He narrowed his eyes and recited. “… the water of the brooks is never bad; the rivers of milk are always fresh; the rivers of wine are a delight; the rivers of honey are pure, the faithful lie on carpets of brocaded richness, and they are shaded by trees which let down their fruits of themselves. The just shall be served in silver goblets and served by boys eternally young; at their feet will run streams of limpid water; they will have as wives dedicated virgins with round breasts, big black eyes, and complexions like ostrich eggs hidden with care in the sand; and concubines specially created for them, having been touched by neither man nor genie .”
“Jesus,” Cliff muttered, “What does an ostrich egg hidden in the sand look like?”
Homer said, “Or that bit from Mohammed about women. God has created two things for the pleasure of man: woman and perfumes. Your women are your field. Go to your field and plough it as often as you like. How can one attribute to God, as his offspring, woman who, because of her lack of reason, is always ready to quarrel without motive?”
He snorted. “Now consider that crap. Obviously, the Islamic position on women, the fact that they have no souls, not having been created by Allah, and will hence not go to Paradise, but will be replaced there by houris, especially created for the men, is ridiculous. The Islamic position on women can’t endure in an advanced society. Women’s lib, in its time, will come to Islam as it did the West. And take that description of Paradise. It makes about as much sense as the Biblical one. Heaven with its streets of gold. Maybe that Paradise makes sense to an uneducated nomad, but to his city living, educated, sons and daughters?”
“All right, all right, so you’ve wooed us away from Islam, get back to the point,” Bey said. “We can’t go busting into that nest of fanatics, all four of us, and come out as anything more than chunks of meat to be eaten with the couscous.”
Homer said, “We have one advantage. El Aicha, the elder of the Ouled Fredj tribe, and, as such, the senior member of the djemaa el kebar, has no particular admiration for our boy Abd. He’s old enough to remember the French occupation and, seemingly, instinctively knows that the old days will never return. Remember, he sided with me, when I had my run-in with Abd-el-Kader, even lending me his sword? He’ll hold off the hotheads and crackpot religious leaders long enough for us to have our say.”
“Yeah,” Kenny said gloomily. “And then they’ll slit our throats. Or maybe not bother. Just hand us over to the womenfolk for the usual castration and related bits of torture, desert style.”
Homer said, “I’ve got the germ of an idea. Listen…”
Homer Crawford had been correct. The djemaa el Kebar was being held in the traditional location. But this one differed greatly from the one Crawford’s team had come up against the first time. It must have been three times the size, and it was obvious that at least half of the assembled tribes-men were other than Chaambra. Their tents spread out from the small oasis far into the desert and hammada, the rocky uplands between the mountains.
There were religious speakers everywhere, with varying sized crowds of listeners, the numbers seemingly dependent upon just how hysterical the marabout or muezzin might be. Those who frothed at the mouth, rolled their bloodshot eyes up to the point of disappearance and jerked uncontrollably, were highest in demand. As the Americans drove on, their windows rolled up to make identification more difficult, they even passed dancing, spinning and whirling dervishes, going through their ecstatic, violent dancing and pirouetting, together with howling dervishes with their vociferous chanting and shouting.
“Beats a state fair all hollow,” Cliff muttered unhappily. “Why the hell didn’t I become a garbage man like my sainted mother wanted? Do you know what a garbage man makes in San Francisco these days?”
Nobody bothered to answer him. Bey and Kenny looked as glum as he did. Homer was inwardly rehearsing his speech to come.
The djemaa el kebar pavilion, a large, ornate awning strung on a dozen sturdy posts, was located on the far side of the oasis, at a point where the craggy, black hammada came down to its edge. Heavy rugs covered the sands beneath it and leather hassocks, in yellow, green and red, those thick, heavy cushions preferred to chairs in desert lands, provided seating for the chiefs and other assembled dignitaries. Amidst the hassocks were scattered narghileh water pipes and brass dishes of dried dates for refreshment.
Obviously, the djemaa el kebar was already in session.
A considerable number of other vehicles were in the encampment, including desert trucks and buses, which had evidently brought in pilgrims and the curious from considerable distances, so the new vehicle was not as out of the way as all that, despite the fact that it was the only hoverlorry represented. The native-owned transportation was aged, rusted, weathered and battered.
Homer Crawford was able to drive up to the entry of the open pavilion, to stop there, drop the lift lever of the vehicle and let it flatten to the sand. The four of them got out, their Tommy-Noiseless, .10 caliber submachine guns, with their clips of two hundred rounds of high-velocity explosive shells, slung over their shoulders.
The entry was guarded by two Chaambra tribesmen. One bore a World War Two .30 caliber carbine. The other had an anachronistic muzzle loading musket with its six foot long barrel, made a century and more before to be especially adapted to firing from camel back. It would have brought several hundred dollars from any collector in Common Europe or America, enough to have bought the bearer a few of the latest model automatic rifles.
To the right of the entry, about ten yards, was the iron bird-cage the four newcomers had heard about. It was hanging from a wooden tripod of stakes dug into the sand, and in it was Elmer Allen. He was nude and filthy beyond description.
His head was bare to the Sahara sun and his cracked lips were thick with sun sores. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion but he was able to look up and mutter, “It’s about time you chaps got here.”
Homer Crawford could feel a well of nausea inside but he played the role of El Hassan and looked straight ahead. Bey gave Elmer a quick nod and Kenny gave him a wink which he probably couldn’t see, but no one spoke to him.
The two guards looked hesitant and confused at the determined march of the four and did nothing to halt them. Already a crowd was gathering behind, most of them armed warriors of the Chaambra. Within moments, there would be thousands. The murmur was going through them, El Hassan… El Hassan … El Hassan…
The chiefs and headmen of the djemaa el kebar, in session, were seated in a half circle. All of them were elderly, save one, all dressed in ceremonial desert garb. In the center position sat El Aicha. As a chief of Maraboutic ancestry and hence a holy man as well as the elder of the Ouled Fredj tribe of the Chaambra, he presided. So old as to look senile—he wasn’t, as Homer well knew.
But to his dismay, Homer Crawford recognized Abd-el-Kader seated in the place of honor next to El Aicha. This could only mean that his claim to being the mahdi was being recognized, or was about to be. The young warrior chieftain was attempting to suppress his satisfaction at seeing El Hassan and three of his closest adherents in this spider’s web. Abd-el-Kader was a perfect figure of desert man. His eyes were those of the Sahara hawk, piercing and aggressive. His posture was straight and strong. From his turban, white as the snows of the Atlas, to his yellow leather boots, he wore the traditional clothing of the Chaambra and wore them with pride. Beneath his white burnoose he wore a gandoura of lightweight woolen cloth and beneath that a longish undershirt of white cotton, similar to that of the Tuareg but with shorter and less voluminous sleeves.