At every step their numbers had increased but their substance had diminished, for only the destitute had joined them.
Nevertheless, while they had their flocks and herds they had borne their privations patiently--the weary journeys, the exposure, the long rains of the spring and the scorching heat of summer.

But the soldiers of the Kaids whose provinces they had passed through had stripped them of both in the name of tribute.

The last raid on their poverty had been made that very day by the Kaid of Fez, and now they were without goats or sheep or oxen, or even the guns with which they had killed the wild bear, and their children were crying to them for bread.
So the people's faces grew black, and they looked into each other's eyes in their impotent rage.

Why had they been brought out of the cities to starve?
Better to stay there and suffer than come out and perish! What of the vain promises that had been made to them that God would feed them as He fed the birds! God was witness to all their calamities; He was seeing them robbed day by day, He was seeing them famish hour by hour, He was seeing them die.

They had been fooled! A vain man had thought to plough his way to power.