The Scapegoat Part 34

It was the beginning of the end. In less than a minute more, while the rascals lolled over the floor in half a hundred different postures, with the hazy lights from the bra.s.s lamps and the gla.s.s candelabras on their dusky faces, their gleaming teeth, and dancing eyes, the messenger who had been sent for Naomi came back with the news that she was gone. Then Ben Aboo rose in silent consternation, but his guests only laughed the louder, until a second messenger, a soldier of the guard, came running with more startling news. Marteel had been bombarded by the Spaniards; the army of Marshall O'Donnel was under the walls of Tetuan, and their own people were opening the gates to him.

The tumult and confusion which followed upon this announcement does not need to be detailed. Shoutings for the mkhaznia, infuriated commands to the guards, racings to the stables and the Kasbah yard, unhobbling of horses, stamping and clattering of hoofs, and scurryings through dark corridors of men carrying torches and flares. There was no attempt at resistance. That was seen to be useless. Both the civil guard and the soldiery had deserted. The Kasbah was betrayed. Terror spread like fire.

In very little time the Sultan and his company with their women and eunuchs, were gone from the town through the straggling mult.i.tude of their disorderly and dissolute and worthless soldiery lying asleep on the southern side of it.

Ben Aboo did not fly with Abd er-Rahman. He remembered that he had treasure, and as soon as he was alone he went in search of it. There were fifty thousand dollars, sweat of the life-blood of innocent people.

No one knew the strong-room except himself, for with his own hand he had killed the mason who built it. In the dark he found the place, and taking bags in both his hands and hiding them under the folds of his selham, he tried to escape from the Kasbah unseen.

It was too late; the Spanish soldiers were coming up the arcades, and Ben Aboo, with his money-bags, took refuge in a granary underground, near the wall of the Kasbah gate. From that dark cell, crouching on the grain, which was alive with vermin, he listened in terror to the sounds of the night. First the galloping of horses on the courtyard overhead; then the furious shouts of the soldiers, and, finally, the mad cries of the crowd. "d.a.m.n it--they've given us the slip." "Yes; they've crawled off like rats from a sinking s.h.i.+p." "Curse it all, it's only a bungle."

This in the Spanish tongue, and then in the tongue of his own country Ben Aboo heard the guttural shouts of his own people: "Sidi, try the palace." "Try the apartments of his women, Sidi." "Abd er-Rahman's gone, but Ben Aboo's hiding." "Death to the tyrant!" "Down with the Basha!"

"Ben Aboo! Ben Aboo!" Last of all a terrific voice demanding silence.

"Silence, you shrieking h.e.l.l-babies, silence!"

Ben Aboo was in safety; but to lie in that dark hole underground and to hear the tumult above him was more than he could bear without going mad.

So he waited until the din abated, and the soldiers, who had ransacked the Kasbah, seemed to have deserted it; and then he crept out, made for the women's apartments, and rattled at their door. It was folly, it was lunacy; but he could not resist it, for he dared not be alone. He could hear the sounds of voices within--wailing and weeping of the women--but no one answered his knocking. Again and again he knocked with his elbows (still gripping his money-bags with both hands), until the flesh was raw through selham and kaftan by beating against the wood. Still the door remained unopened, and Ben Aboo, thinking better of his quest for company, fled to the patio, hoping to escape by a little pa.s.sage that led to the alley behind the Kasbah.

Here he encountered Katrina and a guard of five black soldiers who were helping her flight. "We are safe," she whispered--"they've gone back into the Feddan--come;" and by the light of a lamp which she carried she made for the winding corridor that led past the bath and the sanctuary to the Kasbah gate. But Ben Aboo only cursed her, and fumbled at the low door of the pa.s.sage that went out from the alcove to the alley. He was lumbering through with his armless roll, intending to clash the door back in Katrina's face, when there was a fierce shout behind him, and for some minutes Ben Aboo knew no more.

The shout was Ali's. After leaving the Mahdi on the heath outside the Bab Toot, the black lad had hunted for the Basha. When the Spanish soldiers abandoned the Kasbah he continued his search. Up and down he had traversed the place in the darkness; and finding Ben Aboo at last, on the spot where he had first seen him, he rushed in upon him and brought him to the ground. Seeing Ben Aboo down, the black soldiers fell upon Ali. The brave lad died with a shout of triumph. "Israel ben Oliel," he cried, as if he thought that name enough to save his soul and d.a.m.n the soul of Ben Aboo.

