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. In his mercy El Arbi allowed him to live with the lad and work a small farm, the harvest of which was strictly tithed by Tiensiert's chief--who took a full nine-tenths. Before the evening was over the elders of Ain Umast had acknowledged, rather regretfully I thought, that the tyrant of Sidi el Muktar must hide a diminished head before his brother of the Sus. The triumph of the grimy men from Tiensiert was then complete.

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