The Arab's Pledge Part 17

This incident was not calculated to influence the Sultan's decision, but rather to increase his irritation against his victim. It would hardly have altered his resolve had the two witnesses come, like Judas, and said, "We have sinned, in that we have betrayed the innocent blood." But one being dead, and the other a madman, it left the case exactly as it stood.

At mid-day the fatal procession left the town by the Rahamna gate. First walked the Cadi and his secretaries, a green banner being carried before him: then followed the condemned martyr, in a long linen veil, surrounded by some thirty or forty guards, on foot and on horseback.

Then came the executioners with torches, ropes, and long knives, a large crowd of horse and foot from the town followed. As they left the gate, they raised the usual chaunt, "La Illaw Il Allah, Mohammed er rasool Allaw." This was taken up by the crowd, and the poor girl's heart sunk within her; she had not lost all hope, as she had received intimations, not very clear, that an attempt would be made to deliver her, and she started as she heard the following words, from two men in the crowd, just outside the guards, "_Is the black horse saddled?_" and the reply, "_Ay, Inshallah! and will win._" She remembered the signal of her escape from the lion, and she hoped almost against hope, but in any case she was prepared to meet her G.o.d.

"Where is the race?" said Abd el Aziz, who was one of the guards, deceived by the stranger's speech.

"The other side of the town, O Kad!" said the stranger; "we had a wager on our horses, but followed this crowd, to see the execution, but my heart sickens at the thought of it--a woman too!"

"I don't like it myself," said Abd el Aziz, "but I am a slave of the Sultan, his word must stand. If it had been a man--I know this one, and the infidel is beautiful. May I not be unmanned and shame my beard--you are not a Maroks.h.i.+."

"No! I am from Rif," said the horseman.

"Rif!" said Abd el Aziz, "you are all pirates in Rif--and you pretend to be soft-hearted."

"There are pirates in Rif, O Kad, and there are thieves in Marocco, but there are mountaineers in Rif, who never saw the sea. I heard that the witnesses against this infidel had retracted."

"How could that be?" said Abd el Aziz; "Ha.s.san, who is possessed with a devil, came to the M'Shouar and brought his friend's head under his arm to confirm him; but as one could not speak, and the devil spoke in the other, the Sultan was only more savage; he would have killed Ha.s.san, had it pleased G.o.d, but who would touch a Majnoon?"

"Inshallah!" said the stranger, "I cannot stand this burning, and you say she is beautiful." Then raising his voice, he said, "_The black horse is waiting._ If she is innocent, G.o.d will send her deliverance--Peace."

"Inshallah!" repeated Abd el Aziz, "when the mountain comes to our lord Mohammed;" and our friend Ali, dressed as a Moor, turned back with his companion, and galloped across the plain to a date-grove, where he had collected his followers; they were partly screened from observation, but as they were all dressed as Moors, any pa.s.sers-by supposed them to be a troop of the Sultan's soldiers on some duty, more especially as they guarded a woman's litter carried between two stout mules. One of the party was stationed in the top of a date-tree which overlooked the plain, and reported every thing that took place; he could see the preparations at the place of execution, and give early notice of any movement in the distance.

On a slight rising ground, about half a mile from the gates, the pile of wood had been raised. It was about eight feet high, built up around a stake fixed in the ground. The wood being a species of cedar was very inflammable, and to make it more so a quant.i.ty of pitch and turpentine had been added to it. A little apart, under the shade of a large tree, carpets had been spread for the Cadi and his party; here he took his seat, attended by the hors.e.m.e.n, while the foot-soldiers kept clear the s.p.a.ce around the pile. It would be a slander on the better cla.s.ses of the Moors, to suppose that they felt any of the pleasure of inquisitors, in witnessing, or being actors in, a tragedy like the present, on the contrary they were not only impressed with its impolicy, but shocked by its inhumanity and cruelty. Cases had occurred in which young Jews, in a fit of temporary irritation, arising out of family quarrels, had really apostatized, but had been allowed on proper representations made, accompanied by the judicious expenditure of money, to return to their own people; and so might Azora, but for the curse of beauty.

The Jews, for the most part, remained within doors, mourning for their sister, and bewailing the captivity of their people; but some few had gone out of the gate, afraid to approach, but standing afar off to see the end of the martyr to their faith.

Azora was first taken before the Cadi, and a crier called out the names of the witnesses, her accusers, but no one answered; after a pause, the names were again called, and again a third time without answer. The Cadi then produced his records, and the sworn deposition was read out. After this he read out the warrant of the Sultan for her execution. The old man's voice trembled and he looked wistfully in Azora's face in hopes of seeing some sign of her recantation. She was deadly pale, but as a sheep before her shearers, she was dumb, and they led her away to be burnt. At the pile her veil was taken off, and her face was as the face of an angel. With the exception of the brutified executioners, there were very few, even to the rough soldiers, who were not in tears.

Sheik Ali in the meantime was in a state of the most intense anxiety, on account of the delay of the Chief. As soon as he arrived at the ambush, he never took his eyes from the look-out, who sat among the feathery fronds of the date-tree, and reported what he saw in broken sentences.

"What seest thou, O brother?" said Ali.

"Nothing, O Sheik! The procession pa.s.ses on."

"And in the distance?--your eyes were wont to be good," said Ali.

"Nothing, O Sheik! The plain is white;--the procession has arrived;--the green flag of Islam is planted near a tree.--Two vultures have risen from the woods, on the south of the plain.--The woman is being taken towards the pile of wood."

