in a jeweled socket. He sighed, “May Allah forgive my many sins. I must certainly be drunk. I was forced to slay the Aga, though I knew that assault upon a superior officer is the worst crime a soldier can commit. But he was plotting little Mohammed’s downfall, and if he had been successful no one would have remained to inherit Selim’s throne; so to avoid confusion I slew the Aga and took his turban. But help me now, Michael, and Abu my dear master, for I need a dromedary.”
I was now convinced that he had lost the last remnant of his wits, until it dawned upon Abu that Andy meant a dragoman, to interpret. But I exclaimed, “In the name of Allah! My brother is not answerable for his actions. Give him the powerful sleeping draught prepared for Selim, and when he has slept himself sober we can talk some sense into him.”
Just then an irate eunuch, attended by soldiers, approached from the inner court bearing the Sultan’s signet ring in his hand. After him came servants dragging a heavy iron chest. The soldiers shouted that they were bringing the Sultan’s money, to be shared out among his loyal troops. If it had been noisy before, the tumult now increased to that of some gigantic dogfight, and with my hands to my face I took refuge behind a buttress of the wall. Soldiers swarmed up on all sides, hacking at one another and trampling the weaker underfoot as they ran, until the eunuch, having vainly brandished the signet ring, threw himself over the chest and commended his soul to Allah’s protection.
Andy now bade us a confused farewell and fought his way through to the chest. He thrust the eunuch aside and commanded all the scribes to keep strict account, so that each and every man might receive his fair share. Strange to say, these savage fellows obeyed him promptly, and paraded in order of rank to await their turn. They felt honored when Andy cuffed them over the head and called them drunken swine. The trembling scribes sat on the ground with the regimental rolls before them; the eunuch threw out his arms despairingly, unlocked the chest, and withdrew. Andy peered into the chest and cried aghast, “Cursed be the name of Selim ben-Hafs, who swindles us even when dead! He perished not a moment too soon.”
The sergeants pressed forward and stared into the chest, and were in their turn astonished, for what they saw there was not enough to provide one gold coin for each man. But they soon recovered from their surprise and said, “We are poor men, but the city is rich. Let us hasten down and take what we can before the Spaniards get their claws into it.”
Andy scratched his head. “Who am I to gainsay you? A hundred heads must be better than one. Yet we should think twice before pillaging a city which the Sultan placed under our protection.”
Abu el-Kasim burst into tears, and said, “All things are preordained, and now is our last chance to save what can be saved. Go, Mustafa ben-Nakir, and reason with these men, while I and my slave Michael hasten home for the gold which was to be the comfort of my declining years. It will amount to four gold pieces for each man, and may enable them to possess their souls in patience until the Deliverer reaches the city.”
Mustafa walked forward to Andy with his usual dignity, while Abu and I hurried out of the gate and down into the city. We saw the last of the Spaniards rowing back to their fortress and a crowd of people standing on the quay, shouting and brandishing their weapons. But we had hardly reached our house when the guns of the fortress began to roar; a roundshot whistled through the air and knocked a hole in the house next to ours. Hastily we dug up the treasure hidden beneath the floor, stowed the money bags in a chest, and loaded this onto a stray donkey that fate had sent to our very door. The firing had terrified it, but reassured by the feel of its weighty burden it plodded readily up the steep street.
When we arrived with our load at the forecourt of the kasbah, we found the soldiers sitting on the ground and listening quietly to Mustafa ben-Nakir’s inspired description of the joys of Paradise. Now and then he read Persian poems to them from his book. Andy was dozing and nodding on the lid of the chest. Mustafa ben-Nakir sent us a reproachful glance as we arrived sweating and shouting with our donkey, disturbing his mellifluous recital. But Andy sprang up and greeted us with blessings.
“We must now consult Amina and her son, whom I’ve made sultan because she swore to me that he is Selim ben-Hafs’s lawful heir. It’s true that this charming lady had often bitterly complained of Selim’s neglect at the material period; but we’ve no other sultans to choose from, now that she has strangled both Selim’s elder sons.”
Mustafa ben-Nakir closed his book of poems and said with a sigh, “Let us seek out the boy, Michael, for the paying of these men will take a long time, and I’ve already prepared them for the Deliverer’s coming.”
