With bronzed, aquiline features, long grey beard, and keen, deep-set eyes; tall, erect, agile, and of commanding presence, he was a splendid specimen of the true-bred Arab of the plains. Though he expressed intense hatred for the Infidel, and invoked curses most terrible upon the horsemen of the Roumis in general, and those of the Azjar in particular, he, nevertheless, treated me with haughty courtesy, and extended to me the hand of friendship. As, at the head of our cavalcade of two hundred armed horsemen and a long string of camels, he rode day by day across the parched wilderness, interspersed by small sand-hills and naked ledges of rock, speckled with ethel-bushes half overwhelmed by sand, he was truly an imposing figure. His burnouse was of finest white wool, embroidered heavily with silk; the haick surrounding his face was of spotless china-silk, and around his head was wound many yards of brown camel’s hair. The saddle upon which he sat was of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold and set with precious stones, and stirrups and spurs of massive silver completed the trappings of his splendid coal-black horse, which he managed with rare perfection and skill. On my white Ku-hai-lan stallion, I usually rode at his side, chatting to him in his own tongue, while two hundred of his people, erect in their saddles, and with their long-barrelled rifles slung behind, were ready to instantly execute his slightest wish.
The days were breathless and blazing. Scorched by the sun, and half-suffocated by the sand-laden wind, our way lay through a wilderness that Nature had forsaken. At night, however, when the outlaws of the desert had cast sand upon their feet and prayed their maghrib, and we had encamped under the palms of the oasis, eaten our dates and kouss-kouss, and slaked our thirst from our water-skins, then commenced the real luxury of the day—the luxury of idleness—as, reclining on a mat in front of the Sheikh’s tent, with coffee and a cigarette, the great Abdul-Melik would relate with slow distinctness stories of past encounters between his people and the hated Christians.
While sentries with loaded rifles kept a vigilant look-out lest we should 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-shells over which skin is stretched, would chant weirdly, in a strange staccato, Arab songs of love and war. At that hour a coolness falls over everything, intense silence reigns, the sky above grows a deeper and deeper blue, and the palms and talha trees look mysterious in the half-light. Soon the stars shine out like diamond points, and it grows darker and darker, until the chill night-breeze of the desert stirs the feathery heads of the date-palms. Then the lawless nomads, my companions, would wrap their burnouses closely about them, scoop out a hole 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 the Kel-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 the most recent map issued by the French Dépôt de la Guerre—we were one evening, at a spot evidently pre-arranged, joined by a body of three hundred horsemen, who armed themselves with the rifles they obtained from our camel’s packs, and then, leaving the camels in charge of half-a-dozen men in a rocky valley called the Anzoua, we all continued our way in high spirits, jesting, laughing, and singing snatches of songs. Throughout that night, and during the following day, we rode at the same steady pace, with only brief halts that were absolutely necessary. On the second night darkness fell swiftly, but the moon rose, and under its bright mystic light we sped forward, until suddenly the gaunt man, in a dirty, ragged burnouse, who acted as our guide, shouted, and we pulled up quickly. Then, in the moonlight, I could just distinguish 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 of Idelès.
Abdul-Melik shouted an order, clear and distinct, whereupon the horsemen spread themselves out in two long lines, and with their guns carried across their saddles, the first line crept slowly and silently forward. By this movement I knew that we were about to attack the village, and held my own rifle ready for purposes of self-defence. Sitting in the second line, I advanced with the others, and the breathless moments that followed were full of excitement.
Suddenly a shot startled us, and at the same moment a muttered curse fell from the Sheikh’s lips as he saw that our presence had been detected, for the shot had been fired in the village as a sound of warning. Almost instantly it was apparent that we had been betrayed, for a great body of horsemen galloped out to meet us, and in a few moments I found myself lying behind my horse pouring forth volley after volley 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 the first line rose with loud shouts as if they were one man, and, mounting, rode straight at their opponents, while we followed at headlong speed upon our enemies almost ere they had time to realise our intention. The mêlée was awful. Swords, rifles, and keen, crooked jambiyahs were used 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 the houses, shot down the women with relentless cruelty, tore from them what little jewellery they possessed, and plundered, wrecked, and burned their homes out of sheer delight in destruction. I stood watching the terrible scene, but unable to avert the great calamity that had fallen so swiftly upon the peaceful little place. The fiendishness of our enemies had, alas! not been exaggerated. Abdul-Melik laughed gleefully, uttering some words as he rode past me swift as the wind. But I heeded him 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 Tilouat remained standing. The plunder was quickly packed upon our horses, and soon afterwards we rode off, carrying with us twenty men and women who had been captured, all of whom would eventually find their way into the great slave-market, far away at Mourzouk.
At sundown, five days afterwards, we descended into a rocky valley, and suddenly came upon a wonderful mass of scattered ruins, of amazing magnitude and extent, which Abdul-Melik told me were the remains of a forgotten city called Tihodayen, and as we approached, I saw by the massive walls of hewn stone, the fallen columns half embedded in the sand, and by an inscription over an arched door, that they were relics of the Roman occupation. When we dismounted, I found that the ruined city gave shelter to the outlaws, and was their habitual hiding-place.