind. With women, to- 
 morrow is the direct contradiction of to-day. Sweet 
 girls often make bitter-tempered waves, the shy 
 and shrinking grow brazen-faced, the modest fling 
 aside their veil, and the bazars where harlots con- 
 gregate are thronged wnth the virgins of yesterday. 
 To count on a woman is to covmt on the passing 
 cloud, — to say to the chameleon, ' Change colour 
 no more.' A fool the man who declares, ' My 
 wife will be so and so to-morrow.' We must needs 
 choose at random ; at any rate we will endeavour 
 to secure a virgin." 
 
 Now there was only one way to be sure. Useless
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR lOg 
 
 to rely on the matrons he consulted. He deter- 
 mined to take his bride from the cradle ; and this 
 he did. 
 
 A beautiful girl of the great tribe of the Oiilcd- 
 Nayl, famous for its beauties, died in giving birth to a 
 female child. The father had just fallen, face to the 
 foe, in the bloody actions of the Babors, and grief 
 rather than the dangers of childbirth had killed the 
 young mother. 
 
 Mansour announced that he would adopt the 
 child; and the family, who to their annoyance had 
 seen themselves saddled with an orphan's maintenance, 
 said at once : 
 
 "Generous man, she is yours." 
 
 Softly wrapped in ha'iks he bore her away on 
 his horse. 
 
 "This is my bride," he cried, as he looked at 
 her, his eyes full of tenderness, " this is my little 
 bride. In fourteen years from this day I will take 
 the child to my bed." 
 
 And with hand extended towards the East, he 
 uttered this solemn oath : 
 
 " By the Lord of the Dawn ! by the Koran, all 
 glorious ! by the Holy Caaba-stone ! I swear ; on 
 the sacred head of the Prophet ! on the memory of 
 the two women I have loved, Meryem ! Meryem ! 
 I swear ; I swear I will wed her a virgin still. 
 May I be for ever accursed if I come near her 
 before the appointed time! May I be for ever 
 accursed if any ravisher rob me of my bride! Ah!
 
 no THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 he will have to be a cunning robber. I swear. 
 if he succeeds, I will fall at his feet, I will kiss the 
 hem of his garment and I will salute him my Lord 
 and Master!"
 
 SECOND PART 
 
 THE VIRGIN BRIDE
 
 " Hjow beautiful are tbv feet witb sboes, prinees ^al^cibter ! "Cbe 
 joints of tbv; tbicibs ace lifce jewels, tbe wort? of tbe banCs of a cunning 
 workman; "Cbv navel is lifte a roun^ iioblet, wbieb wantetb not liquor; 
 tb? bellv is lil?e an beap of wbeat set about witb lilies : TTbx! two breasts 
 are lihe two v:ounci roes tbat are twins. 'Cbv; neeb is a tower of ivorv ; 
 tbine eres lifje tbe flsbpools in Ibesbbon, bv tbe gate of ffiatbrabbim ; tbv 
 nose is as tbe tower of Lebanon, wbieb looftetb towart E»amaseus. "Cbinc 
 bea^ upon tbee is lihe Carmel, an6 tbe bair of tbine bea& lit?e purple : 
 ■fljow fair an^ bow pleasant art tbou, O love, for ^elil3bts !" 
 
 Solomon's Song.
 
 SECOND PART 
 
 THE VIRGIN BRIDE 
 
 He dismissed his servants, both men and maids, 
 keeping only the negress who had tended his wound 
 and watched over his nights of delirium. She was 
 twenty, and loved him with the devotion of a dog 
 for its master ; he had but to cast his eye on her, 
 and she was ready to kiss his feet. She performed 
 every duty of service, — made couscous and cakes, 
 sweetmeats and perfumes, washed the linen and 
 saddled the horse. A submissive slave to his 
 slightest caprice, she would introduce without a 
 murmur the mistress that was to share his couch 
 for the night; then when he was sated with white 
 women and longed after the bitter-sweet savour of 
 the negress, at a sign she would be in his bed, 
 proud to be there and ready to satisfy every wish 
 he expressed. 
 
 Under her master's eye, she suckled the child 
 and was its first nurse. While the rosy cheeks of 
 
 '13 8
 
 I 1 4 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the babe nestled to the copper-coloured bosom ot 
 the slave and the tiny hands pressed the black 
 breasts, Mansour would sit by, smoking his long 
 pipe with its bowl of red earthenware. As vigilant 
 as Mabrouka herself, he watched over the sleeping 
 infant, alert and restless, astir at the slightest cry, 
 careful as a mother, and were such a thing possible, 
 supplying a mother's place. 
 
 This made his happiness, a happiness he guarded 
 like a miser's treasure, a happiness that grew and 
 blossomed gloriously beneath his eyes, a budding 
 flower of future joy. 
 
 But so soon as the child could stand and run to 
 him with outstretched arms and little cries of delight, 
 he sent the weeping nurse awa)^ to his brother's 
 house, for he said, 
 
 " A woman will ever corrupt a woman." 
 
 II. 
 
 It was then he built the country house, or JiaoiicJi 
 as we call it, that you see not far from the marshes 
 of Ain-Chabrou, a half day's journey from Djcna- 
 rah, the Pearl of the Son/, where his brother, 
 younger son of his mother Kradidja, was Caid. 
 
 His desire was to live alone, aloof from the traffic 
 of the roads, "far from Sultans", — the dream of 
 every Arab; far too from enviers and scorners, the 
 inquisitive and jealous, — the aspiration of every wise 
 man. Especially his wish was to guard the girl
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I 1 5 
 
 from the impure communications of the douar and 
 the yet more impure examples of the cities. 
 
 For even with a mother and faithful attendants 
 to watch over it, a child learns many things that 
 were better hidden from it for its own good. A 
 glance, a word, a gesture, are enough to tarnish 
 the purity of a soul. The impression once received, 
 remains branded as with a red-hot iron .on the 
 mind, and is never effaced. The remembrance is 
 a seed of evil in the mind, that grows as the mind 
 grows. 
 
 So, like a wise man who has learned prudence 
 from experience, he arranged a regular plan of 
 action to follow : " This fair flower, " he determined, 
 "shall never suffer blight; no grub shall ever foul 
 its half-opened bud. Rose of my old age, it shall 
 enfold my last hours in light and fragrance. Till 
 the happ)^ night when I shall bear her to my bed, 
 she shall be virgin as the Jwuris of Paradise." 
 
 III. 
 
 Henceforth all his aspirations, ambitions, desires, 
 unsatisfied till now, every emotion and every anxiety, 
 all centred in the child. The sweet little dark face had 
 expelled from his heart the former evil, gloomy 
 thoughts. It seemed to diffuse around a cheerful 
 radiance that chased away the black shadows of 
 regret for the past. 
 
 There was nothing in his surroundings to divert
 
 Il6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 his attention. His love wrapped her about in a 
 warm embrace; and he thought he would be able 
 to interpose between her and the external world so 
 soft an atmosphere of perfumes and caresses and 
 happiness that, even as she grew older, she would 
 have no wish to look beyond it. 
 
 At times, as she was playing on the threshold 
 of the JiaoiicJi, he would call her, and the child 
 would run to him all smiles. Then he would take 
 her on his knee, pass his hand over her brow, 
 measure the length of her tresses, see his image 
 reflected in her great dark eyes, smile back at her 
 smiling lips, red as two open pomegranates, examine 
 the white pearls of her mouth. He loved to hold 
 her little bare feet, ensconced in his hand, and to 
 lull her to sleep by singing some old ditty of the 
 Tell ; and the child feeling love all about her, smiled 
 at life, and fell gently asleep lapped in the warm 
 shelter of so much love and care. Gaiety radiated 
 from her presence, like light from the sun, bright- 
 ening all around her. From the first moment she 
 woke in the morning, the floodgates of happiness 
 were opened; the little house rang with her merry 
 laugh, and sunned itself in her smiles. The dog 
 g-ambolled round her, the hens cackled noisily at 
 her feet, the cock clapped his brilliant wings and 
 crew lustily, the sparrows chirped, the blackbird 
 from the nearest tree piped Salamclck ! Salanielek ! 
 when it saw her ; while even the she-goat, her 
 second nurse, came up bounding and skipping, as
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I I 7 
 
 soon as she called out with her fresh voice Maaza ! 
 Maaza ! 
 
 The world basked in the light of her great eyes, 
 and Mansour felt his heart swell within him and 
 realized that for the first time he actually deserved 
 his name of tJic Happy Man. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Behind and on either side of the haoucli there 
 was a little garden that grew as the child grew, 
 fenced in with a hedge of Barbary figs. The brook 
 that trickled from the foot of the mountain watered 
 it on its way, before it finally lost itself among the 
 reeds of the marsh. An hour or two's digging, a 
 few plants and a handful of seeds, changed a mere 
 mass of briars into the garden of Eden. Water- 
 melons and pomegranates, oranges and vines, mul- 
 berries and jujube-trees, grew luxuriantly and ca- 
 priciously as chance had willed when they were 
 planted, and kindly nature threw her magic cloak 
 of beauty over all. 
 
 From the warm virgin soil flowers sprung abundant, 
 strong and fragrant, in a picturesque confusion and 
 a sort of orderly disorder. 
 
 Flowers, vegetables and fruit, — they asked nothing 
 more. But the Caid sent them from time to time 
 couscous as white as rice and dates of Biskara. 
 When Mansour wanted a sheep, he sent to inform 
 his brother. Then one was chosen from the great
 
 Il8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 flock that fed in the valley to northward of Djenarah. 
 
 Now and again, to amuse the child or to make 
 some purchase, he used to visit the town. On such 
 occasions he entrusted the care of the Jiaoiich to 
 one of the camel-men whose niahara cropped the 
 tufted chichh-grsiss of the plain ; gave him two 
 sordis, a settla full of couscous, or perhaps the head 
 of a sheep, as provisions, and started in perfect 
 security. 
 
 Besides, he had obtained three watch-dogs to guard 
 the house, dogs of the famous man-eating breed, a 
 cross between the hounds of the oasis and she- 
 wolves. They spring at the horse's belly, without 
 any fear of the rider, bite the stick he tries to beat 
 them off with, and soon tear him in pieces. The 
 unhappy marauder is devoured, the savage crea- 
 tures growling and fighting over his carcase. 
 
 With such sentinels, thieves kept their distance 
 as well by night as by day. Moreover they were 
 aware neither doiiros nor precious stuffs nor jewels 
 were to be found there; for Mansour's douros lay 
 safely in the fondouks of his brother the Caid, and 
 his chief wealth consisted in the fat flocks that fed 
 on the farther side of the Djehel. The only treasure 
 in the haouch was the little Afsia ; and in our mar- 
 kets this sort of jewel finds no sale. 
 
 So he would carry the child to the town, seated in 
 front of him on his good mare or on the berda (pack- 
 saddle) of his mule. Passers-by would point to the 
 pair with a laugh and say to one another:
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I 1 9 
 
 " Look ! there is Sidi-Messaoud and his destined 
 bride ! " 
 
 But he answered angxily : 
 
 " Why, yes ! it is my bride, and my bride will be 
 a virgin bride on the marriage morning. Sons of 
 Fathma, can you affirm as much of your own ? Can 
 you, children of the devil, swear the same of your 
 daughters and your sisters?" 
 
 Then shrugging their shoulders and laughing louder : 
 
 " Adda Maboul !'' they would cry, " The man is mad." 
 
 But others added : 
 
 " Nay ! the finger of God has rested on his brow. 
 My sons, mock him not. He shall ever deserve, 
 till the day he dies, his surname of El-Messaoud. 
 
 V. 
 
 Meanwhile his destined bride grew straight and 
 tall, like a young palm-tree, though slender and de- 
 licate at first, yet giving ample evidence what a 
 dainty morsel she would be anon. 
 
 Once again the Happy 7nan showed himself weU- 
 named ; for it might easily have happened that the 
 child grew up uncomely. But in truth she already 
 displayed a very perfect beauty, — dainty-sweet and 
 gracious as the Sultanas our poets sing of, beautiful 
 as the houris your painters of the West depict. 
 
 A dream of loveliness for heart and eye, — every 
 charm was hers, from the rosy nails of her tiny 
 feet to the long tresses of her hair that were finer
 
 I20 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 than silk and dark as night, with blue reflections 
 in their depths. 
 
 Her face with its rich warm complexion, her red 
 lips, a cup for Love's own drinking, her great eyes 
 beaming with light and intelligence, promised a com- 
 pleted beauty of that luxuriant and vigorous type 
 that reaches perfection only under the burning sun 
 of the South. 
 
 Mansour never wearied of regaling his eyes with 
 her charms. He admired her as his own chef 
 d'ceuvre, as proud of her as if she had been his 
 own child. He could have filled a book as big as 
 the Koran, naming and counting and extolling her 
 charms of person, — the charms he saw, the charms 
 he had but glimpses of, the hidden charms he 
 guessed at. 
 
 Was it as a father he loved the child, — or as a 
 lover? He could not tell himself. He was father 
 and lover in one, the two melting in a single affec- 
 tion, —pure, strong and uncompromising. 
 
 In her presence he became young again; he felt 
 himself light-hearted and merry. His limbs were 
 no longer stiff with age, and the rough exterior no 
 longer, visible, — the time-worn case that held a heart 
 still green and youthful. 
 
 All the charms of all his mistresses were summed up 
 in her. Only she was fairer than all, joining in her 
 own person the several beauties that had adorned one 
 or another of his former loves and had separately 
 enchained his heart. Like Fathma, she had long
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 12 1 
 
 silken locks that fell in dazzling and iridescent 
 waves far below her waist; like Meryem, the first 
 Meryem, eyes flashing with the gleam of a drawn 
 sword in the sun. She possessed the fairy foot of 
 Embarka the maid of the Sahara, the rounded shape 
 and virginal form of the second j\fc?ycin, Yainina^s 
 high-arched nose. Her teeth flashed with the 
 pearly whiteness of MabroukaJs, while the clean-cut 
 delicate limbs recalled Aicha to his mind, the danc- 
 ing-girl the young men of Biskara call the Divine. 
 
 That atmosphere of love, the aureole that surrounds 
 some women, was hers too, — all those mysterious 
 scents they exhale, coming one knows not whence, 
 from their hair, from their bosom, from the folds of 
 their dress, an intoxicating union of perfumes, of 
 rose and violet, milk and spikenard, frankincense 
 and musk, lily and jasmine, earth and heaven, the 
 keen savour of the brunette, delicious and heady, 
 the soft, voluptuous odour of the blonde, perfumes 
 of love and woman that mingle with your dreams 
 and stir you so strangely when you wake. 
 
 All this tlie Happy Man enjoyed, drinking in the 
 savour of her loveliness as a man tries the bouquet 
 of a delicious fruit before venturing to bite into it. 
 Heart and brain were alike intoxicated ; still he 
 never suffered anything to show on the surface, for 
 fear of scaring the child's natural modesty. Knowing 
 vice and all its ways so intimately, he never sus- 
 pected what was yet the fact, that nothing could 
 vScare her in her absolute innocence.
 
 122 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 With her before him, he forgot the blasphemies 
 he had so often repeated in former times, when 
 hlasc and glutted with self-indulgence, he had afforded 
 matter by his scandalous amours for the whis- 
 pered colloquies of the women of the tribes. In 
 those days he would say: 
 
 " Woman is the daughter of the devil ; the in- 
 ventress of all wickedness!" 
 
 " Woman is the mother of deceit ; falsehood issued 
 from her mouth, and corruption from her loins !" 
 
 " The purest of them leaves behind her a wounded 
 heart, a polluted body!" 
 
 " Fools to seek a perfect wife ! Why ! the Prophet 
 himself, counting women from Eve our Mother, 
 found but four perfect." * 
 
 Now he said, as he watched over the child's 
 slumbers : 
 
 " Woman is an angel ; she brings joy and hap- 
 piness and life itself ! " 
 
 VI. 
 
 Amid the fresh greenery of her garden a whole 
 legion of merry, noisy birds twittered. Their clam- 
 our awoke her soon as ever the sun threw his 
 first rays athwart the gilded bars of her casement. 
 
 * The names of the four women Mohammed judged to be per- 
 fect are these ; iVsia, wife of Pharaoh ; Mary, mother of Jesus ; 
 Khadidja, his first wife; and Fathnia, his daughter, who M'as mar- 
 ried to Ali.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I 23 
 
 In an instant she was up and in the garden. There 
 she washed in the brook under the shade of two 
 or three poplars Mansour had planted when she 
 was an infant, but which now stretched their boughs 
 right over the roof of the Jiaoitch. 
 
 Under their shelter she could lay aside her veil, 
 and bathe in security, for hidden as she was by 
 the leaves, between the house and the thick cactus- 
 hedge, in the close entanglement of lilies, roses 
 and jasmine, no indiscreet eye could possibly spy 
 upon her. 
 
 Moreover now that she was grown big, Mansour 
 respected her little maiden secrets, and during her 
 toilette, the Oudou-cl-Kebir (the Great Preparation) 
 the Prophet has ordained as a piece of religious ritual, — 
 for he well knew how cleanliness of body and 
 cleanliness of mind go together, and how when the 
 bath is neglected, the soul is as foul as the skin, — 
 and equally during the "great ablution," when 
 standing naked and radiant in her young loveliness, 
 she poured the refreshing streams of water over her 
 shoulders and bosom, her hips and every part of 
 her firm young body, he never ventured so much 
 as a glance. His fear of being surprised by her 
 was too great, and the dread of an evil thought 
 entering her maiden heart to pollute it. 
 
 So he left her to herself, fully respecting her 
 girlish modesty, but keeping at the same time 
 careful guard out of doors, confident of finding her 
 when the day he longed for had at length arrived.
 
 124 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Still stainless in all the glow of her pure and sweet 
 maidenhood. 
 
 VII. 
 
 After the bath, when she returned to the house 
 wrapped in her linen haik, he loved to watch her 
 further toilette. 
 
 Now he would make her don the piquant cos- 
 tume of the ^Moorish ladies of El-Badhadja the 
 warlike ; * now the dress of the girls of the Souf . 
 At another time he would clothe her like the maids 
 of Constantine with the foutah (shawl-girdle) drawn 
 tight over the hips or in the ample folds of the 
 gandourah falling to the heels. But what delighted 
 him most was to see her wearing the simple tunic 
 the Nomad tribes of the Tell use, open at the sides, 
 leaving the arms bare to the shoulders and fastened 
 there with silver buckles, and clothed as lightly as 
 a girl can be, going to and fro in the house intent 
 on her domestic tasks. 
 
 He knew that idleness is mother of evil thoughts, 
 and desired within the narrow circle of their lives 
 to leave no hour unoccupied. 
 
 She was still quite small when he began her 
 education, installing among her attendants girls 
 from the tents and girls from the Hadars, first one 
 then another, who under his supervision which 
 never relaxed for a moment, taught the child how 
 to cut out and make up the gando7irah, how to 
 
 * Algiers.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 125 
 
 weave Iiaiks, and how to embroider on white Hnen 
 briUiant patterns in silk. She learned too the way 
 to prepare savoury couscous in the great wooden 
 platter perforated with holes, that rests over the 
 copper in which w^hole quarters of meat stew, fla- 
 vouring it with pimento, and adding hard-boiled 
 eggs and the breasts of fowls to the mess, and the 
 art of making honey-cakes, kneading barley-bread, 
 and compounding conserv^e of dates. 
 
 jMoreover she learned to sing the ballads of the 
 dollars, accompanying herself on the resonant 
 tarboiika. But Mansour had strictly forbidden all 
 love-ditties; war-songs and the mournful lament 
 over the loss of Algiers the Beautiful made up her 
 repertoire. Sung with her childish lips and soft 
 young voice, these warlike strains had an indescrib- 
 able charm. 
 
 But at her lessons he was always present. He 
 guarded her like a duenna, and suffered no mention 
 to be made of matters out of doors. One day a 
 tojia (young girl) of the Beni-^Iozab, who was 
 instructing her in the art of overlaying linen with 
 threads of gold and silk, happened to hum in her 
 hearing a catch well-known in the dollars : 
 
 I wait for my beloved! 
 His look is proud and full of love. 
 And -when I hear his voice. 
 Or the sound of his footfall, 
 Or the neigh of his charger, 
 I know them among a thousand ; 
 And I feel like to die!
 
 126 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 "To die! why to die?" iVfsia asked; "why to 
 die, when she is expecting her lover?" 
 
 The Mozabite was amused at her naivete and 
 began to laugh ; but Mansour was angry and gave 
 the indiscreet woman no time to reply. 
 
 "Begone!" he cried, "begone! you pollute her 
 virtue. Go join him ; he is waiting for you. Hark ! 
 he is impatient; I hear his bray from the marsh. 
 There's the mate for you!" 
 
 Brought up thus aloof from other women, and 
 carefully guarded against contact with other children, 
 — too often an agent of corruption, she remained 
 so pure that the first time she overheard Mansour 
 boasting of her virginity to the men of Djenarah, 
 she asked him what a virgin was. 
 
 " A maiden that no evil thought has ever so 
 much as touched," he answered. 
 
 " Have the women of Djenarah then all of them 
 evil thoughts, that you told the townsmen their 
 daughters and their sisters were not virgins? What 
 is an evil thought?" 
 
 " One you cannot avow without blushing?" 
 
 " Then I have none, " the girl exclaimed ; " I am 
 really and truly a virgin." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 He smiled at her words. This was indeed the bride 
 he had dreamed of, the fair, gentle girl, pure as 
 the cup of the lily just opened to meet the first
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR I 27 
 
 kiss of dawn, unsullied as the Sclsebil, the founta,in 
 of Paradise. 
 
 And how he guarded the lovely bud that w^as 
 bursting for him and him alone ! What watchfulness 
 and care he lavished on his flower! He recalled 
 all his own experience won in former intrigues that 
 taught all the intricacies of cause and effect in love ; 
 and weighed each //" and bitf, every why and 
 wherefore ! Old jackal, he had so often prowled 
 round his neighbours' farmyard, that he knew both 
 how to steal and how to keep a thief at bay, and 
 it must be a wise man to teach him anything new. 
 Daughters of Fathma, your wiles are beyond compare, 
 but his vigilance too was beyond compare, and his 
 astuteness and the precautions he adopted. 
 
 His haojtch, as I mentioned, stood far from any 
 road, on purpose to prevent as far as might be 
 unexpected and unwished for visits or the arrival 
 of importunate wayfarers who think all they have to 
 do to claim a right to hospitality is to come shouting 
 before your door, " All hail. Master ; lo ! here am 
 I, a guest of God," He had contrived to put the 
 marsh between himself and the main-road, and it 
 was needful to follow a series of little winding 
 paths half-hid among- the rushes and make a con- 
 siderable detour to reach his dwelling. 
 
 Nevertheless, when it did happen that a benighted 
 traveller or passing beggar came to his door, hungry, 
 thirsty and tired, he was ready with his, " Welcome, 
 stranger ! "
 
 128 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 He put a good face on it, and received him as 
 a Musulman is bound to receive his guests, for has 
 not our Prophet written : 
 
 " Blessed is he and pious who shares his board 
 and his bed with the orphan, the poor man, the 
 traveller, yea! with all that have need thereof. 
 Him shall God g^uard from all ill that may fall 
 from heaven above or spring from the earth beneath. " 
 And again. " Be ye of loving-kindness towards 
 your guest; for the same, entering your gates, 
 bringeth a blessing along with him, and departing, 
 taketh away your offences." And again, "God 
 will do no hurt to the hand which hath given an 
 alms," as is written in the chapter that is called 
 llie Coiv. 
 
 He silenced the dogs, and held the stranger's 
 stirrup to help him dismount ; or if he were on foot 
 and weary, took him by the arm and led him to 
 a seat. 
 
