Part 15

"Follow me, O slaves," said the Moor, when they were all ready to return. He led them unresisting through the heart of the city, through the bazaars with their roofs of palm branches and box-like shops, past the arcades of the workers in brass and linen and leather and sweatmeats, to a corner where the passage ended in a heavily barred gate.

The gatekeeper drew the bolts, and showed through the open door a bare circular market-place with a broken and dilapidated arcade stretching down the centre of it, and booths all round the walls. Marzuk cast one desperate look round, as a bird at the door of a cage, but the fear of Hadj Abdullah was upon him. In another moment they had been shepherded through the gate-way and commanded to stand still while their guardian went to a Moorish official, who sat cross-legged on a carpet, and gave the numbers and description of the party.

"Five boys, three girls, Timbuctoo," repeated the official, and wrote the details laboriously on a slip of paper with a bamboo pen.

"Follow," commanded the Moor, and the children marched obediently to one of the huts or booths built out from the wall like covered pens.

"Go within, and stay there until the market is opened. Let none stir beyond the entrance," he said curtly, and seeing them safely housed, went off.

Marzuk left his companions whose terror annoyed him, and going to the mouth of the pen looked out at the scene.

He saw at once that he and his little party were not alone in the slave-market. Nearly a dozen of the other pens were tenanted for the most part by adults, who could be heard chattering or singing happily enough, and in one pen, at least, quarelling violently. Certainly, they were in no way cast down, and their indifference helped to bring further confidence to Marzuk, who beckoned the most distressed of the party--a little nine-year-old girl--to come to his side and look out.

It was the eve of a great sale. The "Court Elevated by Allah" was about to leave the southern capital for the North; the great Wazeers would be seeking to make the last changes in, or additions to, their harems and households before leaving home. On this account Hadj Abdullah had not kept the slaves longer to fatten them, preferring to take the prices that would rule at a big sale for inferior goods, than what he would get for better material when the city was half empty.

The sun was beginning to decline, and a faint freshness was coming into the sultry air. The last batch of slaves had been entered; a group of auctioneers surrounded the Government official in charge of the market, and speculated hopefully upon the prices that would rule. The keeper of the gate flung it back, and Marzuk saw the arrival of the earliest buyers.

They came in singly for the most part--Moors whose wealth was indicated by their portly presence, and by their outer robes of white and blue cloth woven in the north of England. They walked into the market-place and sat down at their ease on the ground against the unoccupied pens, or the long arcade that bisected the market-circle. Some were very old men with white beards, and a few were of forbidding appearance; but most were fat and well-favoured, True Believers to whom life came easily.

The last buyer had arrived. There must have been thirty or forty in all, and Marzuk knew that the sale was about to begin. A very old slave walked over the dusty ground, with a goatskin watering-can, and sprinkled it liberally. The dilal (auctioneer) who had brought them to the pen came up hurriedly, counted them with raised fore-finger as though they had been sheep, and told them to be ready to follow him, using the native tongue of Guinea, since Marzuk alone of the little company had as much as a smattering of Arabic.

His instructions understood, the auctioneer hurried away to the centre of the market-place, where the other dilals surrounded their chief. He looked at the sun as though to tell the hour; it was sinking behind the saint's tomb on the edge of the market-wall. He gave a signal; the selling brethren formed themselves into a line, with their chief in the centre. Then the venerable leader lifted up his voice and prayed. He praised Allah; dilals and buyers said "Amen". He cursed Satan; the company reiterated the curse. He employed the blessing of Sidi bel-Abbas, the city's patron saint, friend of sellers and buyers. Might he bless the market, the dilals and the patrons. Might he send prosperity to one and all. The dilals stood with closed eyes and extended hands and said "Amen."

Their chief's prayer came to an end. Quickly as possible the dilals hurried to the pens they presided over.

"Come forward, all," cried the one in charge of Marzuk's pen, and the frightened children needed no second bidding.

"Do as you see the others doing," said the dilal, as, with deft fingers, he rearranged the shawls of the girls and set the boy's robes straight.

Marzuk seized his little girl friend by the hand; she took the hand of another girl; the dilal stood in the centre of the line of children, four on either side of him. Meanwhile, the other auctioneers had arranged their slaves in much the same way, and the companies stepped forward to walk slowly round the market.

