THE PLEDGE REDEEMED.
As soon as they arrived at the cultivated districts, which they did by
rapid marches, the Arabs spread themselves over the country, plundering
in all directions. For this purpose they dispersed by tribes, the whole
body uniting for the night at a rendezvous previously fixed upon. The
peasants fled everywhere on their approach, securing what property they
had time to remove, into the towns and walled villages. These, the Arabs
being all horsemen, left unmolested. They carried off all the grain that
could be discovered, and even reaped what was on the ground, compelling
the peasants to assist in threshing it out; they also gathered the dates
from the trees. Their plunder was loaded on camels and mules, seized on
their route. Wherever they bivouacked, their horses were picketed in the
standing corn, and very soon changed their appearance from the bony,
game-looking animals that they were at starting, to rounded, sleek
chargers. The cultivated tracts they passed over were left as if a swarm
of locusts had swept over the land. After issuing the necessary orders
to the Sheiks left in command, and directing their course on the
province of Rahamna, Sheik Hamed selected five hundred of his best
horsemen, and started by forced marches for Marocco, having received an
urgent message from Ali that no time was to be lost if he wished to be
assured of redeeming his word. About fifty miles south of the city, the
Chief knew that he would find a tribe of Arabs, who, although settled in
the province, kept up a friendly intercourse with the original desert
stock. From the douar of this tribe, he could march by a straight course
much faster than any messenger who might be on his way to give notice of
their approach; and by avoiding any molestation of the peasants on the
march, through a sparsely populated and thickly-wooded country, very
little alarm would be excited. It was the day before the execution that
the Chief arrived at this place, called Ras el Ain, early in the
morning. He did not inform his hosts of the object of his visit, but as
rumours of the irruption of the tribes had reached even to Marocco, they
were supposed to be a reconnoitring party. After resting all day,
hospitably entertained by the tribe, the Chief called to horse at
sunset, and made a night march of forty miles, stopping in the woods,
within ten miles of the town, where were some springs, among masses of
rock. The forest trees were high, and interspersed with glades; but in a
place so utterly unfrequented, that any number of horsemen might have
been easily concealed. By travelling single file from this spot, the
band could debouch on the plain within two miles of the gates of the
town. Yusuf was sent on at once from here, to apprise Rachel of the
approaching succour, as, whether the plans of the Chief succeeded or
failed, it would not be safe for either of them to remain within the
Sultan's power; they were therefore to repair to this place, where one
hundred horsemen would be left in reserve. Yusuf was also to communicate
with Ali, who was waiting impatiently for tidings of the Chief. In case
of his failing to arrive, Ali would certainly have attempted the rescue,
with his small band; but then there was the danger of being pursued by
the Moors, who would have been encouraged by the weakness of his
numbers, whereas, against a larger force, they would not venture to
leave the protection of their walls, until after tedious preparation and
the collection of an army.
The day appointed for the accomplishing of the martyrdom of Azora had
arrived. The Sultan was sitting in the M'Shouar, attended by his guards,
while on carpets near him sat the Wezeer and scribes,--one of these was
preparing the warrant of execution for the Sultan's seal. The order set
forth that she was to be taken outside the gates, at the hour of mid-day
prayer, and to be burnt alive at the stake as an apostate from the faith
of Islam. The audience-hall, which was supported by pillars, opened in
front on a large public place, to which the people had access, and here
a considerable crowd was collected, attracted by the novelty of the
case. As a mob, they were eager for the excitement of an execution;
this, in the present instance, was enhanced by their fanaticism, and
they looked forward to the burning of an infidel with peculiar
gratification. The crowd, however, maintained a respectful distance, and
any breach of order brought on them an indiscriminate shower of blows
from the sticks of the black soldiers. Those who came on business of
importance, or had causes to be heard, were allowed to enter the hall,
one at a time. While the preliminaries of this judicial murder were
being effected, there was a movement among the crowd, and a man, in a
hooded burnoose, walked slowly into the audience-hall; he held a staff
in his hand, and from his wrist hung, by a thong, a mace headed by an
iron ball, studded with spikes, such as is often carried by mendicant
fakeers.
"What is his business?" said the Sultan, as he stood before him.
The stranger allowed the hood of his cloak to fall from his head, and
discovered the pale, wild features of Hassan. He fixed his eyes,
glittering with the fire of insanity, on the Sultan.