 On such a day he had a great fire lighted, the 
 quarter of a sheep roasted and two fowls killed, 
 that the guest might be refreshed and say at part- 
 ing. " I have a full belly. " 
 
 Afsia never showed herself on these occasions, 
 but she made a honey-cake for the stranger and 
 sent it him by a servant. 
 
 When the guest had dined, and lay down to 
 sleep by the dying embers of the fire on a couch 
 of the thick-wooled white fleeces of the sheep of 
 the Upper Tell, Mansour stretched himself on a
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 120 
 
 mat of alp/ta-gr?iss across the door gaiarding the 
 stone staircase that led to the young girl's sleeping- 
 chamber, and never closed an eye till dawn. 
 
 Then without asking name or rank, without asking- 
 whence the stranger came nor were he was going-, 
 he brought him his beast ready saddled and well 
 fed like his master, or if he possessed neither horse 
 nor mare nor mule, his staff and scrip, the latter 
 well lined by Afsia's care, and said : 
 " Go, and my blessing go with you ! " 
 But such visits were rare. The town was near 
 enough to rob the traveller of the wish to turn out 
 of his way in order to knock at the door of the 
 lonely haotich. Besides, the name of the Caid, his 
 brother, the nobility of his family, the fame ' that 
 yet lingered of his former prowess, and more than 
 all, the suspicion of madness that brooded over 
 this strange lonely man, made him too much feared 
 and respected for any to try to take advantage 
 of him. 
 
 IX. 
 
 MEANTi]NrE Afsia was approaching womanhood, a 
 brilliant star rising in the firmament of life, but Jie 
 was growing bent with years and verging nearer 
 his setting. Children press their elders down the 
 steep hill of age ; we see their bloom, and realize 
 that our own is departing ; as our sap fails, theirs 
 is rising higher and higher. When tJiey flower, it 
 
 9
 
 I30 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 means that 7i<r shall soon be but the withered fruit 
 on a dead tree. 
 
 Youth on one side, age on the other, — an abyss 
 was opening between, though neither he nor she 
 measured its full depth. I/e felt his heart still 
 green, and failed to see his body was out-worn ; 
 s/ie in her ignorance and inexperience, knew not 
 as yet she had a heart, and the claims nature rouses 
 in the bodies of the young were as yet unheard. 
 
 Loving and beloved, she grew like a tender plant 
 in the peace of her home, and dreamed of no other 
 existence. 
 
 House, garden, poplars fringing the fountain, the 
 marsh and its rushes, with mists floating over it at 
 dawn and a light curtain of fog at evening, the wide 
 grey plain, and beyond, the gently swelling blue 
 hills, — this was her country, her horizon, her world. 
 
 There she lived her life, and wished for no change. 
 
 At times she would gaze dreamily towards the 
 town, striving to make out its old crumbling walls 
 where they rose amid the tangled vegetation of the 
 oasis; but all she could see was the gay carpet of 
 greenery from which the slender minaret of the 
 mosque sprang gracefully into the air. 
 
 She felt a secret terror of the mass of houses 
 yonder, the coming and going of so many people 
 and animals, the men and women who seemed, as 
 she passed by on her mule folded in Mansour's 
 arms, to be trying to pierce her veil with their eyes 
 and stare her out of countenance.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 131 
 
 How could people live and breathe mid this ac- 
 cumulation of stone and mortar, where many breaths 
 intermingled and the air seemed to stifle the lungs ! 
 Ah! how much better it was in the lonely JiaoiicJi 
 where she was free to move and free to breathe in 
 her spacious room ! 
 
 There she dwelt, and sang songs in her heart 
 that she had never read in any book written by 
 man, nor learned from any tongue of woman, songs 
 the deep voice of the Autumn winds whispered in 
 her ear, as they careered over the plains, bending 
 low the reeds in the marsh and tossing the burnouses 
 of the horsemen that gaJloped afar, stooping over 
 the necks of their flying steeds. 
 
 Or again, when the sky was gloomy with red 
 and yellow storm-clouds she would hear the coming 
 of the Simoom, and with eyes that were faint with 
 a strange delight and dilated nostrils, run to meet 
 its fiery kiss. 
 
 Symptoms such as these alarmed Mansour, and 
 he cried: 
 
 " Why do you so ? the Simoom-W\n& bites, and 
 its bite is fatal to young maids." 
 
 "No! it does not bite," she replied, "its breath 
 is a kiss, and I love to feel it." 
 
 At other times she was pensive yet alert, seeming' 
 to await she knew not what. She would smile a 
 vague smile, dreaming perchance of that unknown 
 something that springs up of a sudden in our path, 
 and shapes the destiny of our life.
 
 132 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " What are you dreaming of?" the old man asked; 
 and she would answer him : 
 
 " Yonder I hear the song of the birds. I listen 
 to the voice of the quail calHng her mate in the 
 barley-fields. You who know everything, tell me 
 what it is she says." 
 
 X. 
 
 In her great dark eyes was clearly reflected a 
 soul filled with wonderment, vague and impalpable. 
 Her thoughts still all indeterminate floated on the 
 mists of ignorance and inexperience, while her sen- 
 timents, or rather her sensations, could not and dared 
 not unfold their buds and blossom forth beside a 
 man like Mansour, in whom the terrible strength 
 of his passions had induced a premature maturity, 
 or over-maturity of body. 
 
 Old men's love is a fire that gives off no heat. 
 They diffuse around them an atmosphere of chill 
 constraint that freezes and paralyzes the heart. 
 Children reared by the old grow up sickly like 
 plants condemned to the shade. Age is wintry, 
 whereas the young need heat to make them blossom, 
 and sun and free air. 
 
 Like those flowers that close their petals at the 
 approach of cold, Afsia shut herself up in her bright 
 childish dreams, building up in her young heart a 
 brilliant shrine for Love to dwell in, vaguely and 
 intuitively conscious of his nature, as girls are though 
 they may be ignorant of his very name.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 1 33 
 
 Sometimes could be distinguished the long line 
 of a caravan in the distance making its way across 
 the plains. Then she would follow it with long 
 looks, especially marking the high-perched palanquins 
 wherein the daughters of these Nomad wanderers 
 rode secluded, and sighing to think of their ampler 
 lives who thus travelled the wide world. 
 
 The blood of the Sahara that throbbed in her 
 veins, told her there were vast horizons, unbroken 
 and unbounded, beyond the hills. Thither her 
 thoughts flew, and she longed to follow them to 
 this far land. 
 
 But the TJialcb was on the watch, and never 
 failed to say to her : 
 
 " Foolish ! foolish ! who find the peace and secur- 
 ity you enjoy dull and wearisome. How can you 
 envy yonder women? Scorched by burning sun 
 or lashed by storms that sweep from the wind- 
 reddened horizon, with parched throats and eyes 
 smarting from the sand, they follow involuntarily 
 the fated fortunes of father or husband. Their life 
 is a never-ending struggle; they travel on and on, 
 bread so hard to win and thirst so easy, and covet 
 the lot of the shepherd lad sitting by the wayside 
 and watching the train go by. Day after day for 
 many a day they long for the happiness that lies 
 ready to your hand every hour, but which you care 
 not to enjoy." 
 
 "Happiness! what happiness?" asked Afsia. 
 
 "Shade, rest, and a stream of cool, freshwater."
 
 134 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 To this she could not find a word to answer. 
 She had never felt hunger or thirst. She possessed 
 a shelter against days that were too hot and nights 
 too damp; she knew nothing of the pain of weari- 
 ness and the shuddering horror of anticipation on 
 the approach of danger. But she told herself this 
 could never be the be all and end all of existence, 
 — mere dull comfort of body, mere enjoyment of 
 peace and quietness; she felt that beyond all this, 
 there might indeed be suffering, there might be 
 peril, but there must be a wider life and ampler joys. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She loved too to follow with her eyes the horse- 
 men of the goitnis with their great straw hats 
 plumed with black ostrich feathers, as they sped 
 across the plain in admired disorder. She could 
 distinguish by their scarlet burjiouses the Caid and 
 Sheikhs in the van, and the blue robes of the Mok- 
 alis ; then the rest, all in white, long gun on thigh, 
 following in close ordered ranks. Some galloped 
 on the flanks of the company, their horses' feet 
 raising clouds of yellow dust. She wondered at 
 the trailing- horse-coverings of silk that floated on 
 the wind, the flashing arms, the green standards 
 with the silver crescent ; she listened to the gay 
 beat of the tam-tam, the shrill notes of the fife, 
 and the crash of the muskets ; and seemed to 
 behold a procession out of fairyland passing before 
 her eyes wrapped in a golden cloud.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 35 
 
 But what she hked best was the ordered Hnes 
 of red-coated horsemen that twice or thrice in the 
 year filed across the grey plain. They rode two 
 and two in serried ranks. They had no silken 
 horse-coverings, no ostrich plumes ; they were all 
 clad alike in white and red and blue. A sword 
 w^ith scabbard of steel passed under the left thigh 
 and showed up against the black felt of the saddle, 
 and on their backs the brass and steel mountings of 
 their muskets flashed in the sun. 
 
 It was a squadron of the Spahis of Constantine, 
 on their way to the advanced post of Zcry-bet-cl- 
 ■ Oiied to relieve garrison. 
 
 Long she watched them, with beating heart and 
 pensive eyes, listening eagerly as though to catch 
 the rattle of sword-blades in their scabbards and 
 the jingle of spurs and stirrups. 
 
 It is always thus; woman loves the sword, that 
 terrifies her. Weak and tender being-, she is irre- 
 sistibly drawn by force of contrast to admire the 
 murderous crash of arms. Her heart bows before 
 the shedder of blood. 
 
 Afsia longed that the road had been nearer the 
 haouch, that she might have looked into the bold 
 faces of the soldiers. 
 
 She remembered how once, when she was younger 
 and was returning from Djenarah seated on Man- 
 sour's mule, they had met the red horsemen, and 
 one of them had said: 
 
 " Well met ! Look, my children, see the bride of
 
 136 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 El-Messaoud. You can only see her great eyes; 
 but they shine like two stars, and are sweet as a 
 spring in the desert. With such a blessing on 
 your saddle, none need wonder men call you the 
 Happy Mail ! " 
 
 The Spahis fixed their eyes on her with delight, 
 and as they passed, greeted Mansour one after the 
 other : 
 
 " All hail, Mansour ! the Prophet wrap your tofla 
 round with blessings as with a garment ! " 
 
 " A blessing be on you and yours ! " he returned, 
 proud and happy. 
 
 Then they continued their march in silence. But 
 in every group of men, there are always a few 
 ready to sow hate and discord ; so when they w^ere 
 a short distance away, one of these ill-natured in- 
 dividuals turned in his saddle and shouted back : 
 
 " Ho ! Happy Man ! keep you your rose-bud. till 
 it opens; then we will come and pluck it." 
 
 All set up a laugh at this; and Mansour, trem- 
 bling with rage, cried back : 
 
 " My flower is not for you, you son of a dog-, 
 that serve the unbeheving dogs ! " 
 
 Then the rest, stung by the insult, replied: 
 
 " We will rob the treasure ; we will rob the fair 
 bride's treasure. It is not for an old goat like 
 him ! " 
 
 Afsia understood nothing- of this scene, and longed 
 to know what it was they threatened to rob her of; 
 but Mansour was so angry she dared not question
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 1 37 
 
 him. Later on she asked him about it, but he 
 roughly bade her be silent. 
 
 It was the first and only time he had ever spoken 
 roughly to her; so all the more vividly, when she 
 saw the red horsemen pass by in the distance, she 
 recalled the admiration their looks had expressed, 
 the flattering words they had said of her, Mansour's 
 anger, and their mocking threat. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Then without rhyme or reason a feeling of sadness 
 would come over her; and Mansour would try to 
 amuse her with some wondrous Eastern tale, care- 
 fully omitting the only part of it she cared to hear, 
 the tender love-adventures of hero and heroine. 
 
 So while she listened with one ear to the TJialeb's 
 voice, the other was striving to catch the soft mys- 
 terious murmur that had for some time past been 
 ever whispering in her heart. It seemed to come 
 from some far off, unknown clime, that neither her 
 black nurse from the Soudan, nor yet Mansour, 
 who knew so much, had ever told her of in their 
 stories of genii, magicians and enchanted palaces. 
 
 She would shut her eyes, sheltering her secret 
 thoughts under the veil of their lids, and listen to 
 the old man's tales — without really hearing one word 
 he said. 
 
 A nervous spasm traversed her limbs, she stretched 
 herself with arms above her head, as if she felt
 
 138 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 
 
 sleep coming on her, and filled with a great 
 lassitude would remain for hours, motionless in a 
 kind of depression, dreaming with eyes open, letting 
 time slip by unheeded. Then towards evening, 
 when the breeze from the north blew sharply on 
 her arms and shoulders, running lovingly along her 
 bare limbs, lashing her as with light blows of a 
 whip, she received its caress with delight, and shook 
 off the torpor that had oppressed her during the 
 day. She felt a strange warmth and excitement 
 glide into her veins and sighed. 
 
 " What are you thinking of?" said Mansour. 
 
 But she answered, blushing as if she had been 
 detected in a fault: 
 
 " Nothing at all. Only ideas that wander in my 
 head, and lead I don't know where to." 
 
 So saying, she ran away into her little garden, 
 and bending low over her flowers, plunged her 
 gaze to the bottom of their calyx, as though to 
 discover the mysterious wonders lurking within ; 
 dazzled by the brilliant colours, intoxicated by the 
 sweet scents, the girl longed to be one of the little 
 blue flies she saw fluttering round, to slip into these 
 miniature palaces, more splendid than those the 
 Tlialeb told her the fairy marvels of. 
 
 " Enough ! Enough ! I can see within my flowers 
 what is more beautiful than all you tell me about."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 139 
 
 XIII. 
 
 He had iixed fourteen years as the age at which 
 he meant to take her as his wife; this epoch he 
 had determined to wait for in order that the girl 
 might be fuUy formed and give him vigorous sons. 
 Some amongst us take their wives at twelve years 
 old. This is wrong. A woman forced into marriage 
 prematurely fades early, and bears only puny, sickly 
 offspring. Such children show all their life long 
 pallid faces and weakling bodies inherited from their 
 mother, while their spirit is like untempered metal 
 that loses its edge as soon as ever it meets the 
 rough realities of life. 
 
 The Prophet says : " Fix not the bands of matri- 
 mony before the fit time shall be accomplished." 
 
 He does not prescribe the fit time, but leaves it 
 to the wise discretion of mankind. Besides, mothers 
 and matrons, whose task it is to find the meet 
 bride, have quick eyes to see whether the bud is 
 opened. They possess more skill than we to mark 
 the precise moment when the rose is not indeed 
 full-blown as yet, but at the same time no longer 
 a bud. This is the delicious moment at which to 
 take our wife, and for this moment Mansour was 
 waiting. 
 
 There were still some weeks to run ere she 
 reached the appointed age; meanwhile he watched 
 the development of her virgin beauty with admira-
 
 I40 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 tion and delight, loving her at once as a father and 
 as a lover. The latter love was perhaps still vague 
 and indeterminate, shrinking before the stern au- 
 sterity of the other. 
 
 Undoubtedly if she had been a stranger to him, 
 if he had not day by day been a delighted spec- 
 tator of 'the budding of ever new and unexpected 
 charms of maiden loveliness, his passions, still unex- 
 hausted by all his excesses, would have awakened 
 with their old fire and fury unabated ; but having 
 sheltered her in his arms like a bird flying for 
 refuge to its mother's wing, reared and watched 
 over her like a nestling of his own, heard her soft 
 voice greet him each morn at her w^aking with the 
 dear name of father, that sounded like a kiss uttered 
 by her smiling lips, the old debauchee who had 
 corrupted so many others in his time, would have 
 looked upon it as sacrilege to assail her innocence. 
 
 The idea of anticipating the marriage day never 
 crossed his mind but as a piece of impossible wicked- 
 ness; nay! sometimes he asked himself whether, 
 when the rite had been celebrated, very shame 
 would not deter him from taking her to his couch. 
 He blushed at the thought of soiling with wanton 
 kisses, battered greybeard that he was, the pure 
 lips of the lovely child. 
 
 At times when she lay asleep, he would draw 
 near noiselessly, and watching her budding breasts 
 lift as she lightly breathed, would silently drink in 
 the delight of her virgin charms. But it was rather
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 141 
 
 the self-conscious pride an artist feels in the work 
 of art he has created than a lover's eager longing 
 to possess. 
 
 "Yes! she is mine," he would say. "I have 
 brought her up, cherished her, watched her grow. 
 I have been father and mother to her, brother and 
 sister, master and friend. I have shared her earliest 
 gambols, and wiped away her first tears. All she 
 knows, I have taught her; the unsullied thoughts 
 that stir in her brain, I have instilled them. I 
 have shut the door against evil influences. To me 
 she owes her beauty, her health and strength ; for 
 I have let her develop untrammelled and unstinted 
 like a flower of the fields; I have given as companions, 
 her only comrades, the sky and its clouds and stars, 
 the mountains and the plains, and liberty. She is 
 mine, mine only, and she knows it well. She knows 
 she is my very own, from her raven locks to her 
 rosy feet. 
 
 Then he would take her tiny feet in his long 
 rugged hands of bronze, and with bent head as 
 though in prayer, would imprint a kiss on them. 
 
 Once or twice the child awoke with his hot 
 breath on her cheeks, and seeing him kneeling at 
 her bedside, half opened her lips to smile at him, 
 then closing her lids again, went back to her dreams 
 of fairyland.
 
 142 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 XIV. 
 
 One morning Mansour said to her: 
 
 " Afsia, the great day, the day of blessing, draws 
 near. When fifteen times you shall have seen the 
 sun set from to-day, you will enter your fifteenth 
 year. 'Tis the age I have for fourteen years been 
 waiting for. I have waited with patience, for each 
 day added a fresh petal to the flower of your 
 beauty. Now it is complete and perfect. The bud 
 uncloses, the moment to pluck it is come. Afsia. 
 I would tell you a secret, one that for fourteen 
 years has been the great secret of my heart. I 
 buried it deep in my bosom, that it might not 
 throw a shadow over the white purity of your soul. 
 Now I reveal it. My youth, Afsia, has gone, like 
 the water of a spring the Simoom has dried up, 
 leaving but the bare stones of its bed that resemble 
 a skeleton ; but I trust to you, unsullied fountain 
 of my heart, to fill the dried up watercourse again 
 and refresh its thirsty banks. Afsia, sweet song of 
 my life, I trust to your smile to bring back to my 
 old heart, worn and chilled by winter, all the gay 
 sunbeams of spring. Afsia, tell me, have I done well?" 
 
 " Father, I hardly understand your meaning. 
 But if your heart has trusted to mine and your 
 will relied on my obedience, you have done well 
 in both." 
 
 " I thank you, my child. I will explain my words.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 43 
 
 He whom the men of the Tell have entitled TJialcb, 
 and they of the Beled-el-Djerid Messaond, he whom 
 all call Sidi-cl-Hadj, Mansour-ben-Ahmed himself, 
 is about to give you the name of wife .... Afsia, 
 does the prospect please you, are you willing?" 
 
 "Your wife!" she cried in amazement; " but how 
 can that be, when I am your daughter?" 
 
 " You are my adopted- daughter, Afsia. No tie 
 of blood connects us. There is no obstacle ; you 
 may become flesh of my flesh, the vesture of my 
 life, the fruitful seed-field where I must plant my 
 vine, — no obstacle, if you are willing. I ask you 
 are you willing?" 
 
 " Your words are still dark to me, Mansour. 
 Doubtless I am dull of understanding. I am not 
 all-wise like you. But see, if it is your wish I cease 
 to be your daughter and become your wife, I am 
 indeed willing. But why wait for fifteen days ? As 
 you appear to desire it so eagerly, why cannot you 
 marry me to-day ? " 
 
 " Ah ! soul of my life ; can it be you desire it so 
 ardently, — is your love as great as mine?" 
 
 "Love?" 
 
 " Yes ! can it be you feel your hea.rt stirred for 
 my old grey beard ? " 
 
 "Why, yes! I love you. Are you not my father, 
 and my mother, and all I have ? " 
 
 " But it is not so a husband w^ould be loved ; he 
 must be loved as a lover." 
 
 " As a lover ? . . . . Ah, well ! you shall teach me
 
 144 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 how I am to love you. I will do it as you will, 
 and I desire what you wish." 
 
 He took her hands and kissed them. 
 
 " White blossom of the plain ! " he cried in a 
 transport of joy, " whose eyes are gentle as the 
 heifers' that roam the Tell, whose looks are a song 
 of love, flower of womanhood, hoiiri and angel, I 
 will instruct you what you must do. But govern 
 your impatience ; the day, the thrice-happy day, 
 will be here anon." 
 
 XV 
 
 Afsia remained long in thought. Never, never had 
 she dreamed a thing so extraordinary. To be Man- 
 sour's bride ! — a man standing at the gates of old 
 age, wiiile she, — she was just on the threshold of 
 life! It seemed a very strange thing to her; but 
 her thoug'hts did not go beyond. 
 
 The word bride that exercises many young heads 
 so, had no meaning for her. She asked herself 
 what great difference it would make in her life, to 
 be called wife instead of daughter of the Thaleb. 
 
 At the bottom of her heart, w^arm and ready as 
 it was to expand before the fire of tenderness, was 
 no desire and no regret, no repulsion and no fear. 
 " I sadly want experience to become his wife," she 
 thought, " but he is good, and he will teach me 
 my duties." So she accepted her new part simply 
 because such was Mansour's wish, because such
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF AIANSOUR 145 
 
 acceptance seemed to please him, just as she would 
 have been ready at his pleasure to change her robe 
 or unbind her hair, 
 
 Afsia felt none of that vague trouble of mind the 
 city girl experiences, who is never altogether un- 
 informed, for all her mother has done to maintain 
 as long as possible her maiden innocence of mind 
 and body, — an innocence the husband will one day 
 dissipate so suddenly and so roughly. 
 
 Neither did she feel the amorous longing and 
 delight of the country girl, who witnessing daily 
 as she must the pairing of the beasts of the field, 
 can never, however chaste in body, be chaste in 
 thought, when she enters the husband's bed. 
 
 She was as ignorant to-day of the mysterious 
 processes whereby the human race is perpetuated 
 as the hour when the Thaleb took her fresh from 
 her mother's womb and bore her away wrapped in 
 a haik. 
 
 Thus on the eve of the great epoch so momentous 
 to women, never a one of those lascivious dj'htns 
 that make maids feel faint with wanton thoughts 
 and their bosom shudder with tremblings of desire, 
 had ever visited her at night time; and when her 
 spirit wandered to the land of dreams, the angel 
 Asrael might have followed her there. 
 
 And Mansour, happy and on the point of attain- 
 ing his wish, could boast: 
 
 " She is virgin, the pearl of Djenarah ; her clear 
 eye is like almsgiving, it shuts the doors of evil . . . 
 
 10
 
 146 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 She is virgin, Sidi-Messaoud's bride, — as pure a,s 
 the spring that wells from the rock, as pure as her 
 own thoughts. I swear it, 
 
 By God all-powerful ; 
 
 By the head of the Prophet of God; 
 
 By the oath of Abraham, the friend of God; 
 
 By the Koran, the Book of Truth ; 
 
 No other man but I has seen her face ; no hardy 
 look has ever offended her modesty ! " 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Mansour decided that the wedding should take 
 place at the town, where henceforth he proposed 
 to live. His time of waiting and trial was over. 
 The dear child had refashioned his soul and cleansed 
 it of every stain of the past. A new life was to 
 begin, from now. 
 
