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This he took at the door of the fandak, seated on the ground by the coffee-stall, inquiring meanwhile the prospects of protection in Mazagan. There was Tájir Pépé, always ready to appoint a new agent for a consideration, but then he bore almost as bad a name for tyrannizing over his protégés as did the kaïds themselves.
Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality. The basha was inside the cool mosque, praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected, though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever hurries, but can always wait.
"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free for a man like Arsène Lupin has no right to grow old I should have signed the treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids, pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my all-powerful will: 'Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania!"
This was the feast of the Moolood, and on one of the nights of it, probably the eighth night, the last night, Friday night, Ben Aboo the Basha was to give a "gathering of delight," to the Sultan, his Ministers, his Kaids, his Kadis, his Khaleefas, his Umana, and great rascals generally. Ali's stout heart stuck at nothing.
He had given good proof of his manhood in the past by standing five-and-twenty years scapegoat for Ben Aboo between him and his people, making him rich by his extortions, keeping him safe in his seat, and thereby saving him from the wooden jellab which Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan, kept for Kaids that could not pay. But Israel mastered his anger and held his peace.
The ground seemed riddled with these "wells," intended for the storage of grain, but used by sheikhs and kaids as their private prisons, whence at their will they draft on luckless captives to the public gaols: an old enemy is quite harmless in a matamor, with a square stone over the top, for the rest of his life.
It is only in certain districts that some of the funds demanded have been forthcoming, and the kaïds have full authority, but these are officials of long standing and great repute, whose jurisdiction has been much extended in consequence. Changes among the less important kaïds have been continual of late.
A picturesque figure, passionate yet a philosopher, patiently tolerant of blinding heat, bad roads, uncomfortable sleeping quarters and short commons, the Maalem will remain alive and real in my memory long after the kaids and wazeers and other high dignitaries of his country are no more than dimly splendid shadows, lacking altogether in individuality. I learned to enjoy Djedida by night.
But falling into bad company, he first took to cattle-lifting, afterwards turning highwayman, as which he was eventually caught by the Abd es-Sadok family various members of which were kaïds from Ceuta to Azîla and consigned to prison in Mogador.
And though it was little she understood of Kaids and ransoms, she was quick to see the nature of her father's peril, and at length she concluded that, in spite of his injunction, go to him she should and must.
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