Complete works of hall c.., p.210
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 210
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.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“ALLAH-U-KABAR”
Travelling through the night, — Naomi laughing and singing snatches in her new-found joy, and the Mahdi looking back at intervals at the huge outline of Tetuan against the blackness of the sky, — they came to the hut by Semsa before dawn of the following day. But they had come too late. Israel ben Oliel was not, after all, to set out for England. He was going on a longer journey. His lonely hour had come to him, his dark hour wherein none could bear him company. On a mattress by the wall he lay outstretched, unconscious, and near to his end. Two neighbours from the village were with him, and but for these he must have been alone — the mighty man in his downfall deserted by all save the great Judge and God.
What Naomi did when the first shock of this hard blow fell upon her, what she said, and how she bore herself, it would be a painful task to tell. Oh, the irony of fate! Ay, the irony of God! That scene, and what followed it, looked like a cruel and colossal jest — none the less cruel because long drawn out and as old as the days of Job.
It was useless to go out in search of a doctor. The country was as innocent of leechcraft as the land of Canaan in the days of Abraham. All they could do was to submit, absolutely and unconditionally. They were in God’s hands.
The light was coming yellow and pink through the window under the eaves as Israel awoke to consciousness. He opened his eyes as if from sleep, and saw Naomi beside him. No surprise did he show at this, and neither did he at first betray pleasure. Dimly and softly he looked upon her, and then something that might have been a smile but for lack of strength passed like sunshine out of a cloud across his wasted face. Naomi pressed a pillow-under his loins, and another under his head, thinking to ease the one and raise the other. But the iron hand of unconsciousness fell upon him again, and through many hours thereafter Naomi and the Mahdi sat together in silence with the multitudinous company of invisible things.
During that interval Fatimah came in hot haste, and they had news of Tetuan. The Spaniards had taken the town, but Abd er-Rahman and most of his Ministers had escaped. Ben Aboo had tried to follow them, but he had been killed in the alcove of the patio. Ali had killed him. He had rushed in upon him through a line of his guards. One of the guards had killed Ali. The brave black lad had fallen with the name of Israel on his lips and with a dauntless shout of triumph. The Kasbah was afire; it had been burning since the banquet of the night before.
Towards sunset peace fell upon Israel ben Oliel, and then they knew that the end was very near. Naomi was still kneeling at his right hand, and the Mahdi was standing at his left. Israel looked at the girl with a world of tenderness, though the hard grip of death was fast stiffening his noble face. More than once he glanced at the Mahdi also as if he wished to say something, and yet could not do so, because the power of life was low; but at last his voice found strength.
“I have left it too late,” he said. “I cannot go to England.”
Naomi wept more than ever at the sound of these faltering words, and it was not without effort that the Mahdi answered him.
“Think no more of that,” he said, and then he stopped, as if the word that he had been about to speak had halted on his tongue.
“It is hard to leave her,” said Israel, “for she is alone; and who will protect her when I am gone?”
“God lives,” said the Mahdi, “and He is Father to the fatherless.”
“But what Jew,” said Israel, “would not repeat for her her father’s troubles, and what Muslim could save her from her own?”
“Who that trusts in God,” said the Mahdi, “need fear the Kaid?”
“But what man can save her?” cried Israel again.
And then the Mahdi, touched by Naomi’s tears as well as her father’s importunities, answered out of a hot heart and said —
“Peace, peace! If there is no one else to take her, from this day forward she shall go with me.”
Naomi looked up at him then with such a light in her beautiful eyes as he has often since, but had never before seen there, and Israel ben Oliel who had been holding at his hand, clutched suddenly at his wrist.
“God bless you!” he said, as well as he could for the two angels, the angel of love and the angel of death, were struggling at his throat.
Israel looked steadily at the Mahdi for a moment more, and then said very softly —
“Death may come to me now; I am ready. Farewell, my father! I tried to do your bidding. Do you remember your watchword? But God has given me rewards for repentance — see,” and he turned his eyes towards the eyes of Naomi with a wasting yet sunny smile.
“God is good,” said the Mahdi; “lie still, lie still,” and he laid his cool hand on Israel’s forehead.
“I am leaving her to you,” said Israel; “and you alone can protect her of all men living in this land accursed of God, for God’s right arm is round you. Yes, God is good. As long as you live you will cherish her. Never was she so dear to me as now, so sweet, so lovable, so gentle. But you will be good to her. God is very good to me. Guard her as the apple of your eye. It will reward you. And let her think of me sometimes — only sometimes. Ah! how nearly I shipwrecked all this! Remember! Remember!”
“Hush, hush! Do not increase your pains,” said the Mahdi. “Are you feeling better now?”
