United States or Morocco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
From their camp up in the rocks, the chanters descended to the lower ground, and seemed to be performing a funereal march all round the central mass, as the last tones we heard were from behind the hills, where it first arose. To resume: we left the almost exhausted channel of the Ferdinand, and pushed on for the Telegraph Line.
'Monymusk? or the 'Marquis of Huntley's Fling? or 'Miss Johnston? Nay, stay a bit. Don't you know 'Mrs. Macleod of Raasay?" "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," came from the six pipers, all standing in a row, with the drones over their shoulders and the chanters in their fingers. "Very well, then off you go! Now, boys and girls, are all ready? Pipers, 'Mrs. Macleod of Raasay!"
Allah be praised!!" These weird chanters are dervishes, who, with tiger-skin mantles drawn carelessly about them, clubs or battle-axes on shoulder, their long unkempt hair dangling down their backs, look wildly grotesque as they parade the streets of the Persian Mecca.
They only made a noise to distract him in his prayers; and one time, disguised in the habit of canons, they counterfeited so well the midnight matins, that he asked the vicar, "Who were those chanters who sung so admirably?"
She did not smear her hair with mud, nor was she moved by the wailing of the mourning women nor the chanters of the Koran. She only said to Fatima when all was over: "It is well; he is gone from my woe to the mercy of God! Praise be to God!" And she held her head high in the village still, though her heart was in the dust.
"He died two days ago," said the peasant. "He is buried to-day, and the priest and chanters are now returning from the grave." "And the Talking Dog?" asked the young man. "He is at the grave now," said the peasant; "but he has neither spoken nor eaten since his master died." "We have come in the nick of time," said the young man triumphantly, and he rode to the churchyard.
Those who came later carried drums and bagpipes of the regulation kind. At five minutes to five the bandmaster made his appearance, and the band lined up while they tuned their chanters. Sharp at five o'clock, with a punctuality that was remarkable, the band stepped out across the square to the tune of "The Cock of the North," played in perfect time and tune.
The pipers whipped the chanters from their mouths; the children, suddenly stopping in their merriment, cast one awestruck glance at the door, and then slunk back to their seats. They had observed not only Mr. , but also the Prince himself. Macleod was left standing alone in the middle of the floor. "Sir Keith Macleod?" said his Royal Highness, with a smile. Macleod bowed low.
They went off, and came back from the deep shadows of the trees with glittering swords and more strident music, and louder beating on gongs, and harsher notes on chanters, and a loud booming sound on a narrow, six-foot-six drum with bell-shaped mouth; and the figures danced quickly, going backwards, in circles, and breaking into groups, the swords whirling and flickering beautifully in the moonlight, and the audience clapped hands gently in time, and there was an occasional heugh! as used to be the way in our Highland Reel, before the invention of the lowlander, the screaming "eightsome."
As soon as the tired chanters, who were singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God we all flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again kindled in all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back, and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.
Word Of The Day