ALI'S RETURN TO TETUAN
The plan which the Mahdi thought of had first been Ali's, for the black
lad was back in Tetuan. After he had fulfilled his errand of mercy at
Shawan; he had gone on to Ceuta; and there, with a spirit afire for the
wrongs of his master, from whom he was so cruelly parted, he had set
himself with shrewdness and daring to incite the Spanish powers to
vengeance upon his master's enemies. This had been a task very easy of
execution, for just at that time intelligence had come from the Reef, of
barbarous raids made by Ben Aboo upon mountain tribes that had hitherto
offered allegiance to the Spanish crown. A mission had gone up to Fez,
and returned unsatisfied. War was to be declared, Marteel was to be
bombarded, the army of Marshal O'Donnel was to come up the valley of the
river, and Tetuan was to be taken.
Such were the operations which by the whim of fate had been so strangely
revealed to Ali, but Ali's own plan was a different matter. This was
the feast of the Moolood, and on one of the nights of it, probably the
eighth night, the last night, Friday night, Ben Aboo the Basha was to
give a “gathering of delight,” to the Sultan, his Ministers, his Kaids,
his Kadis, his Khaleefas, his Umana, and great rascals generally. Ali's
stout heart stuck at nothing. He was for having the Spaniards brought up
to the gates of the town, on the very night when the whole majesty and
iniquity of Barbary would be gathered in one room; then, locking the
entire kennel of dogs in the banqueting hall, firing the Kasbah and
burning it to the ground, with all the Moorish tyrants inside of it like
rats in a trap.
One danger attended his bold adventure, for Naomi's person was within
the Kasbah walls. To meet this peril Ali was himself to find his way
into the dungeon, deliver Naomi, lock the Kasbah gate, and deliver up to
another the key that should serve as a signal for the beginning of the
great night's work.
Also one difficulty attended it, for while Ali would be at the Kasbah
there would be no one to bring up the Spaniards at the proper moment for
the siege--no one in Tetuan on whom the strangers could rely not to
lead them blindfold into a trap. To meet this difficulty Ali had gone in
search of the Mahdi, revealed to him his plan, and asked him to help
in the downfall of his master's enemies by leading the Spaniards at the
right moment to the gates that should be thrown open to receive them.
Hearing Ali's story, the Mahdi had been aflame with tender thoughts
of Naomi's trials, with hatred of Ben Aboo's tyrannies, and pity of
Israel's miseries. But at first his humanity had withheld him from
sympathy with Ali's dark purpose, so full, as it seemed, of barbarity
and treachery.
“Ali,” he had said, “is it not all you wish for to get Naomi out of
prison and take her back to her father?”
“Yes, Sidi,” Ali had answered promptly.
“And you don't want to torture these tyrants if you can do what you
desire without it?”
“No-o, Sidi,” Ali had said doubtfully.
“Then,” the Mahdi had said, “let us try.”
But when the Mahdi was gone to Tetuan on his errand of warning that
proved so vain, Ali had crept back behind him, so that secretly and
independently he might carry out his fell design. The towns-people were
ready to receive him, for the air was full of rebellion, and many had
waited long for the opportunity of revenge. To certain of the Jews, his
master's people, who were also in effect his own, he went first with his
mission, and they listened with eagerness to what he had come to say.
When their own time came to speak they spoke cautiously, after the
manner of their race, and nervously, like men who knew too well what
it was to be crushed and kept under; but they gave their help
notwithstanding, and Ali's scheme progressed.
In less than three days the entire town, Moorish and Jewish, was
honeycombed with subterranean revolt. Even the civil guard, the soldiers
of the Kasbah, the black police that kept the gates, and the slaves that
stood before the Basha's table were waiting for the downfall to come.
The Mahdi had gone again by this time, and the people had resumed their
mock rejoicings over the Sultan's visit. These were the last kindlings
of their burnt-out loyalty, a poor smouldering pretence of fire. Every
morning the town was awakened by the deafening crackle of flintlocks,
which the mountaineers discharged in the Feddan by way of signal that
the Sultan was going to say his prayers at the door of some saint's
house. Beside the firing of long guns and the twanging of the ginbri the
chief business of the day seemed to be begging. One bow-legged rascal
in a ragged jellab went about constantly with a little loaf of bread,
crying, “An ounce of butter for God's sake!” and when some one gave him
the alms he asked he stuck the white sprawling mess on the top of the
loaf and changed his cry to “An ounce of cheese for God's sake!” A pert
little vagabond--street Arab in a double sense--promenaded the town
barefoot, carrying an odd slipper in his hand, and calling on all men
by the love of God and the face of God and the sake of God to give him a
moozoonah towards the cost of its fellow. Every morning the Sultan went
to mosque under his red umbrella, and every evening he sat in the hall
of the court of justice, pretending to hear the petitions of the poor,
but actually dispensing charms in return for presents. First an old
wrinkled reprobate with no life left in him but the life of lust: “A
charm to make my young wife love me!” Then an ill-favoured hag behind
a blanket: “A charm to wither the face of the woman that my husband has
taken instead of me!” Again, a young wife with a tearful voice: “A charm
to make me bear children!” A greasy smile from the fat Sultan, a scrap
of writing to every supplicant, chinking coins dropped into the bag of
the attendant from the treasury, and then up and away. It was a nauseous
draught from the bitterest waters of Islam.
