The bash agha came to and, sitting up, settled his turban and became at once the “Emperor.”
The caïds became “princes,” and squatted down in a semi-circle on the carpet; the chauffeur ventured back and started mending a tire. The petitioner marched in and, after kissing the old man’s shoulder, went and sat at a distance. For ten minutes he said “How-do-you-do” in different poses and accents. For a moment there was a lull, and then all of a sudden the storm burst, as in a torrent of words he poured out his story.
He talked so rapidly that I only understood vaguely, but I gathered that his flock had been stolen by nomads of the bash agha who had come up from the south. The bash agha was silent for a time, then he too burst into a flood of verbiage.
It was a most extraordinary group. The bash agha at one end of the room, sitting on a heap of cushions, his whole attention riveted on the man before him who squatted, speaking rapidly, but with practically no gestures.
Occasionally one of the caïds would throw in a remark, but otherwise one would have supposed that the matter was quite indifferent to them. And yet it was a question which to these Arabs was one of the greatest importance.
The complaint was of the tribe of the district who accused one of the nomad tribes of the Larba, now pasturing near-by, of stealing sheep. The sheep had disappeared ten days ago and had been tracked with that mysterious instinct across those limitless wastes of desert to Ghardaia, three hundred miles to the south. The man wanted their return as well as the punishment of the thieves.
The bash agha turned to the kadi, who for the moment ceased being the joke-man, and spoke a few words to him.
The kadi nodded.
The bash agha addressed the Caïd Madani.
“This affects your tribe. You will send a mounted man to Ghardaïa forthwith. He will apprehend the robbers and have them drive the flocks back here. You will bring them before me at Chellala.”