Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/208

192 "'I am come from the country where the great Prophet proclaimed the faith in One God and gathered all of the power over the Faithful into his own hands. The name of Mahomet be praised throughout the whole earth! I am the bone of his bone and my blood is the blood of his veins. Power and rule belong to me, but the false caliph, Harun al-Rashid, by deceit robbed me of them and sought to kill me. Twice already have men harvested the grain from their fields since I began my journey to your mountains.'

"'Whom are you seeking here?' asked one of the villagers.

"'I had a vision in Hejaz that in the place where an old city and two villages form a triangle and where these latter are at war with each other I should find a man, called Aouraba, who would help me and, through this, would himself become great and famous.'

"'No such man exists here,' answered the Berbers. 'That is the name of a tribe of traitorous dogs, of cowardly and vicious jackals!'

"'Each tribe has a head and a heart, and these are its chief,' rejoined the traveler.

"'The chief of these criminals is one called Gamderoui,' said the villagers.

"'Thank you; may Allah be merciful to you and increase the crop of your vineyards.'

"The courageous and really good Gamderoui was just in the act of putting his foot in the stirrup to start on a hunt when this unknown wanderer, coming from these warring villages of Kliber and Tasga, approached him and announced: