The Scapegoat Part 33

"Ali," he had said, "is it not all you wish for to get Naomi out of prison and take her back to her father?"

"Yes, Sidi," Ali had answered promptly.

"And you don't want to torture these tyrants if you can do what you desire without it?"

"No-o, Sidi," Ali had said doubtfully.

"Then," the Mahdi had said, "let us try."

But when the Mahdi was gone to Tetuan on his errand of warning that proved so vain, Ali had crept back behind him, so that secretly and independently he might carry out his fell design. The towns-people were ready to receive him, for the air was full of rebellion, and many had waited long for the opportunity of revenge. To certain of the Jews, his master's people, who were also in effect his own, he went first with his mission, and they listened with eagerness to what he had come to say.

When their own time came to speak they spoke cautiously, after the manner of their race, and nervously, like men who knew too well what it was to be crushed and kept under; but they gave their help notwithstanding, and Ali's scheme progressed.

In less than three days the entire town, Moorish and Jewish, was honeycombed with subterranean revolt. Even the civil guard, the soldiers of the Kasbah, the black police that kept the gates, and the slaves that stood before the Basha's table were waiting for the downfall to come.

The Mahdi had gone again by this time, and the people had resumed their mock rejoicings over the Sultan's visit. These were the last kindlings of their burnt-out loyalty, a poor smouldering pretence of fire. Every morning the town was awakened by the deafening crackle of flintlocks, which the mountaineers discharged in the Feddan by way of signal that the Sultan was going to say his prayers at the door of some saint's house. Beside the firing of long guns and the tw.a.n.ging of the ginbri the chief business of the day seemed to be begging. One bow-legged rascal in a ragged jellab went about constantly with a little loaf of bread, crying, "An ounce of b.u.t.ter for G.o.d's sake!" and when some one gave him the alms he asked he stuck the white sprawling mess on the top of the loaf and changed his cry to "An ounce of cheese for G.o.d's sake!" A pert little vagabond--street Arab in a double sense--promenaded the town barefoot, carrying an odd slipper in his hand, and calling on all men by the love of G.o.d and the face of G.o.d and the sake of G.o.d to give him a moozoonah towards the cost of its fellow. Every morning the Sultan went to mosque under his red umbrella, and every evening he sat in the hall of the court of justice, pretending to hear the pet.i.tions of the poor, but actually dispensing charms in return for presents. First an old wrinkled reprobate with no life left in him but the life of l.u.s.t: "A charm to make my young wife love me!" Then an ill-favoured hag behind a blanket: "A charm to wither the face of the woman that my husband has taken instead of me!" Again, a young wife with a tearful voice: "A charm to make me bear children!" A greasy smile from the fat Sultan, a sc.r.a.p of writing to every supplicant, c.h.i.n.king coins dropped into the bag of the attendant from the treasury, and then up and away. It was a nauseous draught from the bitterest waters of Islam.

But, for all the religious tumult, no man was deceived by the outward marks of devotion. At the corners of the streets, on the Feddan, by the fountains, wherever men could meet and talk unheard, there they stood in little groups, crossing their forefingers, the sign of strife, or rubbing them side by side, the sign of amity. It was clear that, notwithstanding the hubbub of their loyalty to the sultan, they knew that the Spaniard was coming and were glad of it.

Meantime Ali waited with impatience for the day that was to see the end of his enterprise. To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night, during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick his steps in the silence up the winding streets, until he came under a narrow opening in an alley which was the only window to Naomi's prison.

And there he would stay the long dark hours through, as if he thought that besides the comfort it brought to him to be near to Naomi, the tramp, tramp, tramp of his footsteps, which once or twice provoked the challenge of the night-guard on his lonely round, would be company to her in her solitude. And sometimes, watching his opportunity that he might be unseen and unheard, he would creep in the darkness under the window and cry up the wall in an underbreath, "Naomi! Naomi! It is I, Ali! I have come back! All will be well yet!"

Then if he heard nothing from within he would torture himself with a hundred fears lest Naomi should be no longer there, but in a worse place; and if he heard a sob he would slink away like a dog with his muzzle to the dust, and if he heard his own name echoed in the softer voice he knew so well he would go off with head erect, feeling like a man who walked on the stars rather than the stones of the street. But, whatever befell, before the day dawned he went back to his lodging less sore at heart for his lonely vigil, but not less wrathful or resolute.

The day of the feast came at length, and then Ali's impatience rose to fever. All day he longed for the night, that the thing he had to do could be done. At last the sunset came and the darkness fell, and from his place of concealment Ali saw the soldiers of the a.s.saseen going through the streets with lanterns to lead honoured guests to the banquet. Then he set out on his errand. His foresight and wit had arranged everything. The negro at the gate of the Kasbah pretended to recognise him as a messenger of the Vizier's, and pa.s.sed him through. He pushed his way as one with authority along the winding pa.s.sages to the garden where the Mahdi had called on Abd er-Rahman and foretold his fate. The garden opened upon the great hall, and a number of guests were standing there, cooling themselves in the night air while they waited for the arrival of the Sultan. His Shereefian Majesty came at length, and then, amid salaams and peace-blessings, the company pa.s.sed in to the banquet. "Peace on you!" "And on you the peace!" "G.o.d make your evening!" "May your evening be blessed!"

