"Fetch a basket for her!" ordered the kaïd, and in another moment a second attendant was assisting Mahmood to force the struggling woman to sit in a large and pliable basket of palmetto, the handles of which were quickly lashed across her stomach. She was then thrown shrieking on her back, her bare legs lifted high, and tied to a short piece of pole just in front of the ankles; one man seized each end of this, a third awaiting the governor's orders to strike the soles. In his hand he had a short-handled lash made of twisted thongs from Tafilált, well soaked in water. The efforts of the victim to attack the men on either side becoming violent, a delay was caused by having to tie her hands together, her loud shrieks rending the air the while.
"Give her a hundred," said the kaïd, beginning to count as the blows descended, giving fresh edge[page 256] to the piercing yells, interspersed with piteous cries for mercy, and ribbing the skin in long red lines, which were soon lost in one raw mass of bleeding flesh. As the arm of one wearied, another took his place, and a bucket of cold water was thrown over the victim's legs. At first her face had been ashy pale, it was now livid from the blood descending to it, as her legs grew white all but the soles, which were already turning purple under the cruel lash. Then merciful unconsciousness stepped in, and silence supervened.
"That will do," said the governor, having counted eighty-nine. "Take her away; she'll know better next time!" and he proceeded with the cases before him, fining this one, imprisoning that, and bastinadoing a third, with as little concern as an English registrar would sign an order to pay a guinea fine. Indeed, why should he do otherwise. This was his regular morning's work. It was a month before Mesaôdah could touch the ground with her feet, and more than three before she could totter along with two sticks. Her children were kept alive by her neighbours till she could sit up and "stitch, stitch, stitch," but there was no one to hear her bitter complaint, and no one to dry her tears.
One day his faithful henchman dragged before the kaïd a Jewish broker, whose crime of having bid against that functionary on the market, when purchasing supplies for his master, had to be expiated by a fine of twenty dollars, or a hundred lashes. The misguided wretch chose the latter, loving his coins too well; but after the first half-dozen had descended on his naked soles, he cried for mercy and agreed to pay.
[page 257]
Another day it was a more wealthy member of the community who was summoned on a serious charge. The kaïd produced a letter addressed to the prisoner, which he said had been intercepted, couched in the woefully corrupted Arabic of the Moorish Jews, but in the cursive Hebrew character.
"Canst read, O Moses?" asked the kaïd, in a surly tone.