The Veiled Man

by William Le Queux

meets the aching eye but a drearywaste of red-brown, drifting sand, one experiences some curious phasesof a life comparatively unknown, and little understood in Europeancivilisation. There, life to-day is the same as it was ten centuriesago--the same as it will ever be: free and charming in its simplicity,yet with many terrors ever present, and sun-bleached bones everreminding the lonely traveller that a pricked water-skin means the endof all things.

  The Veiled Man--by William Le Queux

  On a journey alone from Biskra to Mourzouk, in Fezzan, I foolishlydisregarded the injunctions of my fellow tribesmen, and was renderedextremely uncomfortable by the astounding discovery that the camelcaravan I had joined in Zaouia Timassanin, and with which I had beentravelling for twenty days, belonged to the Kel-Izhaban, a tribe ofmarauders and outlaws with whom we had had for years a fierceblood-feud, and whose depredations and relentless butchery of theirweaker neighbours caused them to be held in awe from Morocco across toTripoli, and from Biskra to Lake Tsad. In addition, I ascertained thatthe Sheikh, known to me as Sidi El-Adil, or "The Just," was really noneother than Abdul-Melik, like myself, a pirate of the desert, againstwhom the French Government had sent three expeditions, and upon whosehead a price had been set.

  With bronzed, aquiline features, long grey beard, and keen, deep-seteyes; tall, erect, agile, and of commanding presence, he was a splendidspecimen of the true-bred Arab of the plains. Though he expressedintense hatred for the Infidel, and invoked curses most terrible uponthe horsemen of the Roumis in general, and those of the Azjar inparticular, he, nevertheless, treated me with haughty courtesy, andextended to me the hand of friendship. As, at the head of our cavalcadeof two hundred armed horsemen and a long string of camels, he rode dayby day across the parched wilderness, interspersed by small sand-hillsand naked ledges of rock, speckled with ethel-bushes half overwhelmed bysand, he was truly an imposing figure. His burnouse was of finest whitewool, embroidered heavily with silk; the haick surrounding his face wasof spotless china-silk, and around his head was wound many yards ofbrown camel's hair. The saddle upon which he sat was of crimson velvet,embroidered with gold and set with precious stones, and stirrups andspurs of massive silver completed the trappings of his splendidcoal-black horse, which he managed with rare perfection and skill. Onmy white Ku-hai-lan stallion, I usually rode at his side, chatting tohim in his own tongue, while two hundred of his people, erect in theirsaddles, and with their long-barrelled rifles slung behind, were readyto instantly execute his slightest wish.

  The days were breathless and blazing. Scorched by the sun, andhalf-suffocated by the sand-laden wind, our way lay through a wildernessthat Nature had forsaken. At night, however, when the outlaws of thedesert had cast sand upon their feet and prayed their _maghrib_, and wehad encamped under the palms of the oasis, eaten our dates andkouss-kouss, and slaked our thirst from our water-skins, then commencedthe real luxury of the day--the luxury of idleness--as, reclining on amat in front of the Sheikh's tent, with coffee and a cigarette, thegreat Abdul-Melik would relate with slow distinctness stories of pastencounters between his people and the hated Christians.

  While sentries with loaded rifles kept a vigilant look-out lest weshould be surprised by the ever-watchful Spahis or Chasseurs, half--a--dozen Arabs would squat in a semicircle before the great Sheikh, and,twanging upon their queer little banjos fashioned from tortoise-shellsover which skin is stretched, would chant weirdly, in a strangestaccato, Arab songs of love and war. At that hour a coolness fallsover everything, intense silence reigns, the sky above grows a deeperand deeper blue, and the palms and talha trees look mysterious in thehalf-light. Soon the stars shine out like diamond points, and it growsdarker and darker, until the chill night-breeze of the desert stirs thefeathery heads of the date-palms. Then the lawless nomads, mycompanions, would wrap their burnouses closely about them, scoop out ahole in the warm sand, and there repose until the first flush of dawn.

