At this juncture, Djilali received orders to prevent the accused, by any means whatever, from making lengthy interruptions to the recital of the plaintiffs’ wrongs. As to short exclamations that will break forth, the chaouch might allow them to burst from their safety-valve, seeing the material impossibility of confining them within the lips of a subject like the present defendant. “Come, then,” said the court, decidedly, “one of you explain the business.” “Don’t mind what they say,” Ben Serraq roared out. “They are liars. Besides, they have a spite against me.” “As I said just now,” the complainant stated, “the case is plain. Our herds were grazing in the neighbourhood of Ben Serraq’s tent. On driving them home in the evening we discovered that a bullock was missing. My brethren and myself immediately took the field, to discover some trace of the robbery, but we could discover nothing. At last, after several days of fruitless search, it entered into our heads to have a look at Ben Serraq’s tent. We had suspected him, in consequence of what had happened some months previously.” “Barbarians!” yelled the untamed innocent; “to violate the tent of an honest Mussulman!” “But we had no need to enter it; which, moreover, we should not have done without the kaïd’s authorisation.” “Quite right,” said the magistrate, approvingly. “We met his wife, as she was coming from the water.” “What an abomination!” howled the biped brute; “to stop a woman on the road!” “And who, for the promise of a trifling reward, told us the whole affair.” “A capital witness!--a she-beggar, who betrays me!” “She explained that it was her husband who stole our bullock, in order to provide himself with a store of salt meat.” “Sidi Bou Krari! That a woman should lie like that!” “She then showed us several goat-skins filled with the meat.” “As if a Mussulman were not allowed to keep salted meat in his tent!” “And, to remove all doubt as to where the meat came from, she showed us the bullock’s head lying in one corner of the tent, still in a state sufficiently preserved to enable us to recognise the animal.” “What a horrible she-vagabond! But her evidence is good for nothing; I had given her a beating not two days before.” “Our only thought then was to seize the wild-boar who is now before you. There was the difficulty; for this son of Satan is as strong as no one else, and can knock down a camel with a blow of his fist.” “What a joke! I am as mild as a sheep.” “Twenty of us met in company, and at dawn of day, informed by his wife--” “What a pity I did not strangle her, as I meant to!” “Informed by his wife that he was still asleep, we rushed down upon him; and, after a hard struggle, contrived to bind him in the way you see, as he lay on his mat.” “Sidi Abd-Allah! What treachery! To attack a good Mussulman as he lay asleep!”