The Sphinx, Vol. 14, No. 213

              March 2. 1907.
THE SPHINX.
II
Hill, near Tangier, you know. Since then, Abdullah has never slept further away from the Baron than on the mat outside his bedroom door, or beside his horse when they’re travelling. He goes out with the Consul’s little son, as you saw this •evening, because the baron is fond of the youngster. Abdullah wouldn’t trust any mere European nurse to protect the boy. Abdullah has no wife at present, and much as he worships Fatima —the half-caste I told you of—he only arranged to marry her when the Baron consented to their both living in his cottage and looking after him.”
“Poor devil!” I muttered. “It is hard for him to die.”
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Kerr quickly. “Kismet ■covers that. But, you see, when all this 'happened, two months ago, the Baron implored Abdullah to do nothing without his consent. The Baron’s fond of Abdullah, you know, in his way. Bismillah ! You can’t help it, once you’ve looked into that Moor’s face, with its brown agate eyes, and thin, biscuit-coloured cheeks. Well, the Baron put it this way. He said : ‘Our European methods are the best, Abdullah. Trust me. The French Vice-Consul shall be shot for this murder, legally; and neither you nor anyone else be blamed for it. See, your vendetta shall be satisfied, and you shall have your wife and me, and your life as well—only trust me.’ So Abdullah communicated the new to his compatriots, and it was agreed that matters might stand in abeyance for two months. The special circumstances were taken into account, you see, and that’s why that fat Algerian Vice-Consul is walking about the beach this evening and thinks himself safe. He thinks Abdullah is content to be a Christian protected dog without caste, and that the matter has in some way blown over.”
“Then I suppose Abdullah is safe ?” I hazarded questioningly, forgetful of a long since registered vow to never interrupt Howard Kerr in a story.
“You forget,” he said. “The Riff’s one law is unalterable. But come along ! It’s getting chilly, and dinner will be waiting.”
So I paid the penalty of my interruption, and turned to walk up the stony yard-wide street of the port to the city gate, and to my friend’s quaint white house, inside the walls.
“Yes,” he continued, as we picked our way among the Jews and the Moorish beggars, “that law is fixed and unalterable. The two months is up to-morrow, but we have all known for a week and more that the Baron was powerless. His own brother, the Consul, can’t help him. Remember Tunis, and you’ll understand that the French Legation is the biggest power here ; just as it is the best hated ; just as the British is the best respected. The Mogador Vice-Consul has the French Legation, and many years of diplomatic and Moorish traditions on his side. The authorities daren’t stultify themselves any further. By Allah, it’s the gossip of the Coast now. No, if that Mogador Vice-Consul’s sense were in proportion to his fat, he’d leave Casa Blanca tonight, and not bother about pack-mules either, but just ride his fastest horse. The bullying hound, he owns enough of ’em goodness knows— and every one stolen !
Then we reached Howard Kerr’s house, and were greeted in the little patio by his own Moor, Achmet, who informed us that Allah’s blessings would rest upon us for ever, and that dinner was waiting.
So I heard no more about Abdullah the Riff, just then. But, at intervals, I thought about him, his loving nature, his physical weakness, his brown eyes,and his strange position, till the night died away in the cool embrace of hushed purple morning. Then I fell asleep with a monotonous call to prayer from the tower of Casa Blanca’s principal mosque ringing vaguely in my ears.
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“Prayer,” I thought. “And to a God of such gruesome inevitability!” But next day I concluded that there was a certain grandeur, a certain large nobility about such implicit and all-embracing faith in any God.
Kerr was always a late riser, and even in Morocco, where some judge the day’s glory departed two hours before noon comes, with its silent blaze of mature sple ndour ; even here, he was seldom astir before nine o’clock. At a few minutes after that time I rode down to the beach with him to bathe.
I do not think that life, the mere living, ever seemed to me a more precious and delightful thing, than on that brilliant June morning at Casa Blanca, when sea and air, and smooth white sand alike, were warm and soft to languorousness, yet withal, seemed to combine in laughing joyously up at the fathomless,blue above them—thatwond-erful north African sky which travelled workers, in the Quartier Latin and elsewhere, strive so hard and so unavailingly to adequately depict on canvas.
