"God lengthen your age" "God cover you," and "God 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 brass censer, with incessant exchanges of "The Prophet--

God 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,

God was Merciful, God was Compassionate, God 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 wickedtriumph 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.
It was the beginning of the end. In less than a minute more,

while the rascals lolled over the floor in half a hundred
different postures, with the hazy lights from the brass lamps

and the glass candelabras on their dusky faces, their gleaming teeth,
and dancing eyes, the messenger who had been sent for Naomi came back

with the news that she was gone. Then Ben Aboo rose in silent
consternation, but his guests only laughed the louder,

until a second messenger, a soldier of the guard, came running
with more startling news. Marteel had been bombarded by the Spaniards;

the army of Marshall O'Donnel was under the walls of Tetuan,
and their own people were opening the gates to him.

The tumult and confusion which followed upon this announcement
does not need to be detailed. Shoutings for the mkhaznia,

infuriated commands to the guards, racings to the stables
and the Kasbah yard, unhobbling of horses, stamping and clattering

of hoofs, and scurryings through dark corridors of men carrying torches
and flares. There was no attempt at resistance" target="_blank" title="n.抵抗；抵制；耐力">resistance. That was seen

to be useless. Both the civil guard and the soldiery had deserted.
The Kasbah was betrayed. Terror spread like fire. In very little time

the Sultan and his company with their women and eunuchs, were gone
from the town through the straggling multitude of their disorderly

and dissolute and worthless soldiery lying asleep on the southern side
of it.

Ben Aboo did not fly with Abd er-Rahman. He remembered
that he had treasure, and as soon as he was alone he went in search of it.

There were fifty thousand dollars, sweat of the life-blood
of innocent people. No one knew the strong-room except himself,

for with his own hand he had killed the mason who built it.
In the dark he found the place, and taking bags in both his hands

and hiding them under the folds of his selham, he tried to escape
from the Kasbah unseen.

It was too late; the Spanish soldiers were coming up the arcades,
and Ben Aboo, with his money-bags, took refuge in a granary underground,

near the wall of the Kasbah gate. From that dark cell, crouching
on the grain, which was alive with vermin, he listened in terror

to the sounds of the night. First the galloping of horses
on the courtyardoverhead; then the furious shouts of the soldiers,

and, finally, the mad cries of the crowd. "Damn it--they've given us
the slip" "Yes; they've crawled off like rats from a sinking ship."

"Curse it all, it's only a bungle." This in the Spanish tongue,
and then in the tongue of his own country Ben Aboo heard

the guttural shouts of his own people: "Sidi, try the palace."
"Try the apartments of his women, Sidi." "Abd er-Rahman's gone,

but Ben Aboo's hiding." "Death to the tyrant!" "Down with the Basha!"
"Ben Aboo! Ben Aboo!" Last of all a terrific voice demanding silence.

"Silence, you shrieking hell-babies, silence!"
Ben Aboo was in safety; but to lie in that dark hole underground

and to hear the tumult above him was more than he could bear
without going mad. So he waited until the din abated, and the soldiers,

who had ransacked the Kasbah, seemed to have deserted it;
and then he crept out, made for the women's apartments, and rattled

at their door. It was folly, it was lunacy; but he could not resist it,
for he dared not be alone. He could hear the sounds of voices

within--wailing and weeping of the women--but no one answered
his knocking. Again and again he knocked with his elbows

(still gripping his money-bags with both hands), until the flesh was raw
through selham and kaftan by beating against the wood.

Still the door remained unopened, and Ben Aboo, thinking better
of his quest for company, fled to the patio, hoping to escape

by a little passage that led to the alley behind the Kasbah.
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;