Andy ordered the soldiers to obey Abu el-Kasim and the scribes, that no disputes might arise over their pay; then he came with us into the inner courtyard where we saw many corpses, and a number of shot holes in the marble colonnade. But Andy took us straight through the golden Gateway of Bliss, shoving the startled eunuchs aside, then muttered thickly, “Let’s go to the baths, for I fancy I have two unopened wine jars there.”
With the assurance of a sleepwalker he led us along many labyrinthine corridors to the baths, and there kneeling at the brink he fished a jar from the water, broke its seal, and drank greedily. I glanced round the place and beheld Selim ben-Hafs’s body lying on a marble slab-no lovely sight, for it was more swollen and livid than ever. The eunuchs who had been attending to it melted away like shadows at our approach. Mustafa ben-Nakir seated himself cross legged on the bench at the dead man’s feet and said, “We must all die, and each moment of our lives is preordained. It is also the will of Allah that we should sit in this bathhouse and that you should cleanse your conscience so that afterward we may order all things for the best. Speak, therefore, wrestler Antar!”
Andy stared, hiccupped, felt the feathers in his turban and said in hurt tones, “I’m no wrestler, but the Sultan’s Aga-if only I could lay hands on the Sultan. And all that happened was that evil tongues spread slander about me, persuading Selim ben-Hafs that I’d spat in his bed-which is a black lie as I’ve never so much as seen his bed. This morning Selim came stark naked to the bathhouse to sweat away the opium, and a whole crowd of painted boys came too, to wash him. When he saw me he began to screech for his scimitar. His wife Amina, who was wearing no more than was once customary in Paradise, tried to calm him and at least gain time for me to get my breeches on. But at the sight of her the licentious old man was more rabid than ever. Luckily his pretty boys took to their heels when they saw Amina, so I was able to bar the door and consider what was next to be done. She said I had no choice but to bring the Selim to a better frame of mind by force, so I just took him by the neck with the tips of my fingers, and it broke. My dear Amina was as frightened as myself.”
Andy wiped the tears from his eyes with his thumb, but Mustafa ben-Nakir, contemplating his nails, asked, “And then?”
“Then?” Andy rubbed his temples to refresh his memory. “Yes. Well, then the lady Amina said it was the will of Allah, but that for our own good it would be best to say that Selim had slipped on the smooth floor and broken his neck. She then told me that other more important duties awaited her and quickly left the room, promising to send the Aga and the eunuchs as witnesses to what had occurred. The eunuchs laid Selim on the bench, tied his toes together and proclaimed the new sultan, while I took the Aga by the arm and returned with him to the barracks, as it seemed to me I had no business in the house of mourning. I thought him a pleasant fellow, yet in that I must have been mistaken, since so far as I can remember I’ve just killed him.”
He fingered his headdress thoughtfully for a litde, then started and said, “Where was I? Ah, yes. There was trouble over the new sultan, for Selim ben-Hafs had two sons besides Amina’s, and these two were proclaimed sultan simultaneously. The uproar and fighting went on until it was found that Amina had had both the elder boys strangled, and their mother, too, for safety’s sake. When I reproached her for this she asked if I would have preferred to see her and her son strangled; for it seems it is the custom here for the ruler to leave no rival alive. She then hinted broadly that she meant to marry me, so that I might protect her son till he grew up. I’ve nothing whatever against Amina-fine woman-but she’s handier with the noose than I should like any wife of mine to be.”
He began angrily calling for Amina, and was almost too drunk to stand, but Mustafa ben-Nakir had heard enough and rose, saying, “Antar, you’ve done your part, and need rest. There is no sultan but Suleiman, the Sultan of Sultans, and in his name I take possession of this kasbah until the Deliverer comes to reward and punish each man according to his deserts. Slave Michael, take your brother’s sword which he’s not in a condition to wield and strike off Selim’s head, that it may be set on the top of a pillar in a golden dish in the sight of everyone. With him the Hafsid dynasty is at an end; no intriguing women shall rule in this city, and the throne shall remain vacant until the coming of the Deliverer.”
Mustafa spoke in a voice of such authority that I dared not disobey, and grasping Andy’s sword I struck off Selim’s head, disagreeable though the task was. But as I was handing back the weapon a crowd of splendidly dressed eunuchs and black slaves entered the room. In their midst was a boy in a gorgeous kaftan and with far too
