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Of course it was not a "deep-mouthed welcome:" it was no more than a cry of warning and defiance raised by the colony of pariah dogs that guarded Ain el Baidah, our destination. In the darkness, that had a pleasing touch of purple colouring lent it by the stars, Ain el Baidah's headman loomed very large and imposing.
Some days later, in Mogador, I was told that the Ain al Baidah man is a terror to travellers and a notorious robber, but I made no complaint to our Consul. If the headman's overlord had been told to punish him, the method chosen would assuredly have been to rob every man in the douar, and if they resisted, burn their huts over their heads.
The headman and his two attendants slunk off like whipped curs, and we proceeded to feed our animals, replenish both fires, and sleep with one eye open. Morning came over the hills to Ain al Baidah in cold and cheerless guise. The villagers crowded round to stare at us in the familiar fashion.
Barley was bought, at half the price charged at Ain el Baidah, and I noticed that the cunning Susi hid some of it in the long bag they kept at the bottom of one of the shwarris. Clearly they intended to make the supply we paid for serve to take them all the way to Tiensiert.
He invited them, with finger on trigger, to advance one step and meet the death that should enable him to give their ill-favoured bodies one by one to the pariahs and the hawks, before he proceeded to sack Ain al Baidah and overcome single-handed the whole of its fighting men.
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