But Ben Aboo was not yet done with his own. The blow that had been aimed at his heart had no more than grazed his shoulder. "Get up," whispered Katrina, half in wrath; and while she stooped to look for his wounds, her face and hands as seen in the dim light of the lantern were bedaubed with his blood. At that moment the guards were crying that the Kasbah was afire, and at the next they were gone, leaving Katrina alone with the unconscious man. "Get up," she cried again, and tugging at Ben Aboo's unconscious body she struck it in her terror and frenzy. It was every one for himself in that bad hour. Katrina followed the guards, and was never afterwards heard of.

When Ben Aboo came to himself the patio was aglow with flames. He staggered to his feet, still grappling to his breast the money-bags hidden under his selham. Then, bleeding from his shoulder and with blood upon his beard, he made afresh for the pa.s.sage leading to the back alley. The pa.s.sage was narrow and dark. There were three winding steps at the end of it. Ben Aboo was dizzy and he stumbled.

But the pa.s.sage was silent, it was safe, and out in the alley a sea of voices burst upon him. He could hear the tramp of countless footsteps, the cries of mult.i.tudes of voices, and the rattle of flintlocks.

Lanterns, torches, flares and flashes of gunpowder came and went at both ends of the long dark tunnel. In the light of these he saw a struggling current of angry faces. The living sea encircled him. He knew what had happened. At the first certainty that his power was gone and that there was nothing to fear from his vengeance, his own people had gathered together to destroy him.

There were two small mean houses on the opposite side of the alley, and Ben Aboo tried to take refuge in the first of them. But the woman who came with uncovered face to the door was the widow of the mason who had built his strong-room. "Murderer and dog!" she cried, and shut the door against him. He tried the other house. It was the house of the mason's son. "Forgive me," he cried. "I am corrected by Allah! Yes, yes, it is true I did wrong by your father, but forgive me and save me." Thus he pleaded, throwing himself on the ground and crawling there. "Dog and coward," the young man shouted, and beat him back into the street.

Ben Aboo's terror was now appalling to look upon. His face was that of a snared beast. With bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks, and short thick breath, he ran from dark alley to dark alley, trying every house where he thought he might find a friend. "Alee, don't you know me?" "Mohammed, it is I, Ben Aboo." "See, El Arby, here's money, money; it's yours, only save me, save me!" With such frantic cries he raced about in the darkness like a hunted wolf. But not a house would shelter him.

Everywhere he met relatives of men who had died through his means, and he was driven away with curses.

Meantime, a rumour that Ben Aboo was in the streets had been bruited abroad among the people, and their l.u.s.t of blood was thereby raised to madness. Screaming and spitting and raving, and firing their flintlocks, they poured from street into street, watching for their victim and seeing him in every shadow. "He's here!" "He's there!" "No, he's yonder!" "He's scaling the high wall like a cat!"

Ben Aboo heard them. Their inarticulate cries came to him laden with one message only--death. He could see their faces, their snarling teeth.

Sometimes he would rave and blaspheme. Then he would make another effort for his life. But the whirlpool was closing in upon him; and at last, like one who flings himself over a precipice from dizziness, fears, and irresistible fascination, he flung himself into the middle of the infuriated throng as they scurried across the open Feddan.

From that moment Ben Aboo's doom was sealed. The people received him with a long furious roar, a cry of triumphant execration, as if their own astuteness at length had entrapped him. He stood with his back to the high wall; the bellowing crowd was before him on either side. By the torches that many carried all could see him. Turban and shasheeah had fallen off, and the bald crown of his head was bare. His face retained no human expression but fear. He was seen to draw his arms from beneath his selham, to hold both his money-bags against his breast, to plunge a hand into the necks of them, and fling handfuls of coins to the people.

"Silver," he cried; "silver, silver for everybody."

The despairing appeal was useless. n.o.body touched the money. It flashed white through the air, and fell unheard. "Death to the Kaid!" was shouted on every side. Nevertheless, though half the men carried guns, no man fired. By unspoken consent it seemed to be understood that the death of Ben Aboo was not to be the act of one, but of all. "Stones,"

cried somebody out of the crowd, and in another moment everybody was picking stones, and piling them at his feet or gathering them in the skirt of his jellab.

Ben Aboo knew his awful fate. Gesticulating wildly, having flung the money-bags from him, s...o...b..ring and screaming, the blighted soul was seen to raise his eyes towards the black sky, his thick lubber lips working visibly, as if in wild invocation of heaven. At the next instant the stones began to fall on him. Slowly they fell at first, and he reeled under them like a drunken man; the back of his neck arched itself like the neck of a bull, and like the roar of a bull was the groan that came from his throat. Then they fell faster, and he swayed to and fro, and grunted, with his beard bobbing at his breast, and his tongue lolling out. Faster and faster, and thicker and thicker they showered upon him, darting out of the darkness like swallows of the night. His clothes were rent, his blood spirted over them, he staggered as a beast staggers in the slaughter, and at length his thick knees doubled up, and he fell in a round heap like a ball.

