THE FALL OF BEN ABOO
The roysterers in the Kasbah sat a long half-hour in ignorance of the
doom that was impending. Squatting on the floor in little circles,
around little tables covered with steaming dishes, wherein each plunged
his fingers, they began the feast with ceremonious wishes, pious
exclamations, cant phrases, and downcast eyes. First, “God lengthen your
age,” “God cover you,” and “God give you strength.” Then a dish of dates,
served with abject apologies from Ben Aboo: “You would treat us better
in Fez, but Tetuan is poor; the means, Seedna, the means, not the will!”
Then fish in garlic, eaten with loud “Bismillah's.” Then kesksoo covered
with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and meat on skewers, and browned
fowls, and fowls and olives, and flake pastry and sponge fritters, each
eaten in its turn amid a chorus of “La Ilah illa Allah's.” Finally three
cups of green tea, as thick and sweet as syrup, drunk with many “Do me
the favour's,” and countless “Good luck's.” Last of all, the washing
of hands, and the fumigating of garments and beard and hair by the
live embers of scented wood burning in a brass censer, with incessant
exchanges of “The Prophet--God rest him--loved sweet odours almost as
much as sweet women.”
But after supper all this ceremony fell away, and the feasters thawed
down to a warm and flowing brotherhood. Lolling at ease on their rugs,
trifling with their egg-like snuff-boxes, fumbling their rosaries for
idleness more than piety, stretching their straps, and jingling on the
pavement the carved ends of their silver knife-shields, they laughed and
jested, and told dubious stories, and held doubtful discourse generally.
The talk turned on the distinction between great sins and little ones.
In the circle of the Sultan it was agreed that the great sins were two:
unbelief in the Prophet, whereby a man became Jew and dog; and smoking
keef and tobacco, which no man could do and be of correct life and
unquestionable Islam. The atonement for these great sins were five
prayers a day, thirty-four prostrations, seventeen chapters of the
Koran, and as many inclinations. All the rest were little sins; and
as for murder and adultery, and bearing false witness--well, God was
Merciful, God was Compassionate, God forgave His poor weak children.
This led to stories of the penalises paid by transgressors of the great
sins. These were terrible. Putting on a profound air, the Vizier, a fat
man of fifty, told of how one who smoked tobacco and denied the Prophet
had rotted piecemeal; and of how another had turned in his grave with
his face from Mecca. Then the Kaid of Fez, head of the Mosque and
general Grand Mufti, led away with stories of the little sins. These
were delightful. They pictured the shifts of pretty wives, married
to worn out old men, to get at their youthful lovers in the dark by
clambering in their dainty slippers from roof to roof. Also of the
discomfiture of pious old husbands and the wicked triumph of rompish
little ladies, under pretences of outraged innocence.
Such, and worse, and of a kind that bears not to be told, was the
conversation after supper of the roysterers in the Kasbah. At every
fresh story the laughter became louder, and soon the reserve and dignity
of the Moor were left behind him and forgotten. At length Ben Aboo,
encouraged by the Sultan's good fellowship, broke into loud praises of
Naomi, and yet louder wails over the doom that must be the penalty of
her apostasy; and thereupon Abd er-Rahman, protesting that for his
part he wanted nothing with such a vixen, called on him to uncover her
boasted charms to them. “Bring her here, Basha,” he said; “let us see
her,” and this command was received with tumultuous acclamations.
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 brass lamps and the glass 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 multitude 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. “Damn it--they've given us the slip.” “Yes; they've crawled
off like rats from a sinking ship.” “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 hell-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 passage 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 passage 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
damn 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 passage leading to the back
alley. The passage was narrow and dark. There were three winding steps
at the end of it. Ben Aboo was dizzy and he stumbled.
But the passage 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 multitudes 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 lust 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. Nobody 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, slobbering 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.