 Old men are as confident as young; they form 
 projects, seeming to think all the time they have 
 left behind is still before them. Some pile up a 
 hoard of silver, others build costly houses, others 
 again plant young palm-trees. Do not imagine 
 they do it for their sons ! they say so, but they 
 don't believe it in their secret hearts. They are 
 working for themselves, they are still eager to enjoy. 
 They do not see that Death walks by their side, 
 with arm uplifted to strike ; and that at the very 
 moment they stretch out their hand to grasp the 
 fruit they covet and have ripened with such pains, 
 he will close their mouth for ever.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 147 
 
 Mansour had sworn to himself and before wit- 
 nesses to marry a virgin. Now his end is all but 
 attained: yet probably after a few days' enjoynient 
 of the prize, when his first desires have been satis- 
 fied, he will set about the pursuit of some other 
 object. 
 
 He had bought by his brother's agency a house 
 worthy of the pearl he would enshrine in it, a 
 house with garden and interior courtyard and orange 
 trees that filled the whole abode with their perfume. 
 The door of massive oak felled in the forests of 
 the Eastern Khabyles, was studded with huge nails 
 made by the ironworkers in the forges of Flissa. 
 
 A single window gave on the street, and this 
 he intended to have walled up the very day after 
 his marriage. 
 
 Henceforth sure of his treasure, and having no 
 longer the hard task of guarding a maiden's virtue, 
 but only the easier care of a good and submissive 
 wife, he could begin life again on the old lines ! 
 So he thought, foolish man! but we indulge in 
 dreams to the last hour of existence, — and w^e do 
 well, for it is dreams that clothe the dry bones of 
 life. Alas ! for the fool who in his fancied wisdom 
 roughly tears down the delicate, light veil. By doing 
 so, he strips away the sole cloak that prevents our 
 feeling the bitter tooth of time.
 
 148 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 XVII. 
 
 He would give a marriage-feast that should long 
 be remembered. All the town should be invited ; 
 a hundred sheep, twenty loads of coitscoics, twenty- 
 loads of dates, should be provided. Young and 
 old, rich and poor, village-folk and townsfolk, 
 strangers and sojourners, all should share the ban- 
 quet. Every gun should be fired in his honour, 
 and the Caid should supply the powder. 
 
 In Allah's name! men should tell of it years 
 hence in the Ksours, and in the Belcd-el-Djerid, 
 and in the Tell. There were still old men living, 
 connected with his former days, men whose wives 
 he had stolen from them, whose sisters and daugh- 
 ters he had won over, and these above all others 
 he was eager to see seated at his table. 
 
 They were ignorant of their shame, or pretended 
 to be so ; but if they had suspicions, they could 
 retaliate with their sarcasms, — in this way avenging 
 the wrong, of all wrongs the one that bites deepest, 
 which the villain had cast on them on his passage, 
 as an old spiteful witch casts the evil eye on her 
 neighbours. 
 
 These were his bosojn-cnemies', for had he not 
 searched their bosoms to the quick to sow his 
 deadly seed there? But far from dreading them, 
 the old champion had fearlessly left them alone for
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 149 
 
 fourteen long years to whet their venomous tongues 
 on him. 
 
 For them he was no Thalcb, neither Mansour 
 the happy, nor Mansour the brave, — but the mad 
 Mansour, 
 
 Yet others there were to push their abominable 
 spite further still. These asserted that the aged 
 libertine had taken little Afsia only in order to 
 better pollute her at his will and pleasure, at that 
 tender age when a child has not yet lost her first 
 teeth. They said he could not hide her away so 
 completely, but that you could discover in her 
 faded cheek signs of precocious vice. 
 
 In a word, men had so mocked him, had so 
 vilified him with calumny, that now he longed to 
 crown his triumph with every circumstance of bril- 
 liancy and renown. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 He was to take up his abode at Djenarah eight 
 days before the wedding. In this he had yielded 
 to a caprice of the child's who was eager and 
 inquisitive to see her new home ; besides, he re- 
 quired to superintend the final preparations. As 
 of old, he seated her before him on his mule, 
 wrapping her more carefully than ever in his hai'k, 
 so as to show only the deep, black line of her 
 great eyes. 
 
 The little country girl, who knew only her own
 
 150 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 haouch of common stone and plaster, was entranced 
 with the magnificence of the new home, that was 
 fit to be the harem of a Bach-Agha. All the 
 splendour of Arab luxury, imported at great cost 
 from the bazaars of Tunis and Constantine, dis- 
 played its flashing colours and sparkling surfaces. 
 
 The rich merchant of former days willingly ex- 
 pended a part of his fortune on these pomps. It 
 was to enshrine his idol! what better investment 
 could he have? 
 
 In your country, I have heard say, old debauchees 
 and men of pleasure do the same for courtesans 
 possessing neither youth nor beauty ; but the Mus- 
 sulman surpasses the Christian a hundred-fold. 
 
 He proceeded to present her future attendants 
 to her: three girls from the country of the Soiiab 
 and the negress who had been her nurse and who, 
 laughing and crying at one and the same time, 
 kissed her beautiful mistress's hands and feet. Then 
 he showed her the chamber made ready to receive 
 the bride. It opened on the gallery of the first 
 floor, already scented with the perfumes they use 
 in the seraglio. Her tiny feet disappeared in the 
 thick rich carpets of Tunis, and sitting down she 
 was buried amid bright-hued silken cushions. Tall 
 lilies in pots of red and blue earthenware held 
 their graceful heads aloft, while at the little window 
 with its gilt bars, festoons of oasis-flowers fell 
 sweeping to the ground. 
 
 At this window, after the wedding-night, a matron
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 151 
 
 must — SO custom ordains, — show to the impatient 
 crowd on the extended sheet the triumphant irrefut- 
 able proof of her virginity. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Now just as they were entering the town by the 
 Biskara gate, a horseman wearing the red burnouse 
 of the Spahis met them. He was riding down the 
 middle of the street, mounted on a bare-backed 
 horse which he was taking to water at the rivulet 
 that irrigates the gardens. At this spot the way is 
 narrow, an arrangement that makes defence the 
 easier in the event of a hostile attack, and the ter- 
 raced houses, low and closely crowded together, 
 barely allow three horsemen to pass side by side. 
 Accordingly the Thaleb drew his mule a little on 
 one side, and as the other passed, their looks met. 
 What he saw made the Thaleb thoughtful, while the 
 Spahi on the contrary went on his way unheeding. 
 But as he was sallying from the lofty archway of 
 the towered gate, he heard voices saying: 
 
 " Look ! friends. Look, there goes Sidi-Messaoud 
 and his future bride!" 
 
 These words roused his curiosity, and touching 
 the shoulder of a passer-by whose eyes were fixed 
 on Mansour's retreating form : 
 
 " Friend ! " said he, " who is yonder Sheikh with 
 the grey beard who defies custom and carries his 
 bride before him on the berda of his mule?"
 
 152 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 
 
 " You are a stranger," replied the basser-by, " else 
 you must know him." 
 
 " You have said it, sir ! I am a stranger in the 
 town." 
 
 " He is well known in the Beled-el-Djerid and 
 the south of the Tell, and for fifteen years past he 
 has been much in men's mouths in Djenarah the 
 Pearl. He is brother of the Ca'id Brahim-hen-Ahnwd. 
 His name is Mansour, but they call him El-Messaoiid, 
 because he succeeds in all he does. Lo! there you 
 see him, the ancient greybeard, guarding the maiden- 
 hood of the young girl that is to be his bride." 
 
 The horseman smiled : 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! that is a droll tale. There is no virginity 
 however closely guarded but escapes at last. Friend ! 
 a girl's maidenhood is like a happy day, it's gone, 
 vanished, before you know it has slipped your fing- 
 ers. The old goat reminds me of the ChaoucJi who 
 long watched about the prison, — long after the pris- 
 oner had fled." 
 
 "The prisoner is still within," returned the other 
 with a laugh, " if we may believe report ; but it 
 won't be so much longer." 
 
 "Why? is the wedding near?" 
 
 " In a week, my son. The whole town is bidden 
 to it. They tell of a hundred sheep roasted whole ! 
 There will be more than three hundred guns. If you 
 have no pressing business, I should stay till then." 
 
 " Perhaps I may ; 'tis well worth while. Sir ! I 
 thank you."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 53 
 
 He went on his way to the stream, but he too 
 had now grown thoughtful, and kept saying over 
 to himself: 
 
 " Mansour-ben-Ahmed the Happy Man ! By the 
 head of the Prophet, the name of the man my mother 
 cursed before she died ! " 
 
 He tarried long under the leafy trees that extend 
 their strong branches over the fresh water, washed 
 down his horse carefully, took him back to the 
 stable and gave him his barley. Then he went and 
 sat at the door of the caouadji in the street of Bis- 
 kara, and bade them bring him a cup of coffee. 
 
 Whilst he was drinking it slowly, taking little 
 sips and gazing meanwhile into vacancy, he heard 
 the steps of a mule, and saw Mansour and Afsia 
 quitting the town. 
 
 XX. 
 
 He rose instinctively to look closely into the old 
 man's face, but before the piercings, cold eye of 
 Mansour he dropped his own, ashamed to have 
 made a display of ill-bred curiosity, and putting 
 his hand on his heart, he said in a loud voice : 
 
 "' Salamalek oiini!'' 
 
 "On you too be blessing!" returned Mansour, 
 and pursued his way. 
 
 Standing in the middle of the street, the Spahi 
 watched him disappear under the long vaulted pas- 
 sage of the gate of the ksoiir. Suddenly a hand 
 was placed familiarly on his shoulder :
 
 154 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " What do you here, Omar ? " 
 
 His questioner was a man of forty-five, burly 
 and red-faced, clothed in the habit of a wealthy 
 merchant. 
 
 "Ah! 'tis you, my host," replied the Spahi, "I 
 am glad to have met you. Tell me, who and what 
 is yonder good man we see, who carries perched 
 before him on his saddle so incomparably fair a 
 maid. " 
 
 "His name is Mansour-ben- Ahmed ! " the 
 
 other replied slowly, " and they call him further 
 the Happy Man.'" 
 
 " And he is guarding the virginity of his future 
 bride. I learned that much two hours ago ; but I 
 could learn no more." 
 
 " I will tell you more. You do right, Omar, to 
 inquire ; for it may well be this man's history is 
 bound up with yours, with mine, as it is with that 
 of many in this place. It may even be this was 
 why I wrote bidding you join me here." 
 
 " By the head of my father, who left me to 
 wander through the world like a lost dog, by 
 the blessed head of my mother who died with shame 
 on her brow and a curse on her lips, your words 
 make a strange light to dawn in my head. Speak, 
 Lagdar, son of El-Arbi, explain your meaning." 
 
 Then the merchant took his arm, saying- to the 
 Spahi, "Come with me!"
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 155 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A FEW days later the South wind was blowing 
 over the plains, wrapping them in red stifling dust 
 that caught the throat Hke the powder of the kari 
 (red-pepper). Nothing stirred, man and beast had 
 sought shelter from the burning blasts of the Simoovi. 
 The camels crouching low with outstretched necks 
 breathed noisily, whilst the drivers, their heads buried 
 under the corner of a ragged burnouse, cowered 
 under the shade of the higher sand-hills, or lay half 
 suffocated beneath some scanty clump of cJiiccJi or 
 alpha-grass, 
 
 Mansour had niade an artificial night in the 
 rooms of the haouch by stretching frecJiias over 
 every opening by which light could penetrate. A 
 single ray admitted would have filled the house 
 with blinding light and clouds of mosquitoes. Every 
 window was darkened and every door shut close, 
 while porous vases of water hung swinging by 
 cords and diffused around some of their freshness. 
 
 Old man and young girl were sleeping the heavy 
 sleep that comes in the daytime, putting lead on 
 the eyelids and folding the limbs in chains of steel, 
 when suddenly the dogs gave voice to a low savage 
 growling. Mansour awoke and opened the door 
 sharply. The previous day at the same hour they 
 had barked furiously. He remembered the fact, and 
 throwing a look all round, cried in his stron g voice :
 
 156 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " Ho ! there. If you crave meat or drink, come 
 and ask it openly, but if you are marauders and 
 come to prowl round my house, I tell you this, — 
 you prowl round your death." 
 
 He looked and listened long, but he could see 
 nothing but the she-goat and her kid, returning 
 from the direction of the marshes of Ain-Chabrou, 
 and could hear nothing but the howling of the 
 Si)iioo}n. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The glowing coppery tints the East assumes after 
 the passage of the desert wind reddened the sky 
 above the faint blue line of the hills, when Afsia 
 left her chamber. 
 
 Her eyes were tired and heavy, and she felt the 
 dull uncomfortable sensation of having slept too 
 long. She knelt down languidly on the carpet, and 
 whilst she arranged before a little copper-framed 
 mirror her long tresses disordered in sleep, half 
 asleep still and following out her interrupted dreams, 
 the Thalcb gazed at her smiling. 
 
 She caught his look fixed on her and blushed. 
 Her bosom was bare, and she observed that it was 
 on it Mansour kept his eyes. Yet many a time 
 before, without her specially noting the fact, he had 
 offered the same impalpable caress ; but now a feeling 
 of shame seemed to have attacked her of a sudden, 
 for she drew her gandouraJi hastily across her
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 157 
 
 breast, and said with the pouting lips of a spoilt 
 child : 
 
 " I do not like you to look at me when I am 
 dressing." 
 
 " The husband," returned Mansour, " has the right 
 to look." 
 
 " But you are not my husband yet," she put in. 
 
 The girl was right, he thought, to remind him of 
 what propriety demanded, and in order to leave 
 her quite undisturbed at her toilette, he went out- 
 side and sitting down cast his eagle eye over every 
 quarter of the plain. The world was awaking to 
 life, as it does at the dawn of day, but silently and 
 slowly. The dogs still drowsy were rolling on the 
 sand, and Afsia's pet goat with her kid by her side 
 was browsing on the cactus shoots that pierced the 
 stony soil near the green fence, while in the garden 
 the birds could be heard clapping their tiny wings. 
 
 On the horizon the sun was setting- in a bath of 
 molten gold. Borne by the breeze came the far-off 
 tones of the Muezzin's voice, calling from the summit 
 of the Mosque of Djenarah to the four quarters of 
 the world : 
 
 "Allah Kebir! Allah Kebir!" (God is Great). 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 At this hour plants exhale their most penetrating 
 odours. Like love-sick maids who, exhausted by the 
 heat of the day and longing at its close to ease their
 
 158 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 languid breasts, breathe deep, long-drawn sighs of 
 relief, the roses, lilies and hyacinths, all the flowers 
 Afsia loved so well, sent forth a breath that even 
 reached the haouch of the very quintessence of 
 their scents. 
 
 They seemed to be appealing to her senses, and 
 cr3dng, " Come into the garden, come!" And Afsia, 
 fresh and free and scented like her flowers, came 
 forth and seated herself in the midst of her sisters. 
 
 There was no regular path, no formal borders or 
 straight lines or symmetrically ordered flower-beds, 
 but a luxuriant flood of blossoms and greenery. 
 The seeds the Thaleh had sown were mingled with 
 others the wind had brought, — who knows from 
 whence, — all intermixed, intertangled, intermarried. 
 Nature, all-powerful and inimitable artist, filled this 
 little corner of virgin soil with the magic creations 
 of her fancy. 
 
 Afsia, as I said, came hither to rest, and her 
 thoughts floating on the golden clouds of evening 
 were fain to fly far away into the blue distance of 
 the heavens. 
 
 Buried amid her flowers, her senses stirred by their 
 perfumes and intoxicated by their brilliant colours, 
 she listened to the rivulet prattling on its way, to 
 the murmur of insects and the song of birds. She 
 lay down, her limbs extended beneath the leaves 
 of the bananas, her eyes swimming in an ecstasy, 
 and dreamed of the gardens the Prophet promises 
 to the elect and of herself a hoiiri in their glades. 
 
 I
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 159 
 
 Presently, as it happened, the kid came gambolling 
 to her and its mother swept her face caressingly 
 with her pointed beard. It was the milking hour, 
 and she cried to the Thaleb to throw her a settla 
 that she might fill it with goat's milk. 
 
 She passed her fingers under the long, swollen 
 teats, pushing and pulling with gentle rhythmical 
 touches the warm distended udder. Then suddenly 
 she uttered an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Mansour, where he sat on 
 the threshold of the haouch telling over the beads 
 of his ivory rosary. 
 
 She pondered a moment, then replied : 
 " Nothing .... only that Maaza trod on my foot. " 
 But Maaza, standing quite quiet and placid, had 
 done nothing of the sort. The docile beast was 
 waiting patiently for her young mistress to resume 
 milking, while the maid of the Jiaouch, quiet also 
 outwardly but with beating heart, had just told the 
 first falsehood of her life. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The falsehood had sprung to her Hps by a sort of 
 instinct, without her knowing why she told it, and 
 though no one had ever taught her deceit. She 
 lied, because she was weak and a woman, and lying 
 is the natural resource of the weak. 
 
 Attached to the goat's horns, half hidden in the 
 white tufts of her coat, was a tiny scrap of card-
 
 l6o THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 board, no longer than a baby's finger, hanging by 
 a silk thread, and on it the one word written : 
 
 "• Naabek!—\ love thee." 
 
 At the first moment she had uttered a cry of 
 surprise, but reading the magic word, had thought 
 better of it and invented ner falsehood. Love ! it 
 must be something wrong, else why this secrecy 
 in declaring it? but as it was wrong, then she too 
 must be secret. 
 
 And she called to mind a question she had once 
 asked the Thaleb, which he had not answered, 
 though he knew everything: 
 
 " What is love?" 
 
 But at the word " I love thee," all the woman 
 awoke in her. 
 
 Concealing the charm between her breasts, she 
 rose with affected unconcern and went and offered 
 the settla full of milk to Mansour. But seized with 
 a sudden agitation she could not help casting sundry 
 furtive glances of fear and saying to herself that 
 somewhere near, hidden among the cactuses of the 
 garden or the reeds of the marsh, a strange man 
 was watching her. The feeling was so strong as 
 to be actually painful, and the girl put her hand 
 to her heart, that was beating a gallop in her childish 
 bosom. 
 
 If she had had her Jiaik with her, she would 
 have drawn it over her face, she felt so keenly 
 the pollution, as it were, of the inquisitive gaze 
 fixed upon her. Her agitation would not have
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF IMANSOUR l6l 
 
 escaped a mother's attention, but a father, even a 
 lover, had no eyes for it, and Mansour saw nothing". 
 
 She was afraid to return to the garden, and ran 
 for refuge to her own room ; she longed to be 
 alone to hearken to the secrets the beating of her 
 heart told her. 
 
 She was at once surprised, agitated and delighted, 
 terrified and pleased. 
 
 Who could he be? where was he hiding'? Was 
 he young? Was he the son of an Emir or of a 
 Bach-Agha? How came he to love her? Where 
 had he seen her? How had he managed to fasten 
 the charm to the goat's horns? 
 
 She looked out fearfully from her little barred 
 window towards the marshes oi Ain-Chabroii, eager 
 and anxious and afraid, expecting every moment 
 to see a man's head rise suddenly above the rushes. 
 
 Long she gazed, till night was fully fallen, but 
 she saw nothing but the long line of dark reeds 
 sharply defined agai-nst the grey of the plain in the 
 dying light of the setting sun. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Xext day, at the hour when all the land is bathed 
 in the gentle brilliancy of the dawn and the tufted 
 grasses on the hill-sides tremble at the first kiss 
 of the morning breeze, when the lark rises singing 
 into the crystal sky, Omar the Spahi slipped silently 
 through the reeds of the marsh of Aiu-CJiabroii. 
 
 1 1
 
 1 62 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 He wiiited long. He possessed patience, which 
 is better than using force, and that stubbornness that 
 spelb success. He was a man rich in resource. 
 If a way were barred, he knew how to find a 
 loophole in the barricade ; if he met an obstacle, he 
 did not say, " Stop, there's something in the way," 
 nor did he say, "An obstacle, oh! jump over it." 
 He said nothing, but he slipped round it. 
 
 From earliest boyhood he had come into collision 
 with men, and he still bore the bruises of these 
 collisions. As he grew older, he said, " It is my 
 turn to bruise others." No one knew his father, 
 but he was called Omar; yet when he came to 
 Dar-el-Bey to enlist in the squadron of Spahis of 
 Constantino, he presented a valuable horse of the stock 
 of the Bou-Ghareb and excellent certificates from the 
 Native Department. Accordingly he had been enrolled 
 on the spot, and when the sergeant who was entering 
 his name asked him, " Yes ! Omar, —son of whom ? " 
 he answered loftily: '' Boit-Skin" — father of the 
 sword. 
 
 The clerks all raised their heads at this and 
 laughed; but under his bright, bold eye their mer- 
 riment died away, and the marchcf said coldly : 
 "Write him down Omar-bou-Skin." 
 
 He was in very deed without fear, if not quite 
 without reproach. He proved it when he reddened 
 with Musulman blood the sword the Roumis had 
 entrusted to his. hands. He was faithful in his 
 treason, a deserter, yet a brave man. Every one
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 163 
 
 must live. To live we must earn do7iros, and the 
 Roumis have them to sell. God's wa3's are mysteri- 
 ous. They paid him by promotion, and bastard 
 though he was, all held him to be of noble race. 
 
 Hidden in the rushes he waited patiently, having i^yO 
 crept as close as he dared to the haoitcli. He had 
 been prudent and had tried his ground yesterday ; 
 but he was still uncertain of success and anxious 
 to know what was to come next. Presently the 
 door opened, and he saw Afsia's white image appear 
 on the threshold. He could not see the features, 
 but only admire the delicacy of her shape and grace 
 of movement. He thought she looked in the direction 
 of the reeds, but just then Mansour appeared and 
 she hastened away to her little garden. 
 
 " She has not said anything," Omar murmured 
 to himself, as he saw the TJialch seat himself calmly 
 at the door. 
 
 He had foreseen from the first that she would 
 keep her counsel, that without in the least knowing 
 what evil was, she would feel a secret intuition 
 this word " love " the goat had brought her so 
 mysteriously yesterday had something to do with it, 
 and like a true daughter of Fathma would wish to 
 taste and try what it was. 
 
 There he remained' motionless for long hours, 
 studying the ground, like a chief of gounis near a 
 village he means to destroy. He watched all that 
 went on about the haoiich, the traffic to and fro, 
 the dogs and above all the goat. The last came
 
 164 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Up to crop the tufts of wild thyme close to the 
 reeds ; he seized hold of her as he had done the 
 day before, and fastened to her horns a second "I 
 love you," which he had kept in readiness. 
 
 Like scouts who test the enemy's position by 
 throwing a random shot towards his advanced lines, 
 he made this second assault on Afsia's heart; then 
 creeping back to the high road, he once more 
 reached Djenarah at the hour of the midday siesta, 
 to find awaiting him in an alcove hung with Tu- 
 nisian frechias, eager-eyed and redolent of musk, 
 a brown-haired wanton of the Ouled-Nayl. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The second message, like the first, found its ad- 
 dress; and like the first, it struck home. Niglit 
 and day Afsia thought of it. 
 
 A load of bliss seemed to weigh on her bosom. 
 She felt proud and happy. She was loved. Over- 
 whelmed by a wild intoxication of delight, she 
 thought her heart would burst, it beat so high. 
 
 Some one loved her, loved her ! Her eyes were 
 moist and tears that were a pleasure rolled softly 
 down her cheeks. Twenty times a day she climbed 
 to her room, or took refuge in the thickest covert 
 of her oasis, to read and re-read, to turn and turn 
 again in her fingers, the two bits of cardboard 
 which the magic word " I love" made into talis- 
 mans of might. 
 
 I
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF xMANSOUR 1 65 
 
 She never wearied of repeating the word. It 
 left her lips like a caress, a caress she would fain 
 have followed each time by a kiss. She pronounced 
 it to herself first, then half aloud, listening to her 
 own lips forming the syllables and wondering at 
 the effect it had upon her. " I love you ! I love 
 you!" — what a thrill of delight and mingled terror 
 the words produced. And the rude song of the 
 tofla of the Bcni-JM'zab her father had once dis- 
 missed his service, because she sang it before her, 
 came back fresh and clear every word of it to her 
 memory : 
 
 I wait for my beloved ! 
 
