I caught myself thinking: “What queer, ungodly places some people live in!” I had just muttered: “I suppose it is their native soil. They have lived here all their lives, like animals born in a cage, and they know no other world.” Then I caught sight of my guide, whom I had forgotten, glued against the wall, peering, ever so cautiously, out of one of the tower loopholes, aiming with his fingers, as if he held a rifle. From head to foot, he looked a perfect brigand. I followed the cue. Who knew the occupation of these people from one year’s end to the other? The brief halt of passing caravan told one nothing of that. Did raids go forth from those grim walls when hunger pressed, and all was quiet about them? It was more than likely. Certainly they possessed an unfettered freedom that gave outlet to that wildness of the wilderness that was in them, which ran, unknown to living soul outside their own little world, untamed and unchecked, through the shadowy alleys and dark dens within the walls, and, mayhap, found a fiercer outlet in evil-doing abroad. The hard-featured natives of the town are Beri-Beri. They are strangely animal-like, in general, perhaps because of their terrible environment, and their life is an underworld of vice. [Illustration: “THE DEN OF THE FORTY THIEVES”] I ceased pondering, and called the guide from his look-out. I asked him one question before we began the descent from the tower: “How many men have you killed?” He smiled at once, as if I had hit on a subject he knew something of, and that was much more pleasant than guiding a stranger through his town. Then he extended his left hand, and, with the other, slowly bent over each finger until they were all counted out. Whereupon he answered: “Five men I have killed.” At the outset I called Fachi _A City of Shadows_, impelled by the original beauty and magic of its wealth of shadowy scenes. That title has grown fourfold. Beside aught that there is of beauty, and threatening it, there are never-ending shadows in its openness to danger from outside, sharp shadows in its periods of hunger, and uncanny shadows in the threat of evil that lies behind barred doors and in the visages of cold-eyed men. CHAPTER VII SALT OF THE EARTH [Illustration] CHAPTER VII SALT OF THE EARTH