THE FALCON CAGED.
It was about eight days after the arrest of the Jewess that Hassan
mounted his horse and rode out of the town by the south gate. He rode
onwards, engrossed by his own bitter reflections, almost unconscious
that the moon had risen and that he was now far from the city. At the
time that he found his plans frustrated by Azora's appeal he was
overcome by rage and disappointment; as these feelings subsided, his
conscience upbraided him for his useless perjury, by which he had
brought Azora into imminent peril without in the slightest degree
promoting his own guilty plans; he was merely a jackal to a lion.
Having bitterly repented of his crime, his mind was now constantly
haunted with the dread of the consequent death to Azora, with which he
himself had threatened her. One image pictured on his mind seemed to
have effaced and taken the place of all others. A beautiful figure, on a
pyre, with the flames leaping around her, looked on him with a look of
reproachful agony! Sleeping or waking it was the same, wherever he
looked those sad eyes met his; there was no escape; he was becoming a
monomaniac. His life was lonely, the only other inmate of his home being
a little orphan sister of five years old, to whom he was much attached,
but who was hardly old enough as a companion to divert his mind; and at
night he was quite alone.
He now dismounted and sat down on a bank, under the trees. The evening
breeze brought to his ear the modulated murmurs of a neighbouring
rivulet; they sounded to him as the moan of suffering. The moon poured
her beams through the foliage of olive that overshadowed him, painting
the ground with a tracery of waving leafage, that seemed to him as
flames. The image faded for a time, as the silence of the night soothed
his harassed mind, and he felt himself more immediately in the presence
of God amid the calm scenes of nature. The lessons of childhood, and the
principles of youth, which had not been wholly extinguished, rose up to
accuse him; and overcome by shame and remorse, he leaned his head on his
clasped hands and wept bitterly, until his heart was seared and his eyes
were dry. Alas! man's tears harrow, but are no relief.
"Salemo Alikoom," said a clear voice near him; and remembering the
lateness of the hour he started to his feet.
"And on you peace," he returned to the stranger, who now stood by his
side. By the moonlight he could see that he was tall, with an aquiline
nose, and short black beard, and dressed in the slovenly hayk and
turban of a peasant. He had stopped to water his horse at the brook
which flowed at a short distance, and Hassan was so absorbed in his
reverie that he had approached him almost unperceived on the turf, and
had been a partial witness to his emotion.
"Peace to the believer!" said the stranger; "you sit here so quietly
enjoying the moonlight and the running water, that I suppose the town
gates are shut for the night. This is a good place to camp under the
sky, and we shall be better in each other's company. I am from Duquela,
and not knowing the country, I have rather lost my way." Saying which he
pulled a small carpet from his horse's saddle, and got out his hobbles
to tie up his horse.
"Not so fast," said Hassan, won by his frank address, "I knew not it was
so late; I do not sleep here when the town is so close. Certainly you
must have lost your way, for Duquela is to the north. But are there not
more ways of entering a town than by the gates?"
"By scaling the walls? You are a townsman, but if I were caught at that
I might shorten my shadow, from which God preserve me!"
"God forbid!" said Hassan; "but I like you--promise secrecy, and I will
show you a way in; I discovered it by accident."
"On the faith of a Moslim," said Ali el Bezz, for it was he; and
mounting their horses they rode on to the town. Ali had been despatched
by the Chief, to Marocco, to watch over the safety of Azora, and to act
as circumstances might require for her deliverance. He had received a
minute description of the Moors, her accusers, from Yusuf, and he felt
assured that one of them was now before him. This adventure promising
him an entrance into the town without passing the gates, he saw at once
would prove of immense advantage to him hereafter for purposes of
escape. If he was not yet satisfied of his companion's identity, it was
not long before he had evidence of the fact.
"What brings you to Marocco, O Moslim?" said Hassan as they rode side by
side.
Ali fixed his eyes on his face, on which the moon shone, and answered
indifferently,--
"I heard there was an infidel to be burnt for wishing to recant."
Hassan started, and turned round on the speaker, who had thus given a
wrench to the weapon that rankled in his wounded spirit, and who
appeared quite unconscious of the effect his words had produced as he
continued,--
"We heard the news in our province, and I came to see the sight. It will
be a grateful sacrifice to the Prophet. God is merciful! The Sultan is
too indulgent to the infidels."
