"Not but
what our Roumis are brave fellows enough; better comrades no man could
want."
The Khalifa took the long pipe from his mouth and spoke; his slow,
sonorous accents falling melodiously on the silence in the lingua sapir
of the Franco-Arab tongue.
"Your comrades are gallant men; they are great warriors, and fearless
foes; against such my voice is never lifted, however my sword may
cross with them. But the locust-swarms that devour the land are the
money-eaters, the petty despots, the bribe-takers, the men who wring
gold out of infamy, who traffic in tyrannies, who plunder under official
seals, who curse Algiers with avarice, with fraud, with routine, with
the hell-spawn of civilization. It is the 'Bureaucracy,' as your tongue
phrases it, that is the spoiler and the oppressor of the soil. But--we
endure only for a while. A little, and the shame of the invader's tread
will be washed out in blood. Allah is great; we can wait."
And with Moslem patience that the fiery gloom of his burning eyes
belied, the Djied stretched himself once more into immovable and silent
rest.
The Chasseur answered nothing; his sympathies were heartfelt with the
Arabs, his allegiance and his esprit de corps were with the service
in which he was enrolled. He could not defend French usurpation; but
neither could he condemn the Flag that had now become his Flag, and
in which he had grown to feel much of national honor, to take much of
national pride.
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