“I am feeling well,” said Israel, “and happy — so happy.”
The sun had set, and the swift twilight was passing into night, when another messenger arrived from Tetuan. It was Ali’s old Taleb, shedding tears for his boy, but boasting loudly of his brave death. He had heard of it from the black guards themselves. After Ali fell he lived a moment, though only in unconsciousness. The boy must have thought himself back at Israel’s side, “I’ve done it, father,” he said; “he’ll never hurt you again. You won’t drive me away from you any more; will you, father?”
They could see that Israel had heard the story. The eyes of the dying are dry, but well they knew that the heart of the man was weeping.
The Taleb came with the idea that Israel also was gone, for a rumour to that effect had passed through the town. “El hamdu l’Illah!” he cried, when he saw that Israel was still alive. But then he remembered something, and whispered in the Mahdi’s farther ear that a vast concourse of Moors and Jews including his own vast fellowship was even then coming out to bury Israel, thinking he was dead.
Israel overheard him and smiled. It seemed as if he laughed a little also. “It will soon be true,” he muttered under his breath, that came so quick. And hardly had he spoken when a low deep sound came from the distance. It was the funeral wail of Israel ben Oliel.
Nearer and nearer it came, and clearer and more clear. First a mighty bass voice: “Allah Akbar!” Again another and another voice: “Allah Akbar!” and then the long roar of a vast multitude: “Al — l — lah-u-kabar!” Finally a slow melancholy wail, rising and falling on the darkening air: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God.”
It was a solemn sound — nay, an awful one, with the man himself alive to hear it.
O gratitude that is only a death-song! O fame that is only a funeral!
Israel listened and smiled again. “Ah, God is great!” he whispered; “God is great!”
To ease his labouring chest a moment the Mahdi rose and stepped to the door, and then in the distance he could descry the procession approaching — a moving black shadow against the sky. Also over their billowy heads he could see a red glow far away in the clouds. It was the last smouldering of the fire of the modern Sodom.
While he stood there he was startled by the sound of a thick voice behind him. It was Israel’s voice. He was speaking to Naomi. “Yes,” he was saying, “it is hard to part. We were going to be very happy. . . . But you must not cry. Listen! When I am there — eh? you know, there — I will want to say, ‘Father, you did well to hear my prayer. My little daughter — she is happy, she is merry, and her soul is all sunshine.’ So you must not weep. Never, never, never! Remember! . . . . Ah! that’s right, that’s right. My simple-hearted darling! My sunny, merry, happy girl!”
Naomi was trying to laugh in obedience to her father’s will. She was combing his white beard with her fingers — it was knotted and tangled — and he was labouring hard to speak again.
“Naomi, do you remember?” he said; and then he tried to sing, and even to lisp the words as he sang them, just as a child might have done. “Do you remember —
Within my heart a voice
Bids earth and heaven rejoice,
Sings ‘Love’—”
But his strength was spent, and he had to stop.
“Sing it,” he whispered, with a poor broken smile at his own failure. And then the brave girl — all courage and strength, a quivering bow of steel — took up the song where he had left it, though her voice trembled and the tears started to her eyes.
As Naomi sang Israel made some poor shift to beat the time to her, though once and again his feeble hand fell back into his breast. When she had done singing Israel looked at the Mahdi and then at her, and smiled, as if he and she and the song were one to him.
But indeed Naomi had hardly finished when the wail came again, now nearer than before, and louder. Israel heard it. “Hark! They are coming. Keep close,” he muttered.
He fumbled and tugged with one hand at the breast of his kaftan. The Mahdi thought his throat wanted air, but Naomi, with the instinct of help that a woman has in scenes like these, understood him better. In the disarray of his senses this was his way of trying to raise himself that he might listen the easier to the song outside. The girl slid her arm under his neck, and then his shrunken hand was at rest. “Ah! closer. ‘God is great’!” he murmured again. “‘God — is — great’!” With that word on his lips he smiled and sighed, and sank back. It was now quite dark.
When the Mahdi returned to his place at Israel’s feet the dying man seemed to have been feeling for his hand. Taking it now, he brought it to his breast, where Naomi’s hand lay under his own trembling one. With that last effort, and a look into the girl’s face that must have pursued him home, his grand eyes closed for ever.
In the silence that followed after the departing spirit the deep swell of the funeral wail came rolling heavily on the night air: “Allah Akbar! Al-lah-u-kabar!”
In a few minutes more the procession of the people of Tetuan who had come out to bury Israel ben Oliel had arrived at the house.
“He has gone,” said the Mahdi, pointing down; and then lifting his eyes towards heaven, he added, “TO THE KING!”
