I heard the name of Hassan Sidi Hassan often in the dispute. I began to suspect something, and desired in Arabic to know what that Sidi Hassan was, so often mentioned in discourse, and then the whole secret came out.
The reader will remember, that this Arab, Abdel Gin, was the person that seized the servant of Hassan, the Captain of the Caravan, when he was attempting to steal the Turk’s portmanteau out of my tent; that my people had beat him till he lay upon the ground like dead, and that Hussein Bey, at the complaint of the Caramaniots, had ordered him to be hanged. Now, in order to revenge this, Hassan had told the Ababdé that Abdel Gin was an Atouni spy, that he had detected him in the Caravan, and that he was come to learn the number of the Ababdé, in order to bring his companions to surprise them. He did not say one word that he was my servant, nor that I was at Cosseir; so the people thought they had a very meritorious sacrifice to make, in the person of poor Abdel Gin.
All passed now in kindness, fresh medicines were asked for the Nimmer, great thankfulness, and professions, for what they had received, and a prodigious quantity of meat on wooden platters very excellently dressed, and most agreeably diluted with fresh water, from the coldest rock of Terfowey, was set before me.
In the mean time, two of my servants, attended by three of Hussein Bey, came in great anxiety to know what was the matter; and, as neither they nor the Arabs chose much each others company, I sent them with a short account of the whole to the Bey; and soon after took my leave, carrying Abdel Gin along with me, who had been clothed by Ibrahim from head to foot. We were accompanied by two Ababdé, in case of accident.
I cannot help here accusing myself of what, doubtless, may be well reputed a very great sin. I was so enraged at the traitorous part which Hassan had acted, that, at parting, I could not help saying to Ibrahim, “Now, Shekh, I have done every thing you have desired, without ever expecting fee, or reward; the only thing I now ask you, and it is probably the last, is, that you revenge me upon this Hassan, who is every day in your power.” Upon this, he gave me his hand, saying, “He shall not die in his bed, or I shall never see old age.”
We now returned all in great spirits to Cosseir, and I observed that my unexpected connection with the Ababdé had given me an influence in that place, that put me above all fear of personal danger, especially as they had seen in the desert, that the Atouni were my friends also, as reclaiming this Arab shewed they really were.
The Bey insisted on my supping with him. At his desire I told him the whole story, at which he seemed to be much surprised, saying, several times, “Menullah! Menullah! Mucktoub!” It is God’s doing, it is God’s doing, it was written so. And, when I had finished, he said to me, “I will not leave this traitor with you to trouble you further; I will oblige him, as it is his duty, to attend me to Furshout.” This he accordingly did; and, to my very great surprise, though he might be assured I had complained of him to Shekh Hamam, meeting me the next day, when they were all ready to depart, and were drinking coffee with the Bey, he gave me a slip of paper, and desired me, by that direction, to buy him a sabre, which might be procured in Mecca. It seems it is the manufacture of Persia, and, though I do not understand in the least, the import of the terms, I give it to the reader that he may know by what description he is to buy an excellent sabre. It is called Suggaro Tabanne Haresanne Agemmi, for Sidi Hassan of Furshout.
Although pretty much used to stifle my resentment upon impertinences of this kind, I could not, after the trick he had played me with the Ababdé, carry it indifferently; I threw the billet before the Bey, saying to Hassan, “A sword of that value would be useless and misemployed in the hand of a coward and a traitor, such as surely you must be sensible I know you to be.” He looked to the Bey as if appealing to him, from the incivility of the observation; but the Bey, without scruple, answered, “It is true, it is true what he says, Hassan; if I was in Ali Bey’s place, when you dared use a stranger of mine, or any stranger, as you have done him, I would plant you upon a sharp stake in the market-place, till the boys in the town stoned you to death; but he has complained of you in a letter, and I will be a witness against you before Hamam, for your conduct is not that of a Mussulman.”
While I was engaged with the Ababdé, a vessel was seen in distress in the offing, and all the boats went out and towed her in. It was the vessel in which the twenty-five Turks had embarked, which had been heavily loaded. Nothing is so dreadful as the embarkation in that sea; for the boats have no decks; the whole, from stern to stem, being filled choak-full of wheat, the waste, that is the slope of the vessel, between the height of her stem and stern, is filled up by one plank on each side, which is all that is above the surface of the waves. Sacks, tarpaulins, or mats, are strowed along the surface of the wheat upon which all the passengers lye. On the least agitation of the waves, the sea getting in upon the wheat, increases its weight so prodigiously, that, falling below the level of the gunnel, the water rushes in between the plank and that part of the vessel, and down it goes to the bottom.
Though every day produces an accident of this kind from the same cause, yet such is the desire of gaining money in that season, which offers but once a-year, that every ship sails, loaded in the same manner as the last which perished. This was just the case with the vessel that had carried the Turks. Anxious to go away, they would not wait the signs of the weather being rightly settled. Ullah Kerim! they cry, ‘God is great and is merciful’; and upon that they embark in a navigation, where it needs indeed a miracle to save them.