 His look is proud and full of love. 
 
 And when I hear his voice, 
 
 Or the sound of his footfall, 
 
 Or the neigh of his charger, 
 
 I know them among a thousand ; 
 
 And I feel like to die! 
 
 Ah ! it was her beloved then who wrote the tender 
 word, "I love you!" Her Beloved ! — she had only 
 a vague idea what it meant ; and she was profoundly 
 ignorant of men. Yet she felt she could love the 
 unknown passionately. The unknown ! unknown 
 joy, unknown life, the sixth maiden sense, opening 
 like a flower's cup to the hot sun of desire, some- 
 thing better than the bowl of fresh milk in thirsty 
 weather, better than her bath under the poplars 
 when the scorching Simoom blew. 
 
 Her Beloved! — what could it mean? She did
 
 1 66 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 not know ; she had been at no school where such 
 knowledge is imparted. She had never had a 
 little girl friend to breathe in her ear the poison 
 of bad thoughts ; no man had ever touched her 
 heart, sullying it with bad wishes ; no maid had 
 ever whispered her those words that startle young 
 girls, words they do not understand the first time, 
 but which make them blush the second time they 
 hear them. Virgin of soul, and body, and mind, 
 virgin of eyes and lips, as she was, yet all the 
 while she kept on murmuring to herself over and 
 over again : 
 
 " I wait for my Beloved ! " 
 
 XXYII. 
 
 Again next day she called the g-oat for the third 
 time, trembling with excitement. Her heart beat 
 wildly, and as the creature came slowly towards 
 her, stopping playfully at almost every step to crop 
 the shoots of the diss, she could see the little note 
 attached to one of its horns, and the sight filled 
 her with agitation and alarm. Suppose the TJialcb 
 were to discover it ! She ran forward and in a 
 moment broke the silk thread and secured the prize, 
 concealing it in the usual hiding-place. 
 
 This time it was not merely -a piece of cardboard 
 with the single word " Naabek ; " but a folded paper, 
 a letter, a love-letter! What could be inside? She 
 was d3nng of impatience to know; but she waited
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 67 
 
 long" before she dared read it, and at the spot where 
 the paper touched her breasts a red-hot iron seemed 
 to burn her. Two or three times she was on the 
 point of saying to Mansour: 
 
 " Look ! TJialcb, what I found on Maaza's horns." 
 
 But Mansour would have said: 
 
 "Why did you not show it me before, child?" 
 
 And he would have weighed her with his search- 
 ing eye, his eye that saw everything, knew every- 
 thing, — except that for three days she had been guilty 
 of a wrong action. 
 
 "Yes! it must be wrong," she thought, "for I 
 dare not confess it. And now I am like the women 
 of Djenarah, I am hiding my thoughts ; so perhaps 
 I am no longer a virgin." 
 
 Then after the evening meal w^hen the TJialcb 
 had barred the door and had stretched himself across 
 it on his woollen carpet, and she had retired to the 
 safety of her own chamber and made sure he was 
 asleep, she lit her lamp and trembling all over drew 
 the letter from her bosom. 
 
 Pale with emotion she deciphered the burning 
 words, and as she drank in each sentence with 
 her eyes, a new feeling- penetrated to her inmost 
 being. 
 
 "My tender gazelle," Omar had written, "your 
 gaze has wounded me like a scimitar. My heart 
 is bleeding with the stroke. I shall die, if you do 
 not heal me." 
 
 " Heal him ? but how can I heal him ? " Afsia
 
 1 68 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 asked herself, and trembled. But the remedy also 
 was made plain : 
 
 " If you do not wish me to die, to-morrow when 
 the sun shall touch the top of the Djcbcl, you must 
 turn towards the East and wave your ha'fk. I love 
 
 you 
 
 t" 
 
 "Poor fellow!" thought Afsia. "What he asks 
 me is very easy to do ! Well ! well ! is that all it 
 needs to heal him ! " 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 She slept little. All night long her imagination 
 drew in fair lines of blue on the golden backgTound 
 of her dreams the likeness of the unknown lover, 
 wounded by her beauty to the death. 
 
 Where could he have seen her? But if he had 
 seen her, why ! she might also have seen him. So 
 she searched her memory to recall the faces of all 
 the men her eyes had rested on during her last 
 journey to Djenarah ; but she could remember none 
 that had interested her, only inquisitive or hostile 
 faces. There was nothing there to stir her heart, 
 nothing ! Yet her eyes had done execution. A 
 man was yonder like to die. Like to die for having 
 seen her! Allah! Allah! she could not suffer that: 
 to-morrow she must, she would wave her ha'/'k ! 
 
 Old men too sleep little. Sleep is twin-brother 
 of death ; it encroaches on life and filches many an 
 hour from it, and old men, the nearer they approach
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 169 
 
 the shadow of the tomb, the more eagerly save every 
 moment they can from the night. 
 
 Next morning Mansour noticed how worn and 
 weary her eyes looked after these hours of sleep- 
 lessness, and said : 
 
 "Why! what was there to disturb you so?" 
 
 " Nothing, my father, " she replied, blushing scarlet 
 at the idea he had discovered her secret thoughts, 
 " only the mosquitoes made it impossible to sleep." 
 
 But the man of the world was suspicious, and 
 retorted : 
 
 " Yes ! the Tempter, Eblis the accursed, takes the 
 form of a mosquito sometimes, to harass young 
 folks and turn their heads. He keeps maids awake 
 in the hours of darkness when the gates of evil 
 are ajar, that they may peep within. O Afsia, 
 flower of my life, apple of my eyes, home of my 
 heart, beware your thoughts that linger on the 
 accursed threshold do not overstep it." 
 
 Then, counting the days on his fingers : 
 
 " Three times twelve hours more, and the promised 
 bride of El-Messaoud shall be his wife." 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Oaiar lay hid in the rushes awaiting- the result of 
 his manoeuvres. He knew he had only to wait, 
 and trust to destiny. 
 
 Stretched on his back he watched the sun descend 
 slowly towards the Djehcl, reddening the West with
 
 I JO THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 its glowing colours. Far away on the plain great 
 brown camels were cropping the white bunches of 
 a/p/ia-grsiss and the green tufts of diss that pierced 
 here and there through the rocky soil; a group of 
 little camel-boys, tattered and half-naked, were sitting 
 in a circle with all the calm aplomb of old men, 
 and seemed to be discussing the topics of the day, 
 while far off on the horizon wrapped in a cloud of 
 topaz-blue mist the minaret of the ksour gleamed 
 white in vivid contrast to the dark blue of the hills 
 lit up by the last glow of the setting sun. 
 
 When the fiery disc appeared to touch the 
 mountain-top, Omar turned and looked towards the 
 haouch. He saw the master standing at the door, 
 apparently scanning- every corner of the marsh with 
 his scrutinizing gaze. 
 
 "Can the girl have been a little fool," he thought, 
 "and betrayed my secret?" 
 
 But in another instant she appeared, and he saw 
 her direct her steps towards the garden. 
 
 She took up a position where Mansour could not 
 see her, and slowly undoing her ha'ik, she waved 
 it three times towards the West. 
 
 " She is mine!" said Omar to himself, and laughed. 
 And without waiting longer he set off to return 
 to the town. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 So confident was he of success that he now let two 
 days slip quietly by without a further attempt.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 171 
 
 Artful schemer, he meant the girl to grow impatient, 
 for impatience is the mother of hasty decisions and 
 rash deeds. 
 
 Besides he required time for deliberation, to think 
 out the best way to secure his object. The consent 
 of the lady is always a great point gained, in fact 
 the main point, but it is not everything. Material 
 obstacles may thwart your wishes and unforeseen 
 eventualities upset your calculations. Chance often 
 spoils "the best laid schemes," and has got to be 
 reckoned with. 
 
 His host too kept sayings " No hurry ! no hurry ! 
 watch and wait." 
 
 So he waited till the very day before the wedding. 
 
 He had counted on Afsia's innocence, and the 
 result had justified his expectations. 
 
 After waving her ha'ik, she fled in confusion, as 
 if she had been committing a crime, then ran to 
 find her goat and was bitterly disappointed at there 
 being no fresh letter for her. 
 
 What had happened seemed so extraordinar}^ to 
 her, and her ideas had been so utterly upset by 
 this sudden and violent change in her tranquil life 
 that she felt nothing was impossible, — except that 
 the ordinary course of events should continue. 
 
 She hoped and feared, expecting with beating 
 heart and strained nerves some grand event to 
 happen in the night. She woke up several times 
 with a start, trembling like a leaf stirred by the 
 wind at the least growl of the dogs.
 
 172 THE CHASTISExMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 "There he is," she whispered, "there he is per- 
 haps. What will he do?" 
 
 Two days passed by. She never thought of her 
 approaching marriage; she forgot completely she 
 was to change her whole life next day, and her 
 eyes remained fixed on the reeds of the marsh of 
 Ain-Chahroii, from which she expected every mo- 
 ment to see the unknown spring up. 
 
 The third day her patience gave out. Curiosity, 
 the consuming wish to know the truth, vanquished 
 prudence altogether ; she made a pretence of search- 
 ing for the flowers of the cht'cch, and all the time 
 playing with her goat, drew nearer and nearer to the 
 tufts of reeds. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 She was half singing, half humming, as she went, 
 the song of the Beled-el-DJcrid, the song she had 
 heard but once when she was quite a child, but 
 which she remembered so well. 
 
 "Oh, ho!" said Omar to himself, who watched 
 her from his post of observation, " the gazelle is not 
 so shy to-day. Like ourselves, the daughters of 
 Fathma are children of sin. Keep watch and ward 
 on them, careful g'uardians and jealous duennas, 
 lavish precautions, advice, and bolts and bars to 
 secure them ; it is all in vain ! They will still burn 
 with eagerness to lose the treasure you take such 
 pains to guard. They love vice before they know
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 73 
 
 what vice is. Nature is stronger than morality, and 
 what we call virtue is a mere matter of opportunity, 
 — ^or its absence, and individual tempera,ment. Here 
 is a maid the women of Djenarah vaunt as worthy 
 to add her name to the list of the four the Prophet 
 counted perfect women, and lo ! she comes running 
 to meet an unknown lover, inquisitive and wanton 
 as a heifer in heat." 
 
 Hidden in the high tufts of the iris, he watched 
 her coming slowly nearer and nearer, without how- 
 ever being seen by her; and her beauty positively 
 dazzled him. 
 
 "She is lovelier than I thought," he murmured; 
 " she is worth all the douros of the khas7iadji. If 
 only the old goat could have for just one quarter 
 of an hour a g"ood ophthalmia to burn his eyes 
 blind, or a sudden palsy to nail him to his mat, — 
 or better still a sound whack over the skull that 
 would keep him stunned whilst I make his kid my 
 own, and let him come to again as soon as I cry: 
 'Done! old man; the deed is done!'" 
 
 She glided along beside the irises, brushing the 
 flowers with her gandoiiraJi, and when she was only 
 a few steps from him, he called in a low voice: 
 
 " Tofla ! tofla ! I am here. I love you ! Come 
 this way. Lie down among the rushes, the old man 
 has not seen vou ! " 
 
 She trembled at the sound of his voice. The 
 Spahi had done his best to speak gentlv, but his 
 tone frightened the girl as if it had been a threat.
 
 174 TiiE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Her heart beat violently, and she was ready to 
 faint. 
 
 She dared not turn her head, and walked on. 
 She would have run, but her limbs bent under her. 
 
 At this moment she heard the Thalcb calling. 
 " Afsia ! x\fsia ! " 
 
 The familiar voice she loved did her good. She 
 turned in its direction, and started to return to the 
 haoitch with rapid steps. 
 
 " Why do you wander so far away?" he asked. 
 " I like not your going near the marsh ! Have I not 
 told you before that Satan the Poisoner lurks under 
 its dark tangles? His mouth breathes fever, — and 
 whispers bad words into maidens' ears." 
 
 Afsia made no reply. She avoided going near 
 the TJialcb, dreading to betray the agitation that 
 paled her cheeks ; and going to the back of the 
 house she sat down beside the brook. 
 
 There she began to think, — of the voice that had 
 terrified her so, of the lover who was lying hid 
 yonder. How silly she had been, and how cowardly. 
 It was he, her lover ; he loved her, and would not 
 have hurt her. Why had she not lain down in the 
 rushes, as he had begged her. The Thalcb would 
 not have seen her then, and she would have beheld 
 )iim, could have consoled him and told him not to 
 die. And instead of that, she had never answered, 
 and had run away like a mad girl ! Oh ! how 
 stupid and rude and awkward he must think her ! 
 It is all over, he would never love her any more!
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT Of MANSOUR 17,5 
 
 And sore at heart with vexation, she began to 
 pull great handfuls of flowers and toss them into 
 the stream. 
 
 " Eh ! Afsia, why drown the poor flowers you 
 love so well?" 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 He had approached her without her hearing his 
 footfall, and was now looking down on her with 
 a smile. 
 
 "You are angry," he went on, "you frown." 
 
 " Yes ! " she answered with the pettish tone of a 
 spoilt child ; " I cannot walk a step before me, I 
 cannot turn to right or left, without hearing your 
 voice calling after me, and saying: Where are 
 you going ? " 
 
 "You must forgive me," said the T/ialcb gently, 
 sitting down by her side ; " you are my fortune, 
 and I go in constant fear of losing you, for if I lost 
 you, I should have lost my life. By the all-merciful 
 God, I will not have you expose yourself to the 
 risk of having the treasure you possess stolen, the 
 treasure I have guarded for fourteen years with so 
 much pains." 
 
 " What treasure ? " 
 
 " A jewel as precious as the most precious diamond 
 in the Sultan of Stamboul's diadem; a pearl the 
 like of \vhich the Prince of the Faithful has not and 
 has never had in his seraglio ! "
 
 176 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " I possess no treasure," exclaimed Afsia, looking 
 at the Thaleb with amazement. " I have no jewels 
 but my silver ear-rings, my silver anklets and brace- 
 lets, and this little finger-ring you told me was given 
 you by the first woman you loved ; and all these 
 belong to you, for it was you gave them me." 
 
 " And have you nothing else ? " 
 
 "Yes! myself, my whole body; I belong to you, 
 I am your daughter and your slave. To-morrow 
 I shall be your wife,^ — but still your true slave, and 
 daughter. " 
 
 " My own Afsia, my rose of sweetness ! " cried 
 jMansour, who felt himself purified and rejuvenated, 
 in presence of such youth and innocence, " you are 
 like the houris the Prophet bestows on the faithful 
 w^ho, made light by their good deeds, have been 
 able to cross the sharp-edg'ed Sirak, and now float 
 amid the delights of the gardens of the Elect." 
 
 " Have hojiris then a treasure to give as well? " 
 
 " Even as you have, my love, my life ! The 
 Prophet forgive me, if I blaspheme, but theirs is 
 not so precious as yours." 
 
 She remained in deep thought, while Mansour 
 gazed at her in silence, filled with love and pride. 
 
 He, the man of pleasure, so long given up to 
 sin, seducer, adulterer, he had wrought this price- 
 less work of art, this jewel of the world, this pearl 
 among pearls, this flower of flowers. She was of 
 marriageable age and still chaste, a virgin of un- 
 sullied purity of mind, a maid immaculate as the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOQR 1 77 
 
 snow that covers in cold winters the high crests of 
 the Djiirjnra, as the bud of the pahn that half 
 unfolds on a morning of springtide to the first kiss 
 of the sun. 
 
 He gazed at her tenderly, enjoying the wonder 
 that sparkled in her great liquid eyes. 
 
 XXXIIL 
 
 " To-morrow is the great day, dear Afsia; you 
 must bid farewell to our Jiaoiich, to the little foun- 
 tain and the poplar you used to bathe under; 
 farewell to your garden where you loved to hide 
 yourself for hours together, to the birds that used 
 to greet your awakening, to the reeds of the marsh 
 that stripe the grey plain with their line of green, 
 to the distant blue hill where the sun sets, to the 
 desert, the sands and the Sinwoi/i." 
 
 " I am sad, " said Afsia. 
 
 " .Sad ! but why ? Yonder will be neither sand nor 
 Siuioojii : you will have a garden as fair as this 
 one, and the birds will sing at your awakening as 
 sweetly as they do here. Your new house is finer 
 than the Caid's own, its floors are of enamelled 
 tile-work, and there is a court where great orange 
 trees bloom ; there is a fountain-jet and gold fish 
 that swim in the bason." 
 
 " I am sad," said Afsia. 
 
 " Listen what you shall have more : a cool, shady 
 gallery, its gratings of woodwork painted red, and 
 
 12
 
 178 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 wreathed in vine and honeysuckle and the many- 
 coloured bells of the graceful bindweed. 
 
 " There you will take your siesta, and the curtain ot 
 foliage will be so thick you will but just catch a 
 glimpse of the blue of the sky. Under your feet 
 you shall have carpets of Tunis; you shall ha\'e 
 bright shawls of silk to wrap around you, a vest 
 braided with gold such as the women of Constantine 
 wear, and red slippers of gold and blue-silk 
 embroidery. " 
 
 "I am sad," said Afsia, "sad, sad." 
 
 " Throw off your sadness, dear child ; it clouds 
 my soul. Why grow sad at the very hour when 
 so many maids are overjoyed ? What will the 
 women say, when they come to lead you to the 
 wedding to-morrow, if they see you anxious-eyed? 
 They will think the old harridans with the evil eye 
 have cast a spell over your betrothals, and that you 
 weep because you hate your intended husband." 
 
 " Then they would think wrong ! for I love you 
 well. It is not that makes me sad . . . . " 
 
 Afsia hesitated, and was on the point of revealing 
 her secret ; but he continued, fearing to hear the 
 naive child avow it was his grey beard that saddened 
 her on the eve of her marriage-day: 
 
 " Clear the clouds from your face, moon of my 
 soul ; henceforth your kindly light must be the 
 lantern of my nights. Oh! how shall I repay you 
 for all the happiness you will give me. I would 
 be the fringe of your haik, to be with you all the
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 179 
 
 day long ; or better still, I would be a ringlet of 
 your dark hair, to be with you night and day. I 
 would be the Mcroiced that darkens your eyes, or 
 better the colour of ripe pomegranate that reddens 
 your lips. Up ! up ! beloved of my heart, dry your 
 eyes, your fountain has tears enough. Away ! and 
 put on your brave attire." 
 
 " Where shall you be, Mansour, when the women 
 come for me?" 
 
 " I shall follow your mule on a thorough-bred the 
 Caid will send me, a horse descended from a cer- 
 tain black stallion, that was son of a mare of my 
 father's, on whose back I won renown ; and I shall 
 watch with drawn sword over the treasure God has 
 given me!" 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 She retired to put on her finest braveries, those 
 Mansour had bought her on his last visit to the 
 town. 
 
 She braided her heavy ebon locks, thick as the 
 berima the noble sons of the tents wind round their 
 heads, and which fell in lovely silken threads on 
 either side of her shoulders the sun had so often 
 kissed, put on a ga)idoiiraJi of so fine a texture 
 the rosy tints of her flesh were visible through the 
 woof, and enveloped her hips in the ample drawers 
 of yellow silk, leaving her calves bare. Then she 
 drew tightly round her loins the many-hued foutah.
 
 l8o THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 clasped her broad golden girdle, and taking a hand- 
 mirror seated herself among her woollen cushions, 
 and chewing the while the branch of souak that 
 scents the breath and makes the lips red, fell to 
 admiring herself in the mirror. 
 
 Like a child its mother has dressed out in new 
 clothes, not daring to move for fear of soiling its 
 finery and disarranging the symmetrically ordered 
 folds, she sat there motionless, triumphant, smiling 
 at her own loveliness. 
 
 She no longer thought of her coming marriag-e, 
 nor of Mansour, nor yet of the man lurking in the 
 rushes, nor of the messages he had written her, 
 nor of his voice that had frightened her so ; she 
 thought of nothing but the fair sight she saw in 
 her mirror, — and of a surety she could hardly have 
 seen a fairer. 
 
 And to add a further brilliancy to her charms 
 and the glory of her radiant, smiling beauty, the 
 father of the world that had aided the blossoming 
 of the wonder, reddened her lips and dyed her 
 rosy cheeks, filled out her bosom and lit up her 
 eyes, — the sun, the glorious sun, came back a mo- 
 ment from his setting to pay her homage. 
 
 A sunbeam shot suddenly through the trellis of 
 her window, bathing in its rays, as though for a 
 last caress before it departed for ever, the virginity 
 that had budded and ripened under its kisses. As 
 one hangs round a beloved friend, whom one is 
 to see no more, unable to tear oneself away, em- 
 
 J
 
 THE CHASriSEMENT OF MANSOUR l8r 
 
 bracing him, then pushing- him back, then turning 
 to embrace him once more, and saying " Good- 
 bye ! good-bye ! " — the fond beam enwrapped her, 
 shining on her face, playing in the bkie depths of 
 her hair, flashing on her silver ear-rings, her brace- 
 lets and anklets, glittering on the row of sequins 
 that framed her brown cheeks and the gold spangles 
 of her cap of purple velvet, quivering over her 
 body, penetrating everywhere, throwing in every 
 direction sudden gleams and sudden eclipses of 
 light, torrents of yellow shadows, floods of red 
 radiance, cascades of fire, scattering at every move- 
 ment of her figure dancing effects of light and 
 shade. 
 
 The centre of all this scintillating brilliance, the 
 child looked like one of those female idols you see 
 blazing with artificial lights, before which in the 
 mysterious recesses of some chapel, the idolatrous 
 worshippers of Jesus bow down. Like these eternal 
 symbols of human degradation, she was surrounded 
 with perfumes intoxicating and disturbing to the 
 strongest heads. From a tiny copper chafing-dish 
 that stood in front of her, rose the blue fumes of 
 fragrant pastilles, while from the folds of her clothing 
 and hollow of her bosom breathed the concentrated 
 scent of roses. The subtle, delicious poison filled 
 the oda (upper chamber), diffusing an atmosphere of 
 indolence and languor. Beware of these enervating- 
 perfumes. In your Churches they bend women's souls 
 to the priestly yoke; in our land amid the luxurious
 
 1 82 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 cushions of the alcove and behind the curtain of the 
 women's tent, brave men and strong are bent to 
 the will of puny woman. They deliver up to the 
 weakest slip of a girl hard, rugged soldiers, bound 
 hand and foot and humble as the negro slaves our 
 caravans brought in former days from the sun- 
 scorched lands beyond the desert to sell to the 
 Christian traders. Wherefore, if you would remain 
 a man, tarry not in the company of women. 
 
 He that lives in their midst, grows at heart a 
 eunuch. As surely as the knife strips the eunuch 
 of his carnal, generative parts, the influences that 
 radiate from woman rob the man who is ever in 
 her society of all manliness of soul. 
 
 This is written, or words to this effect, in the 
 sayings of the wise Lockm.an, who is none other 
 than Solomon the Great. 
 
 When the Thaleh softly pushed open the door 
 of the oda, he fell into an ecstasy, ravished by 
 what he saw, feeling the fire of thirty course again 
 through his veins, and his heart grow tender. 
 
 And before this unequalled nosegay of loveliness, 
 rose and violet, hyacinth and lily, blooming there 
 amid the heady odours of incense, before this 
 beautiful idol, decked out with gay attire and 
 lighted up for worship by the last fires of the setting 
 sun, he stretched forth his hands in adoration and 
 fell upon his knees.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 83 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The sun disappeared behind the mountains, shoot- 
 ing- a last ray to kiss the face of the tofla, hghting 
 up once more the sparkles of her sequins and her 
 ornaments, so that she seemed to Mansour's dazzled 
 eyes a goddess of flesh and blood, filling the oda 
 with emanations of light and fragance. 
 
