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Although the soldiers alternately threatened and cajoled for a considerable time none entered the apartment wherein we stood, yet our discovery seemed imminent, and looking around for means of escape we could detect none. Suddenly, however, there was a shuffling of feet upon the flags, and a voice, loud in authority, cried, —.
Back, I command thee. The men mumbled together in an undertone, while our friend and protector briefly explained the position of affairs, laying stress on the fact that the soldiers had threatened to strike off his head.
With one accord the men fell upon their knees before the representative of their Sultan, beseeching forgiveness, declaring that they had been misinformed, and that they had felt assured from the first that a devout man such as our host, would never harbour a dangerous spy. But the Governor was inexorable.
Irritated by the insolent manner in which his right to interfere had been questioned, he turned upon them angrily, saying —. Receding footsteps sounded as the soldiers of the Sultan, trembling and crestfallen, having evoked the wrath of a Governor whose harshness was notorious, filed out without a murmur. Then I thanked Allah for my deliverance, while my pagan companion grinned with satisfaction from ear to ear.
By what means he succeeded in again silencing the tongues of the two watchmen at the city gate, I know not, nevertheless, when the moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the first pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half-light, the ponderous gate creaked upon its hinges, and I passed out, accompanied by the dwarf and the dyer. We fled straight on, leaving our path to fate. As I rode my meheri rapidly over the grey, sandy plain, under a sky colourless and cheerless, Mohammed showered upon me a profusion of the finest compliments, pronounced in the most refined and sweet accent of which the Hausa tongue is capable, while I, finding myself again in the desert, after so narrowly escaping my enemies, thanked him sincerely for his strenuous and devoted efforts on our behalf.
He was showily and picturesquely dressed in a green and white striped robe, wide trousers of a speckled pattern and colour, like the plumage of a Guinea-fowl, with an embroidery of green silk in the front of the legs. Over this he wore a crimson burnouse, while around his fez a red and white turban was wound crosswise in neat and careful manner.
A gun was slung over his shoulder by means of thick hangers of red silk ornamented with enormous tassels, and his hands and arms were still stained a deep blue. His mount was a splendid camel, the head and neck of which was fancifully ornamented with a profusion of tassels, bells, and little leathern pockets containing charms. To venture within towns or villages would be unsafe, therefore we must cross the hills and seek the forest of Tebkis beyond.
It was evident Azala had not disclosed to him the object of my quest, therefore I was determined to ascertain what he knew regarding the strange legend. In twenty lands the conviction is current that the Rock of the Great Sin is more than imaginary. That it existeth, though none can tell where, I have with mine own ears heard from the negroes on the Dua river, as well as those who live in the forests of far Buraka. In Dahomey, in Yorouba, in Foumbina, in the country of Samory, in the desert of the Daza, and in the great swamps of Zoulou beyond Lake Tsad, the same popular conviction existeth as firmly as among our own people.
In Gourma the negroes declare that the rock is by night and day enveloped in a dense, black smoke which veileth it from all human eyes, for their fire-god resideth there and hideth himself in its wondrous fastnesses. They say the faces of the holy men are blooming, their eyes bright, and blood would issue from their bodies if wounded, and further, that the Angel Israfil watcheth over them, ready to sound the great trumpet on the last day.
These, and hundreds of such quaint beliefs have been related to me by negroes, wise men and story-tellers in the course of my wanderings, but the Rock of the Great Sin itself no man hath ever set eyes upon, and I should regard as a maniac any person who went forth expecting to discover it. On over the stony hills called the Goulbi-n-Kebbi, where around us stretched, as far as our wearied eyes could penetrate, a trackless waste of yellow, sunlit sand; on across a desert peopled only with echoes, a wilderness where there was nothing but He, and where the hot, violent wind sent blinding clouds of dust into our faces at every step of our beasts; on over the rough rocks, where a little stunted herbage struggled for an existence, we pressed forward, scarcely halting throughout the blazing, breathless day.
Inured as I was to the baking heat and many hardships of desert life, I nevertheless found this journey terribly fatiguing.
But Tiamo and I were flying for our lives. At a small oasis, where we found an encampment of Salameat Arabs, we exchanged our camels for asses, and when the sun sank before us three days later we entered the forest of Tebkis by a track which led due south in serpentine wanderings, and compelled us to proceed in single file. Free Shipping All orders of Don't have an account?
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Your Mobile number has been verified! Geografia e Historia Voltar Voltar. Email or Phone Password Forgotten account? During many hopeless nights I waited for the radiation of the sun of the benefits of prosperity, and counted the stars till the rise of daitm, but, by my ill-luck and the machinations of enemies, was deprived of the felicity of penetrating the mystery of the Land Forbidden. Though a worker at the dye-pots I have, by diligence and integrity, amassed riches, and am honoured among the men of Sokoto.
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