The body, quickly despoiled of its jewels, was kicked aside into a corner, while the head, mounted on a spear, was sent forth into the city in order to strike awe into the hearts of those citizens who refused to submit to the conquerors.
Mukhtar and Amagay were also decapitated in like manner and without ceremony by the villainous Labakan, who, judging from the self-satisfied grin upon his sinister countenance, delighted in the gruesome duties of his self-assumed office. Once he glanced at me and smiled. Doubtless it would have afforded him considerable pleasure to strike off my head by the same means.
In their frenzied thirst for blood, many of my companions, rushing onward, pillaged the Sultan’s private apartments and the Treasury. Thence they went to the Hall of Audience.
Here a band of janissaries at first made a desperate stand, but they were eventually butchered, even to the last man.
Through the city wildly yelling bands of the Ennitra were rushing with fire and sword. The hours were spent by them in murder and pillage, in mutilation, in every conceivable kind of nameless atrocity. Into the houses they rushed, penetrating to the apartments of the women, murdering the occupants, and carrying off all that was valuable. Deeds of violence and lawlessness were committed with cruel brutality and heartlessness; women and children were slaughtered before the eyes of husbands and fathers, who in their turn were also murdered in cold blood. Many went down on their knees, supplicating with heads bent to the ground, crying for quarter, and in that attitude were butchered mercilessly by their conquerors. In the open space called the Azarmádarangh between four and five hundred young men and women had by noon been collected to be sold as slaves, and as each hour passed, others were added to the number. Some attempted to escape, and were shot down in consequence, but the majority gave themselves up to their fate, and squatted on the ground silent and morose. The women wept and wailed, but the men made no complaint. They had fought, Fortune had deserted them, and their Sultan’s head was being carried around Agadez to the monotonous thumping of the ancient Drum of Nâr. Upon the pinnacles and minarets the great vultures of dirty-greyish plumage with naked necks were awaiting impatiently the feast that the marauders had provided for them, and the captives, noticing them, regarded their presence as an omen that the power of the Sultans of the Ahír had been broken for ever.
In Abd-el-Kerim’s pavilion, where I remained, Hadj Absalam, with his banner planted over the great canopy, was seated upon the divan with Zoraida at his side. While the work of plunder was proceeding throughout the Fáda, the apartment was filled to overflowing by a crowd of the less excited of his bloodthirsty band. Labakan having taken his stand on the other side of the chieftain, resting upon his great bloodstained executioner’s sword, Hadj Absalam at length commenced an address to his people. But the latter, after he had uttered half a dozen sentences, mainly egotistical of his own prowess, refused him further hearing, crying—
“Let our Daughter of the Sun speak, O Mirror of Virtue! We trusted her and were not afraid. Let her have speech with us!”
“Speak then,” he said, annoyed, turning to Zoraida. “May the fear of thy Ruler lie upon thy lips.”
Casting a quick inquiring glance at him, she smiled pleasantly upon those around her, saying—