 Then twilight absorbed the scene, leaving the 
 glitter of their eyes as the only luminous points. 
 
 They gazed into each other's eyes, he panting, 
 agitated, excited, she wondering, but calm and grave. 
 At sight of the old man on his knees before her, 
 no smile of mockery stirred her lips. She thought 
 simply these were the usual preliminaries a husband 
 must perform, and was on the point of asking what 
 she should do. 
 
 But her courage failed her, for fear he should 
 smile at her ignorance. Then as he still remained 
 kneeling, devouring her with his eyes, she took his 
 head between her hands and kissed him on the 
 forehead. 
 
 He trembled at the touch of her lips, and passed his 
 burning hands down the curves of her girlish shape. 
 
 "Light of my life, why do you kiss me?" 
 
 "Because I love you." 
 
 "How do you love me," said the old man, deli- 
 ciously stirred and flattered by her caress, — "as a 
 father or as a lover? "
 
 184 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " I do not know. I love you because you are 
 good and kind ; because you have watched over my 
 childhood, because you give me all I wish. But I 
 am ready to love you in any way you wish. Only 
 tell me how you wish it to be, and as I am to be 
 your wife, teach me how a wife should love." 
 
 And proud of her answer, she waited to hear his 
 approval. 
 
 " O lake of purity ! " murmured Mansour, " who 
 should dare to sully your crystal soul ! " 
 
 And pressing a long kiss on her little hands with 
 their rose-pink nails, he rose from his knees, dreading- 
 to lose the mastery over his feelings. He was afraid 
 he might be tempted to rob himself! So, his brain 
 fired by love and confused by the heady scents, 
 his energy of purpose tottering, he hurried from the 
 chamber, descended the stairs and crossing the room 
 below, opened the door of the haouch. 
 
 Standing on tlie threshold, he gazed at the Western 
 sky still glowing with the rays of the departing sun 
 like a huge fiery furnace into which the Almighty 
 had tossed all the kingdoms of the earth, and he 
 seemed to watch his own happiness melt in the mighty 
 conflagration. 
 
 "In the name of the God of Mercy," he cried, 
 " let no wind of disaster arise this night, let no storm 
 arise to trouble the serenity of to-morrow ! "
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 85 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 At this moment the dogs barked, and a child's 
 voice cried in long-drawn monotous tones: 
 
 "Thaleb! Ho! Thaleb-El-Mansour ! Ho! Sidi- 
 Thaleb!" 
 
 "What is it?" the Thaleh asked sharply. 
 
 And he perceived a little boy of some ten years 
 old standing still, two hundred yards away in the 
 direction of the marsh, holding a dog in leash. 
 
 "Can I come near?" said the child, "will your 
 slouguis not hurt me?" 
 
 " They are chained ; what is your business with me ?" 
 
 " Why!" said the boy, coming forward some paces, 
 " I come from the Sheikh Ben-Kaouiadi, Sheik of the 
 village yonder at the far end of the plain ; he sends 
 you his bitch to serve your slougiiis.'" 
 
 " The foul fiend take you and your bitch and 
 your Sheikh ! " cried Mansour ; " off with you, my fine 
 fellow ! " 
 
 "The beast has a right good pedigree," retorted 
 the child, quite unmoved, " and Sidi-ben-Kaouiadi 
 would like her to have a litter by your dogs." 
 
 " Go tell him if he wants dogs, he must make 
 them himself; now be off, or I will loose mine at 
 your backside!" 
 
 The slouguis, who scented the female, began to 
 growl with eagerness to be free. 
 
 The boy hesitated a while as though not knowing
 
 1 86 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 what to do; at last he made up his mind, and 
 started slowly homewards, dragging the bitch after 
 him, that followed reluctantly, stopping at every 
 corner of the road. 
 
 "I'll go myself," muttered Mansour angrily, "and 
 rate the fool, this insolent Sheikh, sending his bitch 
 to me to couple with my dogs. A pretty picture 
 for Afsia, on the eve of her wedding-day ! " 
 
 And he followed the little Bedouin with his eyes, 
 as he plunged deeper and deeper among the rushes 
 of the marsh, a point of grey vanishing in the 
 blackness. 
 
 The splendours of the setting sun had faded little 
 by little, and nothing was left but a faint red glow, 
 while the evening star climbed the sky. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Presently those mysterious sounds that are never 
 heard in the daytime rose in the sombre dark. 
 Jackals, hyaenas, wild cats, horned vipers, black 
 scorpions, little grey serpents with emerald eyes, 
 crept about the ways, seeking their food. All the 
 rabble rout of night-prowlers, haunters of waste 
 places, gaunt hungry marauders, — slimy reptiles, 
 night birds and beasts of prey, — the grim host of 
 plunderers that sally forth when good men lie down 
 to sleep, and raven to fill their belly when others 
 are full, began to rustle in the gloom. 
 
 Why has God made creatures that must be gaunt
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 87 
 
 and famished? why has he not given abundance 
 to all? This is what the vulgar herd say, forgetting 
 that every good thing must be won by effort. So, 
 for such as do not get their share, the Master has 
 given the night, — the harvest time of the weak 
 and poor. You refuse him sustenance, — well then, 
 he will rob you to get it. 
 
 It is for you, glutted with plenty as you are, to 
 guard your store. 
 
 As night fell, gloom descended on Mansour's 
 spirit. 
 
 In the morning all had seemed bright and gay, 
 the whole world full of joy and content ; now his 
 soul was so mournful it might have been following 
 his own body to the grave, borne on the funeral 
 bier and wrapped in the green shroud, 
 
 " And yet," he said, listening to the distant cries 
 that pierced the dark like warning voices, " why 
 should these sounds make me sad? The night- 
 robbers have no grudge against you or yours; you 
 have nought to fear. You know them well. Have 
 you not brushed past them a hundred times travelling 
 by night, in those days when you too prowled the 
 dark like them to glut your appetite? You met 
 them many a time at the turn of a path or at the 
 edge of the bush, and you said, ' Pass on.' 
 Then each went his way, where hunger drove us. 
 
 " Ah ! those were good times, good times indeed, 
 when I robbed my pittance from those more for- 
 tunate than myself who had an over-abundance of
 
 1 88 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the world's goods. And why did they not guard 
 their womankind better, these gluttons, wallowing 
 insolently in every luxury ? My game was to prey 
 on others' goods, and I won it, for women love 
 the bold. Now it is my turn to watch and ward 
 my own. 
 
 " Chaouias, Hadars, Giaours, I defied and braved 
 you all, when I was young; I am old now, but I 
 still brave you and defy you. So long as I was 
 strong, you called me the Happy Man, because I 
 knew how to carve my w^ay to success ; but since 
 my beard had grown grey, you have known me 
 a,s the Madman. You have mocked me, you have 
 shouted with laughter, you and your wives with 
 you, saying : ' How painfully he keeps guard over 
 his treasure ; a thief will have it for all that.' Well ! 
 let him come now, this thief; for the hour is close 
 at hand when no thief can rob me of my darling 
 any more ! " 
 
 So saying, he lifted up his manly voice and cried 
 a warning cry, that rang out over the desert where 
 all else but he were wrapped in silence and asleep. 
 
 " Beware ! beware ! if any thief is prowling round 
 this house, he is prowling to meet his death." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Afsia slipped trembling to his side, and her gentle 
 voice recalled him to himself, whispering softly: 
 "Who is it you threaten so fiercely?" 
 
 i
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF AIANSOUR 1 89 
 
 He smiled without answering her question. 
 
 " I hear nothing, " she went on, after a moment's 
 silence, "nothing but the yelping of the jackals and 
 the noise of horses' feet yonder towards Alloufa. 
 Why are you here at the door? come indoors." 
 
 He took her by the waist, and pushed her gently 
 within the house. 
 
 All preparations for departure were complete. 
 The articles they were to take away with them lay 
 ready for removal — clothes, bright-hued frechias, 
 the beautiful Koran illuminated and written from 
 end to end by the hand of the Thalcb El-Hadj- 
 Ali-bou-Nahr, the most skilled copyist and illu- 
 minator in all the province of Constantine, — and 
 your humble servant, Mansour's flissas with hafts 
 of carved wood and scabbards of red leather, his 
 long g-un with barrel of damascined steel and sil- 
 ver nng-s, the gun that had made so many women 
 widows and mothers childless, and his bridle with 
 eylet-holes finished in gold and silken thread, worn 
 and slashed in countless fights, bridle of the beauti- 
 ful mare, — foal of the son of Naama, that he had 
 ridden on days of battle, and his ringing stirrups 
 and his silver spurs arabesqued in rude patterns, — 
 old servants preserved through all perils and vicis- 
 situdes! What memories each article recalled! what 
 struggles ! what crises of love and war ! how many 
 hours, light or heavy, gay with laughter or murderous 
 with hate ! Now all this past, mournful and radiant 
 at once, he piled pellmell in one huge fondouk.
 
 I go THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Then when the oaken coffer was shut to, when 
 he had cast round him a last look, had once again 
 inspected Afsia's chamber, he pushed the chest 
 against the door of the stairway and sat down on 
 it, resting as it were on the ashes of his past life, 
 henceforth turning his gaze only to the future. 
 
 The future ! It lay before him radiant with hap- 
 piness to come ; it had dark eyes like stars, all 
 shining with promises of bliss, and they looked at 
 him and smiled. 
 
 He beckoned, and the bride of to-morrow drew 
 near, and leant her weight on his sturdy breast, — 
 a load of delight, a burden of joy, a mass of hap- 
 piness; something soft and sweet like a pet bird 
 that rustles its wings between a woman's breasts, 
 like quivering lips kissing a girl's body that is faint 
 with desire. 
 
 Sweet, tender form! He longed to hold it safe 
 in his very heart, caged and hidden there, a prisoner 
 till the morrow. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Ab'SIA had heard the boy's voice plainly, and it 
 had filled her with apprehension. She felt now 
 that she had done wrong to keep silence about 
 her adventure, for some instinct told her mischief 
 was plotting in the dark, — and that through her 
 own fault. She burned to make a clean breast, 
 but did not know how to tell the tale of all that
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR IQI 
 
 had happened, and above all how to begin her 
 confession. She opened her mouth to reveal the 
 secret, but blushes covered her cheeks and her 
 tongue seemed frozen. So she pressed closer to 
 Mansour, mentally asking pardon from the bottom 
 of her heart for the fault she had been guilty of 
 against him. 
 
 On his side, he looked into her eyes, drawing 
 her to him with feverish hands. Apparently calm 
 and indifferent, he was in truth as deeply stirred as 
 a boy at his first assignation. He had to go back 
 in memory to the far-off days of his lawless passion 
 for his father's bride, Meryem, to recall so fierce 
 an emotion. Ah! the long, weary hours he had 
 lived through since ! How many weeks, and months, 
 and years had passed since then ! The white threads 
 in his beard had long ago overmastered the black ; 
 yet he felt the furious passions of twenty rise 
 within him and howl to be satisfied! 
 
 He looked, and saw her arms resting on the rounded 
 hips, and her virgin bosom rising and falling softly 
 as she breathed. 
 
 He saw his darling white and fair, a creature of 
 grace and beauty, in all the seductive charm of her 
 brave attire and scented raiment ! 
 
 So she was his, this fair girl, his only, all his ! 
 She was his very own, his chattel, his bride, his 
 wife ; he could taste his joy now, on the instant, if 
 he so wished. The thoug'ht made his blood as fire ; 
 while the burning Sivioom that had been blowing
 
 192 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 all day, the toilette the girl had made, the odours 
 that breathed from her, her innocent caresses that 
 stirred his blood, the warm evening breeze entering 
 by the half-open door, the hot night air laden with 
 amorous influences, the nightingale singing in the 
 poplars, and further away the low mournful cries 
 that rose amid the reeds greeting the peaceful 
 moonrise, — all called to him, "Take her! take her 
 now! she is yours." 
 
 XL. 
 
 Not far off a lamp of red earthenware stood on a 
 stool, and threw a mysterious reddish glow over the 
 oda, while in one corner lay unrolled a large mat 
 of diss fibre with thick woollen cushions arranged 
 on it. Here they were to rest till the wedding- 
 guests should arrive at the first peep of dawn to 
 conduct the pair to the town. 
 
 Mansour pointed to it, pushing her from him 
 almost roughly. 
 
 " Go and sleep, dear child ! " 
 
 Dear child! Yes! Yesterday she was still a 
 child ; but to-day she seemed to him a woman, he 
 knew not why. Hitherto his heart had loved her, 
 now his senses longed for her. A few hours had 
 wrought the change; he pushed her from him, 
 afraid of his own weakness. 
 
 She withdrew obediently ; and ]\Iansour unfastening 
 his rosary from his neck, beg-an to pass the ivory
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 193 
 
 beads one by one through his fingers, saying half 
 aloud for each, as if to drown the thoughts that 
 li^oiild assail him, the sacred name of Allah. 
 
 For it is written in the Book how this Name 
 drives away unholy desires. 
 
 ^Meantime Afsia had sat down as he bade her on 
 her cushions; but as he repeated for the hundredth 
 time the name of God, she thought she heard a cry 
 of distress break out clear and distinct amid the 
 yelping of the jackals. 
 
 She rose instantly and ran to take refuge at the 
 Thatch's feet. 
 
 " Do you hear it ? " she cried ; " oh ! I am fright- 
 ened." 
 
 And pressing close to his breast once more, she 
 hid her face under his burnouse. 
 
 He took the child's head betw_en his hands, and 
 fell to kissing her thick dark locks. 
 
 She did not resist, happy to feel safe. It was 
 a father fondling her; she thought of him in no 
 other light. Had the moment come to confess the 
 secret that had been tormenting her for days ? But 
 suddenly he straightened himself and pushed her 
 away again. Then he ran to the door, and scru- 
 tinized the outer darkness. 
 
 Some one was in distress yonder. He hardly 
 gave it a thought ; he was counting the hours to wait 
 before the wedding-guests should arrive, and saying : 
 
 " If only they could come sooner ! " 
 
 " I am frightened, " repeated Afsia once again,
 
 194 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 following him and clinging to his arm, " I am fright- 
 ened! Don't go. Listen, Mansour, I have something 
 to tell you. Stay with me. Don't leave me! Don't 
 leave me ! " 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Stay with her ! this was exactly what he feared 
 to do, for he had just been caught by that fury of 
 desire that seizes men, — and they say women too 
 sometimes, — on the eve of passing the threshold of 
 old age. This is the critical time of love, as it is 
 of life. Passion takes fire, and explodes like a 
 weapon loaded by an awkward hand. Men who 
 have overpassed maturity, and play the game of 
 young lovers, hurt themselves and are hooted by 
 others. 
 
 He by no means wished to be hooted. He loved 
 the girl, but he did not love to be laughed at, and 
 he would certainly be the laughing-stock of Djenarah 
 to-morrow, if by any chance he should give way 
 to his longings. 
 
 And yet again and again in the course of a very 
 few minutes the instant had come when he could 
 barely be called master of himself, when he was 
 on the point of plundering himself by deflowering 
 his own bride on the eve of the wedding-day, and 
 making himself the butt of never-ending mockery 
 for the rest of his life. P'or think of the scandal when 
 the matron, throwing open the window at the peep of
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 1 95 
 
 day, should present to the impatient crowd a sheet 
 without a stain, to be greeted with shouts of laughter ! 
 
 " By the Prophet ! " they would cry, "for fourteen 
 years the old ass has kept watch and ward over the 
 bride he took right from the mother's womb to be 
 quite certain of her maidenhood, — and the wedding- 
 night she has not left a spot on her bed ! God's 
 curse is surely upon him ! Is he so weakly and 
 exhausted, this old seducer of women? or has the 
 bird he kept encaged, slipt through the bars under 
 his very nose ? Tahan ! Tahan ! cuckold ! cuckold ! " 
 
 Why! yes, they would shout this and many 
 another insult at him, and point the finger of scorn 
 at his shame-faced figure slipping shyly along under 
 the houses, his hood drawn over his eyes like a 
 pauper, and his burnouse wrapped tight round his 
 tall thin form. 
 
 He would choose the lonely streets, seek out the 
 shade, lurk under walls ; but some passer-by would 
 always discover him, and nudge his companion and 
 point at him ; or it would be some enfant terrible 
 of the streets, who would shout at the top of his 
 voice : 
 
 " Ho ! Thaleb ! Ho ! ho ! cuckold ! Who was your 
 wife's lover before you ? " 
 
 Or perhaps it would be an old woman, one of 
 his former light-o'-loves, that would spit on his 
 hood, showing her yellow teeth.
 
 196 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 XLII. 
 
 He had taken his stick and was striding up and 
 down before the door, beating the air with it as if 
 he were striking the heads of his mockers, seeming 
 to hear already their hooting and laughter. 
 
 " No ! that shall never be ; the ruffians shall never 
 have cause to cast insult at me. Hadars and 
 Chaouias, you know what I am called. 
 
 " I am called Happy, the Happy Man, and to the 
 hour of my death, you shall continue to kiss my 
 stirrup and salute me Lord ! . 
 
 " No ! I say no ! Though the maid should fall on 
 her knees to me, should put her lips on mine, 
 winding her arms round me like an ivy-branch, my 
 heart and my senses shall be cold as the marble of 
 the mosque." 
 
 And the maid did actually call him, standing at 
 the threshold and begging him : 
 
 "Mansour, Mansour! come back to me." 
 
 " Go in, my gazelle," returned the TJialcb. " I 
 do not wish you to follow me. Unfasten the dogs, 
 and let them stay by you on guard! Hear you 
 yonder cries of distress? I must run as far as the 
 first rushes bordering the marsh." 
 
 " Mansour, don't go there, I beseech you. Satan 
 the Foul Fiend is hid in the reeds, spreading his 
 sorcerer's net like a great spider." 
 
 The Thalcb smiled at her words- — words she had 
 learned from him.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 197 
 
 " Fear not, dear child ! He spreads his nets only 
 for girls, for women and weaklings; men like my- 
 self break the web with one blow of their stick. 
 There is nothing- to fear yonder, nothing but a 
 silly boy who came here just now, and who has 
 no doubt slipped into some boghole. I recognize 
 his voice. The curse of heaven would light on me, 
 if r left the child to drown." 
 
 " Leave me not alone, Mansour, I swear there is 
 some evil design afloat. Come back ; listen, I have 
 a confession on my lips." 
 
 But Mansour, fearing a fresh assault on his pas- 
 sions, only cried : 
 
 " What ! a confession, my gazelle of innocence ! 
 You shall make it when I come back. There is 
 nothing to fear ; the dogs are good watch-dogs, and 
 I shall be within sight of the haoitch all the time. 
 Stay within-doors, tofla, and shoot the bolts." 
 
 And he started to run. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 He ran on lost in thought, and without heeding 
 the way he came, reached the spot where the soil 
 is moist and the iris begins to grow thick on the 
 marshy soil. 
 
 Then stopping, he heard the voice in front of him 
 crying lamentably, " Help ! help ! " 
 
 " Ho ! you, where are you, wretched boy ? " the 
 Thalcb shouted back. " You undertook to run the
 
 igS THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 
 
 devil's errands, and the devil has left you in 
 the lurch on the road. You are stuck in the mud, 
 and your villainy with you ! and there you may 
 stop ! " 
 
 " vSave me, save me ! " sobbed the child. 
 
 Mansour was pushing his way further into the 
 rushes, following the path that winds in and out 
 round the stagnant pools when he suddenly noticed 
 his dogs were following him. 
 
 Startled at sight of the bludgeon their master 
 was brandishing in the air to scare invisible enemies, 
 they advanced noiselessly, questing for a scent, but 
 keeping at a respectful distance from the ThaUb. 
 
 He could see their eyes glittering amid the black 
 rushes. 
 
 " Infernal beasts," he shouted savagely at them, 
 " what do you mean by following me ? Who bade 
 you come, mongrel hounds? Why do you track 
 my steps like ill-omened djlnns, you wretches? go 
 home, you villains ! go home, you thieves ! " 
 
 And he hurled his stick at them. 
 
 The dogs scurried away at full speed, ears down 
 and tails between their legs; but presently all three 
 stopped, watching their master's disappearing- form. 
 
 The latter had started running again, for the 
 pitiful voice sounded louder than ever, with its 
 despairing cry for " help, help ! " but always at the 
 same distance and from the farther side of one of 
 the channels through the swamp. To get there, he 
 must make a detour.
 
 THE CHASTISEAIENT OF MANSOUR 199 
 
 He stopped, hesitating about going so far away, 
 and cast a look behind. 
 
 The haouch was already a long way off. He 
 might still have distinguished its white outline, if 
 the night had been clear ; but a heavy cloud was 
 across the moon and he could see nothing of it. 
 He could not even make out the trees of the oasis 
 that sheltered the house in an arbour of refreshing 
 greenery. All was hidden under the heavy, brood- 
 ing shadows. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 But the boy's voice continued to call for help, each 
 moment more pitiful, and he went on. 
 
 He had already passed the sombre line of rushes, and 
 stood on the brink of the marsh itself, that stretched 
 before him a great black sheet of water, dotted here 
 and there by the sharp points of tall reeds. 
 
 He listened ; but the cries had ceased. Nothing 
 to be heard but the distant barking of the jackals 
 on the plain, and near at hand the flapping wings of 
 some waterfowl startled from sleep and the splashing 
 of the frogs diving into the deep black water. 
 
 In his turn, he shouted ; but the only answer 
 was the light rustle of the wind in the grass. Out 
 on the swamp there were strange grumblings and 
 mutterings, while weird gleams of light flashed amid 
 dense patches of shadow. Then suddenly the pools 
 of water would stand out of a dull, dead white.
 
 200 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 He shouted again : 
 
 " Where are you ? devil's brat, where are you ? " 
 
 But there was no reply, and Mansour, who had 
 never known what fear was, felt a shudder that 
 nipped the heart. 
 
 "It is the hellish hour," he thought, "when the 
 djiniis are abroad," and said to himself what he 
 had shouted just before to his dogs : " Home ! go 
 home ! " 
 
 At the same moment he heard a loud noise in 
 the tall grass not far from him. And going for- 
 ward he saw the black figures of the slougitis, one 
 of them coupling with the bitch, while the other 
 two fought savagely, growling and rolling over and 
 over each other in the mire of the swamp. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Yes! the haoitch was plunged in darkness and 
 disaster. Too long it had gladdened the plain with 
 its red-tiled roof and white walls and the fair green 
 oasis around it. Too long it had echoed to the 
 merry laugh of its mistress and the gay songs of 
 her birds. Its day of brightness is over ; and gloomy 
 clouds lower in the sky. Hitherto sorrow had passed 
 by forgetful, but now stays its flight, and shakes 
 over the peaceful roof its tear-laden wing. 
 
 Each in turn; and it is sorrow's turn now, — 
 sorrow that is twin-brother of death, and anticipates 
 death in exacting the poll-tax of tears our lives are
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 20I 
 
 condemned to pay. All pass through its rude 
 hands, for scarce any of the righteous have had 
 wisdom to escape them. 
 
 " To-day for me, to-morrow for thee " is the motto 
 inscribed over the portal of the graveyard, the 
 menace they that still laugh or weep are confronted 
 with, when they see the dead man given to the 
 worms. But above all it is the phrase the happy 
 must needs hear in the midst of their festivities 
 from the lips of the unfortunate. 
 
 Young man, smiling at life with wanton eyes, tasting 
 the rosy sweets of your mistress' bosom, resting 
 your head on the soft pillow of her breasts, haste, 
 haste to take your fill of laughter and of love, for 
 misfortune stands there at your side watching and 
 waiting her hour to chill for ever warm lips and 
 loving heart alike. 
 