As we cantered slowly up from the warm sea to the warmer town, I heard a sudden distant scream; piercing and metallic the sound was in the throbbing stillness of that atmosphere. We both reined in our horses with a jerk, and Howard Kerr’s towel fell on to the sand.
“Abdullah and Fatima, by the Lord!” muttered Kerr. And then, wheeling our horses together— they were both Barb stallions, and fighters, too, as a general thing—we galloped, stirrup to stirrup, towards the wattled huts from which it seemed the scream had come.
Where the people came from I cannot say, but while we galloped those few hundred yards, the beach round about the four Moorish dwellings became thronged, crowded by a shouting, gesticulating mob of many coloured natives. Spaniards, half-castes, Barbary Jews, Moors of all classes and both sexes, yelping pariah dogs, and Basha’s soldiers carrying gas-pipe-barelled guns, and naked daggers.
Kerr and myself were by no means late arrvals, as events proved, but the warm air reeked tragedy when we pressed our horses through the outskirts of the mob.
What we saw was the mortal remains of the French Vice-Consul in Mogador, Ben Mohammed Ari; an indescribably horrible object, slashed and hacked beyond recognition, huddled on the sodden white sand. Near by, on one side, a Moorish woman and two men were clinging to the half-caste girl, Fatima, whose beauty impressed me strongly, even in those circumstances. Her hyak was torn from her shapely head and shoulders, leaving bare a face and neck and breast of a kind not often seen in Morocco. She was struggling and screaming almost unceasingly. On the far side of the dead Vice-Consul, two Moors, Basha’s soldiers, were biting and scratching the sand, in what seemed to be their death throes. A little further on still, stood Abdullah, Shauni, all but naked to the waist, a long gun at his feet, and an unusually large curved Fez dagger in his right hand.
The man was a picture, a splendid, lurid picture of a savage at bay, and fighting for his life. He had killed two guards, besides the Vice-Consul, and now, his gun being empty, himself bleeding from several wounds. Abdullah was keeping a whole crowd at bay with that terrible Fez knife of his.
i


At the moment of our arrival, three soldiers were grouped about the dead Vice-Consul, and were deliberately trying to cover his murderer with their Moorish guns. Seeing this, Abdullah fought the more furiously with those who tried to close about him, and three successive shots had left him with only one slight flesh wound in
his left leg. But his body seemed covered with knife wounds. Abdullah recognised Kerr, and positively shouted a salutation to my friend, from out that reeking shamble.
“Peace be on you !” he cried. And Kerr answered him : “God be with ye !”
Then the three soldiers who stood over the remains of Ben Mohammed Ari, shouted to the crowd to stand aside ; “Baalak ! Baalak!” And Abdullah’s assailants swept back, leaving him for a moment panting, surrounded by his own blood, but apparently free. He seemed to have changed his mind about eluding the soldiers’ aim, and stood now absolutely still; a statue in crimson-stained light bronze. The long guns covered him now, and one fancied one could hear the pulses of the crowd beating.
And then—an interruption.
A gasp, a torn breath came from Fatima. Her kaftan remained in the hands of her friends, and, her little figure almost naked, she bounded, like a wounded spring-bok, across the open space, to where stood Abdullah, the Riff, And at that moment came the tearing report of the three muzzle-loaded Moorish guns, their smoke for a few seconds throwing a veil over a scene already sufficiently dramatic, as well as horrible.
Her body was over his. The aim had been sure enough, and all three charges had torn her girlish shoulders and body. Nothing had reached Abdullah, but he was quite dead when the smoke cleared away. Afterwards, the bodies of these two loving barbarians were buried together, their last embrace not being an easy one to disturb.
That evening, when our nerves had steadied down again—Morocco sunshine and Mohammedan phlegm eat up excitement—Howard Kerr said to me :
“There you are, Amigo! There’s a short story made to your hand; on your second day in Morocco, too.”
“A book, if you like, Kerr,” I told him ; “but not a short story.”
“And why not the story?”
“Because in a book it could be made fiction, Kerr; trimmed and served with circumstantial sauce, you know. As a short story it would necessarily be just bare fact and so no one would believe it or be interested.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Try the unadorned fact, for once, Amigo and- pass me a cigarette will you ?”
So I have written the thing as it was.
[the end.]
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