The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder Read Online Free PDF

wrist.
    Mahmet shrieked.
    Djemal got to his feet, inspired to further attack. How he hated this smelly little creature who considered himself his “master”!
    “Aaaah! Back! Down!” Mahmet yelled, and brandished the whip, retreating.
    Djemal walked steadily towards Mahmet, teeth bared, and his eyes big and red with fury. Mahmet ran and took shelter behind the bending trunk of a date tree. Djemal circled the tree. He could smell the sharp stink of Mahmet’s terror.
    Mahmet was snatching off his old djellaba. He pulled off his turban also, and flung both these things towards Djemal.
    Surprised, Djemal bit into the smelly clothes, shaking his head as if he had his teeth in Mahmet’s neck and was shaking him to death. Djemal snorted and attacked the turban, now unwound in a long dirty length. He ate part of it, and stomped his big front feet on the rest.
    Mahmet, behind his tree, began to breathe more easily. He knew that camels could vent their wrath on the clothes of the man they hated, and that was the end of it. He hoped so. He didn’t fancy walking back to Khassa. He wanted to go to Elu-Bana, which he considered “home.”
    Djemal at last lay down. He was tired, almost too tired to bother putting himself in the patchy shade under the date tree. He slept.
    Mahmet prodded him awake, carefully. The sun was setting. Djemal nipped at him, missing. Mahmet thought it wise to ignore it.
    “Up, Djemal! Up—and we go!” said Mahmet.
    Djemal plodded. He plodded on into the night, feeling the faint trail more than seeing it in the sand. The night was cool.
    On the third day, they arrived at Souk Mandela, a busy market town, though small. Mahmet had decided to sell Djemal here. So he made for the open market where braziers, rugs, jewelry, camel saddles, pots and pans, hairpins and just about everything was for sale and on display on the ground. Camels were for sale too, at one corner. He led Djemal there, walking himself and being careful to look over his shoulder and to walk far enough ahead so that Djemal would not bite him.
    “Cheap,” Mahmet said to the dealer. “Six hundred dinars. He’s a fine camel, you can see that. And he just won the Elu-Bana to Khassa race!”
    “Oh yes? That’s not the way we heard it!” said a turbaned camel driver who was listening, and a couple of others laughed. “He collapsed!”
    “Yes, we heard you didn’t stop for water, you crooked old bastard!” said someone else.
    “Even so—” Mahmet began, and dodged as Djemal’s teeth came at him.
    “Ha! Ha! Even his camel doesn’t like this one!” said one old beard.
    “Three hundred!” Mahmet screamed. “With the saddle!”
    A man pointed to Djemal’s beaten shoulder, which was still bloody and on which flies had settled, as if it were a serious and permanent defect, and proposed two hundred and fifty dinars.
    Mahmet accepted. Cash. The man had to go home to get it. Mahmet waited sullenly in some shade, watching the dealer and another man leading Djemal to the market water trough. He had lost a good camel—lost money, even more painful—but Mahmet was damned glad to be rid of Djemal. His life was worth more than money, after all.
    That afternoon, Mahmet caught an uncomfortable bus to Elu-Bana. He was carrying his gear, empty watersacks, spirit lamp, cooking pot and blanket. He slept like the dead in an alley behind the restaurant where he often ate couscous. The next morning, with a clear vision of his bad luck, and the stinging memory of the low price he had got for one of the best camels in the country, Mahmet pilfered one of the tourists’ cars. He got a plaid blanket and a bonus beneath it—a camera—a silver flask from the glove compartment, and a brown-paper-wrapped parcel which contained a small rug evidently just bought in the market. This theft took less than a minute, because the car was unlocked. It was in front of a shabby bar, and a couple of barefoot adolescent boys sitting at a table in the sand merely