 "Allah! Allah! why such pain?" groans the 
 poor creature, surprised by the dismal visitant. 
 
 But he replies in this wise : 
 
 " Fool ! search your own heart, and you will see only 
 yourself to blame for the hostility of fate. Look into 
 your past. Have you not worn a wide enough road ? 
 Twenty years you have been at work levelling a 
 way for me. I passed by, and saw it,— a broad 
 straight highway ; I took it, and lo ! I am here, " 
 
 And behold one that knocks at the door of the 
 haoucJi, and says: 
 
 "It is I; lo! I am here."
 
 202- THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 "You! you?" cried the girl, whiter than her 
 white /la/'k. 
 
 " Yes ! I ; you expected me. " 
 
 "I expected no one. Who are you?" 
 
 " I ! you know who I am, — your lover, the man 
 that loves you, who is dying of love ! Open, open 
 to me ! " 
 
 " You ! " murmured the trembling Afsia, " you 
 who wrote me you w^ould die. I dare not open 
 the door ; I ought not to, and oh ! I am frightened. " 
 
 " Maiden, your face is more radiant than the 
 morning-star; your voice is more melodious than 
 the instruments of music at a feast. Maiden more 
 delightful to the eyes than the date-trees of the oasis, 
 fresher than the fountain that leaps from the living 
 rock, tell me what it is you fear, you who can 
 impose your will on men as absolutely as a Sultana 
 on the negroes of the seraglio." 
 
 " Begone ! begone ! " cried Afsia. 
 
 " Oh ! let me come in ; you are my fountain, and 
 I am athirst. I am a palm parched for the waters 
 of the well, that dies for lack of moisture. Open 
 to me ; my throat is dry with love. " 
 
 During all the long hours he had lain in the tall 
 rushes of the marsh, he had had ample leisure to 
 compose these fine speeches, golden nets that catch 
 weak women's hearts. 
 
 "I cannot open to you," replied Afsia. "The 
 Thaleb El-Mansour, my master, forbade me. And 
 I must not speak to any other man, for he makes
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 203 
 
 me his wife to-morrow. Leave me, sir stranger ; 
 to-morrow from earliest dawn I shall be at Djenarah, 
 and if you would look on me, join the wedding- 
 guests. There will be room at the feast for all." 
 " What ! it is true then ! this old man, with one 
 foot already in the grave, is to put the other in 
 your bed? He has deceived himself; it is not you, 
 it is death should be his bride. True they told me 
 it was to be so, but I could not credit them. I 
 said, ' Your words are dictated by spite, and they 
 are not true. No ! no ! the rose of Djenarah can 
 never wed this ruin of a man. ' But now I must 
 believe it, for you confess yourself it is true. To 
 think of such a fate hanging over your head by 
 just a thread! Have you reflected well? he takes 
 advantage of your simplicity and innocence! Yet 
 you have eyes, you can see. Or has he cast a 
 spell over you, bald-headed vulture of the sinister eye, 
 that you agree to put your youth and beauty and 
 unsullied maidenhood in his cold, age-stiffened arms ? 
 He can give you no pleasure, with him you will 
 know nothing of love's ecstasy. But tender bud, 
 he will pluck you rudely from the stalk before ever 
 you have felt your petals unfold; you will fade 
 away beneath the icy breath; you will wither up 
 on the arid soil. To your last hour you will weep 
 your maidenhood, your happiness and youth, blighted 
 and destroyed, Think ! think what you do ! You 
 crave the love of the young, you whose eyes are 
 stars and your mouth a fountain of delight. Open
 
 204 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 to me, and I will give you a foretaste of the joys 
 of Paradise." 
 
 " I cannot. Do not speak to me so. I will hear 
 no more such words. Begone!" 
 
 "What! did you bid me come, only to drive me 
 away again ? Did you not wave your haik, as I 
 asked you ? did I force you to give the signal we 
 agreed on?" 
 
 " I knew not what you meant, when you asked 
 me to do it. But I see now I have done wrong. 
 You sent me sweet words, and I was fain to see 
 his face who sent them." 
 
 " Well then ! I am here. Open the door, and 
 you shall see my face." 
 
 " I do not wish to see it, for I have done wrong, 
 and I have felt remorse, and I should be doing 
 wrong again if I saw it. Leave me; Mansour 
 will soon return, and if he found you at the door " 
 
 " Have no fear. The old man is far enough. He 
 has to do with a very cunning scamp, a little 
 camel-boy I have given a silver bit to, and prom- 
 ised him as much again to keep him for an hour 
 away from here. Oh! he is a bold little villain, 
 he will give him a long run across the marsh, and 
 his bitch meanwhile will keep the slougiiis busy. 
 You see, all creatures love ; none but you, innocent 
 dove, refuse the bliss that offers. Be quick ! and 
 as you will have the old man to husband spite of 
 all, I will leave you directly after; and not a soul, 
 not even the bridegroom on your wedding-night.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 205 
 
 will suspect the gentle violence I have done you. 
 I know the secrets they tell young- maids, and 
 I will instruct you how they deceive the old." 
 
 " I have no wish to deceive anyone .... What 
 secrets will you tell me?" 
 
 " Secrets that are only whispered when lips 
 touch lips." 
 
 " Well then! begone." 
 
 " If you refuse to open, I will lie down across 
 the door, and the old man \\'ill stumble over me 
 on his return." 
 
 "Oh! no, no! Alansour would kill you! . . . ." 
 
 " He would, and by your fault. For you I will 
 take his blows, like a cringing hound. Oh! to die 
 for you, and leave you the memory of my death! 
 My blood might flow, and I would see it with 
 delight, did I not fear it might fall on your mar- 
 riage bed. Think, blood, blood that will not be 
 yours, on your wedding couch! Think of me, coming 
 with pale face and breast smeared red, to haunt 
 3'our first night of love ! What ! for a w^ord, for 
 one word, one poor little word I would say to you, 
 gazing into your great dark eyes, do you refuse 
 to avert this calamity? I swear it on your head, 
 on mine, on his who to-morrow is to hold you in 
 his arms, Mansour the Happy shall through your 
 fault be called Mansour the Wretched ! The Prophet 
 hears my oath." 
 
 " I beseech you, I beseech you, do not poison 
 my life, and the life of the man who has been a
 
 2.o6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 loving father to me. What would you say tome? 
 what would you with me ?' 
 
 "I would love you, love you, love you!" 
 
 " Cannot you love me at a distance, — from the 
 other side of the door?" 
 
 "A kiss, only one kiss, and I will go at once." 
 
 " You swear?" 
 
 " By the tomb of the Prophet and the chastise- 
 ment of God on perjurers!" 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 She opened the door, and he threw himself 
 upon her. 
 
 Following an instinctive prompting of modesty, 
 she had extinguished the lamp ; she could not bear 
 the .first time they met that he should see her face. 
 They were in darkness. She felt his breath burning 
 her cheek, she heard his bosom panting, she was 
 terrified and bewildered at the things he dared 
 and did. 
 
 "What are you doing? what do you wish?" 
 • She struggled in his arms, not understanding what 
 he sought, angry and horrified. 
 
 " Forgive me I forgive me ! " she cried again and 
 again. "What harm have I done you? do not kill 
 me. Why do you hurt me? Help! Mansour, help!" 
 
 But he pursued his purpose steadily, profiting by 
 the darkness, and stifling her screams beneath the 
 fury of his kisses.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 207 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Then when the deed was done, he wanted to see 
 her, and so to taste his triumph more completely ; and 
 after lighting the lamp, took her in his arms again. 
 Never in all his travels among the tribes had he 
 encountered a more lovely face, never in all his 
 adventures had he lifted the veil of any daughter 
 of the Hadars so fair, or kissed such entrancing lips, 
 never among all the races of Islam, so rich in 
 beauties, had he seen eyes so dark and flashing. 
 He looked and looked with unflagging admiration. 
 and smiling eyes. 
 
 She also looked at him, but her face was without 
 a smile. She was in tears, and visibly afraid. Her 
 heart had been horrified, and was still sad. She 
 was entering life by the gate of sin, and the sight 
 of her lover stirred no feeling but remorse. 
 
 "Alas! is this love then?" her look seemed to 
 say ; but her thoughts were still confused, her mind 
 overwhelmed before the man who had broken so 
 abruptly into the midst of her peaceful life. " What ! 
 is this all? Oh! El-Messaoud, El-Messaoud ! this 
 then is what you loved me for ! " But she was not 
 sure ; she did not understand. Why had he left her 
 in such ignorance? If she had known, she would 
 have resisted, she would never have opened the 
 door. He thought he was guarding her purity by 
 keeping her ignorant of evil, and lo ! it was this
 
 2o8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 very purity that had opened wide the door to the 
 seducer of her honour. She knew now; yes! she 
 understood now. What w^ould become of her! 
 And Mansour, why had he not come to her rescue ? 
 
 All this flashed through her brain in a few seconds. 
 Then the power of thought left her suddenly. Her 
 nerves seemed to be paralysed by a keen, biting, 
 icy wind, though her head was burning. Her heart 
 almost ceased to beat, and her breast was crushed, 
 as if a sudden avalanche of horror had buried her. 
 She felt sick and ill, and her terror grew greater 
 and greater. 
 
 Seeing her so overwhelmed, her seducer shrugged 
 his shoulders cynically, 
 
 "They are all the same," he muttered; "first 
 they will, and then they won't, and then they will 
 again, and then, when they have their will, tears 
 and lamentation ! " 
 
 And having nothing more to get from her, he 
 laughed and kissed her on the mouth, and bade 
 her adieu. 
 
 But, as he was re-arranging his girdle, he heard 
 a hurried step and a moment after a sharp knocking 
 at the door: 
 
 " Afsia," said ]\Iansour's voice, " Afsia, my gazelle, 
 'tis I." 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 He had come back sooner than Omar expected. 
 The vSpahi had ccnmted on his being aw^ay an hour,
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 209 
 
 and scarcely half that time had elapsed. He was 
 panting, having returned at topmost speed, urged 
 by the keenest anxiety. 
 
 Yonder amid the black clumps of tall iris a light 
 of suspicion had broken on his brain. 
 
 It was a plot to draw him away from the house ! 
 why of course, his dogs hcid been purposely enticed 
 away to a distance from the Jiaouch by means of 
 that confounded bitch. But for what end? for 
 what end? 
 
 At the thought a shiver passed over his head, 
 as if his shaven crown had been exposed untur- 
 baned to the North-wind, and he had instantly 
 turned back, hearing the boy's voice behind him 
 as he ran sounding like the laugh of some mocking 
 djiiin. 
 
 "Have they made a mock of me?" he muttered, 
 as he ran with all his speed. " Have they made 
 a mock of me ? And who ? Why ! a child, a mere 
 child. Oh ! the villain ! " 
 
 He could ejaculate no more, but ran on, spurred 
 by suspicion. 
 
 Then presently, when his limbs failed from fatigue 
 and he had to resume a quieter pace to recover 
 breath, he tried to pacify his gnawing anxiety 
 with such-like soothing thoughts as these : 
 
 " Afsia will not open the door, I would stake my life 
 on it. She is a good and a prudent girl. She will 
 baulk my enemies' plans. Of course she will not 
 open to them ; how should she ? Does she know 
 
 14
 
 2IO THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 what evil is? Has her eye ever been sullied by 
 an ill sight ? Xo ! no ! I am sure of her as I am 
 of myself, nay ! surer. And these children of .Satan, 
 they shall be mocked at for their pains. God's 
 curse on them and on their designs ! may they rot 
 miserably, they and all their generation ! Ah ! ha i 
 I have no doubt they are slinking off even now, 
 more shamefaced than Jews who have let themselves 
 be overreached by Christians. Ha ! ha ! ha ! we 
 shall have a fine laugh ! " 
 
 And he forced himself to laugh, but the sounds 
 that escaped from his dry throat were so dismal 
 and spasmodic they more resembled sobs. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Meantime the moon away beyond the bounds of 
 the horizon had shone out clear of her curtain 
 of cloud, like a woman who unrobes and shows her 
 fair body, dazzling beholders with its youthful lo\-e- 
 liness. Her orb seemed twice its natural size and 
 flooded the plains with a soft pale light, illuminating 
 the front of the haouch and bringing relief to Man- 
 sour's spirit. The house looked so calm, so wrapped 
 in peaceful silence, a white pearl in its green en- 
 casement of trees, that his heart leapt with joy. 
 He even thought he could distinguish a thin thread 
 of light coming from the window, and said to him- 
 self, "She is there! " 
 
 At the same moment the breeze, after blowing
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 211 
 
 over Afsia's garden, reached him laden with the 
 familiar scents, as if her favourite flowers came to 
 greet him with their perfume and confirm his words, 
 saying with him, "She is there! she is there!" 
 
 And as the little house grew nearer and nearer 
 and nearer, and showed more and more distinctly 
 through the thick shadows, every trace of anxiety 
 began to vanish from brow and heart. He stopped 
 running, and even began to chide himself for not 
 having gone further to rescue the child. " For 
 perhaps," he thought, "the young villain did really 
 slip into the mud of the marsh." And if that were 
 so, the Sheikh Ben-Kaouaidi and the camel-drivers 
 of the plain would all hold him to be a man of a 
 hard heart and niggard hand. 
 
 But he soon consoled himself with the thought 
 that no doubt the boy had found a way out of his 
 dangerous position, and that to-morrow he would 
 send the best of his dogs to the Sheikh. 
 
 So after wiping the sweat from his streaming 
 forehead, he went up to the door and knocked, 
 delighted to find it shut. 
 
 " Open the door, Afsia, my gazelle, 'tis I. " 
 
 But the door did not open. 
 
 He supposed the girl was asleep, and as he 
 listened for a repetition of a light sound he thought 
 he had caught within, he heard a long way off in 
 the direction of Djenarah the first musket-shots 
 announcing the departure of the wedding-company 
 from the town.
 
 2 12 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Then he knocked again and louder, repeating 
 again : 
 
 " Afsia! Afsia! It is I." 
 
 She did not stir, or make any attempt to rise. His 
 voice seemed to nail her to the spot. She had only 
 one feeling, a feeling of sick misery and of the 
 violent beating of her heart ; so violent was this 
 that her gandoiirali moved up and down, marking 
 its wild throbbing. Her eyes were wide with terror 
 and fixed on the door ; to look at her countenance, 
 you would have said the seal that the Unbelievers 
 are marked with, who see not neither do they hear, 
 had just been stamped upon her ears and eyes. 
 
 She said to herself, " I am going- to die, " and 
 \a.y still, waiting for death. But when ]\Iansour 
 began to redouble his appeals for admittance, at 
 first anxiously, then furiously, she threw an implor- 
 ing glance at the Spahi, and saw him standing 
 motionless, knitting his heavy brows. Pale as Afsia 
 herself, with eyes fixed on the door, he was drawing 
 slowly from its sheath of red leather one of those 
 long- knives with streaked blades that the Khabyle 
 cutlers forge, and Avhich imhitch with one blow the 
 firmest head from the shoulders. He had already 
 searched the room and made sure there was no other 
 issue except the door of the staircase leading to 
 the girl's oda. Once there, no further escape was 
 
 1
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 213 
 
 possible, for the two barred windows were barely 
 wide enough for a child's head to pass. He was 
 aware of this ; he had studied the haouch thoroughly 
 from outside, and knew that in case of surprise, he 
 must needs give battle, and make good his stand- 
 ing, either by force or stratagem. He was not long 
 in coming to a decision, and placing a finger on 
 his lip to command silence, made his way to the 
 staircase, pushed away th.e /ondouk and disappeared. 
 
 As soon as he was lost in the shadow, Afsia 
 rose painfully, as if the load of shame were already 
 heavy on her shoulders, and crossing the room 
 drew back the bolt. 
 
 " Why ! what were you doing ? " exclaimed 
 Mansour. 
 
 "Nothing," she replied. 
 
 " Then why did you not open ? Why did you 
 not answer ? You made my heart black with terror. 
 But you are here ! you are here ! " 
 
 He took her in his arms, and gazed at her with 
 eyes of delight. He could hold her to his breast 
 now ; his exertions and anxiety, coupled with the 
 cool freshness of the night, had calmed his senses. 
 He no more felt the same irresistible promptings 
 of desire, and let his lips rest long on the scented 
 tresses. 
 
 " Do you know, io/^a ? I have had my race in 
 vain. There's nothing yonder ! nothing ! I think I 
 have been played with by a miserable little black- 
 guard, w^ho wanted to punish me, because I drove
 
 2 14 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 him away, him and his dog. Ah ! but I was afraid 
 for a moment. Yes! my girl, I was actually afraid 
 they were coming to carry you off." 
 
 And he fondled the thick tresses, took them in 
 his hand as if to feel their weight, lifted them, 
 kissed the little wandering curls that escaped over 
 her bare neck. 
 
 She made no resistance, neither speaking nor 
 hearing, wrapped up in her great terror, trembling 
 in his arms like a leaf. 
 
 " Then just as I was knocking at the door," the 
 Tlialcb whispered softly, " I heard a joyful sound. 
 Far away in the distance I caught the first musket- 
 shots of the marriage escort. Our marriage, Afsia ! 
 our marriage ! " 
 
 But as he gazed into her face, ready to cover it 
 with kisses, for the first time he noticed her agita- 
 tion. 
 
 " By the head of the Prophet ! " he exclaimed. 
 "My sweet dove, what is wrong?" 
 
 "Wrong with me! nothing, Mansour!" 
 
 He ran to fetch the lamp, to see her face more 
 clearly. 
 
 " Why ! you are pale as though a black djinn 
 had struck you with his wing. Are you ill, my 
 child ? Afsia, dear Afsia, what has happened ? " 
 
 " I want air. Let me go out of doors. And do 
 you come with me. I long to hear the sound of the 
 guns. Come away, let us go meet the horsemen." 
 
 Mansour held her back by the arm.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 2 15 
 
 "You are hiding something from me," he cried, 
 filled with sudden suspicion. " Child, I read fear 
 in your eyes as clearly as in a mirror. While I 
 was away, what happened ? " 
 
 " While you were away ....?" stammered the 
 girl. " Nothing- that I know of. I was waiting 
 for you, and I fell asleep." 
 
 " And the cold chilled you during your sleep, 
 for you tremble ; and now, look ! you are too hot, 
 for the fire is blazing in your cheeks. Afsia! 
 Afsia ! what does it all mean ? Afsia, you cannot 
 be deceiving me ! " 
 
 LI. 
 
 Xo ! she was not deceiving him, she could not 
 deceive him, for the truth was plainly legible in 
 her open face and candid eyes. Nevertheless the 
 old Thaleb, astute as he was in every wile, could 
 not believe the thing ; black suspicion might lodge 
 in the folds of his anxious brow, doubt shudder on 
 the grim abyss of horrid certainty, but he would 
 not abandon hope. 
 
 " It is impossible, " he said again and again ; " it 
 cannot be." 
 
 Thus it is when we are suddenly confronted by 
 an act of treachery on the part of a dear friend; 
 we cannot at first believe our eyes that see the 
 crime, nor our ears that hear the false words. We 
 say to ourselves. " 'Tis a dream," and pinch our-
 
 2l6 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 selves to see if we are awake. It seems more 
 possible our senses should be tricked than that our 
 heart should be mistaken ; we would rather be 
 victims of hallucination than of roguery. But truth 
 will out. We have to believe the evidence ; %ve are 
 sane enough, only our heart led us wrong. 
 
 Therefore Mansour tried hard to cheat himself, 
 and his thoughts fought desperately against the 
 conclusion forced upon them. He stepped back in 
 order to better scrutinize the girl's face, wishing he 
 could plunge his eyes into her very soul. But she, 
 a child in evil-doing and unskilled at falsehood, 
 kept her eyelids drooped. 
 
 " Raise yowr head," he cried, " show your face, 
 and like a girl whose brow is unsullied with any 
 stain look me in the eye." 
 
 She did her best to obey, but her great timid 
 orbs could not meet his fierce glance. 
 
 " By God, that sleeps not nor dreams, tell me what 
 has happened." 
 
 And seizing her wrists in a grasp that bruised 
 the flesh, he cried with rising anger: 
 
 " Daughter of Fathma ! By the Lord of Night 
 and Day, answer me! Answer me, what have 
 you done?" 
 
 "Let me go," she begged, "do not hurt me!" 
 
 " Should I have to break your arms and drive 
 these rings into your flesh, I shall not let you go, 
 till you have told me why you dare not look me 
 in the face."
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 217 
 
 "Because you frighten me." 
 
 " Frighten you ! / frighten you ! Since I taught 
 you to stammer your first syllables as a child, and 
 it will be fourteen years ago to-morrow, you have 
 never used that hateful word to me. Tell me, 
 what are you frightened of? The guilty only need 
 tremble. " 
 
 Then looking round the room, he noticed the 
 fondouk pushed out of place and the door of the 
 staircase half open. 
 
 "Ho! ho! what hand has moved 'Cn^ fondouk f' 
 
 "I moved it," answered Afsia, whose presence of 
 mind the sense of peril brought back ; " I went 
 upstairs to see that nothing had been forgotten ; but 
 there was nothing left behind, nothing!" 
 
 " You moved it ! God of Heaven I You ! In the 
 name of woman, that disseminates the seed of x\dam, 
 and shakes calamity over our heads like a soiled 
 carpet, you have grown strong in a few hours ! 
 Sleep and my absence have been good for you! 
 All the better; I shall have a sturdy wife, to carry 
 my wallets, if some day poverty drive me to take 
 the road. But the perfumes your room is still full 
 of penetrate to me here and make my head dizzy ; 
 go, shut the door, and push the fondouk back into 
 its place, to prevent its opening again." 
 
 Afsia went to the door, and exerted all her strength, 
 — but in vain. Under her little hands the great 
 oaken chest stirred no more than a rock when the 
 evening breeze blows on it.
 
 2l8 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 Returning, she saw Mansour standing with crossed 
 arms and eyes fixed on her face. 
 
 " I am tired, " she stammered out ; " I cannot do 
 it now. No! I cannot do it!" 
 
 He continued to look at her, and his pale lips 
 curled with ironical scorn. This is not Mansour 
 her father, Mansour the Kind, Mansour the Happy, 
 but another man altogether, changed beyond recog- 
 nition, bearing on his face, in his eyes jaundiced 
 by passion, in the spasmodic contraction of his 
 cheeks, the signs of an implacable anger. 
 
 Then in confusion and terror she drew back to the 
 wall with hands clasped before her, and whispered : 
 
 " Forgive me ! " 
 
 " Forgive ! " he repeated after her in hollow tones. 
 " You ask forgiveness ! But what am I to forgive ? 
 I do not know the crime you have committed .... 
 you dare not tell me what it is. Is it so shameful 
 
 you blush to confess? Well, then! I am going 
 
 to find it out for myself; for I begin to under- 
 stand .... yes ! I see the truth. " 
 
 LII. 
 
 As easily as though he were lifting a sheaf of corn, 
 he laid her over his left arm, tearing off her girdle, 
 and the foutah and silk drawers she wore. Then 
 raising the vest of gauze that chmg to her sides, 
 he tossed it back over her head, as the shroud is 
 thrown over a dead face.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF IMANSOUR 2ig 
 
 And her shuddering body was exposed, naked 
 from the breasts to the ankles. 
 
 Then he could plainly see the stains of outrage 
 on her. 
 
 Without a word, he pushed the unhappy girl 
 roughly from him, put his hand to his head, and 
 reeled staggering against the wall. He looked like 
 a man who has received a heavy blow on the head ; 
 but it was only his heart that was wounded, — a 
 wound that stunned him. 
 
 But remembering his rival was there, no doubt 
 jeering and exulting in his success, he stiffened his 
 limbs to resist the agony. His pride of strength, 
 his former vigour, the memory of past prowess, he 
 appealed to them all to help him struggle against 
 the present; and wound up like some powerful 
 engine, every spring of his nerves drawn tight, he 
 broke into a loud laugh, that was more like a cry 
 of pain. 
 
