第91章

THE COMING OF THE MAHDI

The Mahdi came back in the evening.He had no standard-bearers going before him, no outrunners, no spearmen, no fly-flappers, no ministers of state; he rode no white stallion in gorgeous trappings, and was himself bedecked in no snowy garments.His ragged following he had left behind him; he was alone; he was afoot; a selham of rough grey cloth was all his bodily adornment; yet he was mightier than the monarch who had entered Tetuan that day.

He passed through the town not like a sultan, but like a saint;not like a conquering prince, but like an avenging angel.

Outside the town he had come upon the great body of the Sultan's army lying encamped under the walls.The townspeople who had shut the soldiers out, with all the rabble of their following, had nevertheless sent them fifty camels' load of kesksoo, and it had been served in equal parts, half a pound to each man.Where this meal had already been eaten, the usual charlatans of the market-place had been busily plying their accustomed trades.Black jugglers from Zoos, sham snake-charmers from the desert, and story-tellers both grave and facetious, all twanging their hideous ginbri, had been seated on the ground in half-circles of soldiers and their women.But the Mahdi had broken up and scattered every group of them.

"Away!" he had cried."Away with your uncleanness and deception."And the foulest babbler of them all, hot with the exercise of the indecent gestures wherewith he illustrated his filthy tale, had slunk off like a pariah dog.

As the Mahdi entered the town a number of mountaineers in the Feddan were going through their feats of wonder-play before a multitude of excited spectators.Two tribes, mounted on wild barbs, were charging in line from opposite sides of the square, some seated, some kneeling, some standing.Midway across the market-place they were charging, horses at full gallop, firing their muskets, then reining in at a horse's length, throwing their barbs on their haunches, wheeling round and galloping back, amid deafening shouts of "Allah! Allah! Allah!""Allah indeed!" cried the Mahdi, striding into their midst without fear.

"That is all the part that God plays in this land of iniquity and bloodshed.Away, away!"The people separated, and the Mahdi turned towards the Kasbah.

As he approached it, the lanes leading to the Feddan were being cleared for the mad antics of the Aissawa.Before they saw him the fanatics came out in all the force of their acting brotherhood, a score of half-naked men, and one other entirely naked, attended by their high-priests, the Mukaddameen, three old patriarchs with long white beards, wearing dark flowing robes and carrying torches.

Then goats and dogs were riven alive and eaten raw; while women and children; crouching in the gathering darkness overhead looked down from the roofs and shuddered.And as the frenzy increased among the madmen, and their victims became fewer, each fanatic turned upon himself, and tore his own skin and battered his head against the stones until blood ran like water.

"Fools and blind guides!" cried the Mahdi sweeping them before him like sheep."Is this how you turn the streets into a sickening sewer?

Oh, the abomination of desolation! You tear yourselves in the name of God, but forget His justice and mercy.Away!

You will have your reward.Away! Away!"At the gate of the Kasbah he demanded to see the Kaid, and, after various parleyings with the guards and negroes who haunted the winding ways of the gloomy place, he was introduced to the Basha's presence.The Basha received him in a room so dark that he could but dimly see his face.Ben Aboo was stretched on a carpet, in much the position of a dog with his muzzle on his forepaws.

"Welcome," he said gruffly, and without changing his own unceremonious posture, he gave the Mahdi a signal to sit.

The Mahdi did not sit."Ben Aboo," he said in a voice that was half choked with anger, "I have come again on an errand of mercy, and woe to you if you send me away unsatisfied."Ben Aboo lay silent and gloomy for a moment, and then said with a growl, "What is it now?""Where is the daughter of Ben Oliel?" said the Mahdi.

With a gesture of protestation the Basha waved one of the hands on which his dusky muzzle had rested.

"Ah, do not lie to me," cried the Mahdi."I know where she is--she is in prison.And for what? For no fault but love of her father, and no crime but fidelity to her faith.She has sacrificed the one and abandoned the other.Is that not enough for you, Ben Aboo?

Set her free."

The Basha listened at first with a look of bewilderment, and some half-dozen armed attendants at the farther end of the room shuffled about in their consternation.At length Ben Aboo raised his head, and said with an air of mock inquiry, "Ya Allah!

who is this infidel?"

Then, changing his tone suddenly, he cried, "Sir, I know who you are!

You come to me on this sham errand about the girl, but that is not your purpose, Mohammed of Mequinez! Mohammed the Third!

What fool said you were a spy of the Sultan? Abd er-Rahman is here--my guest and protector.You are a spy of his enemies, and a revolutionary, come hither to ruin our religion and our State.

The penalty for such as you is death, and by Allah you shall die!"Saying this, he so wrought upon his indignation, that in spite of his superstitious fears, and the awe in which he stood of the Mahdi, he half deceived himself, and deceived his attendants entirely.

But the Mahdi took a step nearer and looked straight into his face, and said--"Ben Aboo, ask pardon of God; you are a fool.You talk of putting me to death.You dare not and you cannot do it.""Why not?" cried Ben Aboo, with a thrill of voice that was like a swagger.

"What's to hinder me? I could do it at this moment, and no man need know.""Basha," said the Mahdi, "do you think you are talking to a child?