Part 5 (2/2)
”Let the spy's head be struck off and placed upon the palace gate as a warning.”
The eyes of my guards, on hearing this, brightened, and they cried: ”Thy will, O Mighty Ruler, is our command,” and those holding me pushed me forward so roughly that my ragged jibbeh was torn from the neck to the waist, displaying my chest.
The Sultan, with a parting injunction to my captors to place my head upon the gate and to announce throughout the city that a spy of the Khalifa had been captured and executed, was about to ride away when suddenly I noticed that he again fixed his gaze full upon me and sat for a few seconds perplexed and thoughtful.
”Bring hither thy prisoner. Let him approach me closely,” he shouted to the Janissaries, who were at that moment hurrying me away.
Amazed at the Sultan's sudden change of manner, the Aga of the Eunuchs and his menials dragged me back before their ruler, who, with his startled eyes fixed upon my uncovered breast, asked in a tone of awe,--
”Speak, slave! How earnest thou by that mystic mark of the serpents?”
His anger had instantly cooled. He had detected the strange red scar, and for him it evidently had some serious significance, for he had grown pale under his manly bronze, and the bejewelled hand that held the reins trembled slightly.
”Of its origin I have no knowledge,” I answered, glancing quickly round and noticing the effect produced by the monarch's sudden change of manner.
”Whence comest thou?” he asked, with eagerness unusual to an autocrat.
”From Omdurman. I am of the Ansar of the Khalifa.”
”And thy parentage?”
”I was born in the Mountains of Aures, two days' journey from Batna. My father was the Hadj Yakub Sarraf.”
”Yukub Sarraf, the Kaid of El-Manaa?” he inquired quickly, his sinister face betraying an expression of combined surprise and fear.
”Even so, O Sultan.”
The excess of his rage was only equalled by the promptness of his remorse.
Bending in his saddle for a moment, he examined closely the puzzling mark upon me, and then, after a few moments' silence, he turned to Khazneh, who had been standing aghast and amazed, and said,--
”Let the spy's life be spared, but let him be expelled from our midst.
If thou findest him within the confines of our empire after three suns have set, then let him die. Mount him upon the swiftest _meheri_, and let twenty guards similarly mounted journey with him until he hath pa.s.sed beyond the boundary of Sokoto. I have ordained it. Let it be done accordingly.”
Turning to me he said: ”If thou ridest on the wings of haste thy life shall be spared; but enter not again into this my kingdom, or of a verity thine head shall fall.” And as he turned to ride forward, he added, in a harsh, strained voice that became softened towards me: ”Go, leave my rose garden of happiness quickly. Go, and may the peace of Allah, the Omniscient, rest upon thee in the hour of thine adversity.”
The all-powerful Sultan, with face pale and agitated, moved slowly onward across the great court with bowed head, followed by his wondering councillors and cringing slaves. Next second I was free.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE WHITE CITY.
All sounds had gradually died away in the town. A marabout had climbed to the terrace of the great mosque and was crying ”Allah is great!
Allah is great!” The surrounding terraces were peopled with white forms which stood out against the summits of the palm-trees and the green of the baobab. Their backs were turned to the purple splendours of the dying light, for their faces looked towards the already darkened east, lighted for them by that eternal light in which Mecca is to be found.
The silence was harshly broken by a brazen sound. It was the tamtams in the Kasbah sounding the call for prayer.
The plain was now a vast desert phantasmagorically illuminated. Above, the sky flamed into every imaginable colour, and the small water-channel, scarcely visible a moment before, blazed into a reflection of the ardour of the sky, while the rows of ospreys on its banks looked like necklaces of pink pearls. Then all the enchantment was overwhelmed by the sudden twilight that heralds the tropical night.
Well mounted on a swift camel, with water-skin and provision-bag filled, and escorted by my guards, I had ridden through the crowded markets, and pa.s.sing out of the Kofa-n-Magaidi, or eastern gate, set forth across the wide, sandy plain in the direction of prayer. The brief glimpse I caught of the place as I pa.s.sed hurriedly through its streets surprised me. The inhabitants seemed to some extent a cultured people, and the women apparently enjoyed considerable personal freedom, although the majority were veiled. The men, despite their bellicose spirit and the chronic state of warfare maintained, were not naturally cruel, and treated their slaves kindly.
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