Did Ali shrink from the task at that moment? No, a thousand times no!

While he looked on at these men in their muslin and gauze and linen and scarlet, sweeping in with bows and hand-touchings to sup and to laugh and to tell their pretty stories, he remembered Israel broken and alone in the poor hut which had been described to him, and Naomi lying in her damp cell beyond the wall.

Some minutes he stood in the darkness of the garden, while the guests entered, and until the barefooted servants of the kitchen began to troop in after them with great dishes under huge covers. Then he held a short parley with the negro gatekeeper, two keys were handed to him, and in another minute he was standing at the door of Naomi's prison.

Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of all--the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by the gift of sight, and would now first look upon _him_. That he would be the same as a stranger to her, and would have to tell her who he was; that she would have to recognise him by whatsoever means remained to belie the evidence of the newborn sense--this was the least of Ali's trouble. By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand to Shawan. He was black, and she would see him.

With the gliding of the key into the lock all this, and more than this, flashed upon his mind. His shame was abject. It cut him to the quick.

On the other side of that door was she who had been as a sister to him since times that were lost in the blue clouds of childhood. She had played with him and slept by his side, yet she had never seen his face.

And she was fair as the morning, and he was black as the night! He had come to deliver her. Would she recoil from him?

Ali had to struggle with himself not to fly away and leave everything.

But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose. "What matter?" he thought. "What matter about me?" he asked himself aloud in a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head. Then he found himself inside the cell.

The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah, and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her feet. In his confusion Ali said simply, "It is I," as though that meant everything. Recovering himself in a moment he spoke again, and then she knew his voice: "Naomi!"

"It's Ali," she whispered to herself. After that she cried in a trembling undertone "Ali! Ali! Ali!" and came straight in the accustomed darkness to the spot where he stood.

Then, gathering courage and voice together, Ali told her hurriedly why he was there. When he said that her father was no longer in prison, but at their home near Semsa and waiting to receive her, she seemed almost overcome by her joy. Half laughing, half weeping, clutching at her breast as if to ease the wild heaving of her bosom she was transformed by his story.

"Hush!" said Ali; "not a sound until we are outside the town," and Naomi knitted her fingers in his palm, and they pa.s.sed out of the place.

The banquet was now at its height, and hastening down dark corridors where they were apt to fall, for they had no light to see by, and coming into the garden, they heard the ripple and crackle of laughter from the great hall where Ben Aboo and his servile rascals feasted together. They reached the quiet alley outside the Kasbah (for the negro was gone from his post), and drew a lone breath, and thanked Heaven that this much was over. There had been no group of beggars at the gate, and the streets around it were deserted; but in the distance, far across the town in the direction of the Bab el Marsa, the gate that goes out to Marteel, they heard a low hum as of vast droves of sheep. The Spaniard was coming, and the townsmen were going out to meet him. Casual pa.s.sers-by challenged them, and though Ali knew that even if recognised they had nothing to fear from the people, yet more than once his voice trembled when he answered, and sometimes with a feeling of dread he turned to see that no one was following.

As he did so he became aware of something which brought back the shame of that awful moment when he stood with the key in hand at the door of Naomi's prison. By the light of the lamps in the hands of the pa.s.sers-by Naomi was looking at him. Again and again, as the glare fell for an instant, he felt the eyes of the girl upon his face. At such moments he thought she must be drawing away from him, for the s.p.a.ce between them seemed wider. But he firmly held to the outstretched arm, kept his head aside, and hastened on.

"What matter about me?" he whispered again. But the brave word brought him no comfort. "Now she's looking at my hand," he told himself, but he could not draw it away. "She is doubting if I am Ali after all," he thought. "Naomi!" he tried to say with averted head, so that once again the sound of his voice might rea.s.sure her; but his throat was thick, and he could not speak. Still he pushed on.

The dark town just then was like a mountain chasm when a storm that has been gathering is about to break. In the air a deep rumble, and then a loud detonation. Blackness overhead, and things around that seemed to move and pa.s.s.

Drawing near to the Bab Toot, the gate that witnessed the last scene of Israel's humiliation and Naomi's shame, Ali, with the girl beside him, came suddenly into a sheet of light and a concourse of people. It was the Mahdi and his vast following with lamps in their hands, entering the town on the west, while the Spaniards whom they had brought up to the gates were coming in on the east. The Mahdi himself was locking the synagogues and the sanctuaries.

"Lock them up," he was saying. "It is enough that the foreigner must burn down the Sodom of our tyrant; let him not outrage the Zion of our G.o.d."

