The French-Algerian magistrate’s chaouch or sheriff’s-officer, Djilali
by name, was recovering a little from the out-of-countenance condition
into which he had been thrown by his failure in giving a miraculous
turn to the embezzlement of a couple of sacks of wheat from the backs
of a pair of donkeys: he straightened his back, stood stiff on his
legs, and abruptly entered with ineffable zeal on the discharge of his
functions as chief-constable and crier-of-the-court. He felt himself
in one of those happy moments when, after having well deserved a good
beating, he was ready to transfer the favour to the first person
he met. He was an eight-day clock wound up again, when just at the
point of running down and coming to a stop. As he opened and shut the
police-room doors with the loudest bangings and clappings--shouting
for the plaintiffs to appear, and hustling everybody who stood in
his way as he swaggered about the antechamber--the assembly present,
still impressed with the sack-and-donkey scene they had witnessed,
whispered from mouth to mouth and from ear to ear that, in the memory
of mekrazeni, so accomplished a chaouch had never been seen.
Suddenly, a confused noise was heard out of doors. As it approached,
the sounds grew louder; and at last the ear could distinguish the most
energetic oaths in the Arab language, and the music which proceeds from
fisticuffs and kicks when applied to divers parts of the human body.
Djilali’s voice rose above the tumult, and his stick accompanied the
melody of his voice. Finally, the door opened, and a group of men,
singularly interlaced together, rolled into, rather than entered the
room. When Djilali, by a succession of the most skilful movements, had
succeeded in putting a little restraint and order into this tempestuous
storm of arms and legs, the eye could manage to distinguish a group
of five men, four of whom had quite enough to do to enforce on the
fifth a little respect. The last-named worthy was of lofty stature
and vigorously limbed. His garments torn to shreds, and his sorry
face, attested participation in a recent struggle; but his hands, tied
behind his back and fastened by a rope to his neck, were evidence
that he had not been victorious. His companions held him fast with a
degree of caution which showed that even in the state to which he was
reduced, they were not quite sure he would not make his escape. Four
ropes’-ends, which dangled from his wrists and his neck, were tightly
grasped with exaggerated uneasiness and tenacity. Scarcely had the five
new comers subsided into calmness, when an unanimous exclamation arose
from the midst of the audience, “’Tis Ben Serraq! What has he been
doing now?”