They moved round the circle of the market, and the dilals called loudly upon intending buyers.

"O, Abdel Karim," cried a burly Moor, as Marzuk's dilal passed him for the first time, "let me see the lad who has your right hand."

Marzuk was pushed forward. Coarsely, rather than unkindly, the Moor laid his fat hands upon the boy, felt his muscles, opened his mouth to note the state of his teeth, and asked a dozen questions that the boy's Arabic could not have compassed had he been attending. But it happened that at the moment when he was thrust into the old man's arms Marzuk looked up, just as a company of white ospreys swept high over the market, and in a moment he saw the Niger rising before him, and the scented fields he knew so well. Brave though he was, his eyes were flooded, and the words could not pass his throat.

"Newly arrived from the South," admitted the dilal rather impatiently, in explanation of what he feared would be one of the outbursts that the market saw so often; "but he is strong and well, and knows a few words."

"Forty dollars, Salesman," said the Moor briefly; "let me see the girl."

Marzuk's little companion was pushed forward and, too frightened to speak, kissed the old man's hand. He handled her with an approach to gentleness, asking the auctioneer all he wanted to know.

"Forty dollars also," he said, when the last word was spoken.

Forthwith the dilal shifted the children for whom no bid had been yet made from the right to the left hand, and took the first vacant place in the line of auctioneers and slaves, proclaiming with a loud voice: "For the boy and the girl, forty dollars each".

A quarter of an hour passed, while the salesman marched round and round with his charges, and in that brief period two smaller children passed from the left to the right hand side of the dilal. They were the remaining girls, for whom seventy dollars were offered, an amount working out in English money at ten pounds.

"A bad price--a bad price," muttered the auctioneer sadly, and then he withdrew from the line and returned to the pen. "Wait here," he said to the four boys who had not yet been asked for; "wait till the rest are sold."

Then he hurried back to the line of auctioneers with Marzuk and the three girls, proclaiming the price and merits of his wares as loudly as possible. Several times Marzuk was summoned by an intending purchaser, and his price went slowly up to fifty-five dollars, while his companion stayed at forty-eight.

For the other two girl children, a bright, intelligent pair, and not without good looks of a kind, there was a very brisk bidding; three country Kaids were bent upon purchasing them. The three sat along the arcade some twenty yards from one another, and raised the price of the two little girls three, four, sometimes five dollars at a time, the auctioneer thanking them with a "Praise be to Allah the One!" every time the price was augmented.

At last the Kaid from a town on the far side of the Atlas Mountains raised the price to one hundred and thirty-five dollars at which figure the bidding ceased, and the two children were handed over to their new master.

Greatly elated at the thought of his commission, which, though but two and a half per cent., would be quite appreciable, the auctioneer took Marzuk in one hand and the girl in the other, and marched briskly round, declaring their merits and the last bid.

The girl caught up her companion in price, and, passing from hand to hand, was chosen at last by one of the Kaids, who had failed to purchase the pair of girls, at eighty-two dollars. Marzuk saw her frightened eye and quivering lip, she looked once at him and burst into a violent paroxysm of sobbing.

But there was never a big sale in the Sok-el-Abeed without tears in plenty. They were of no more moment to the crowd than the water that the carriers from the south country sprinkled over the sandy market-place.

The auctioneer fetched another boy from the pen and walked round with him and Marzuk.

The latter felt now that the end was coming, he knew that his purchase lay between a fat white-bearded Moor from the country and the keeper of the fandak. He heard the price raised slowly to seventy-five dollars, at which the keeper of the fandak declared with an angry word that he would go no higher.

* * * * *

It was to no hard servitude that Marzuk was taken in the early days when he went for the first time to a master's house. He was appointed to wait upon his master's son, a lad of little more than his own age, and if a few blows and some ill-usage were his portion from time to time, he was troubled but little so long as food was good and plentiful.

When the two boys grew towards manhood, their relations became more intimate and friendly, and Marzuk, who had been told off to the fields at every harvest time, was raised to a rather more responsible position, and called upon to superintend the labour of the others. They worked on the land, ploughing and reaping, cultivating the orchards and digging water-pits, or they carried the produce of their master's fields to the markets of the city.