But, for all the religious tumult, no man was deceived by the outward
marks of devotion. At the corners of the streets, on the Feddan, by the
fountains, wherever men could meet and talk unheard, there they stood
in little groups, crossing their forefingers, the sign of strife,
or rubbing them side by side, the sign of amity. It was clear that,
notwithstanding the hubbub of their loyalty to the sultan, they knew
that the Spaniard was coming and were glad of it.
Meantime Ali waited with impatience for the day that was to see the end
of his enterprise. To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night,
during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out
of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick
his steps in the silence up the winding streets, until he came under a
narrow opening in an alley which was the only window to Naomi's prison.
And there he would stay the long dark hours through, as if he thought
that besides the comfort it brought to him to be near to Naomi, the
tramp, tramp, tramp of his footsteps, which once or twice provoked the
challenge of the night-guard on his lonely round, would be company to
her in her solitude. And sometimes, watching his opportunity that he
might be unseen and unheard, he would creep in the darkness under the
window and cry up the wall in an underbreath, “Naomi! Naomi! It is I,
Ali! I have come back! All will be well yet!”
Then if he heard nothing from within he would torture himself with
a hundred fears lest Naomi should be no longer there, but in a worse
place; and if he heard a sob he would slink away like a dog with his
muzzle to the dust, and if he heard his own name echoed in the softer
voice he knew so well he would go off with head erect, feeling like a
man who walked on the stars rather than the stones of the street. But,
whatever befell, before the day dawned he went back to his lodging less
sore at heart for his lonely vigil, but not less wrathful or resolute.
The day of the feast came at length, and then Ali's impatience rose
to fever. All day he longed for the night, that the thing he had to do
could be done. At last the sunset came and the darkness fell, and from
his place of concealment Ali saw the soldiers of the assaseen going
through the streets with lanterns to lead honoured guests to the
banquet. Then he set out on his errand. His foresight and wit had
arranged everything. The negro at the gate of the Kasbah pretended to
recognise him as a messenger of the Vizier's, and passed him through. He
pushed his way as one with authority along the winding passages to the
garden where the Mahdi had called on Abd er-Rahman and foretold his
fate. The garden opened upon the great hall, and a number of guests were
standing there, cooling themselves in the night air while they waited
for the arrival of the Sultan. His Shereefian Majesty came at length,
and then, amid salaams and peace-blessings, the company passed in to
the banquet. “Peace on you!” “And on you the peace!” “God make your
evening!” “May your evening be blessed!”
Did Ali shrink from the task at that moment? No, a thousand times no!
While he looked on at these men in their muslin and gauze and linen and
scarlet, sweeping in with bows and hand-touchings to sup and to laugh
and to tell their pretty stories, he remembered Israel broken and alone
in the poor hut which had been described to him, and Naomi lying in her
damp cell beyond the wall.
Some minutes he stood in the darkness of the garden, while the guests
entered, and until the barefooted servants of the kitchen began to troop
in after them with great dishes under huge covers. Then he held a short
parley with the negro gatekeeper, two keys were handed to him, and in
another minute he was standing at the door of Naomi's prison.
Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down
to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he
had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of
all--the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by
the gift of sight, and would now first look upon _him_. That he would
be the same as a stranger to her, and would have to tell her who he was;
that she would have to recognise him by whatsoever means remained to
belie the evidence of the newborn sense--this was the least of Ali's
trouble. By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had
haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand
to Shawan. He was black, and she would see him.
With the gliding of the key into the lock all this, and more than this,
flashed upon his mind. His shame was abject. It cut him to the quick.
On the other side of that door was she who had been as a sister to him
since times that were lost in the blue clouds of childhood. She had
played with him and slept by his side, yet she had never seen his face.
And she was fair as the morning, and he was black as the night! He had
come to deliver her. Would she recoil from him?
Ali had to struggle with himself not to fly away and leave everything.
But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose. “What
matter?” he thought. “What matter about me?” he asked himself aloud in
a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head. Then he found
himself inside the cell.
