THE KAID'b ADVENTURES.

Feilding Star, Volume II, Issue 592, 24 March 1908, Page 1

THE KAID'b ADVENTURES.

SIR HARRY MACLEAN AND RAISULI. The narrative of Kaid Mac Lean, describing his experiences as an unwilling guest of that picturesque ruffian, Rasuli, furnishes exc'ting reading. When the Kaid first met Raisuli at tho river (ostensibly on his willing way to Fez), ho was " awfully nice." He asked the Sultan's distinguished emissary to como a littlo way into th© rebel chiefs' country to show that he also trusted them "I made Raisuli clasp hands," the Kaid continues, " and swear by everything ho Jiq^s sacred that he was going to act fairly. He did all these things, and added that it was a shame I should think that he would behave ill. 'You ought not,' he said, 'to talk in this way. Am I not. going to put my life in your hands by accompanying you to Fess?'" Then the Ruibictm was passed, .and the Kaid was a captive. At first he was treated with conspicuous callousness, and not a littlo cruelly, and eventually Raisuli retreated with his prey into the mountains. He was concealed carefully from view, and the hiding-place frequently changed, until fear of the effect of the presence of the Sultan's levies had passed. A period of brutish persecution followed, the Kaid being reduced to a skeleton, but with his spirit still unbroken. On August 27 the first letter inviting Raisuli to come to terms arrived. Realising the profitably-ne-gotiable nature of the security he held, the outlaw chief directed his attention to preserving the well-being of his victim, and bette rtreatment, for a idmo, followed. Raisuli asked for the moon, and, not getting it visited all delays upon the distressful Soot. A period of further torture (smacking largely of "civilised" methods) was then embarked upon. The two-stringed fiddle of the country was brought into action and played night and day, with the pb-Ject^-a successful one—of preventing the Kaid from sleeping. A single tune was ground out with fiendish persistency, and the exquisite nature of the punishment upon the involun-itaa-y audieaioe of one may, perhaps, be most vividly imagined by residents in the piano-ridden Suburbia. In face of the prospect of a ransom forthcoming at an early date, the distracting strains of the fiddle were ultimately silenced, and in November arrangements for the Raid's release began to take practical shape. It was not until February, however, that he was indisputably his own man again.