"Dost thou know me?" said he, slowly, whilst all present trembled for
his life, "I am Hassan Ibn Ibrahim: but where is my father? He died in
the tyrant's prison. Where is my father's house? I--I alone, remain, and
I care not how soon you send me to their graves: but first I have an
errand. Hear, O Moslemin!" he said, raising his voice, "I come here to
confess my perjury. That woman, that child of God, that you are here
assembled to murder, is innocent--I (may I be accursed!) accused her
falsely. I retract--I demand her freedom. Let the law judge my crime."
Maniacs are looked upon by the Moors with reverential awe, and allowed
to roam at large. They are believed to be possessed by spirits, by whose
inspiration they speak. The Sultan quailed under the gaze of the madman;
but, though boiling with rage at being thus thwarted in his sanguinary
purpose, he controlled himself; and, more to justify himself to the
people, than supposing the maniac could understand him, he said,
mildly,--
"It is too late; your accusation was written and sworn: and supposing
you were guilty of perjury, as you say, but which is to be doubted, yet
the other witness maintaining his word, your present falsehood is
useless."
The maniac's features worked wildly, and his eyes flashed, while the
Sultan was speaking. The mildness of his reception had inspired him with
greater boldness.
"Ha! ha! ha!" he yelled. "Iblis whispered me this, and told me to come
prepared."
He threw open his cloak, and produced a bundle, enveloped in the
embroidered scarf lately given by the Sultan to Abdslem.
"Dost thou know that scarf?" he continued, "did it not belong to the
false witness? And if he does not admit himself a perjured slave and
confess the innocence of Azora, his accursed tongue will never again say
that she is guilty.--Behold!" and unrolling the scarf with a jerk, the
ghastly head of Abdslem fell on the Sultan's carpet.
The eyes of the maniac literally blazed with rapture, on beholding the
effect he had produced, he ground his teeth, and the foam flew from his
mouth.
"There!--there!" he shouted, rushing towards the Sultan, then suddenly
stopping and pointing to it with his staff--"ask him--behold your
witness--does he accuse her? then I must answer for him," said he,
raising his voice to the highest pitch. "I swear that she is innocent,
and every fiend in hell re-echoes, 'She is innocent!'"
The Sultan, though restrained by superstition, hardly considered himself
safe in such close proximity to the madman, yet did not wish to evince
his alarm, but his hand went mechanically into his vest for a pistol or
dagger. This movement did not escape the eye of the maniac--he yelled a
hideous laugh, that thrilled the hearts of his hearers.
"Ha! he fears me, he is a Sultan--but guilt always fears. You slew my
father, why should you not fear me? My sister!"
His brain seethed as the horrid vision of her death flashed on his
broken intellect, and he gazed an instant at his clenched hands.
"Yes! her blood is upon them."
The vision passed as it came, and he spoke again in calm tones as of
reason.
"I warn you that you are in danger; I devote you to human vengeance and
divine wrath! For the last time I demand Azora's liberation."
The Sultan's patience was at length exhausted, "Seize him, and off with
his head!" he thundered springing up.
Frenzy again blazed in the eye of Hassan: "Stop!" he shouted, as he
dropped on his knee; "and may the curse of Mohammed and the Seven
Sleepers cleave to the man that lays a hand on me!" then, springing to
his feet, and swinging his mace round his head, he uttered a prolonged
yell of triumph, and rushed through the crowd that recoiled
terror-struck to open him a passage, and his shouts of vengeance rang in
their ears until they died away in the distance.
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 God.
"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 Kaïd!" 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 Marokshi."
"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 Kaïd, 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; "Hassan, 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 Hassan, had
it pleased God, 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, God 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 passers-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 quantity 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 horsemen, while the foot-soldiers kept clear the
space around the pile. It would be a slander on the better classes 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 passes 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
mass 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 shirts; their guns poised, they swept over the comparatively
abandoned space, separating as they passed 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
Hassan 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 assistance, 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 ejaculated, "O Sheik! I know you. God 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
God'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 Hassan 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 Hassan, 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 nobly redeemed his Pledge, gradually disappeared
behind the distant woods.
FINIS.
LONDON: STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN, PRINTERS,
Castle Street, Leicester Square.