The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must
have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was
opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah,
and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her
feet. In his confusion Ali said simply, “It is I,” as though that meant
everything. Recovering himself in a moment he spoke again, and then she
knew his voice: “Naomi!”
“It's Ali,” she whispered to herself. After that she cried in a
trembling undertone “Ali! Ali! Ali!” and came straight in the accustomed
darkness to the spot where he stood.
Then, gathering courage and voice together, Ali told her hurriedly why
he was there. When he said that her father was no longer in prison, but
at their home near Semsa and waiting to receive her, she seemed almost
overcome by her joy. Half laughing, half weeping, clutching at her
breast as if to ease the wild heaving of her bosom she was transformed
by his story.
“Hush!” said Ali; “not a sound until we are outside the town,” and Naomi
knitted her fingers in his palm, and they passed out of the place.
The banquet was now at its height, and hastening down dark corridors
where they were apt to fall, for they had no light to see by, and coming
into the garden, they heard the ripple and crackle of laughter from the
great hall where Ben Aboo and his servile rascals feasted together. They
reached the quiet alley outside the Kasbah (for the negro was gone from
his post), and drew a lone breath, and thanked Heaven that this much was
over. There had been no group of beggars at the gate, and the streets
around it were deserted; but in the distance, far across the town in the
direction of the Bab el Marsa, the gate that goes out to Marteel, they
heard a low hum as of vast droves of sheep. The Spaniard was coming, and
the townsmen were going out to meet him. Casual passers-by challenged
them, and though Ali knew that even if recognised they had nothing to
fear from the people, yet more than once his voice trembled when he
answered, and sometimes with a feeling of dread he turned to see that no
one was following.
As he did so he became aware of something which brought back the shame
of that awful moment when he stood with the key in hand at the door of
Naomi's prison. By the light of the lamps in the hands of the passers-by
Naomi was looking at him. Again and again, as the glare fell for an
instant, he felt the eyes of the girl upon his face. At such moments he
thought she must be drawing away from him, for the space between them
seemed wider. But he firmly held to the outstretched arm, kept his head
aside, and hastened on.
“What matter about me?” he whispered again. But the brave word brought
him no comfort. “Now she's looking at my hand,” he told himself, but
he could not draw it away. “She is doubting if I am Ali after all,” he
thought. “Naomi!” he tried to say with averted head, so that once again
the sound of his voice might reassure her; but his throat was thick, and
he could not speak. Still he pushed on.
The dark town just then was like a mountain chasm when a storm that has
been gathering is about to break. In the air a deep rumble, and then a
loud detonation. Blackness overhead, and things around that seemed to
move and pass.
Drawing near to the Bab Toot, the gate that witnessed the last scene of
Israel's humiliation and Naomi's shame, Ali, with the girl beside him,
came suddenly into a sheet of light and a concourse of people. It was
the Mahdi and his vast following with lamps in their hands, entering the
town on the west, while the Spaniards whom they had brought up to the
gates were coming in on the east. The Mahdi himself was locking the
synagogues and the sanctuaries.
“Lock them up,” he was saying. “It is enough that the foreigner must
burn down the Sodom of our tyrant; let him not outrage the Zion of our
God.”
Ali led Naomi up to the Mahdi, who saw her then for the first time.
“I have brought her,” he said breathlessly; “Naomi, Israel's daughter,
this is she.” And then there was a moment of surprise and joy, and pain
and shame and despair, all gathered up together into one look of the
eyes of the three.
The Mahdi looked at Naomi, and his face lightened. Naomi looked at Ali,
and her pale face grew paler, and she passed a tress of her fair hair
across her lips to smother a little nervous cry that began to break from
her mouth. Then she looked at the Mahdi, and her lips parted and her
eyes shone. Ali looked at both, and his face twitched and fell.
This was only the work of an instant, but it was enough. Enough for
the Mahdi, for it told him a secret that the wisdom of life had not yet
revealed; enough for Naomi, for a new sense, a sixth sense, had surely
come to her; enough for Ali also, for his big little heart was broken.
“What matter about me?” thought Ali again. “Take her, Mahdi,” he said
aloud in a shrill voice. “Her father is waiting for her--take her to
him.”
“Lady,” said the Mahdi, “can you trust me?”
And then without a word she went to him; like the needle to the magnet
she went to the Mahdi--a stranger to her, when all strangers were as
enemies--and laid her hand in his.
Ali began to laugh, “I'm a fool,” he cried. “Who could have believed
it? Why, I've forgotten to lock the Kasbah! The villains will escape. No
matter, I'll go back.”
“Stop!” cried the Mahdi.
But Ali laughed so loudly that he did not hear. “I'll see to it yet,” he
cried, turning on his heel. “Good night, Sidi! God bless you! My love to
my father! Farewell!”
And in another moment he was gone.