FEATS OF ENDURANCE 17 



yet he swore to me by the head of the Prophet 

 that he could have slept on the following night at 

 Gardaya, forty-five leagues farther on, had his life 

 been in any danger. 



' Another Arab, Mohammed-Ben-Mokhtar by 

 name, had come to buy corn in the Tell after the 

 harvest. His tents were already pitched, and he had 

 opened a business communication with the Arabs of 

 the Tell, when the Bey Bou-Mezrag, " father of the 

 spear," fell upon him at the head of a strong body 

 of cavalry to chastise one of those imaginary offences 

 which the Turks were in the habit of inventing as 

 pretexts for their rapacity. Not the slightest warn- 

 ing had been given ; the razzia was complete ; and 

 the horsemen of Makhzen gave themselves up to all 

 the atrocities customary in such cases. Mohammed- 

 Ben-Mokhtar thereupon threw himself on his dark 

 bay mare, a magnificent animal known and coveted 

 throughout the Sahara, and perceiving the critical 

 nature of the situation, at once resolved to sacrifice 

 the whole of his property to save the lives of his 

 three children, One of them, only four years old, 

 he placed on the saddle before him, and another, 

 aged six or seven, behind him, holding on by the 

 troussequin, and was about to place the youngest in 

 the hood of his burnous when his wife stopped him, 

 exclaiming, " No, no ; I will not let thee have this 

 one. They will never dare to slay an infant at its 

 mother's breast. Away ! I shall keep him with me. 



c 



