‘What for?’ we asked.
‘Me fader,’ Driss explained, looking sorrowful, ‘he paid ten thousan’ dollar Hassani for (to be) gov’nor; two year more late ’nother man pay ten thousan’ dollar more, and he ’come gov’nor; me fader got no more money, so go prison.’ This was the old story, the same wherever Mohammedans govern; one man buys the right to rule and rob a province; over his head another buys it, to be succeeded by a third, and so on.
We told Driss that this could not happen if the French ruled the country; it could not happen, we said, in Algeria.
‘I know, I know,’ said Driss. ‘Me fader he write (wrote) in a book about Algeria, and he teach me to read. Tell me, Mr. Moore, is it true a man can give his money to ’nother man and get a piece of paper, then go back long time after and get his money back?’
I told Driss that there were such institutions as banks, which even the Sultan could not rob; and he believed, but seemed to wonder all the more what manner of men Christians were. ‘It is fiendish; no wonder they defeat us; they work together inhumanly,’ he seemed to say; ‘indeed you cannot know our God!’
Good old Driss; both Weare and I became very fond of him. In a day he spoke of himself as our friend, and I believe we could have trusted him in hard emergencies. He was brave and not unduly cautious, though occasionally, when we would stop in a road and gather a crowd, he would say imperatively: ‘Come away, Mr. Weare and Mr. Moore; some fanatic may be in that crowd and stick you with his dagger. Come on, come on!—I’m your friend; I don’t want see you dead.’
Driss had vanities. He told us his age, twenty-three, and told us in the same breath that few Moors knew exactly how old they were. He said his wife—who was only twenty—could read and write a little, informing us at the same time that very few women could read. He told us that his wife was almost white. Driss was ashamed of his own colour, and when a French correspondent asked in his presence if he was a slave, the poor boy coloured and dropped his head. He had certainly been born of a slave.
Still there was nothing humble about Driss. Among his people he was exceptional and he enjoyed the distinction. He was a Ziada man; he could read and write; he could make more money than his fellows—and he hoped some day to acquire European protection; he was fine-looking, tall, strong, and without disease.
Driss was a thoroughly clean fellow. He never touched bread without washing his hands, a custom prevailing among some Moslems but not general with the Moors. This with him seemed only a matter of habit and desire of decency, for he was not particularly devout in his religion.
‘But you think,’ we said, ‘that all Nasrani are unclean.’ At first Driss denied this, out of consideration for us, but on being pressed he admitted that it was the feeling of the ignorant of his race that, like pigs, all Christians were filthy in person as well as soul.