Basha

“ How young and blind thou art, O Marzak! We should be the first to be suspected. I have made no secret of my hate of him, and the people do not love me. They would urge thy father to do justice even were he himself averse to it, which I will not credit would be the case. This Sakr-el-Bahr—may Allah wither him!—is a god in their eyes. Bethink thee of the welcome given him! What Basha returning in triumph was ever greeted by the like? These victories that fortune has vouchsafed him have made them account him divinely favoured and protected. ”

“ So long as we can endure we keep up and when we fall we are beaten and done for. No rest can cure us. Our masters know that, and when we fall in our tracks their knives are out—sometimes before we are dead.”
Basha turned away, sick with anger. This then was the end of things, to labour through the heat of day, to toil until the last store of strength was exhausted, and then die a dishonourable death under the curved daggers of brutal masters. ”

“ Under the inquisitive gaping stare of all about them stood Rosamund and Sakr-el-Bahr regarding each other in silence for a little spell after the Basha’s departure. The very galley-slaves, stirred from their habitual lethargy by happenings so curious and unusual, craned their sinewy necks to peer at them with a flicker of interest in their dull, weary eyes. ”

“ Sakr-el-Bahr sprang forward, and laid a hand upon the Basha's arm.
"Stay, my lord!" he entreated almost fiercely. "Consider that this pannier is my own. That its contents are my property; that none has a right to...."
"Wouldst babble of rights to me, who am thy lord?" blazed the Basha, now in a towering passion. "Open me that pannier, I say." ”

“ Then as the shrill whistle of the boatswain rang out and the whips of his mates went hissing and cracking about the shoulders of the already half-awakened slaves, to mingle with all the rest of the stir and bustle aboard the galeasse, the Basha turned once more to Biskaine. “Up thou to the prow,” he commanded, “and marshal the men. Bid them stand to their arms lest it should come to boarding. ”

“ The Basha checked in his stride, and turned upon her angrily.
“May thy tongue rot, thou mother of lies!”
“I am as the dust beneath thy feet, O my sweet lord, yet am I not what thine heedless anger calls me.”
“Heedless?” quoth he. “Not heedless but righteous to hear one whom the Prophet guards, who is the very javelin of Islam against the breast of the unbeliever, who carries the scourge of Allah against the infidel Frankish pigs, so maligned by thee! No more, I say! Lest I bid thee make good thy words, and pay the liar’s price if thou shouldst fail.” ”

“ Sakr-el-Bahr was not a fool, and he did not misunderstand it for a moment. He felt a tightening at the heart, and ill-will sprang to life within him responding to the call of that ill-will. Almost he repented him that he had not availed himself of that moment of weakness and mutiny on the part of the crew to attempt the entire superseding of the Basha. ”

“ The Basha subsequently promoted him to the rank of a lieutenant, but thought it somewhat hazardous to raise a regiment of Nuba negroes, since he must have given the supreme command to this man as their native Mak or King; although he values the slaves from this country more than all the others, and keeps many of them on his estate, whom he rewards with pretty wives. ”

“ Again the crowd burst into shouts of assent, and the stridulous voice continued: “Let us say to him 'Lord Basha, there is no way of help but one. Pluck down this man that is set over us. He belongs to our own race and nation; but give us a master of any other race and nation; any Moor, any Arab, any Berber, any negro; only take back this man of our own people, and your servants will bless you.'”
The old man's voice was drowned in great shouts of “Ben Aboo!” “To Ben Aboo!” “Why wait for the judges?” “To the Kasbah!” “The Kasbah!” ”

“ Anon they witnessed Asad's return. They saw the janissaries come swinging into the courtyard and range themselves there whilst the Basha made his appearance, walking slowly, with steps that dragged a little, his head sunk upon his breast, his hands behind him. They waited to see slaves following him, leading or carrying the girl he had gone to fetch. ”

“ The Basha is a hard man. This day he has robbed us of all we had that he may pay for the Sultan's visit. Listen! We have heard something. We want Israel ben Oliel back among us. He was our father, he was our brother. Save his life for the sake of our children, for the Basha has taken their bread. Save him, sister, we beg, we entreat, we pray.”
Naomi broke down at last. Next morning at dawn, kneeling among men in the Grand Mosque in the Metamar, she repeated the Word after the Iman: “I testify that there is no God but God, and that our Lord Mohammed is the messenger of God ”

“ Not eighteen years in the Basha's hareem had stifled the European mother in her, the passionate Sicilian woman, fierce as a tiger in her maternal love.
"O my child, my lovely boy," she almost sobbed. "It is my fear for thee that makes me harsh. If I am angry it is but my love that speaks, my rage for thee to see another come usurping the place beside thy father that should be thine. Ah! but we will prevail, sweet son of mine. I shall find a way to return that foreign offal to the dung-heap whence it sprang. Trust me, O Marzak! ”

“ On the other hand, the Naybe of Masuah, whose island belonged to the Grand Signior, and was an appendage of the government of the Basha of Jidda, had endeavoured to withdraw himself from his allegiance, and set up for independency. He paid no tribute, nor could the Basha, who had no troops, force him, as he was on the Abyssinian side of the Red Sea. Metical Aga, however, and the Basha, at last agreed; the latter ceded to the former the island and territory of Msuah, for a fixed sum annually; and Metical Aga appointed Michael, governor of Tigré, receiver of his rents. ”