Ali led Naomi up to the Mahdi, who saw her then for the first time.

"I have brought her," he said breathlessly; "Naomi, Israel's daughter, this is she." And then there was a moment of surprise and joy, and pain and shame and despair, all gathered up together into one look of the eyes of the three.

The Mahdi looked at Naomi, and his face lightened. Naomi looked at Ali, and her pale face grew paler, and she pa.s.sed a tress of her fair hair across her lips to smother a little nervous cry that began to break from her mouth. Then she looked at the Mahdi, and her lips parted and her eyes shone. Ali looked at both, and his face twitched and fell.

This was only the work of an instant, but it was enough. Enough for the Mahdi, for it told him a secret that the wisdom of life had not yet revealed; enough for Naomi, for a new sense, a sixth sense, had surely come to her; enough for Ali also, for his big little heart was broken.

"What matter about me?" thought Ali again. "Take her, Mahdi," he said aloud in a shrill voice. "Her father is waiting for her--take her to him."

"Lady," said the Mahdi, "can you trust me?"

And then without a word she went to him; like the needle to the magnet she went to the Mahdi--a stranger to her, when all strangers were as enemies--and laid her hand in his.

Ali began to laugh, "I'm a fool," he cried. "Who could have believed it? Why, I've forgotten to lock the Kasbah! The villains will escape. No matter, I'll go back."

"Stop!" cried the Mahdi.

But Ali laughed so loudly that he did not hear. "I'll see to it yet," he cried, turning on his heel. "Good night, Sidi! G.o.d bless you! My love to my father! Farewell!"

And in another moment he was gone.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FALL OF BEN ABOO

The roysterers in the Kasbah sat a long half-hour in ignorance of the doom that was impending. Squatting on the floor in little circles, around little tables covered with steaming dishes, wherein each plunged his fingers, they began the feast with ceremonious wishes, pious exclamations, cant phrases, and downcast eyes. First, "G.o.d lengthen your age," "G.o.d cover you," and "G.o.d give you strength." Then a dish of dates, served with abject apologies from Ben Aboo: "You would treat us better in Fez, but Tetuan is poor; the means, Seedna, the means, not the will!"

Then fish in garlic, eaten with loud "Bismillah's." Then kesksoo covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and meat on skewers, and browned fowls, and fowls and olives, and flake pastry and sponge fritters, each eaten in its turn amid a chorus of "La Ilah illa Allah's." Finally three cups of green tea, as thick and sweet as syrup, drunk with many "Do me the favour's," and countless "Good luck's." Last of all, the washing of hands, and the fumigating of garments and beard and hair by the live embers of scented wood burning in a bra.s.s censer, with incessant exchanges of "The Prophet--G.o.d rest him--loved sweet odours almost as much as sweet women."

But after supper all this ceremony fell away, and the feasters thawed down to a warm and flowing brotherhood. Lolling at ease on their rugs, trifling with their egg-like snuff-boxes, fumbling their rosaries for idleness more than piety, stretching their straps, and jingling on the pavement the carved ends of their silver knife-shields, they laughed and jested, and told dubious stories, and held doubtful discourse generally.

The talk turned on the distinction between great sins and little ones.

In the circle of the Sultan it was agreed that the great sins were two: unbelief in the Prophet, whereby a man became Jew and dog; and smoking keef and tobacco, which no man could do and be of correct life and unquestionable Islam. The atonement for these great sins were five prayers a day, thirty-four prostrations, seventeen chapters of the Koran, and as many inclinations. All the rest were little sins; and as for murder and adultery, and bearing false witness--well, G.o.d was Merciful, G.o.d was Compa.s.sionate, G.o.d forgave His poor weak children.

This led to stories of the penalises paid by transgressors of the great sins. These were terrible. Putting on a profound air, the Vizier, a fat man of fifty, told of how one who smoked tobacco and denied the Prophet had rotted piecemeal; and of how another had turned in his grave with his face from Mecca. Then the Kaid of Fez, head of the Mosque and general Grand Mufti, led away with stories of the little sins. These were delightful. They pictured the shifts of pretty wives, married to worn out old men, to get at their youthful lovers in the dark by clambering in their dainty slippers from roof to roof. Also of the discomfiture of pious old husbands and the wicked triumph of rompish little ladies, under pretences of outraged innocence.

Such, and worse, and of a kind that bears not to be told, was the conversation after supper of the roysterers in the Kasbah. At every fresh story the laughter became louder, and soon the reserve and dignity of the Moor were left behind him and forgotten. At length Ben Aboo, encouraged by the Sultan's good fellowship, broke into loud praises of Naomi, and yet louder wails over the doom that must be the penalty of her apostasy; and thereupon Abd er-Rahman, protesting that for his part he wanted nothing with such a vixen, called on him to uncover her boasted charms to them. "Bring her here, Basha," he said; "let us see her," and this command was received with tumultuous acclamations.