 He had uttered the same laugh, when he was 
 crossing the plain and first felt assured of his calam- 
 ity. It was the tears he strove to keep back, the 
 groans he was fain to stifle, that escaped in this 
 laughter that was a sob- 
 
 He resolved to be more calm; and in the slow, 
 subdued accents of a man pondering and talking 
 to himself, he spoke over Afsia's head, where she 
 lay crouching- on the ground, in the same attitude 
 as when she fell, hiding her face and her shame in 
 her arms.
 
 2 20 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 "It is all over," he muttered, "all over now! 
 What is done cannot be undone. I would fain 
 forget, but I cannot. I would fain forgive, but it 
 is impossible. I would close the wound, if I could, 
 but the scar would be there for ever. By the 
 Prophet of God, 'tis the chastisement of Mansour." 
 
 " One evening, alone, worn out and weary, I said, 
 ' Enough ! enough ! Dissipation confuses the mind, 
 but it does not bring forgetfulness ; intoxication 
 once past, memory comes back again ; and I, I 
 must bury all my past in one woman's heart.' 
 I sought her from North to South, from the setting 
 sun to the dawn. For the loved one must not trail 
 behind her, like myself, a stain to darken all her 
 life, no blot must dim the brightness of her days, 
 no regretful memories sadden her, no remorse for 
 a broken, unhappy past torment her peace, the 
 starry purity of her eyes must be the beacon of 
 my future ; I must have a virgin bride ! . . . . And 
 so one day of madness I adopted a new-born babe ; 
 I took her from her mother's womb, to make sure 
 of her unsullied purity. And from that day I have 
 never left her; for fourteen years I have watched 
 over her. Not a thought of hers I have not shared ; 
 not a gesture I have not followed ; not a word I 
 have not heard. And when after fourteen years' 
 waiting, I was to enjoy the woman I had earned 
 by all my care and self-sacrifice and love, when she 
 was yet pure as Eve before Adam implanted in 
 her side the accursed race of mankind, a moment,
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 22 1 
 
 one moment that my eye was not upon her, was 
 enough for her undoing ; I left her a maid, I come 
 back to find her, what?.... What?.... How 
 did it come about?.... She had none of the 
 morbid longings that torment the young and urge 
 them to fly the happy paternal roof, and to seek 
 in the perilous unknown another roof and another 
 life. No stain had as yet sullied her thoughts. 
 Her innocence was complete, and she knew no 
 difference between the daughters and the sons 
 of Adam ! A rose-bud ! A flower half opened 
 to the dawn, that no breath of evil has blighted! 
 A maid immaculate, unconscious what maidenhood 
 means! And now ! All over ! all over ! An instant 
 and the ruin is accomplished ! the rose-bud sullied ! 
 the flower withered ! A filthy grub has fouled the 
 blossom. Some drunken hog has wallowed on the 
 rose ! My houri has been the victim of his lewd 
 abominations. Under my eyes ! under my very eyes, 
 while a child, his hireling, played on my simplicity, 
 a coward villain has robbed me of my joy, my 
 honour, my happiness, my future, robbed me of my 
 life ; and in place of the human wonder I had reared, 
 of my hoiiri of Paradise, of my virgin-bride, he 
 leaves me a harlot!" 
 
 And as he went on, his calmness began to leave 
 him again, and his anger to rise again to fever heat. 
 
 " A harlot ! a harlot, lying, and cheating, and 
 then hiding' her face behind the mask of sham 
 repentance. Bitch, and child of a bitch, get up!"
 
 222 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 he shouted, and pushed her with his foot ; " how 
 long have you been deceiving me? Where did 
 you see him first? What deviUsh ingenuity did 
 you find to make your barefaced lies invisible to 
 my eyes? How much did he pay you for your 
 shame, the thief that lurks up yonder, the cowardly 
 dog who has ruined your good-name and robbed 
 me of my honour? For there he is, you know he 
 is ! There he is, and I am going to kill him, and 
 my dogs shall tear his dead body limb from limb. 
 Ha! ha! a treat for my slouguis ! Up, brave 
 dogs, up ! At him ! at him ! " 
 
 Then he took down his long fighting musket, 
 hanging on the wall all ready loaded for the fcii 
 de joie that was to greet the wedding. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Afsia had not quailed under Mansour's insults, 
 and even when he kicked her, she still cowered at 
 his feet. But hearing the click of the musket, she 
 sprang up and leapt upon him. 
 
 "Do not kill him," she cried, "oh! do not kill 
 him ! I beseech you not to kill him ! " 
 
 She leant all her weight on his breast, struggling 
 to grasp the gun, and gazing eagerly, all shame 
 forgotten, with terror and supplication into his fierce, 
 hard eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! ha ! so you are afraid for his life. " 
 
 " Kill me. / opened the door; /waved my haik,
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 223 
 
 and he thoug'ht he was bound to come. Kill me; 
 I am to blame, it was all my fault. Oh ! if you 
 ever loved me, kill me." 
 
 He looked keenly at her, and his eyes blazed 
 with a fierce light. 
 
 " How you love him ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " No ! I do not love him ! I do not know him ; 
 but / am to blame, and I beseech you not to kill 
 him." 
 
 "You to blame! You! Allah Kebir ! Allah Kcbir ! 
 It was written. The head of the mighty is bowed 
 beneath the implacable hand of fate. Old men told 
 me in the days of my youth, 'Soul for soul, eye for 
 eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound.' And the 
 wounds of the heart count double ; for they are 
 incurable. Yes! it was the heart I wounded in old 
 days, and lo ! I am punished. It is just. Have no 
 fear for the man's life. I promised him his life 
 fourteen years ago, I swore it over your cradle. 
 By the grave that gapes at the end of the road of 
 human life, by the grave where we shall all one 
 day lie, great and small, happy and wretched, 
 robbers and robbed, fortune that has flattered too 
 long, lies hard on me to-day. She confronts me 
 with my master, she has set up in my path to 
 baulk me one that is more cunning and a stronger 
 man than I. I must bow down before him, — yes! 
 I know my duty, — and call him Lord ! " 
 
 And suddenly pushing the girl aside : 
 
 "Ho! there above," he shouted, "man, lover.
 
 2 24 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 djiini, devil, be you what you may, come down, 
 and show your slave the face of his Lord." 
 
 A moment's silence followed. At length a slow 
 step made itself heard, and Omar pushing open 
 the door with his foot, appeared in the dim opening, 
 dagger in hand. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 The looks of the old and the young man crossed 
 like two sword-blades. The hand of each gripped 
 his weapon firmer, but the old man presently drop- 
 ped the butt of his musket to the floor. 
 
 " Come nearer, come a step nearer ; I would see 
 your face. And you, tofla, back! Ah! I have seen 
 you before once; I remember you, and my remem- 
 brance is unfavourable. Come forward, have no 
 fear. By the glorious Koran! by the holy Caaba 
 stone ! by the star at its setting ! by the sovereign 
 Lord of the East and of the West! I swear; you 
 may put up your flissa in its sheath." 
 
 " Do you take me for a madman or a fool ; do 
 you think I shall stand unarmed to face your 
 wrath ? " 
 
 " You are distrustful, and that shows you are 
 untrustworthy. In the young suspicion is a sure 
 sign of a base heart. O Afsia! Afsia! what a man 
 you have given yourself to ! However what I have 
 said is said. When I was your age, young sir, I 
 thought to conquer fate when I entered on the road
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 225 
 
 of evil, but fate has conquered me. Fate makes 
 me your plaything. But spite of my degradation, 
 I am of those whose word is to be trusted. Look, 
 I lay my weapon here. And now, my master, tell 
 me by what name I am to greet you." 
 
 " I desired to ask you that very question," replied 
 the soldier haughtily, " for I am called Omar simply, 
 Omar — without father's name ; but Lagdar-ben-El- 
 Arbi, the merchant, of the Ksottr of Msilah, informs 
 me you can tell me more, — and you alone." 
 
 Mansour raised his two arms above his head : 
 
 " Lagdar ! Lagdar-ben-El-Arbi ! It is he that sends 
 you here ! he that advised your coming ! Ah ! I 
 understand, I understand. Oh ! Meryem ! Meryem !" 
 
 " My mother's name ! " exclaimed the Spahi. " Why 
 do you invoke her name? Is there aught in com- 
 mon betwixt you and her? I remember as a child 
 how my boyish comrades, who every one had a 
 father, used to laugh in my face and cry that name 
 at me, adding another, Cabah (prostitute). I used 
 to thrash them, but they all leagued together against 
 me, and shouted louder than ever Be7i-Cabah ! 
 Bc7i-CahaJi ! harlot's son! harlot's son! They in- 
 sulted me, and thrashed me too. This injustice of my 
 childish companions disgusted and enraged me, but 
 I have learned since man's justice is no better! 
 Do you hear, — Meryem, called Cabah/ Cabah! 
 My mother with her gentle face and modest eyes ! 
 My mother driven out with her son into the desert, 
 as they teach us Hadjira (Hagar) was of old by 
 
 15
 
 2 26 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 the wicked Ibrahim (Abraham) ; my mother wander- 
 ing the roads without a shelter for her head; my 
 mother dead in wretchedness and disgrace. Tell 
 me, by whose fault? by whose wickedness? Why 
 do you gaze at me, as though you saw the face 
 of a phantom ? Speak ! speak ! Ah ! when men 
 still named you Mansour the Happy, the tale of 
 your insolent success and your bold intrigues came 
 to the ears of a boy who himself had a by-name 
 too — Omar the DeviVs Child T 
 
 Mansour would have spoken, but his tongue 
 refused its office. His throat was dry, and his eyes 
 ready to overflow. He extended his arm towards 
 the son of Meryem, and a tear coursed down his 
 furrowed cheek. 
 
 " Answer me, " persisted Omar, " answer, is it 
 true you can tell me the name of my father?" 
 
 "Son of Aleryem-ben-El-Ketih'' at length the 
 Thaleb replied in a hollow voice, " if you know 
 your father's name, why ask me for it? If you do 
 not know it, learn it is for ever dishonoured, and 
 you are better to remain in ignorance. Go in 
 peace ; return to the man who sent you, to Lagdar 
 the merchant, and tell him he is ... . avenged. " 
 
 " I will do as you wish. But I would hear first 
 from your lips the name of the man who was my 
 father, and Meryem's . . . lover." 
 
 " You hurt me by insisting. Surely I have had 
 enough humiliations for one day! Why must you 
 know the name? "
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 227 
 
 " That I may curse it ! " 
 
 Mansour bowed his head. Then suddenly drawing 
 himself up, he looked his son in the face and said : 
 
 " Listen ! I see by your words and still more by 
 the fire in your eyes that you know the truth. You 
 are right, you owe me nothing but hatred. He who 
 sows tares must only count on a harvest of tares. 
 
 " Now hear me. The girl you see yonder in tears, 
 listening in terror as the curtain is rent that I had 
 set up between her and the foul brutalities of life, 
 is the loveliest flower of the plain, and never in 
 all the land from the one sea with its blue waves 
 to the other that rolls its grey billows of sand beyond 
 the palms, never have True Believers or Giaours 
 seen the match of her wondrous beauty. You have 
 stained her purity, and you can efface the stain. 
 Take her! she is yours. Giving her yovi of my 
 own free will, I pay every debt I could ever have 
 owed to Meryem's son. Farewell ! " 
 
 So saying, he dropped his wild, sad eyes, and 
 sank on the rush mat. Then unfastening from his 
 neck his ivory rosary, the sole relic of his father 
 he possessed, he began to tell the beads with a 
 feverish hand, muttering hoarsely, ''Allah Kebir ! 
 Allah Kebir! Allah Kebir f' By this means he 
 endeavoured to still the tumult of his thoughts and 
 be deaf to the agony of his spirit. 
 
 His tone of utter misery pierced Afsia to the 
 heart, and she threw herself at his feet and besought 
 him :
 
 2 28 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 " Keep me with you ! keep me ! I cannot go with 
 him. Let me stay here ; I will be your servant . . , 
 simply your servant, Mansour." 
 
 But he wrapped himself up in his sorrow as in a 
 rugged outer shell, against which her sobs battered 
 in vain: 
 
 "Away with you," he said savagely, "what is 
 done, is done ; what is spoken, is spoken. Tears may 
 wash out a fault, they are unavailing against an 
 insult. Begone!" 
 
 Then turning his gaze within, refusing to see 
 anything, or hear anything more, he drew down 
 the hood of his biiriiouse over his head, and began 
 again in a loud voice: 
 
 ''Allah Kebirf Allah Kcbir ! Allah Kcbir T 
 Omar smiled, and seizing the girl by the arm, 
 drew her outside. 
 
 "Come," he said, "as he turns you out!" 
 But at the threshold she stopped, and throwing 
 a heart-broken look on Mansour, who was determined 
 not to share his grief wnth any, on the room that 
 for so many years had been brightened by her 
 youth and gaiety, she was seized with anguish, and 
 clinging to the door with her little hand which had 
 remained free, she cried : " Mansour ! Mansour ! " 
 
 But he never stirred, but kept on repeating his 
 appeal to heaven : 
 
 ''Allah Kebir! Allah Kebirf Allah Kebir T
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAN SOUR 229 
 
 LV. 
 
 Mansour heard the sound of footsteps gradually- 
 dying away in the night, then when all was still, 
 he raised his head; it was the countenance of an 
 old man the lamp that stood before him revealed. 
 Sudden grief had torn away his mask of apparent 
 manliness, and of the strong man of former days 
 nothing was left but the gloomy light that burned 
 in his eye, — last glimmer of the dying fire. There 
 was concentrated all the surviving vigour of his 
 dying soul. 
 
 He looked round the empty room, as if surprised 
 to find it so^ then he essayed to rise ; but his limbs 
 bent under him, and he fell back heavily on 
 the mat. 
 
 " What ! what ! am I so old as that ? " he cried, 
 laughing harshly. "Ah ! ha ! what a fine bridegroom ! " 
 
 This word, bridegroom, was like the lash of a 
 whip to the old man: he dragged himself to the 
 door and listened. But he heard no sound of what 
 he longed to hear, — the footfall of her he had loved 
 so well. 
 
 " Gone ! " he said to himself, " gone ! Can it be ? 
 Afsia gone; and / drove her away, and I shall 
 never see her more. I have heard the sound of 
 her step for the last time, her step that made my 
 heart laugh within me, and her voice that sang in 
 my soul. I shall never hear her voice, her soft.
 
 2 30 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 sweet voice, again ! Afsia, my milk-white gazelle ! 
 And I, I drove her away ! Why did she not tarry 
 a minute? Why did she not turn once again to 
 cover my hand with her tears? I should have 
 forgiven everything. Yes ! I was ready to forgive 
 her everything, spite of his being there and his 
 mockery. But she consented, she wished, to follow 
 him ; she let him drag her roughly away, without 
 a word of protest, without an attempt to return ; 
 she was in a moment his humble servant, as if he 
 possessed any other right over her but that of having 
 ravished and seduced her ; she cried at the door, 
 Mansour! Mansour — and that was all! Ah! if she 
 would return, if she would escape from him, if she 
 came running to me, crying Mansour! Mansour! 
 again, — there is yet time — how I would open my 
 arms wide to welcome her! I would make him 
 fight for her! What care I for her defilement! I 
 would wash it clean, I would make it as though it 
 had never been, I would drown it in the ocean of 
 my love. What care I who put on her the defile- 
 ment ! I do not know him. How do I know he 
 speaks truth ? Son of Meryem ! but I do not know 
 him ; I will not know him. I know none but 
 Afsia! Afsia! Afsia!" 
 
 He listened, but his cry found no echo. There 
 was no answer, except a confused tumult towards 
 Djenarah of men's voices and horses' feet. 
 
 "Then the others who are drawing near," he 
 cried, " coming with their inopportune gaiety and 
 
 I
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 231 
 
 insolent congratulations. Oh! I cannot bear it; I 
 will not bear it. Strong men force even calamity 
 to give way before them, and snap like a bit of 
 wood the evil spell the djenouns cast on them. I 
 am strong, as strong as any, and for more than 
 thirty years men have named me the Happy. 
 
 He reached out his arm and grasped once more 
 his long fighting gun, the vwukhalah that never 
 missed, then shaking his stiffened limbs, he felt all 
 the vigour of the young circulating again in his 
 veins, and darted out into the darkness. 
 
 " Son of Meryem ! " he shouted, " 'tis war to the 
 death between us ! " 
 
 LVI. 
 
 He directed his course across the plain, following 
 the same path he had traversed an hour before, 
 when hard driven by the clamouring of his excited 
 senses he had rushed away, fearing to continue longer 
 in the perilous neighbourhood of his bride. 
 
 Ah! he would have done better to forget his 
 oaths, to have made light of ridicule, to have robbed 
 himself of his own treasure. Then she would not 
 be going away with another, tramping the highroads 
 by night! 
 
 He started for the marsh at a run. This is the 
 way they would naturally have taken, fugitives and 
 ashamed, to avoid the wedding-guests. 
 
 Soon in fact he perceived the two shadowy forms
 
 232 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 advancing slowly through the long grass. He could 
 see their heads, and from time to time the man's 
 bent down to the woman's. 
 
 " Stop ! " he shouted panting, for he was exhausted 
 with running, " stop, thief, you who are stealing my 
 bride from me." 
 
 "Your bride belongs to me," retorted the other. 
 " What ! have you thought better of it ? would you 
 take her back again? Ah! the folk of Djenarah 
 have told me true, when they said you had no 
 scruples, and how in the days of your youth you 
 sought a mistress in your father's bed. But you 
 are mistaken, old man, if you think I will consent 
 to give up the fair child to glut your senile lust." 
 
 At this insult Mansour's eyes flashed a ruddy fire, 
 as they had done in hours of combat when he cried 
 to the warriors of his goum : 
 
 "Forward, my lads, forward; and strike home! 
 It is not lead that kills, but fate." 
 
 And he brought his gun to his shoulder: 
 
 "Afsia!" he cried, stoop down." 
 
 But it was only a momentary flash ; he grounded 
 his musket again, and merely said : 
 
 "You who slunk into a house that before your 
 coming was peaceful and happy, and quitted it leaving 
 behind you darkness and death, forget my name, 
 as I forget yours. Forget it till the day that chas- 
 tisement shall burst in at your door, and enter beneath 
 your roof even as you entered under mine. Then you 
 will remember your father, Alansour-ben- Ahmed.'"
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 233 
 
 " You have said the word yourself, I owe you 
 nothing, " returned the other. " The curse you threaten 
 me with fall back on your own head!" 
 
 " O son of Meryem, I curse you not. The Pro- 
 phet keep me from the deed ; enough surely that 
 my own head is doomed. But hearken to my ad- 
 vice, or rather my supplication. May she you take 
 with you never, never have a heavy hour. Wrap 
 her warm in happiness and love." 
 
 Presently, his voice softening in spite of himself, 
 he said : 
 
 " And you, Afsia I you carry my life with you ; I 
 have no right now to keep you. Beside your life, 
 full of hope, mine that has nought but desolation and 
 despair must not weigh in the balance. But I am 
 afraid for you, I am sore afraid you are going to an 
 evil fate, with evil for your yokefellow. Hearken, 
 my child ! hearken to my last words. If ever calamity 
 should come upon you, remember, remember there is a 
 spot in the wide plain, far from sultans, far from 
 wicked, jealous men, where a haouch, your own 
 home, will await you, in darkness and gloom, till 
 you return to bring back its sunshine. The door 
 shall stand ever open for you ; come by day, if you 
 can unashamed ; come by night, if 3^ou dread men's 
 eyes; come clad in festal robes, or covered with 
 infamy and wearing the rags of poverty; come, 
 accursed of men and abandoned of God; the old 
 man will be there to welcome you, — the man who 
 was to have been your husband, who should have
 
 234 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 been content to remain only your father — he will 
 welcome you, and till his last hour keep a place 
 for you at his fireside, a place for you in his heart. 
 And now one word of farewell: Go in peace! in 
 peace ! in peace ! " 
 
 He listened to know if she made him any answer, 
 if she cried farewell to him, but he heard nothing-. 
 Then he fell to his knees and laid his forehead to 
 the ground, wetting the dust with his tears. 
 
 Dragged away by a pitiless arm, Afsia was com- 
 pelled to follow; and when, touched to the heart 
 by the sad, sad voice, she strove to turn back and 
 cry : " Mansour ! Mansour, I am here ! " her ruth- 
 less lover put a hand over her mouth, and pushing 
 her before him said brutally, " On with you ! on ! " 
 
 So she went on her way, sobbing. She went on 
 till she heard her name three times repeated in the 
 gloom : 
 
 " Afsia ! Afsia ! Afsia ! " 
 
 Then she fell fainting in the road. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Meantime the wedding-guests were approaching, 
 a merry, noisy band. 
 
 Young and old were on horseback, and the Cai'd 
 headed the procession. To do honour to his brother, 
 he had summoned the Sheikhs of the whole neigh- 
 bourhood to the ceremony; and they and all their 
 followers w^ere there, musket on thigh, pricking
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 235 
 
 with their long spurs or with the sharp angle of 
 the stirrup the prancing stallions and fiery mares, 
 that wild with excitement and with smoking nostrils, 
 curvetted and champed the bit, impatient to be 
 started in the brilliant cavalcade. 
 
 For now they were drawing near the haouch ; it 
 could be made out bathed in the first beams of the 
 coming day, cradled in the greenery of its oasis. 
 
 " Gallop ! gallop, sons of the plain ! put your 
 coursers to the gallop ! Now is the time to display 
 your strength and skill, to show before the fairest 
 eyes in all the Soiif how well the children of the 
 desert can wield a musket and bestride a horse. 
 
 " For Afsia, the beauteous "Afsia, the old Thaleb''s 
 bride, will look on all with her great eyes soft as 
 the gazelle's; who knows but she may remark one 
 of you? Then to-night, in the arms of her white- 
 haired bridegroom, the remembrance of the young 
 horseman will perchance cross her mind, and she 
 will think : " Why is he not at my side in this old 
 man's place?" And to be there in her thoughts, 
 though invisible, a third at the feast of love that 
 night, is it not one step towards winning her heart 
 some day? 
 
 " Gallop! sons of the plain, gallop! To-day is no 
 day to spare your pow^der. Up, guns ! and fire ! " 
 
 And long and loud the musketry rang out, tearing 
 to tatters with its merry crash and rattle the deep 
 silence of the valley. 
 
 Then all dashed forward at the gallop.
 
 !36 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 " Gallop ! gallop ! " And like a company of djenottns, 
 they swept by in wild tumultuous career, shaking 
 the very ground beneath their feet. 
 
 " Gallop ! gallop ! sons of the desert ! Ho ! Thaleb ! 
 Thaleh-El-Messaoud ! All hail to you ! All blessings 
 on your head ! The Happy Man ! the Happy Man ! 
 Glory and honour to the Happy Man and his bride ! " 
 
 So young and old, women and girls mounted on 
 mules and raising shrill staccato cheers, kramnu's 
 ^hat ran behind, the negress Mabrouka witnessing 
 her delight by screams of laughter, the bridegroom's 
 stallion, great-grandson of Naama the beautiful, 
 ready bridled, with trappings of red leather broidered 
 with gold, the Caid's wedding-gift, the white mule 
 caparison'd in gold and silk destined for the bride, 
 — all sped by like a flash of lightning. 
 
 But crouching in the tall grass of the narrow 
 sunken way, a man white-bearded and fierce-eyed, 
 cowering there like some evil beast, elbows on 
 knees, his chin supported by his clenched fists, 
 watched them pass. 
 