Here he succeeded, and was sent by his master to the far country markets with corn and oil, sometimes taking journeys of two or three weeks' duration. Once again his record was satisfactory, and he was further promoted to carry letters and messages to the great country chiefs, with whom his master had commercial or social relations.

So it happened that he escaped the harder fate that waits upon slaves who are idle or vicious or so unfortunate as to find a bad master. Marzuk learned to ride fearlessly, and to know the great tracks that pass for roads in Morocco, and stretch between the far scattered cities.

His master's house held many slaves--they were regarded as a source of wealth, and were encouraged to do their best. In earlier days, when slaves were very cheap, they had not fared so well, but now that a master must pay heavily, he would not waste man or woman as he could afford to do in times when Mulai Ismail ruled and England held Tangier.

To-day Marzuk is the chief of his master's household, a strong, intelligent fellow, who rejoices in the whitest of djellabas and the largest size of yellow slippers, carries a long rosary, and rules his master's other servants with a rod of iron.

Marzuk has picked up a great deal of Arabic; he has become a Mohammedan, and looks forward to the day when he will be manumitted, and will be able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Thereafter he will embark his small store of dollars in trade, and with his knowledge of markets and capacity for sustained work he should end by employing slaves of his own.

* * * * *

I have set down the main features of his story as he told them to me in his master's house, in days not long gone past when I was a guest there, and entered, so far as I might, into the fascinating life of the East, and I cannot refrain from adding that Marzuk stands to-day on a far higher rung in the ladder of civilisation and progress than he would have reached if the curse of slavery had not fallen on him in far Timbuctoo.

And therein (a wholesome reflection for the more arrogant among us) slavery, as understood and practised in the world of Islam, differs mightily from slavery as understood and practised in Christian lands a few years ago.

I make no mention of the sort of slavery still existing, under European auspices, on the Congo, and in many of the cities of every country of Europe. Allah forbid that sleek, smiling Marzuk, upon whose ample shoulders the burden of labour has fallen so lightly, should ever know the bitterness of such sad lives as these.

Footnote 5:

Marrakesh, known in England as Morocco City, is the southern capital of the Moorish Empire.

Telephone: Telegrams: Gerrard 7745. "Milnopolis London."

AUTUMN, 1908

A List of New Books PUBLISHED BY JOHN MILNE Publisher 29 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

PAGE Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. 6s. 4 Archibald Menzies. Agnes Grant Hay. 6s. 12 Broken Honeymoon, The. Edwin Pugh. 6s. 5 Call of the South, The. Louis Becke. 6s. 16 Disinherited. Stella M. Düring. 6s. 10 Duchess of Dreams, The. Edith Macvane. 6s. 11 Enchantress, The. Edwin Pugh. 6s. 15 Gentle Thespians, The. R. Murray Gilchrist. 6s. 16 Graven Image, The. Mrs. Coulson Kernahan. 6s. 7 Half-Smart Set, The. Florence Warden. 6s. 14 Heart of the Wild, The. S. L. Bensusan. 6s. 3 "I Little Knew--!" May Crommelin. 6s. 15 Ichabod. James Blyth. 6s. 11 Insane Root, The. Mrs. Campbell Praed. 6d. 16 Irene of the Ringlets. Horace Wyndham. 6s. 15 King's Cause, The. Walter E. Grogan. 6s. 9 Lady Mary of Tavistock, The. Harold Vallings. 6s. 14 Last of Her Race, The. J. Bloundelle-Burton. 6s. 14 Lost Angel, The. Katharine Tynan. 6s. 15 Lost Heir, The. G. A. Henty. 6d. 16 Love that Kills, The. Coralie Stanton & H. Hosken. 6s. 8 Moth and the Flame, The. Alice Maud Meadows. 6s. 14 'Neath Austral Skies. Louis Becke. 6s. 6 Orphan-Monger, The. G. Sidney Paternoster. 6s. 7 Potiphar's Wife. Kineton Parkes. 6s. 9 Quest of the Antique, The. R.& E. Shackleton. 10/6 net 13 Quicksands of Life, The. J. H. Edge, K.C. 6s. 8 Tobias and the Angel. Helen Prothero Lewis. 6s. 10 Two Goodwins, The. R. Murray Gilchrist. 6s. 6 Wilful Woman, A. G. B. Burgin. 6d. 16 Within Four Walls. J. Bloundelle-Burton. 6s. 5

