At this juncture, Muley Hamet having been secretly apprised of the disaster which had befallen his former vanquisher, re-appeared upon the plains of Marmora; and, at the head of an armed multitude of Moors and Arabs, marched towards Mequinez.
Sidi Solyman, his near kinsman and secret partisan, was then in the capital. He was ready on any promising occasion to blow the flame of sedition; and, with great industry and dispatch, prepared the way for Muley Hamet, by publishing the reverses of the campaign. He accused the great officers of state of mal-administration; their chief agent, the renegade Duke, as an infamous trafficker of his faith; and urged, that Abdallah, having introduced the Christian impostor into the councils of the empire, had rendered himself obnoxious to the prophet's vengeance; the people, at present, lay under the same curse; and their first act must be to appease the heavenly power, by the deposition of the Emperor, and the delivery of Aben Humeya to the expiation of the laws!
The ever discontented and tumultuous rabble of Mequinez listened to these suggestions in the very spirit that was desired. They set fire to the imperial palace, and marched out of the town, headed by the incendiary, Solyman, to meet his kinsman on the plain.
Abdallah, at that time, was with a few chosen troops, winding his way through the Habad mountains, to support the joint authority of Ali and Adelmelek with his presence; and also to ameliorate the fury of those two commanders against the Spanish Basha, whom he still believed to be as true as he was brave.
Adelmelek was so well aware of the consequence to him of the Emperor's arrival, should he hear from Ali that the battle of Ceuta was lost by the disobedience of the army of the interior to the summons of Aben Humeya; that on the very day he was told of Abdallah's approach, he caused Ali to be assassinated, and detached a body of troops to escort the Emperor with honour to his camp. But an honest Moor, who knew the designs of the Hadge, made his escape into the mountains, and informed the Emperor, not merely of the murder of the Sidi, but that Adelmelek intended his sovereign the same fate; after which he would march upon Tetuan, where the Basha was shut up, utterly helpless from his numerous wounds; and storming the place, deliver the whole with the empire, into the hands of Muley Hamet. Other information more than corroborated this statement; and Abdallah soon saw that temporary flight was his only resource. He called his few faithful followers together, and taking a circuit through the mountains, made a safe retreat into the desert regions of his empire.
Muley Hamet was declared Emperor by Sidi Solyman and Adelmelek; and the troops of the latter rejoicing in any change, readily obeyed his orders for a mere shew of discipline, while he dispatched his second ambassador to Ceuta, to make peace at any rate with the Spanish King.
By the information of this Moor, Santa Cruz learnt, that when Ripperda fell in the battle of the camp, it was the last stroke of many wounds, and had been supposed mortal. But his immediate followers, snatching him from the crowd of slain, laid him on a camel, and disappeared with him from the field. It was some days before Adelmelek knew what was become of the fugitive party; and then a messenger from Ismail Cheriff, chief of his Arabian guards, brought information to Ali, that he had borne the wounded Aben Humeya to the safe hold of his own fortress of Tetuan. Ali lost no time in sending the courier back to the faithful Arab, with a full account of Adelmelek's intentions to give the Basha up to the resentment of the turbulent soldiery, or to influence the Emperor to order his immediate death.
The consequence was, Aben Humeya closed the gates of Tetuan as firmly against all the insidious advances of Adelmelek, as he would have done, to repel an open attack of the outrageous Moors, "Ali is dead; and Muley Hamet Emperor of Morocco,"—continued the ambassador, "Adelmelek is alone powerful with the new sovereign; and the first judicial act of the divan has been to declare Aben Humeya a traitor to the empire and our prophet. Should the desperate state of his wounds fail of proving his executioner, before the next moon Tetuan will be stormed by Adelmelek, the inhabitants put to the sword, and the treacherous Basha, die the death of a slave."
To these denunciations, Louis de Montemar, who was present at the audience, paid no attention; all that he heard, and seized as the renewal of life, was that his father yet survived; that he was accused of irreverence towards the founder of the Ottoman faith; and that he had taken refuge in a place not more than a day's journey from the Spanish fortress.
When the Mussulman closed his communications, and withdrew to leave their import to consultation, Louis imparted what were now his designs. Indeed, it was hardly necessary to declare them; for the existence of the Duke de Ripperda was no sooner affirmed, and his occupation of Tetuan mentioned, than Santa Cruz read in the instant blaze of his friend's countenance, the regeneration of hope; and the enterprize to which the welcome visitant would give birth.