Selam described in a low voice and with mysterious gestures the place where the treasure was kept, the amount of which no one knows; but it must have been much decreased in the last wars, if even it is still worthy of the name of treasure. “Within the palace,” he said, “there is another palace all of stone, which receives the light from above, and is surrounded by three ranges of walls. It is entered by an iron door, and within there is another, and yet another iron door. After these three doors there is a dark, low passage, where lights are necessary, and the pavement, walls, and roof are all of black marble, and the air smells like that of a sepulchre. At the end of the corridor, there is a great hall, and in the middle of it an opening which leads to a deep subterranean place, where three hundred negroes, four times a year, shovel in the gold and silver money which the Sultan sends. The Sultan looks on while this is done. The negroes are shut up for life in the palace, and never come out until they are carried out dead. And around the great hall there are ten earthen jars which contain the heads of ten slaves who once tried to steal. Muley Soliman cut off all their heads as soon as the money was in its place. And no man ever came out of that palace alive except our lord the Sultan.”
He related these horrors without the least sign of disapproval, even with an admiring accent, as if they were superhuman and fatal events, which a man must not judge, nor feel any other sentiment concerning them save one of mysterious respect.
“There was once a king of Mechinez,” he resumed, with unalterable gravity, standing erect before our tent, with his hand on the hilt of his sabre, “who wished to make a road from Mechinez to Morocco, bordered by two high walls, so that even the blind could go from one place to the other without a guide. And this perverse and cruel king had a ring by whose power he could call all the demons to his service. And he called them and made them work at the road. There were thousands and thousands of them, and every one of them carried stones that a hundred men could not have moved an inch, and those who would not work, the king had them built up alive in the wall, and their bones can still be seen.” (They can still be seen, indeed, but they are the bones of Christian slaves, which are also found in the walls of Sallè and Rabat.)
“And the wall was built for the length of a day’s journey, and everybody rejoiced, thinking that it would soon be finished. But that king was displeasing to Allah, and Allah did not choose that the wall should be finished. One day when he was riding along, a poor country-woman stopped him, and said, 'Where, O audacious king, is this road to end?’ 'In hell,’ answered the king, in a rage. 'Go down there, then!’ cried the woman. At these words the king fell from his horse dead, the walls crumbled away, the demons scattered the stones over the country, and the road remains to this day unfinished forever.”
“And do you believe that all this is true, Selam?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he answered, astonished at my doubt.
“Do you believe in demons?”
“Of course I believe in them! I should like to see the time when we would not believe in them!”
“But have you ever seen one?”
“Never! And for that reason I believe that there are no more of them on earth, and when I hear any one say, 'Take care how you pass at night through such or such a place, because there are demons there,’ I go at once, and go in first myself, because I know that the demons are men, and with a good horse between my knees, and a good musket in my hand, I am afraid of nobody.”