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But for the serious expression on the faces of the majority, and the eager scanning of each knoll and shrub, the party might have been intent on powder-play instead of powder-business.
"I suppose you've never even heard of the La'ab el Barut, the powder-play of the Arabs? They are greeting us with their greatest display of ceremony and you talk about machine-guns!" He turned, lifted his hand and called to the gunners: "No mistakes now, men! No accidents! The first man that pulls a trigger at these people, I'll shoot down with my own hand!"
As they proceeded inland, on the border of each local jurisdiction the escort was changed with an exhibition of "powder-play," the old one retiring as the new one advanced with the governor at its head. Thus they journeyed for about a week, till they reached the crumbling walls of palm-begirt Marrákesh.
And the distinction widens when Hamed rides in the "powder-play," or is trusted to keep shop by himself, while Fátimah is closely veiled and kept a prisoner indoors, body and mind unexercised, distinguishable by colour and dress alone from Habîbah, the ebony slave-girl, who was sold like a calf from her mother's side.
Already the rushing powder-play was within a few hundred yards. The roar of hoofs, the smashing volleys of fire, raging of the kettle-drums, wild-echoing yells of the white company deafened the Legionaries' ears. What a sight that was archaic chivalry in all the loose-robed flight and flashing magnificence of rushing pride!
In the shops in the sôk, or market-place, prices are sometimes more moderate, and there you may discover some of the more distinctively Moorish articles, which are brought in from the country; nor can there be purchased a more interesting memento than a flint-lock, a pistol, or a carved dagger, all more or less elaborately decorated, such as are carried by town or country Moor, the former satisfied with a dagger in its chased sheath, except at the time of "powder-play," when flint-locks are in evidence everywhere.
But just now the town holds two West Point cadets, and two young engineers from the real West, which makes Gridley no place to turn a vaudeville powder-play loose in." "Wild Charlie" and his band fled as fast as they could, for the crowd was jeering loudly and talking of taking all six to the nearest horse-trough for a ducking.
Every morning the cannon of the fort fired a round of shot from the hill, every evening the tribesmen from the mountains went through their feats of powder-play in the market-place, and every night a body of Aissawa from Mequinez yelled and shrieked in the enclosure called the M'salla, near the Bab er-Remoosh.
The sombre words knocked upon every heart like a blow on a door behind which conspirators are plotting. The Major was the first to recover his speech. "Curse your tongue, Scrope!" he said angrily. "Let who will lie in your grave when the evening falls. Before that time comes, we'll show these Moors so fine a powder-play as shall glut some of them to all eternity.
Some of these seemingly inharmonious productions are really enjoyable when one gets into the spirit of the thing. At times the Moors are themselves full of life and vigour, especially in the enjoyment of what may be called the national sport of "powder-play," not to speak of boar-hunting, hawking, rabbit-chasing, and kindred pastimes.
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