JOHN MILNE, Publisher

INDEX TO AUTHORS

PAGE Becke Louis. 'Neath Austral Skies. 6s. 6 Becke Louis. The Call of the South. 6s. 16 Bensusan S. L. The Heart of the Wild. 6s. 3 Bloundelle-Burton J. Within Four Walls. 6s. 5 Bloundelle-Burton J. The Last of Her Race. 6s. 14 Blyth James. Ichabod. 6s. 11 Burgin G. B. A Wilful Woman. 6d. 16 Carroll Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 6s. 4 Crommelin May. "I Little Knew--!" 6s. 15 Düring Stella M. Disinherited. 6s. 10 Edge J. H. K.C. The Quicksands of Life. 6s. 8 Gilchrist R. Murray. The Two Goodwins. 6s. 6 Gilchrist R. Murray. The Gentle Thespians. 6s. 16 Grogan Walter E. The King's Cause. 6s. 9 Hay Agnes Grant. Archibald Menzies. 6s. 12 Henty G. A. The Lost Heir. 6d. 16 Hume Fergus. New Novel. 6s. 12 Kernahan Mrs. Coulson. The Graven Image. 6s. 7 Lewis Helen Prothero. Tobias and the Angel. 6s. 10 Macvane Edith. The Duchess of Dreams. 6s. 11 Meadows Alice Maud. The Moth and the Flame. 6s. 14 Parkes Kineton. Potiphar's Wife. 6s. 9 Paternoster G. Sidney. The Orphan-Monger. 6s. 7 Praed Mrs. Campbell. The Insane Root. 6d. 16 Pugh Edwin. The Broken Honeymoon. 6s. 5 Pugh Edwin. The Enchantress. 6s. 15 Shackleton R. & E. The Quest of the Antique. 10/6 net. 13 Stanton Coralie & Hosken H. The Love that Kills. 6s. 8 Tynan Katharine. The Lost Angel. 6s. 15 Vallings Harold. The Lady Mary of Tavistock. 6s. 14 Warden Florence. The Half-Smart Set. 6s. 14 Wyndham Horace. Irene of the Ringlets. 6s. 15

JOHN MILNE, Publisher

The Heart of the Wild

Wild Life Studies from Near & Far

BY

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[Sidenote: The Heart of the Wild]

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JOHN MILNE, Publisher

A Charming Gift Book for Children

THE CHILDREN'S ALICE

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

BY

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Nine full-page Illustrations in Colour by BESSIE GUTMANN.

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[Sidenote: The Children's Alice]

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New Six Shilling Novels

The Broken Honeymoon

By EDWIN PUGH

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[Sidenote: The Broken Honeymoon]

Here, as in "The Enchantress," Mr. Pugh treats his subject with that candour of which his work is typical. "The Broken Honeymoon" concerns the wooing, marriage and honeymoon of a London clerk and a schoolmistress, and is a sidelight on life in Suburbia, stripped of all its conventional appurtenances, and shown with that naked reality which is characteristic of all this author's work. "The Broken Honeymoon" is a worthy successor to "The Enchantress."

Within Four Walls

By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON

Author of "The Last of Her Race," "The Hispaniola Plate," "The Clash of Arms," etc.

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[Sidenote: Within Four Walls]

The talented author of "The Last of Her Race" has again dipped into his vast fund of historical knowledge and has weaved a romance out of the intrigues that surrounded the life and death of Henri IV, who was assassinated by Raviallac at the same time that a conspiracy was on foot among some of the nobles of the Court to murder the king. The discovery of this conspiracy by the heroine, leading to her imprisonment "Within Four Walls," and the adventures of her lover in effecting her rescue, are incidents that provide Mr. J. Bloundelle-Burton with all the matériel for a powerful historical novel.

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[Sidenote: The Two Goodwins]

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'Neath Austral Skies

BY

LOUIS BECKE

Author of "The Call of the South," etc.

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[Sidenote: 'Neath Austral Skies]