  About five weeks after I had inadvertently thrown in my lot with theKel-Izhaban, and after penetrating a region that, as far as I am aware,has never been explored by Europeans--for it remains a blank upon themost recent map issued by the French Depot de la Guerre--we were oneevening, at a spot evidently pre-arranged, joined by a body of threehundred horsemen, who armed themselves with the rifles they obtainedfrom our camel's packs, and then, leaving the camels in charge ofhalf-a-dozen men in a rocky valley called the Anzoua, we all continuedour way in high spirits, jesting, laughing, and singing snatches ofsongs. Throughout that night, and during the following day, we rode atthe same steady pace, with only brief halts that were absolutelynecessary. On the second night darkness fell swiftly, but the moonrose, and under its bright mystic light we sped forward, until suddenlythe gaunt man, in a dirty, ragged burnouse, who acted as our guide,shouted, and we pulled up quickly. Then, in the moonlight, I could justdistinguish among the trees of the little oasis a few low, white houses,of what I subsequently learned was the little desert village of Tilouat,inhabited by the Kel-Emoghri, and distant ten leagues from the town ofIdeles.

  Abdul-Melik shouted an order, clear and distinct, whereupon the horsemenspread themselves out in two long lines, and with their guns carriedacross their saddles, the first line crept slowly and silently forward.By this movement I knew that we were about to attack the village, andheld my own rifle ready for purposes of self-defence. Sitting in thesecond line, I advanced with the others, and the breathless moments thatfollowed were full of excitement.

  Suddenly a shot startled us, and at the same moment a muttered cursefell from the Sheikh's lips as he saw that our presence had beendetected, for the shot had been fired in the village as a sound ofwarning. Almost instantly it was apparent that we had been betrayed,for a great body of horsemen galloped out to meet us, and in a fewmoments I found myself lying behind my horse pouring forth volley aftervolley from my rifle.

  The fusillade was deafening, and for fully half an hour it was kept up.About twenty of our men had been killed or wounded, when suddenly thefirst line rose with loud shouts as if they were one man, and, mounting,rode straight at their opponents, while we followed at headlong speedupon our enemies almost ere they had time to realise our intention. Themelee was awful. Swords, rifles, and keen, crooked _jambiyahs_ wereused with terrible effect, but very soon all resistance was at an end,and the work of looting the village commenced.

  Half demented by excitement and success, my companions entered thehouses, shot down the women with relentless cruelty, tore from them whatlittle jewellery they possessed, and plundered, wrecked, and burnedtheir homes out of sheer delight in destruction. I stood watching theterrible scene, but unable to avert the great calamity that had fallenso swiftly upon the peaceful little place. The fiendishness of ourenemies had, alas! not been exaggerated. Abdul-Melik laughed gleefully,uttering some words as he rode past me swift as the wind. But I heededhim not; I loathed, despised, and hated him.

  While dawn spread in rosy streaks, the work of plunder still proceeded,but when the sun shone forth, only the smoke-blackened walls of Tilouatremained standing. The plunder was quickly packed upon our horses, andsoon afterwards we rode off, carrying with us twenty men and women whohad been captured, all of whom would eventually find their way into thegreat slave-market, far away at Mourzouk.

  At sundown, five days afterwards, we descended into a rocky valley, andsuddenly came upon a wonderful mass of scattered ruins, of amazingmagnitude and extent, which Abdul-Melik told me were the remains of aforgotten city called Tihodayen, and as we approached, I saw by themassive walls of hewn stone, the fallen columns half embedded in thesand, and by an inscription over an arched door, that they were relicsof the Roman occupation. When we dismounted, I found that the ruinedcity gave shelter to the outlaws, and was their habitual hiding-place.

  An hour later, reclining on mats under the wall of what had once been agreat palace, the outlaw Sheikh and myself ate our evening meal of_saubusaj, beryseh_, and _luzinyeh_, and drank copiously of _dushab_,that luscious date-s
yrup which is so acceptable after the heat andburden of the Saharan day, while my companions feasted and made merry,for it appeared that they kept stores of food concealed there.

  On commencing to smoke, Abdul-Melik ordered that the captives should bebrought before him, and when, a few minutes later, they were usheredinto his presence, they, with one exception, fell upon their knees,grovelled, and cried aloud for mercy. The single captive who begged nofavour was a young, dark-haired girl of exquisite beauty, with black,piercing eyes, pretty, dimpled cheeks, and a complexion of almostEuropean fairness. She wore a zouave of crimson velvet heavilyembroidered with gold, a heavy golden girdle confined her waist, and herwide trousers were of palest rose-pink silk, while her tiny feet werethrust into velvet slippers of green embroidered with gold thread. Buther dress had been torn in the fierce struggle with her pitilesscaptors, and as she stood, erect and defiant, with her hands securedbehind her with a leathern thong, she