It is said, and denied, that there has been within a few days a capital execution before one of the gates of Fez. No head has appeared upon the walls, however, and I prefer to think the news is false. The description, which I once read, of an execution done at Tangiers, some years ago, deprived me of the barbarous curiosity that I formerly had to be present at one of these spectacles.
An Englishman, Mr. Drummond Hay, coming out one morning at one of the gates of Tangiers, saw a company of soldiers dragging along two prisoners with their arms bound to their sides. One was a mountaineer from the Rif, formerly gardener to a European resident at Tangiers; the other, a handsome young fellow, tall, and with an open and attractive countenance.
The Englishman asked the officer in command what crime these two unfortunate men had committed.
“The Sultan,” was the answer,—“may God prolong his days!—has ordered their heads to be cut off because they have been engaged in contraband trade, on the coast of the Rif, with infidel Spaniards.”
“It is a very severe punishment for such a fault,” observed the Englishman; “and if it is to serve as a warning and example to the inhabitants of Tangiers, why are they not allowed to be present at it?”
(The gates of the city had been closed, and Mr. Drummond Hay had caused one to be opened for him by giving some money to the guard.)
“Do not argue with me, Nazarene!” responded the officer; “I have received an order, and must obey.”
The decapitation was to take place in the Hebrew slaughter-house. A Moor of vulgar and hideous aspect, dressed like a butcher, was there awaiting the condemned. He had in his hand a small knife, about six inches long. He was a stranger in the city, and had offered himself as executioner, because the Mohammedan butchers of Tangiers, who usually fill that office, had all taken refuge in a mosque.
An altercation now broke out between the soldiers and the executioner about the reward promised for the decapitation of the two poor creatures, who stood by and listened to the dispute over the blood-money. The executioner insisted, declaring that he had been promised twenty francs a head, and must have forty for the two. The officer at last agreed, but with a very ill grace. Then the butcher seized one of the condemned men, already half dead with terror, threw him on the ground, kneeled on his chest, and put the knife to his throat. The Englishman turned away his face. He heard the sounds of a violent struggle. The executioner cried out: “Give me another knife; mine does not cut!” Another knife was brought, and the head separated from the body.
The soldiers cried, in a faint voice, “God prolong the life of our lord and master!” But many of them were stupefied with terror.