"Woe to thee, O Moslim!" said Hassan in an excited tone. "Think you the
pangs and shrieks of a son of Adam in torture can be grateful to a
merciful God? Think you the diabolical spirit of the murderers can be
pleasing to a beneficent Creator? In the infancy of the faith the
Prophet's policy allowed this; now it is useless, barbarous! And this
is a woman! O God! O God!" And he pressed his hands to his eyes as
though the flames blasted them.
Ali gazed on him with unfeigned surprise; at first he thought he was
counterplotting to mislead him, but sincerity was too plainly marked on
his haggard face to admit of a doubt.
"From you, this!" he said; "is it possible? Even as the tongue of the
Cadi is before, while his hand is behind for the bribe; so men act one
thing and speak another."
"And who am I?" said Hassan; "and who is your father's son that you
reflect on me as double-faced? When have we met before?"
"Never! and yet I am not wrong," said Ali, fixing on his face a stern
and inquiring glance; "I am not wrong in thinking I speak to the accuser
of this woman. Do I not speak to the principal cause of her sufferings
and death? Hassan, son of Ibrāhim, do I not know you?"
Hassan's blood rushed to his brow and then left his face ashy pale, as
he said in a low voice,--
"Just God! is the brand of blood already on my brow that even strangers
know the murderer? The guilt of innocent blood is even now beginning to
fall on my head."
"You repent?" said Ali; "then why have you done nothing to save her?"
"Too late! Oh, that I could! But how do I know," said Hassan, checking
himself, "that I am not trusting to an enemy? What matter? It is known!
What have I to fear? I would give my life--a life that is hateful to me,
if it would save hers. And you,--you have travelled far to see this
scene of horror?--I see it now!"
"I spoke to gain your confidence," said Ali; "knowing you as the
destroyer of the innocent, I was your foe; now,--we are friends, and I
can trust you. But however little value you place upon your own life,
when I entrust you with a secret which would be no less fatal to mine,
you must swear to confide it to no other. I come to save her!"
"I swear by my father's head never to betray you," said Hassan; his
spirit rising with the hope of being able to co-operate in any way
towards undoing his evil work. "But how?"
"We shall find a way, if it please God," said Ali, "when the time comes.
I have met you in a fortunate hour; I see by the leather thong that you
wear that you belong to the Palace guards, this will give you the
opportunity of letting the Jewess know that help is at hand. You must
see her yourself or bribe some of the eunuchs or women. Tell her to seek
delay, and profit by any occasion we may be able to devise to save her."
"I will do it," said Hassan; "at the risk of my life I will do it."
The plain around the city of Marocco is very dangerous to ride over at
night, being intersected by long lines of pits, extending from the walls
towards the mountains; these pits are connected with underground canals
by which the town is watered; and these again are connected with each
other by tunnels. The pits are twenty and thirty feet deep; and from
their sides fig and other trees, and even date-palms, shoot up above the
surface of the plain, while beneath is heard the rushing of the buried
streams.
The horsemen were now obliged to follow each other cautiously in single
file till they came to a fondak, or caravanserai, outside the town
walls, near one of the closed gates. The keeper of this let them in,
cursing to himself at being disturbed from his sleep. Within, all was
silent except the creaking of the camels' teeth, as they lay ruminating
and waving their gaunt necks in the moonlight; their drivers lay around
rolled up in their hayks. After securing their horses they let
themselves out. Hassan then led the way for about half-a-mile, until he
stopped on the brink of one of the pits above described, and, telling
his companion to follow cautiously, he lowered himself down through the
branches of a spreading tree, and then, by holding on to roots and
shrubs, came by an easy declivity to the bottom of the pit. Being joined
by Ali, they found themselves in one of the tunnelled passages, in which
there was merely a run of water; following this for some distance in a
stooping posture, they came to a nearly dry well, which they ascended
with ease by the projecting stones left in its sides, and emerged,
through a thicket of tangled brambles and flowering shrubs, into the
court-yard of a large abandoned building about a hundred feet square,
surrounded by colonnades of massive stone pillars.