"Mount!" said Ali, becoming desperate, and every man was in his saddle.

"A jackal has broken from the wood," resumed the scout, "it crosses the plain--looking back.--Now I think I see our people;--they emerge from the woods;--they are forming outside;--a body is left in reserve;--I see the Chief at the head of his band! Lo! they come!"

And the next minute he had slid to the ground.

Azora stood on the pile, in relief against the clear sky; one of the executioners was preparing the ropes to attach her to the stake, while the other stood by with the torch awaiting the order from the Cadi to fire the pile. Suddenly there was a movement of alarm among the crowd, and Azora's eye brightened, as, looking across the plain in the direction in which they swayed, she saw a cloud of dust approaching from the south; immediately afterwards a cry was raised, "El Aarb! El Aarb!

Fly! fly! The Arabs! the Arabs!" and in a few minutes the whole crowd was flying across the plain which separated them from the town, and streaming towards the gates like frightened cattle. Down came the dark ma.s.s of cavalry charging at full speed; the earth shook, and from three hundred voices rose above the noise and screams of the crowd the wild shout, "Allaw ho Ackbar!" Onward came the Arabs, in every variety of costume, turbans, and burnooses, from the marauding expedition, put over their blue s.h.i.+rts; their guns poised, they swept over the comparatively abandoned s.p.a.ce, separating as they pa.s.sed the pile; they trampled on or struck down the affrighted stragglers, and wheeling, brought up beyond.

The Chief, with Sheik Ayoub, were in the centre of the charge, and checking their speed as they came up, Ayoub sprang from his saddle to the top of the pile, and cutting with his ataghan the cords with which he had already begun to bind his victim, he dashed the executioner to the earth; the dogged villain, enraged at losing his prey, was up the next minute, and climbing the wood pile on the other side, dagger in hand to rush on Azora, when he was confronted by the glaring eye of Ha.s.san the maniac, who with one blow of his mace shattered his skull, and hurled him, this time, lifeless to the ground. In the meantime, the other executioner, inspired by the hate of fanaticism, before he attempted to escape, threw his torch into the prepared pile, which was instantly in a blaze; he was cut down and trampled under foot; but there was no time to be lost, and Azora, half fainting, was lowered down and placed in the litter, which had been sent forward by Ali.

Ali, while this had been going on, had not been idle; emerging from the grove, with a plume of black ostrich-feathers carried on a spear, to distinguish him to his tribesmen, he galloped down and surrounded the party of cavalry round the Cadi. Being dressed as Moors, these at first supposed they were friends come to their a.s.sistance, until they found themselves each with a double-barrel at his breast, and before they could recover from their surprise, they were all disarmed, and their horses hobbled; the Cadi and his scribes wondering whether it was written that their throats were to be cut by the Arabs.

"Resistance is useless," said Ali to the soldiers.

"You have seen me before, O my lord the Cadi!" and Al Maimon's face was as white as his beard at finding himself in the power of one who was looked on as an afreet, and who had so often escaped from his sentences.

"Ali el Bezz!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "O Sheik! I know you. G.o.d is merciful--I am an old man--I never wronged you--I give sentence according to law--but revenge is yours! Let me say the Fetha, and take my life--if it is written."

"Truly, O Al Maimon, you deserve to die, as an unjust judge. Do you not pervert the holy Koran for your purposes? Do you not take bribes to rob G.o.d's children, the widow and orphan? and are you not now here to shed innocent blood? But your victim is safe, and we have taught you the difference between Moorish law and Arab justice. I will not have your blood on my hands, when your grey beard will so soon be burning in Djehennem. You will presently be free. Show mercy, as you have received it. And tell your Sultan we laugh at his beard."

"O Sheik!" said Abd el Aziz, "the black horse has won the race."

Their attention was now attracted by a succession of yells from the burning pyre: "Woe unto you, Moslim! Woe unto you, murderers! Woe! woe!

Slay, O Sheik! cut them down! spare none! The Prophet's curse on them!

Woe! woe!" And they beheld Ha.s.san the maniac on the summit of the pile, now wrapped in flames, with his arms wildly waving, and shouting his curses. The Chief would have saved him, but Ha.s.san, unable to distinguish friend from foe, warned them off: "Woe unto you, murderers; you shall not take me alive! Death to the slave who approaches! Slay, O Ali!"--Here the smoke and flame rolled upward, and choked his utterance, and his voice broke into gurgling and spasmodic screams, as the fire wrapped him round, and his clothes and hair were fiercely ablaze. On the same spot where the vision of the Hebrew maiden had just before appeared against the sky, now stood forth the burning and appalling form of her accuser. He stood erect, one blackened arm pointing towards the band, the other wound round the glowing stake, a figure of horror. With a dying effort, as the wind blew the smoke from his face, he sent up a last sad cry, "O Azora! Azora! saved! saved! Allaw ho Ackbar!" and sank devoured in the flaming pyre.

The crowd had disappeared within the town gates, with the exception of some dozen maimed, who had been ridden down by the Arabs' charge.

Leaving the Cadi and his party at liberty, the whole band resumed their march, escorting the litter by the way they came. The sun shone on the vacant plain, on the black smouldering pile, on the whispering date-groves, and on the mud walls of the town, now manned with excited spectators, who did not, however, venture out, until the band of the Arab Chief, who had so n.o.bly redeemed his Pledge, gradually disappeared behind the distant woods.

FINISH.