A
change might have been for the better--it could hardly have been for the
worse. One or two of the men of Ain Umast spoke Shilha, and the Susi men,
hearing the cruelties of Sidi el Muktar's ruler discussed, claimed to have
a far better specimen of the genus kaid in Tiensiert. He was a man indeed,
ready with fire and sword at the shortest notice; his subjects called him
Father of Locusts, so thoroughly did he deal with all things that could be
eaten up.
It was a curious but instructive attitude. These miserable men were quite
proud to think that the tyranny of their kaid, the great El Arbi bel Hadj
ben Haida, was not to be rivalled by anything Shiadma could show. They
instanced his treatment of them and pointed to the young boy who was of
their company. His father had been kaid in years past, but the late Grand
Wazeer Ba Ahmad sold his office to El Arbi, who threw the man into prison
and kept him there until he died. To show his might, El Arbi had sent the
boy with them, that all men might know how the social scales of Tiensiert
held the kaid on one side and the rest of the people on the other. The
black slave who accompanied them had been brought up by the late kaid's
father, and was devoted to the boy.
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