"Mack Reynolds - North Africa 01 - Blackman's Burden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

been somewhat of a renaissance of violence between traditional foes.

However, the newcomers, though dark as Negro Bela slaves, wore
Tuareg dress, loose baggy trousers of dark indigo-blue cotton cloth, a
loose, nightgownlike white cotton shirt, and over this a gandoura outer
garment. Above all, they wore the teguelmoust, though they were
shockingly lax in keeping it properly up about the mouth.

Moussa-ag-Amastan knew that he was backed by ten or more of his
clansmen, half of whom bore rifles, the rest Tuareg broadswords,
Crusader-like with their two edges, round points and flat rectangular
cross-members. Only two of the strangers seemed armed and they
negligently bore their smallish guns in the crooks of their arms. The clan
leader spoke at length, then, but he said the traditional, "La bas."

"There is no evil," repeated the foremost of the newcomers. His
Tamaheq, the Berber language of the Tuareg confederations, seemed
perfect.

Moussa-ag-Amastan said, "What do you do in the lands of the Taitoq
Tuareg?"

The stranger, a tall, handsome man with a dominating though pleasant
personality, indicated the vehicles with a sweep of his hand. "We are
Enaden, itinerent smiths. As has ever been our wont, we travel from
encampment to encampment to sell our products and to make repair
upon your metal possessions."

Enaden! The traveling smiths of the Ahaggar, and indeed of the whole
Sahara, were a despised and ragged lot at best. Few there were that ever
possessed more than a small number of camels, a sprinkling of goats,
perhaps a sheep or two. But these seemed as rich as Roumas, as
Europeans or Americans.

Moussa-ag-Amastan muttered, "You jest with us at your peril,
stranger." He pointed an aged but still strong hand at the vehicles.
"Enaden do not own such as these."

The newcomer shrugged. "I am Omar ben Crawf and these are my
followers, Abrahim el Bakr Ma el Ainin, Keni Ballalou and
Bey-ag-Akhamouk. We come today from Tamanrasset and we are smiths,
as we can prove. As is known, there is high pay to be earned by working in
the oil fields, at the dams on the Niger, in the afforestation projects, in the
sinking of the new wells whose pumps utilize the rays of the sun, in the
developing of the great new oases. There is much Rouma money to be
made in such work and my men and I have bought these vehicles specially
built in the new factories in Dakar for desert use."

"Slave work!" one of Moussa-ag-Amastan's kinsmen sneered.