第63章

Six-and-twenty years he had gone in and out among them as a slave.

This morning he was a free man, and to-morrow he would be one of themselves.

When he reached the Kasbah, there was something in the air about it that brought back recollections of the day--now nearly four years past--of the children's gathering at Katrina's festival.

The lusty-lunged Arabs squatting at the gates among soldiers in white selhams and peaked shasheeahs the women in blankets standing in the outer court, the dark passages smelling of damp, the gusts of heavy odour coming from the inner chambers, and the great patio with the fountain and fig-trees--the same voluptuous air was over everything.And as on that day so on this, in the alcove under the horseshoe arch sat Ben Aboo and his Spanish wife.

Time had dealt with them after their kind, and the swarthy face of the Kaid was grosser, the short curls under his turban were more grey and his hazel eyes were now streaked and bleared, but otherwise he was the same man as before, and Katrina also, save for the loss of some teeth of the upper row, was the same woman.And if the children had risen up before Israel's eyes as he stood on the threshold of the patio, he could not have drawn his breath with more surprise than at the sight of the man who stood that morning in their place.

It was Mohammed of Mequinez.He had come to ask for the release of the followers of Absalam from their prison at Shawan.

In defiance of courtesy his slippers were on his feet.He was clad in a piece of untanned camel-skin, which reached to his knees and was belted about his waist.His head, which was bare to the sun and drooped by nature like a flower, was held proudly up, and his wild eyes were flashing.He was not supplicating for the deliverance of the people, but demanding it, and taxing Ben Aboo as a tyrant to his throat.

"Give me them up, Ben Aboo," he was saying as Israel came to the threshold, "or, if they die in their prison, one thing I promise you.""And pray what is that?" said Ben Aboo.

"That there will be a bloody inquiry after their murderer."Ben Aboo's brows were knitted, but he only glanced at Katrina, and made pretence to laugh, and then said, "And pray, my lord, who shall the murderer be?"Then Mohammed of Mequinez stretched out his hand and answered, "Yourself."At that word there-was silence for a moment, while Ben Aboo shifted in his seat, and Katrina quivered beside him.

Ben Aboo glanced up at Mohammed.He was Kaid, he was Basha, he was master of all men within a circuit of thirty miles, but he was afraid of this man whom the people called a prophet.

And partly out of this fear, and partly because he had more regard to Mohammed's courageous behaviour in thus bearding him in his Kasbah and by the walls of his dungeons than to the anger his hot word had caused him, Ben Aboo would have promised him at that moment that the prisoners at Shawan should be released.

But suddenly Katrina remembered that she also had cause of indignation against this man, for it had been rumoured of late that Mohammed had openly denounced her marriage.

"Wait, Sidi," she said."Is not this the fellow that has gone up and down your bashalic, crying out on our marriage that it was against the law of Mohammed?"At that Ben Aboo saw clearly that there was no escape for him, so he made pretence to laugh again, and said, "Allah! so it is!

Mohammed the Third, eh? Son of Mequinez, God will repay you! Thanks!

Thanks! You could never think how long I've waited that I might look face to face upon the prophet that has denounced a Kaid."He uttered these big words between bursts of derisive laughter, but Mohammed struck the laughter from his lips in an instant.

"Wait no longer, O Ben Aboo," he cried, "but look upon him now, and know that what you have done is an unclean thing, and you shall be childless and die!"Then Ben Aboo's passion mastered him.He rose to his feet in his anger, and cried, "Prophet, you have destroyed yourself.Listen to me!

The turbulent dogs you plead for shall lie in their prison until they perish of hunger and rot of their sores.By the beard of my father, I swear it!"Mohammed did not flinch.Throwing back his head, he answered, "If I am a prophet, O Ben Aboo hear me prophesy.Before that which you say shall come to pass, both you and your father's house will be destroyed.Never yet did a tyrant go happily out of the world, and you shall go out of it like a dog."Then Katrina also rose to her feet, and, calling to a group of barefooted Arab soldiers that stood near, she cried, "Take him!

He will escape!"