There were two small mean houses on the opposite side of the alley, and Ben Aboo tried to take refuge in the first of them.But the woman who came with uncovered face to the door was the widow of the mason who had built his strong-room."Murderer and dog!" she cried, and shut the door against him.He tried the other house.It was the house of the mason's son."Forgive me," he cried."I am corrected by Allah! Yes, yes, it is true I did wrong by your father, but forgive me and save me." Thus he pleaded, throwing himself on the ground and crawling there."Dog and coward," the young man shouted, and beat him back into the street.
Ben Aboo's terror was now appalling to look upon.His face was that of a snared beast.With bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks, and short thick breath, he ran from dark alley to dark alley, trying every house where he thought he might find a friend.
"Alee, don't you know me?" "Mohammed, it is I, Ben Aboo.""See, El Arby, here's money, money; it's yours, only save me, save me!"With such frantic cries he raced about in the darkness like a hunted wolf.But not a house would shelter him.
Everywhere he met relatives of men who had died through his means, and he was driven away with curses.
Meantime, a rumour that Ben Aboo was in the streets had been bruited abroad among the people, and their lust of blood was thereby raised to madness.Screaming and spitting and raving, and firing their flintlocks, they poured from street into street, watching for their victim and seeing him in every shadow.
"He's here!" "He's there!" "No, he's yonder!" "He's scaling the high wall like a cat!"Ben Aboo heard them.Their inarticulate cries came to him laden with one message only--death.He could see their faces, their snarling teeth.Sometimes he would rave and blaspheme.
Then he would make another effort for his life.But the whirlpool was closing in upon him; and at last, like one who flings himself over a precipice from dizziness, fears, and irresistible fascination, he flung himself into the middle of the infuriated throng as they scurried across the open Feddan.
From that moment Ben Aboo's doom was sealed.The people received him with a long furious roar, a cry of triumphant execration, as if their own astuteness at length had entrapped him.He stood with his back to the high wall; the bellowing crowd was before him on either side.By the torches that many carried all could see him.
Turban and shasheeah had fallen off, and the bald crown of his head was bare.His face retained no human expression but fear.
He was seen to draw his arms from beneath his selham, to hold both his money-bags against his breast, to plunge a hand into the necks of them, and fling handfuls of coins to the people."Silver," he cried;"silver, silver for everybody."
The despairing appeal was useless.Nobody touched the money.
It flashed white through the air, and fell unheard."Death to the Kaid!"was shouted on every side.Nevertheless, though half the men carried guns, no man fired.By unspoken consent it seemed to be understood that the death of Ben Aboo was not to be the act of one, but of all."Stones," cried somebody out of the crowd, and in another moment everybody was picking stones, and piling them at his feet or gathering them in the skirt of his jellab.
Ben Aboo knew his awful fate.Gesticulating wildly, having flung the money-bags from him, slobbering and screaming, the blighted soul was seen to raise his eyes towards the black sky, his thick lubber lips working visibly, as if in wild invocation of heaven.At the next instant the stones began to fall on him.Slowly they fell at first, and he reeled under them like a drunken man; the back of his neck arched itself like the neck of a bull, and like the roar of a bull was the groan that came from his throat.Then they fell faster, and he swayed to and fro, and grunted, with his beard bobbing at his breast, and his tongue lolling out.Faster and faster, and thicker and thicker they showered upon him, darting out of the darkness like swallows of the night.His clothes were rent, his blood spirted over them, he staggered as a beast staggers in the slaughter, and at length his thick knees doubled up, and he fell in a round heap like a ball.
The ferocity of the crowd was not yet quelled.They hailed the fall of Ben Aboo with a triumphant howl, but their stones continued to shower upon his body.In a little while they had piled a cairn above it.Then they left it with curses of content and went their ways.When the Spanish soldiers, who had stood aside while the work was done, came up with their lanterns to look at this monument of Eastern justice, the heap of stones was still moving with the terrific convulsions of death.
Such was the fall of El Arby, nicknamed Ben Aboo.
