“Sidi, Sidi!” pleaded Ben Serraq, “can you not deliver me from these bonds, which give me horrible pain?”
“Very well; I will. Djilali, unfasten the ropes, which, in fact, are a little too tight. It is impossible for him to make his escape now; only, take some of the cavalry with you, and keep a sharp eye on him on the way to prison.”
“O, Sidi! such precautions are unnecessary. I am as gentle as a lamb.” And Ben Serraq made his exit escorted by a numerous suite of mekrazenis, at the head of whom was Djilali, and who, feeling the greatness of his responsibility, marched as if he were carrying the world. But an Arab chief in alliance with the French, named Ben Safi, whispered to the president as soon as the prisoner had disappeared,
“Perhaps you were wrong to let his arms be untied.”
“That is rather too good,” the magistrate replied. “How, do you suppose, can he contrive to escape from the custody of ten soldiers, and in the midst of the town?”
“I have seen him escape,” Ben Safi explained, “under circumstances that would make one believe there was something diabolical in his composition. One night, when he had the impudence to come and rob in my own smala, we contrived to seize him by killing the horse he had stolen from us, and under which it chanced that he was caught as it fell. I had his hands tied behind his back, and I ordered one of my men to kill him like a dog, from behind, with a pistol-shot. The shot was fired; but my gentleman, instead of dropping down dead, as he ought to have done, jumped up as lively as a grasshopper, and disappeared as if a flash of lightning had carried him off. The bullet had only cut the cords which bound him, and had been flattened on the palm of his hand. We were stupefied with astonishment.”
“And well you might be!” said the official head of the Arab bureau, beginning to feel a little fidgety. “I now believe I should have acted more prudently if I had forbidden his being unpinioned till he was safely lodged in prison.”
“I am sure you would;” interposed Ben Tekrouide, a second friendly chief. “I have always been told that this fellow is a perfect demon, in human shape. At the market of Kremis, he once robbed a man of his ass, without his being aware of the theft, although he was sitting on its back at the time.”
“Indeed!” said the magistrate, in a fidget. “I should be very glad to know that he was definitely in custody under lock and key.”
“He has the strength of twenty men,” observed Ben Maoudj, a third philo-Gallic chieftain. “He once stole a camel laden with wheat from a caravan proceeding to the south; and, as the animal was unable to travel over the rocky road by which he wanted to pass, he took it on his back, wheat and all, and carried it in that way for half-a-night’s march.”