"Ali el Bezz!" he ejaculated, "O Sheik! I know you. God is merciful—I am an old man—I never wronged you—I give sentence according to law—but revenge is yours! Let me say the Fetha, and take my life—if it is written."
"Truly, O Al Maimon, you deserve to die, as an unjust judge. Do you not pervert the holy Koran for your purposes? Do you not take bribes to rob God's children, the widow and orphan? and are you not now here to shed innocent blood? But your victim is safe, and we have taught you the difference between Moorish law and Arab justice. I will not have your blood on my hands, when your grey beard will so soon be burning in Djehennem. You will presently be free. Show mercy, as you have received it. And tell your Sultan we laugh at his beard."
"O Sheik!" said Abd el Aziz, "the black horse has won the race."
Their attention was now attracted by a succession of yells from the burning pyre: "Woe unto you, Moslim! Woe unto you, murderers! Woe! woe! Slay, O Sheik! cut them down! spare none! The Prophet's curse on them! Woe! woe!" And they beheld Hassan the maniac on the summit of the pile, now wrapped in flames, with his arms wildly waving, and shouting his curses. The Chief would have saved him, but Hassan, unable to distinguish friend from foe, warned them off: "Woe unto you, murderers; you shall not take me alive! Death to the slave who approaches! Slay, O Ali!"—Here the smoke and flame rolled upward, and choked his utterance, and his voice broke into gurgling and spasmodic screams, as the fire wrapped him round, and his clothes and hair were fiercely ablaze. On the same spot where the vision of the Hebrew maiden had just before appeared against the sky, now stood forth the burning and appalling form of her accuser. He stood erect, one blackened arm pointing towards the band, the other wound round the glowing stake, a figure of horror. With a dying effort, as the wind blew the smoke from his face, he sent up a last sad cry, "O Azora! Azora! saved! saved! Allaw ho Ackbar!" and sank devoured in the flaming pyre.
The crowd had disappeared within the town gates, with the exception of some dozen maimed, who had been ridden down by the Arabs' charge. Leaving the Cadi and his party at liberty, the whole band resumed their march, escorting the litter by the way they came. The sun shone on the vacant plain, on the black smouldering pile, on the whispering date-groves, and on the mud walls of the town, now manned with excited spectators, who did not, however, venture out, until the band of the Arab Chief, who had so nobly redeemed his Pledge, gradually disappeared behind the distant woods.
FINIS.
London: Strangeways & Walden, Printers,
Castle Street, Leicester Square.