The ferocity of the crowd was not yet quelled. They hailed the fall of Ben Aboo with a triumphant howl, but their stones continued to shower upon his body. In a little while they had piled a cairn above it.

Then they left it with curses of content and went their ways. When the Spanish soldiers, who had stood aside while the work was done, came up with their lanterns to look at this monument of Eastern justice, the heap of stones was still moving with the terrific convulsions of death.

Such was the fall of El Arby, nicknamed Ben Aboo.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"ALLAH-U-KABAR"

Travelling through the night,--Naomi laughing and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes in her new-found joy, and the Mahdi looking back at intervals at the huge outline of Tetuan against the blackness of the sky,--they came to the hut by Semsa before dawn of the following day. But they had come too late. Israel ben Oliel was not, after all, to set out for England. He was going on a longer journey. His lonely hour had come to him, his dark hour wherein none could bear him company. On a mattress by the wall he lay outstretched, unconscious, and near to his end. Two neighbours from the village were with him, and but for these he must have been alone--the mighty man in his downfall deserted by all save the great Judge and G.o.d.

What Naomi did when the first shock of this hard blow fell upon her, what she said, and how she bore herself, it would be a painful task to tell. Oh, the irony of fate! Ay, the irony of G.o.d! That scene, and what followed it, looked like a cruel and colossal jest--none the less cruel because long drawn out and as old as the days of Job.

It was useless to go out in search of a doctor. The country was as innocent of leechcraft as the land of Canaan in the days of Abraham. All they could do was to submit, absolutely and unconditionally. They were in G.o.d's hands.

The light was coming yellow and pink through the window under the eaves as Israel awoke to consciousness. He opened his eyes as if from sleep, and saw Naomi beside him. No surprise did he show at this, and neither did he at first betray pleasure. Dimly and softly he looked upon her, and then something that might have been a smile but for lack of strength pa.s.sed like suns.h.i.+ne out of a cloud across his wasted face. Naomi pressed a pillow-under his loins, and another under his head, thinking to ease the one and raise the other. But the iron hand of unconsciousness fell upon him again, and through many hours thereafter Naomi and the Mahdi sat together in silence with the mult.i.tudinous company of invisible things.

During that interval Fatimah came in hot haste, and they had news of Tetuan. The Spaniards had taken the town, but Abd er-Rahman and most of his Ministers had escaped. Ben Aboo had tried to follow them, but he had been killed in the alcove of the patio. Ali had killed him. He had rushed in upon him through a line of his guards. One of the guards had killed Ali. The brave black lad had fallen with the name of Israel on his lips and with a dauntless shout of triumph. The Kasbah was afire; it had been burning since the banquet of the night before.

Towards sunset peace fell upon Israel ben Oliel, and then they knew that the end was very near. Naomi was still kneeling at his right hand, and the Mahdi was standing at his left. Israel looked at the girl with a world of tenderness, though the hard grip of death was fast stiffening his n.o.ble face. More than once he glanced at the Mahdi also as if he wished to say something, and yet could not do so, because the power of life was low; but at last his voice found strength.

"I have left it too late," he said. "I cannot go to England."

Naomi wept more than ever at the sound of these faltering words, and it was not without effort that the Mahdi answered him.

"Think no more of that," he said, and then he stopped, as if the word that he had been about to speak had halted on his tongue.

"It is hard to leave her," said Israel, "for she is alone; and who will protect her when I am gone?"

"G.o.d lives," said the Mahdi, "and He is Father to the fatherless."

"But what Jew," said Israel, "would not repeat for her her father's troubles, and what Muslim could save her from her own?"

"Who that trusts in G.o.d," said the Mahdi, "need fear the Kaid?"

"But what man can save her?" cried Israel again.

And then the Mahdi, touched by Naomi's tears as well as her father's importunities, answered out of a hot heart and said--

"Peace, peace! If there is no one else to take her, from this day forward she shall go with me."

Naomi looked up at him then with such a light in her beautiful eyes as he has often since, but had never before seen there, and Israel ben Oliel who had been holding at his hand, clutched suddenly at his wrist.

"G.o.d bless you!" he said, as well as he could for the two angels, the angel of love and the angel of death, were struggling at his throat.

Israel looked steadily at the Mahdi for a moment more, and then said very softly--

"Death may come to me now; I am ready. Farewell, my father! I tried to do your bidding. Do you remember your watchword? But G.o.d _has_ given me rewards for repentance--see," and he turned his eyes towards the eyes of Naomi with a wasting yet sunny smile.

"G.o.d is good," said the Mahdi; "lie still, lie still," and he laid his cool hand on Israel's forehead.