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So three days passed, and the doves circled and moaned round the minaret of the Zaouïa mosque, and were fed at sunset on the white roof, by hands hidden from all eyes save eyes of birds. On the third day there was great excitement at Oued Tolga. The marabout, Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd el Kadr, came home, and was met on the way by many people from the town and the Zaouïa.
It is related that, on one occasion, when he applied to the Kadr for the grant of a small tract of land, that officer, who was a Sunní, not only refused him but, solely because he was a Shiah, drove him from the hall with contumely and insult. Meanwhile, moved by the report of his great ability, Akbar had summoned Faizí to his camp before Chitor, which place he was besieging.
In the meantime a eunuch brought some covered trays on the heads of porters, and laid them before me, and said, "The princess has sent you a dinner from her own table; partake of it." I went along with her; she led me to the private apartment; the effect of the lights was such that the shabi kadr was nothing to it.
That Hollander element comprises the most insidious menace, and, like a cancer, must be unsparingly excised from South Africa, unless encouragement is intended to be given for an attempt to go one better next time, with a repetition, or rather an aggravation, of the horrors of war and the cost in life and treasure, turning the sub-continent into a second vast Algeria, with perhaps such another "Abd El Kadr" to subdue, and without any reserve asset, as now, to fall back upon towards reimbursing the expense.
"Peace, it is peace until the rising of the morn!" a thought came to the Master's mind, a line from the chapter Al Kadr, in the Koran. He smiled to himself. "False peace," he reflected. "The calm before the storm!" Prophetic thought, though not as he intended it! On and on the trio labored, soundlessly. At last the chief stopped, held up his hand a second, lay still.
Without Saidee and Victoria, they could bring forward no definite and visible proof that the great marabout, Sidi El Hadj Mohammed Abd el Kadr, and the disgraced Captain Cassim ben Halim were one. And the supreme difficulty was to produce Saidee and Victoria as witnesses.
But as the years went on, he had converted himself to the fanaticism he professed. Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd el Kadr had created an ideal and was true to it. Still a selfish sensualist on one side of his nature, there was another side capable of high courage and self-sacrifice for the one cause which now seemed worth a sacrifice.
If Morocco could but find its Abd el Kadr, the day of its partition might even yet be postponed indefinitely. But next year, or the next who shall say? My journey was well nigh over. I had leisure now to recall all seen and heard in the past few weeks and contrast it with the mental notes I had made on the occasion of previous visits.
The shabi kadr, or as the Arabs have it, lailatu-l-kadri, is a sacred festival held on the 27th of Ramazan, being, according to the Musalmans, the night on which the Kur,an was sent down from heaven. Meaning that, under present circumstances, her commands were altogether out of place. It is incumbent on good Mussulmans to wash the hands and face before prayers.
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