Zoraida: A Romance of the Harem and the Great Sahara

by William Le Queux

Closely pressed, they were at last, after holding out with dogged resistance until the first flush of dawn, driven back against the gloomy walls of the palace, and there slaughtered without mercy.

The tide of battle turned in favour of the brigands.

There ensued a revolting massacre, from which Zoraida, breathless and panting, turned and shut out its sight by covering her eyes with her delicate hands. The soldiers of the Ahír, finding themselves overpowered by the dreaded band whose vengeance was feared throughout the Soudan, threw down their arms and craved for quarter. But the Ennitra had given rein to their savage bloodthirstiness, and no words from their beautiful leader could avert that fierce, horrible brutality which caused them to be held in dread. Upon their knees proud janissaries of the Sultan Abd-el-Kerim sank in the blood of their comrades, crying hoarsely for mercy, but none was shown them. Dismounted, the men whom Zoraida had rallied and incited to victory threw themselves upon their adversaries, butchering them in cold blood. Murder, mutilation, and torture were rife everywhere in the vicinity of the Fáda, and as the bright streaks of saffron spread in the east, heralding the sun’s coming, the massacre was awful.

“Spare the Mesállaje!” cried Zoraida, pointing to the square minaret that loomed dark against the grey of dawn. “Defile not the Great Mosque! The curse of the One of Might rest upon any who dare to enter the holy place with blood upon their hands!”

Quickly the order, shouted aloud, was passed from mouth to mouth, and a few moments later, Zoraida, as she rode swiftly past me, exclaimed—

“With the Mosque free from attack, thou wilt of a surety find the imam thou seekest. When it is time I will tell thee;” and away she galloped to where a large force of our people, climbing over the great heap of slain, were battering in the heavy gate of the Fáda, that for centuries had withstood all attack.

At last, by dint of supreme effort, the door was burst open, and with loud, victorious yells, there rushed into the first of the great courts a legion of ferocious brutes, who ruthlessly murdered those who stood in their path. Guards, servants, courtiers, and eunuchs were ferreted from their hiding-places and slaughtered with horrible ferocity, as, headed by Hadj Absalam under his green standard, the thieving hordes swept onward through the luxuriant palace to the Court of the Eunuchs, with which I was so familiar. Then, storming the three great doors of the Sultan’s harem, they at last gained that most luxuriant portion of the Fáda.

Zoraida drew back, as if fearing to enter, and for a few seconds stood beside me in the gateway trembling. Summoning courage at last, she allowed herself to be carried on over the bloodstained floors of polished sardonyx and agate into the great arcaded courts, with their columns of marble, plashing fountains, and cool palms. Huddled together in little groups stood the beautiful prisoners of the Sultan, with fear depicted on their handsome faces, as if they had received forewarning of their untimely end. Uttering fiendish yells, the flint-hearted Ennitra, intoxicated by success, bounded towards them, and the awful scenes of loot and massacre that ensued I will not attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that no mercy was shown even to the women. Their jewels were torn from them, fingers on which were valuable rings being unceremoniously hacked off, and their slim white throats and bare breasts were cut and slashed with hellish fiendishness. A few of the more beautiful were chosen by Hadj Absalam to grace his own harem, but the remainder were simply butchered with merciless ruthlessness, the jewels filched from them being flung unceremoniously into a great heap in the centre of the gorgeous Courts of Love, and over it a dozen of the outlaws mounted guard.

The massacre was sickening. Piercing screams of the women as they fell under the knives of their pitiless captors echoed along the great arcades, mingling with the jeers of the outlaws and the hoarse cries of the dying. Blood ran across the polished floors, and, trickling into the fountains, tinged their waters, the walls of marble were bespattered with it, and the once-beautiful Courts of Love were rendered hideous by their piles of mutilated corpses, and became a ghastly Inferno, to be remembered with a fearsome shudder until one’s dying day.