The Scapegoat Part 31

First came two soldiers afoot, and then followed five artillerymen, with their small pieces packed on mules. Next came mounted standard-bearers four deep, some in red, some in blue, and some in green. Then came the outrunners and the spearmen, and then the Sultan's six led horses. And then at length with the great red umbrella of royalty held over him, came the Sultan himself, the elderly sensualist, with his dusky cheeks, his rheumy eyes, his thick lips, and his heavy nostrils. The fat Father of Islam was mounted that day on a snow-white stallion, bedecked in gorgeous trappings. Its bridle was of green silk, embroidered in gold.

Solomon's seal was stamped on its headgear, and the tooth of a boar--a safeguard against the evil eye--was suspended from its neck. Its saddle was of orange damask, with girths of stout silk, and its stirrups were of chased silver. The Sultan's own trappings were of the colour of his horse. His kaftan was of white cloth, with an embroidered leathern girdle; his turban was of white cotton, and his kisa was also white and transparent.

As he pa.s.sed under the archway of the town's gate the cannon of the Kasbah boomed forth a salute, Ben Aboo dismounted and kissed his stirrup, and the crowds in the streets burst upon him with blessings.

"G.o.d bless our Lord!"

"Sultan Abd er-Rahman!"

"G.o.d prolong the life of our Lord!"

He seemed hardly to hear them. Once his hand touched his breast when the Kaid approached him. After that he looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor gave any sign of pleasure or recognition. Nevertheless the people in the streets ceased not to greet him with deafening acclamations.

"All's well, all's well," they told each other, and pointed to the white horse--the sign of peace--which the Sultan rode, and to the riderless black horse--the sign of strife--that pranced behind him.

The women on the housetops also, in their hooded cloaks, welcomed the Sultan with a shrill ululation: "Yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo!"

Not content with this, the usual greeting of their s.e.x and nation, some of them who had hitherto been closely veiled threw back their muslin coverings, exposed their faces to his face, and welcomed him with more articulate cries.

He gave them neither a smile nor a glance, but rode straight onward.

Beside him walked the fly-flappers, flapping the air before his podgy cheeks with long scarfs of silk, and behind him rode his Ministers of State, five sleek dogs who daily fed his appet.i.tes on carrion that his head might be like his stomach, and their power over him thereby the greater. After the Ministers of State came a part of the royal hareem.

The ladies rode on mules, and were attended by eunuchs.

Such was the entry into Tetuan of the Sultan Abd er-Rahman. In their heart of hearts did the people rejoice at his visit? No. Too well they knew that the tyrant had done nothing for his subjects but take their taxes. Not a man had he protected from injustice; not a woman had he saved from dishonour. Never a rich usurer among them but trembled at his messages, nor a poor wretch but dreaded his dungeons. His law existed only for himself; his government had no object but to collect his dues.

And yet his people had received him amid wild vociferations of welcome.

Fear, fear! Fear it was in the heart of the rich man on the housetops, whose moneys were hidden, as well as in the darkened soul of the blind beggar at the gate, whose eyes had been gouged out long ago because he dared not divulge the secret place of his wealth.

But early in the evening of that same day, at the corners of quiet streets, in the covered ways, by the doors of bazaars, among the horses tethered in the fondaks, wheresoever two men could stand and talk unheard and un.o.bserved by a third, one secret message of twofold significance pa.s.sed with the voice of smothered joy from lip to lip. And this was the way and the word of it:

"She is back in the Kasbah!"

"The daughter of Ben Oliel? Thank G.o.d! But why? Has she recanted?"

"She has fallen sick."

"And Ben Aboo has sent her to prison?"

"He thinks that the physician who will cure her quickest."

"Allah save us! The dog of dogs! But G.o.d be praised! At least she is saved from the Sultan."

"For the present, only for the-present."

"For ever, brother, for ever! Listen! your ear. A word of news for your news: the Mahdi is coming! The boy has been for him."

"Bismillah! Ben Oliel's boy?"

"Ali. He is back in Tetuan. And listen again! Behind the Mahdi comes the--"

"Ya Allah! well?"

"Hark! A footstep on the street--some one is near--"

"But quick. Behind the Mahdi--what?"

"G.o.d will show! In peace, brother, in peace!"

"In peace!"

CHAPTER XXV

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 pa.s.sed 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 tw.a.n.ging 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 mult.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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.