 And fifty paces behind the cavalcade, he saw 
 on a grey mule like that which once in old days 
 had carried the daughter of the Mitezzm El-Ketib 
 over the desert sands, a fat man with a red, mocking 
 face, whom he recognized as the merchant Lagdar- 
 ben-El-Arbi, once the lover of Meryem.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 237 
 
 And the song-birds awoke and flooded the neigh- 
 bouring thickets with their first merry notes to 
 greet the dawn, the water-fowl clapped their wings, 
 and the lark, soaring high in the morning air, 
 poured out his joyous song: 
 
 Oh! merry time, 
 When lovers meet 
 Among the wheat. 
 In summer's prime ! 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Loud was the laughter throughout the town, and 
 Mansour's enemies went about crying in the streets 
 and in the market-place : " The chastisement of 
 Mansour ! the chastisement of Mansour ! " 
 
 The Caid was ashamed of his brother's conduct, 
 and forbade his name to be mentioned in his presence. 
 
 As for Mansour himself, he was seen no more 
 in public. 
 
 And from that day forth the JiaoucJi in the plain 
 of Ain-Chabrou lies desolate, mournful as a grave 
 awaiting its occupant. Yet just as of old, the sun 
 kisses it lovingly, the green oasis blooms around, 
 the birds break into song, and the brook runs bab- 
 bling under the poplars. But tall weeds have in- 
 vaded the threshold ; leprous patches of moss eat into 
 the cracked walls, the roof has fallen in and lets 
 the winter rains come through, and the door battered 
 down one stormy night, hangs half broken by one
 
 238 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MANSOUR 
 
 of its twisted hinges. In Afsia's chamber, great 
 brown spiders spread their treacherous webs in every 
 corner, and snakes nest on the bed where once she 
 slept. 
 
 Sometimes on dark nights dismal outcries are 
 heard, mingling with the howls of starving dogs and 
 the jackals' yelping. No man dares approach, for 
 the camel-drivers of the plain declare the place 
 haunted by Eblis the Damned. But indeed it is only 
 Mansour the Damned dwells there, and pays Fate 
 the price of the thirty years when men surnamed 
 him the Happy Man ! 
 
 The sounds heard are his groans and cries, when 
 driven by sleeplessness from his mat of rotting cane, 
 he wanders forth along the gloomy tracks that 
 traverse the swamp. He is old and mad, and thinks 
 his bride will come back some day ; so he calls her 
 name, and waits, waits for one that never comes. 
 
 But neither he nor the folk of Djenarah, neither 
 the goat-herds of the mountain nor the camel-men 
 of the plain, nor yet the herdsmen of the valley, 
 have ever again seen her they knew under the 
 names of Stdi-Messaoiid' s bride and the Maid of 
 Ain-Chabrou.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 One hot afternoon the lieutenant Oniar-bou-Skin 
 took his seat on a stone bench under the arcade 
 of Dar-el-Bey. 
 
 The horses belonging to the squadron of Con- 
 stantine had gone to the river to water, and he 
 was waiting for their return, meantime humming 
 over some of his favourite couplets: 
 
 Her lips are a cup of pleasure, 
 Brimmed full of blood-red wine ; 
 Pressed to her bosom's treasure, 
 To die were bliss divine, 
 With Kre'ira, 
 Fair Kre'ira, 
 With Kre'ira, were she mine, were she mine, — 
 Were she mine, the rose of Ouargla ! 
 
 He was to marry on the morrow a httle maid 
 of twelve, sweet as a dream of love, whom he had 
 bought for two hundred douros; and he felt gay 
 and happy at the prospect. 
 
 At this moment an Arab woman, wrapped in an 
 elegant moulaia of fine linen and wearing the white
 
 240 THE CHASTISEMENT OF MAXSOUR 
 
 Stockings, neat and close gartered, that ladies of 
 pleasure aifect, approached slowly. 
 
 The officer looked at her smiling, for she had 
 great gazelle-like eyes, limpid at once and flashing, 
 and beneath the folds of her ha'ik you could see 
 lurked youth and beauty. 
 
 When she was near him, she stopped and her 
 eyes darted fire. 
 
 He still smiled, but suddenly the smile froze on 
 his lips ; the woman had drawn aside her veil. 
 
 "What! you," he said, turning pale, almost as if 
 he were afraid .... " what would you with me?" 
 
 He made a movement to rise, but fell back 
 heavily on the stone seat. The wooden hilt of a 
 long Khabyle dagger planted in his breast stood out 
 below his neck. 
 
 He opened his mouth to cry out, and a single 
 syllable, three times repeated, escaped his lips like 
 a death-rattle: 
 
 "Af. ... Af.... Af...." 
 
 The blood that spouted in a torrent from his throat 
 bore the rest away into the silence of eternity. 
 
 Deadly pale and with haggard eyes, the woman 
 bent a few seconds over his drooping head, then 
 coldly said: 
 
 " He is dead ! It was written ! Mansour is 
 avenged ! " 
 
 The Spahis of the guard rushed at her furiously, 
 some of them with clenched and uplifted fists, but 
 seeing her so fair, no one struck her.
 
 THE CHASTISEMENT OF :\rAXSOUR 24 I 
 
 She never spoke a word, and suffered them to 
 lead her away quite unresisting. To the questions 
 of the French judge and even to those of the Cadi 
 she opposed an obstinate silence. 
 
 All that came to light at the enquiry was that 
 she had long been the favourite mistress of the 
 lieutenant Omar-bou-Skin, and that she was well 
 known to the officers under the name of Merycm. 
 
 They shot her one May morning, in a quiet 
 business-like way, on a piece of waste-land to the 
 south of Constantine near the road that leads to 
 the Land of Palms. 
 
 Allah Krbi/'f Allah Kcbir ! Allah Kehir I 
 
 THE EXD. 
 
 16
 
 POSTSCRIPT
 
 ndvToc Lilv -/.aQaga. roTg yiciCc^QoTg' TOig df 
 lie^iKxa^itvoig yiui ccniaxoig ovdhv ■kcc^kquv, aXXu 
 uiulavtai ccvtmv /tort o vovg v.(xl fj 6vvii8r]0ig. 
 
 (TITUS, Cli. I, 15)
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 As long ago as 1880, seventeen years since, the present 
 Book, the whole of which was written in England, a})peared 
 for the first time in print, being published in Paris by 
 Alphonse Lemerre. In 1885 an editio7i de luxe was brought 
 out in London ; and later on several popular editions were 
 issued one after the other by the two Parisian publishers 
 Edinger, and Fayard. 
 
 The London edition, of which a number of copies were 
 sent to the press by the Publisher, Martin Hubert, did 
 not fail to excite cries of protest from the horde of 
 hypocrits and prudes always so numerous. A weekly 
 Review bearing the curious title of "The Bat", a name 
 it presumably deserved, declared the book the Apotheosis 
 OF Rape with Violence, and called for the intervention 
 of the Public Prosecutor! However, common sense still 
 exists, thank God, in Great Britain; there are still to be 
 found in that country men of enlightenment, neither blinded 
 by a ridiculous prudishness nor driven imbecile by the 
 cant of a hypocritical and intolerant religion. Such men 
 recognize the high moralit\- of the work, of which a 
 Publisher, as open-minded as he is learned, now issues 
 this edition for the first time in English.
 
 246 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 The Book fell by chance into the hands of Mr. 
 Charles Carrington, who was pleased with the style, and 
 saw at once the philosophic range of the Work. The 
 Publisher in question is far from being an ordinary man ; 
 he is a scholar and a distinguished Orientalist, one who 
 possesses an intimate acquaintance not only with the 
 languages of Asia but with those of Europe as well. His 
 extensive travels and wide learning, which place him in a 
 position very far above the average, have inspired him 
 with the healthy and hearty scorn Alcestc speaks of in the 
 ■play, for the fanatics of so-called purity, for the stern- 
 faced moralists whose panoply of virtue covers the most 
 horrid vices, i 
 
 How well we know them, the folk who veil their faces 
 in consternation before a work of Art, because it displays 
 undraped the glories of the human form divine ! How 
 well we know them, the folk who in public profess them- 
 selves shocked to hear the word, and all the while in 
 secret delight to do the thing, — like old maids over their 
 tea, blushing at the very mention of such a dreadful 
 word as chemise, but regaling their prurient imaginations with 
 the pictures of passion certain chapters of the Bible present, 
 and licking their lips over the Song of Solomon ! But 
 England has no monopoly of such-like oddities. "Their 
 name is Legion " in godfearing Germany as it is in unmoral 
 France. The tribe of Tartufes is just as much alive and 
 to the fore now as it was in Moliere's time, and his: 
 
 " Cachez ce sein que je ne saurais voir," 
 
 is quite in the modern taste. 
 
 The very same hypocrisy that Moliere ridiculed spreads 
 
 I The editor is pleased to see Captain France has so good an opinion 
 of him though he doe's not personally feel worthy of it.
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 247 
 
 over the texture of our lives like an oil-stain, thanks to 
 the active propaganda of a class of Ge'rontes who once 
 more justify and more than justify the old proverb, " When 
 the Devil grew old, the Devil a monk would be". But 
 above all others it is those Puritan critics who are offended 
 by plain, speaking, by the mot propre, that we have a 
 right to call ridiculous and absurd. 
 
 In former days Pierre Bayle discussed solemnly in his 
 learned Dictionary how the fact that a girl was with child 
 could be stated before a highly respectable ivofnan, without 
 wounding her modesty. "The latter could be told : — She 
 has had the misfortune to become pregnant ; — Some one has 
 taken advantage of her ; — He has kept company icith her ; — 
 Thev hax'e knorvn each other too ivell ; — Thcv have li ad inter- 
 course together; — He has enjoyed the greatest favour a 7uoma?t 
 can give ; — She has vielded him her most precious possession ; 
 the consequences sJiorv it ; — WJiat has passed betiveen. them 
 ca?mot be mentioned in decent terms, ears polite ivould not 
 tolerate it ; — Her honour is flaived, it is iii want of repairs." 
 How perfectly idiotic all this is ! 
 
 Then the worthy Bayle goes on : "A number of other 
 phrases might be found still better veiled, in which to 
 reply to the respectable ivoman's question ; but each and 
 all of them would but serve to depict to her mind's eye, 
 as vigorously as Michael Angelo could have done on 
 canvass, the foul and bestial action that resulted in the 
 girl's pregnancy." 
 
 So, the act which perpetuates the human race, the act 
 to which we are all indebted for our existence, the union 
 of the sexes, the supreme consecration of Love, is a foul 
 and bestial action ! We are to blush at Nature's methods, 
 the methods bv which we have been procreated. Bayle's
 
 248 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 " respectable lady " would fall fainting to the floor, if she 
 were told plainly : " The girl is with child, as your own 
 mother was before you were born, as your grandmother 
 was before she brought your mother into the world, as 
 were all your female ancestors before you one after the 
 other down the centuries, from your first mother Eve, 
 who was impregnated by your first father Adam; as you 
 yourself, ' respectable lady ', were by your husband before 
 you bore your daughters, who too will be impregnated in 
 their turn." 
 
 It must be a dream ; and you ask yourself in amaze- 
 ment. Have these good people then utterly lost all 
 common sense? For if you will think a moment, they 
 make out the Supreme Being, God the Creator, to be the 
 father of all immorality. 
 
 Well ! well ! we can only cry to Him from the depths : 
 "Lord! Lord! have pity on the fools, for they know 
 not what they say, — though they know very well what 
 they do ! " 
 
 HECTOR FRANCE. 
 
 Paris, December 1897.
 
 THE FRExNCH PRESS 
 
 ON 
 
 L'AMOUR AU PAYS BLEU. 
 
 Journal du Dimanche (Supplement de I'Europe). 
 (Brussels, Jan. i6. i88r.) 
 
 I have had occasion more than once before to express the admiration 
 I feel for the talent of Hector France. He is one of the few writers 
 of real worth who are free from the trammels of any school and march 
 straig^ht along their own road, drawmg- solely and entirely on their own 
 impressions. 
 
 In one word, he possesses style, — and the style is his own, a quite 
 distinctive combination of elegance and vigour. Readers will remember 
 the rugged charm of his earlier Novel, the terrible story of the " Homme 
 qui tue", which first revealed his talents as a narrator and a poet, and 
 yet how at the same time the horrors of the tale were relieved by 
 touches of tender and delicate feeling. The fact is that his very special 
 grasp of the conditions of the Romance enabled him to frame his narrative 
 of murder m a setting of beautiful scenery, and mitigate the sacrifice of 
 life bv the splendour of natural surroundings. 
 
 A constitutional bent indeed inclines him to the dramatic, — soon as 
 ever he touches humanity, his matter grows terrifying ; yet ever and 
 anon he seems to feel a dread of going too far in this direction, and 
 instantly the wide peace of Nature succeeds the fierce passions of his 
 characters. The critic who should make a more prolonged study of his 
 books would find himself in contact with a mind at once simple-hearted 
 and corrupted, a soul still virgin through all the stress iwid strain of 
 thought, a man in whom familianty with the darkest phases of reality 
 has not killed the ideal. ~~ — ^^ 
 
 The present book is a proof of this. I know no narraHVe— be aring in 
 a higher degree than this the dovible character of mockmg cynicisniaritt--' 
 youthful unspoiled poetry. It gives off a perilous, heady perfume, the 
 intoxicating reflection of a Paradise of love that momently falls in 
 unexpected ruin, and leaves you disappointed and disillusioned face 
 to face with the most bestial of actualities. Once more in the pages 
 before us, rending the veil of tears and sentiment and romantic love, 
 the human animal breaks his chain; the savage monster appears, sacrificing 
 all to his furious desires ; and in red streams the blood crawls over the 
 fair face of the landscapes the Author depicts. It is the " Songs of ^ 
 Songs" of rape and \'iolation.
 
 250 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 For the rest, nothing can be imagined more truly Oriental, in matter 
 and in form, than "The Chastisement of Mansour'", — nowhere a trace 
 of the cold, calculating man of the North ; the language, richlj- ornamented 
 yet carefully wrought, preserves even in descriptive passages tire glittering- 
 precision of the sonnet. You admire the feat, you appreciate the high 
 literary merit ; but you cannot help some feeling of regret that so precious 
 a gift of style is not employed on less exotic subjects. Further, the 
 characters are boldly drawn, in broad outlines, free from all unnecessary 
 detail ; and Mansour in his hard fierce senile concupiscence possesses 
 even a certain tragic grandeur that puts him on a pedestal apart among 
 the heroes of Fiction. A true work of art, the child of a rich and 
 fervid imagination, teeming with exquisite bits of description, it leaves 
 behind in the fancy a vague yearning after vanished hours of love and doom. 
 
 CAMILLE LEMONNIER. 
 
 Le Soleil (Nov. 15th, 1880.) 
 
 It must not be forgotten that we are here in the land of Islam, where 
 manners are of a kind to soften considerably some of the colours that 
 might seem to us too crude. Is it not a strange thing to find a writer 
 of such powers, — it is not too much to say, a poet, — showing himself so 
 careless of his high talent as to consent to put his name below some of those 
 " feuilletons " that fill up the bottom of the page in certain journals, mere 
 weapons of party warfare, lacking equally sincerity and honesty, that 
 pervert the popular imagination by the display of pictures of life arbitrarily 
 invented to serve the ends of the fiercest political passions ? Among the 
 mass of novels of which I select only the quintessence for mention here, 
 this book of M. Hector France's stands out conspicuous by its originality 
 and the real charm of the form wherewith he clothes the bnlhant 
 colouring and ardent blaze of the "Pays Bleu", that is to say Algeria, 
 ' — a land where men's passions are as hot as the climate with its unbroken 
 sunlight, and where they cull women hke flowers, just budding on the stem. 
 
 CH. CANIVET. 
 Courrier du Soir (Nov. 28th, 1880.) 
 
 In Algeria passions are turbulent, and love a fiery furnace ; if we were 
 not aware of this before, M. Hector France's book would teach us the 
 fact. Rugged manners, impetuous characters, heart-stirring scenes, this 
 book offers us on every page. Some of the pictures have a brutal 
 colouring, altogether primitive in its tones, of which the Bible affords us 
 the only other example. Such is life in the desert, in that " Pays Bleu ", 
 where M. Hector France takes us. 
 
 The motive is dramatic, the tendency of the work severely moral. 
 M. Hector France has worked out his subject as a writer who knows 
 Algeria thoroughly and loves it deeply. He does not speak like a cold- 
 blooded man of the West ; his style takes on a nch Eastern colouring 
 and in very truth he offers his readers some very striking descriptions.
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 251 
 
 Tho tale is a kind of pastoral ; at times you seem to be perusing the 
 scenes of an exuberant, barbarous eclogue. The handling may be heavy, 
 but a rugged poetry results from more than one of the pictures drawn. 
 Very likely the book could hardly have been written otherwise, so as 
 to seem real to us. The story is told in such a way as to force the 
 attention; it is stirring and full of passion. In the days we Hve in, its 
 \-ery defects will serve to call the notice of the public to the work.] 
 
 ANTONY VALABREQUE. 
 
 Le Livre (December 1880). 
 
 "The Chastisement of Mansour" (L' Amour au Pays Bleu) is a book 
 bathed in sunlight, warm and living. In the pictures M. France draws 
 us with his master hand, we have at one and the same time the colouring 
 of a Fromentin and the poetry of a Gerome. This most original novel 
 
 shows us Oriental fatalism in a convincing way A superb canvas, 
 
 admirably wrought with arabesques of infinite variety and infinite skill. 
 Read the book ; it is one for connoisseurs. 
 
 OCTAVE UZANNE. 
 
 Republique Fran9aise (Jan. 17th, 188 i). 
 
 There is much that is both strange and picturesque, much prose, — even 
 reahstic prose, but at the same time a vein of rich poetry, in this story"^ 
 of an Arab Don Juan, a debauchee, an habitual seducer of married 
 women and xinmarried, to whom the idea occurs one day, as it does to I 
 Moliere's Arnolphe, to bring up an Agnes from the cradle, in order to I 
 make her his wife later, incontestably virgin in body and mind. Young I 
 love, in this case too, thwarts the schemes of the old roue, and the J 
 vengeance of his former victims rises up suddenly before him. The 
 painting of the private life of this fair comer of Algeria, the " Pays Bleu ", 
 has a new and quite original character of its own. The landscape is at 
 once familiar and almost a lyric. The flavour of this unique book cannot 
 be better defined than by saying it reminds one at one and the same 
 time of the -'Dernier des Abencerages" and of "Madame Bovary". The 
 combination is quite novel; but unity of impression and the stamp of 
 truth are there none the less. 
 
 FABRICE W. 
 
 Le Pantheon de I'lndustrie (Nov. 14th, 1897). 
 
 This is a charming and original work, a Romance of Algerian life, wild 
 and poetical, the style half Biblical, half modern, highly wrought and 
 ver}- picturesque. 
 
 It is the story of a debauchee, Mansour, a kind of Arab Don Juan, 
 who after having seduced the fair Meryem, his own father's young wife, 
 pursues the ideal of love down to old age, when finally he adopts a 
 child, the little Afsia, whose maidenhood he reserves for himself ....
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 The whole narrative, written more in the manner of a poem than of 
 an ordinary novel, is intermingled with the most delightful descriptions, 
 sometimes a trifle free, but the boldness of which is veiled under a 
 certain Oriental mysticism that makes them full of charm. 
 
 In any case literature of the sort, all ideal in its aims, is preferable 
 to the flat, nauseating productions of the realistic school. 
 
 C. GEORGE. 
 
 Le Republicain de Tarn- et Garonne (Dec. 19th, 1880). 
 
 The "Pays Bleu" M. Hector France tells us of is not the land 
 
 of dreams, but one of very tragic realities. It is under the brazen sky 
 of Africa, the Africa that belongs to France, and which perhaps for that 
 very reason we French people know so little about, that the action of the 
 book takes place. The hero, a type of African Don Juan, consumed by 
 all the fires of concupiscence, recoils before nothing to satisfy his in- 
 ordinate desires. .... 
 
 The hero of the tragic revel and the horse of stone is not a more 
 striking figure, nor his doom more unexpected. .Such is the Dioiif of the 
 book. Add to this a warm rich style, and superb descriptive passages, 
 these last abounding in local colour, — for the author speaks of the real 
 Africa, as one who has seen it, and not as a mere novelist of vivid 
 imagination, — and you will have some feeble idea of tliis book, this 
 reflection of the East in its simple-hearted loves, its savage bursts of 
 anger and its burning passions. 
 
 A. Z.
 
 To appear in January a limited edition in one volume, 
 uniform with the " French Volunteer ", of 
 
 THE ONLY BIOGRAPHY IN THE ENGLISH LANGHAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 SOPHIE ARNOULD 
 
 ACTRESS AND WIT 
 
 BY 
 
 R. B. DOUGLAS 
 
 With Seven Copper-Plate Engravings 
 
 Expressly designed and etched for this work 
 
 BY 
 
 ADOLPHE LALAUZE 
 
 PARIS 
 CHARLES CARRINGTOX 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII
 
 SOPHIE ARNOULD 
 U 
 
 +T mongst the great actresses of France none occupies, 
 ^ ^ a position half so unique as that of the volatile 
 courtesan called Sophie Arnould. 
 
 Gay as a butterfly on a midsummer's day, the mordant 
 satire of her tongue stung like a wasp. She symbolised 
 the spirit of Paris and of Comedy at a period when the 
 Comedy and Paris had attained their most brilliant cul- 
 mination. Her satire was unstudied and her jests of the 
 lightest, when levity and irony were most cultivated. From 
 the sublime to the absurd, and from the absurd to the 
 sublime, she soared or fell m the same instant with equal 
 wit and facility. She was easily the first among the first 
 and most famous actresses of her time. 
 
 The Goncourt brothers have well remarked the rarity 
 of such creatures as was Sophie Arnould. She is the 
 legitimate successor of the immortal actress-courtesans of 
 the past, Aspasia, Imperia or Ninon. These women are 
 the gracious and frank confession of the Manners and 
 Ideas of their epoch; in their biographies we find the 
 disrobed and intimate life of the generation which they 
 intoxicated with their wit. To them we owe those 
 memories of enchantment of the centuries that have gone ; 
 and in the story of their lives the golden ages of Pericles, 
 Leo X, Louis XIV, and the pre- Revolution period, live 
 and move again before us in all their splendour. 
 
 Great men, heroes, captains, and kings we can do 
 without — these other children of Love, Venus and For- 
 tune— NEVER.
 
 The attention of Book-lovers is called 
 
 TO THE FOLLOWING CURIOUS AND HIGHLY 
 INTERESTING WORK 
 
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 With special Foreword by the Editor deaUng with 
 the Reviewers of a previous work, and sundry other 
 cognate matters good to be known ; particularly concerning 
 certain high-handed proceedings of British Philistinism. 
 
 A fine CoDDer-plate FrontiSDiece after a Design Dy DANIEL VIER&E 
 
 (Engraved by F. MASSE) 
 
 The whole in One Volume on specially made, stout. 
 white, Van Gelder, vellum paper. Price 21s. 
 
 Until December (1897), after 7vhtch date the price will he 
 
 40 fr. net 
 
 N.B. — With this book will be given {under cover) a fine Plate 
 entitled : CONJUGAL CORRECTION reproduced in 
 Aquatinte by the Maison GOUPIL (of Paris) after the 
 famous Oil Painting of CORREGGIO. 
 
 This book appeals to all classes. The Scholar will find in it 
 a mine of information mostly new; the Bibliophile will prize it 
 for its "get up"; and the "general reader" will be struck with 
 its quaint old-world charm and real curiousness.
 
 "Bonheur d'aujourd'hui ! Bonheur d'aujourd'hiii ! Gardons-le, quand 
 nous le tenons ; enfermons-le dans notre coKur comrae I'araour de la 
 bien-aimee et ne le livrons pas aux caprices et aux incertitudes de ce 
 ravisseur avide et changeant qui s'appelle: "Deraain"! (Page qy.]
 
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