chief business of the day seemed to be begging. One bow-legged rascal
in a ragged jellab went about constantly with a little loaf of bread,
crying, "An ounce of butter for God's sake!" and when some one gave him
the alms he asked he stuck the white sprawling mess on the top of the
loaf and changed his cry to "An ounce of cheese for God's sake!" A pert
little vagabond--street Arab in a double sense--promenaded the town
barefoot, carrying an odd slipper in his hand, and calling on all men
by the love of God and the face of God and the sake of God to give him a
moozoonah towards the cost of its fellow. Every morning the Sultan went
to mosque under his red umbrella, and every evening he sat in the hall
of the court of justice, pretending to hear the petitions of the poor,
but actually dispensing charms in return for presents. First an old
wrinkled reprobate with no life left in him but the life of lust: "A
charm to make my young wife love me!" Then an ill-favoured hag behind
a blanket: "A charm to wither the face of the woman that my husband has
taken instead of me!" Again, a young wife with a tearful voice: "A charm
to make me bear children!" A greasy smile from the fat Sultan, a scrap
of writing to every supplicant, chinking coins dropped into the bag of
the attendant from the treasury, and then up and away. It was a nauseous
draught from the bitterest waters of Islam.

But, for all the religious tumult, no man was deceived by the outward
marks of devotion. At the corners of the streets, on the Feddan, by the
fountains, wherever men could meet and talk unheard, there they stood
in little groups, crossing their forefingers, the sign of strife,
or rubbing them side by side, the sign of amity. It was clear that,
notwithstanding the hubbub of their loyalty to the sultan, they knew
that the Spaniard was coming and were glad of it.

Meantime Ali waited with impatience for the day that was to see the end