Ali's quick eye was not slow in calculating the advantages of such a
mode of exit from a hostile town, and he treasured every mark in his
mind for future use in case of need. Crossing a paved court, they went
out by an unfastened gate studded with iron nails, and found themselves
in an open space within the town; here they separated; Ali being well
acquainted with the interior of the town; after arranging where to meet
each other, without the necessity of public recognition. It happened
that Ali had been very unwisely intrusted by the Sheik with the money
for Abdslem; and this, as we shall see, was very nearly the means of
upsetting all their plans, and at the same time of finishing the
"Falcon's" career.
Abdslem was beginning to feel very impatient at the delay of the Sheik's
emissary, whom he was now bent on betraying; to prove his assumed
innocence, to the Sultan. Although he had with consummate assurance
blinded the Sultan to the evidence of his guilt, this was wanting to
restore his confidence, or ensure his safety. On this night he was
standing at his open door, when he was accosted by a stranger muffled in
a woollen hayk. "Peace be to you! Is your name Abdslem?"
"To you peace: my name is Abdslem! What would you with him?"
"I would speak with him in private!"
"Bismillah! come into your servant's house."
Abdslem could scarcely conceal his triumph; as they went into the room
he closed the door, and lighted a three-cornered tin lamp; before doing
which he had composed his features, and then sat down opposite his
visitor.
"Have you received a letter from him to whom you wrote?"
"I have, and by water: it was a device of cunning."
"I acknowledge the token; have you seen the bearer since? He did not
return."
"No! I understand he went on a long journey; his head was deranged as it
seemed. But if you are not satisfied, behold the letter!"
"It is enough, it is the Sheik's seal; meet me to-morrow at dusk at the
palm-grove inside the Duquela gate, there you shall receive it; you know
your work."
Notwithstanding Abdslem's eagerness to secure his prize, his examination
of the powerful frame of the Arab showed him that he had not a chance
against him single-handed, and to take any step that would inspire him
with alarm would be to lose him altogether; he therefore resolved to
wait, and make sure of him, as well as secure the money. "Inshallah," he
said, "I will not fail you: will you not share a soldier's supper?"
"May his blessing be with you, and increase your store: better that we
be not seen together. Peace."
"And to you peace," echoed Abdslem, as he closed the door after him,
"for to-night--but to-morrow!--half a quintal of iron on _your_ limbs
shall partly avenge me for my sufferings."
He thought the next day would never pass, at length the evening wore on,
and Abdslem having procured a dozen armed men from the Kaïd of the town,
placed them in ambush close to the place of meeting; and anxiously
awaited the arrival of Ali, who did not appear until it was quite dusk.
"This way," whispered Abdslem, drawing him into the date-grove. "Come
more within the shade."
The feathery boughs above their heads sighed dismally in the night
breeze, and one large columnar tree lay prostrate on the earth.
"Let us sit here: where is the money?"
"It is here," said Ali, producing the bag, the next minute he was
startled by a movement amongst the bushes behind him, and, looking
round, saw figures rising up in the dim light from their shelter.
"This for your treachery!" said he, dropping the bag, and making a blow
at Abdslem with his dagger; but the other was on his guard, and avoided
it by springing back, and Ali unfortunately stumbled over the fallen
tree: the soldiers rushed upon him, and he was overpowered by numbers,
disarmed and bound, whilst the traitor stood looking on with folded
arms, congratulating himself on his success.
"Inshallah! you shall live to repent of this night's work," said Ali,
"if it please God."
"Your days will not be long enough to see it," replied Abdslem,
sneeringly.
"You will not be the first that Ali el Bezz has lived to be revenged
on."
"What!" said Abdslem, "have I been so fortunate as to capture that
notorious robber Ali el Bezz? God be praised."
"The day may not be so propitious to you as you suppose," said Ali:
"'tis your turn to-day--but to-morrow--beware the 'Falcon's Swoop.'"
And Abdslem quailed before his prisoner, although bound and in his
power; his triumph was also embittered by the dread of retribution,
which, if Ali escaped, would inevitably fall on him, and even if he did
not, would sooner or later overtake him at the hands of the Arab's
family. Taking up the bag of money he accompanied the soldiers to the
prison, and, after seeing Ali secured, returned to his own house
intending to make his report to the Sultan in the morning.