“ If Asad had knowledge he would have betrayed it before we left Algiers, or else he would never have sailed without a stouter bodyguard of his own.
“What need of bodyguard for him?” returned Sakr-el-Bahr. “If it should come to grips between us—as well it may if what I suspect be true—there is no doubt as to the side upon which the corsairs would range themselves.”
“Is there not?” quoth Vigitello, a smile upon his swarthy face. “Be not so sure. These men have most of them followed thee into a score of fights. To them thou art the Basha, their natural leader.” ”

“ The ‘Thunderer’ remains here, as the mountaineers belonging to the Tangier province have revolted against the Basha, and troubles are expected. I think the Sultan will remove the Basha, who is unfit to govern. Happen what may, I and mine are quite safe, for the Moors on mountains and plains look upon me as their friend; and so indeed have I been. I remained during the Spanish war, when every Christian and Jew bolted, and no barbarian harmed me or mine. . . .
Or, once more, the following written in February, 1892:—
When you arrive, all will be settled with the tribes. ”

“ No truly devout Muslim will stand against the Basha, the representative of the Sublime Portal, to whom loyalty is a question of religion. Yet they are accustomed to obey thee, to leap at thy command, and so Asad himself were rash to put it to the test."
"Ay—a sound argument," said Sakr-el-Bahr. ”

“ On the one hand, if he relinquished the woman, he could make sure of his vengeance upon Sakr-el-Bahr, could make sure of removing that rebel from his path. On the other hand, if he determined to hold fast to his desires and to be ruled by them, he must be prepared to risk a mutiny aboard the galeasse, prepared for battle and perhaps for defeat. It was a stake such as no sane Basha would have consented to set upon the board. But since his eyes had again rested upon Rosamund, Asad was no longer sane. ”

“ It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Basha fell in love with the girl by hearsay and without eye-seeing: so he changed his habit and donning a dress of Darwaysh-cut left his mansion and threaded the streets passing from house to house until he reached that of the old woman. He then knocked at the entrance and she came behind it and asked "Who's at the door?" "A Darwaysh and a stranger," answered he, "who knoweth no man in this town and who is sore anhungered." ”

“ Masuah was taken, and a basha established there soon after, as we have seen in the history, in the reign of Menas, when the Baharnagash, named Isaac, confederated with the Turkish basha, and ceded to him a great territory, part of his own government, and with it Dobarwa, the capital of his province, divided only by the river Mareb from Tigré. ”

“ Providentially, a man had been sent to act as mediator between us and the countries to which we were about to direct our steps. He had been recommended to us in the very strongest terms by Hassan Bashá, the former governor of Fezzán, whom we had frequently seen in Tripoli, and who knew something about the men of influence and authority in Negroland. This man was Mohammed Bóro, who, with the title Serki-n-turáwa, “Lord of the Whites,” resided generally in Ágades, but had also a house and many connections in Sókoto, and at present was on his home-journey from a pilgrimage to Mekka. ”

“ What, however, made a great noise and sensation in Egypt, was the death of Farat-Bey, in Wollet Mèdine, and especially the sudden decease of the brave Mustaphà Bey, in Khartùm, the only Turk who was really beloved in the whole country, and who was therefore an enemy of the Basha. He came from [48] Kordofan to Fàzogl, during the time of the extreme heat, where Ahmed Basha hoped he would perish from the insufferable climate, as he said himself jocosely. ”

“ He would kill me, I think.”
“I am sure he would,” Sakr-el-Bahr agreed. “Yet muffled thus, who should recognize thee? Away, then, ere he comes. Take cover in the courtyard until he shall have passed. Didst thou come alone?”
“Should I trust anyone with the knowledge that I had visited thee?” she asked, and he admired the strong Sicilian spirit in her that not all these years in the Basha’s hareem had sufficed to extinguish.
She moved quickly to the door, to pause again on the threshold.
“Thou’lt not relinquish her? Thou’lt not.” ”

“ Aben Humeya brought up a kind of flying battery of his own construction; and his adversaries being thrown into confusion by its incessant fire, turned to fly. The Basha left the fugitives to Ali, and moved to the centre, which was now hardly pressed by Santa Cruz himself.
Until now, the Spanish leader had not [208] exposed his own person; but when he found that part of his army assuming the same retrograde motion with the left wing, he saw the necessity of shewing his own personal courage, and fighting man to man. ”

“ Heath knew too well the reputed character of the British soldiery, not to fear the worst if her boy should persist in refusing to tell where he had seen the British soldier's uniform. But even in her distress she was conscious of a proud faith that he would not betray his trust.
As to Basha, who shall describe her horror and indignation? "The wretches! ain't they content to murder our men and burn our houses, that they must take our innercent little boys?" ”

“ Then came the guardian Basha, who is the keeper of the king's captives, to fetch us all ashore; and then I, remembering the miserable estate of poor distressed captives in the time of their bondage to those infidels, went to mine own chest, and took out thereof a jar of oil, and filled a basket full of white ruske, to carry ashore with me. But before I came to the banio the Turkish boys had taken away almost all my bread, and the keeper said, "Deliver me the jar of oil, and when thou comest to the banio thou shalt have it again;" ”

“ Jebála follow. The new Basha, a good fellow, has written me a letter, received yesterday, to say he is coming up here to pay me a visit as soon as all the tribes have come in (and looks upon me as Baba [66] ) . The fact is, I was appealed to by the tribes, &c. whether they should accept him, as he is a relative of the late Basha. I said certainly—and told them to come. Ships of war are leaving. All’s well that ends well.
[365] CHAPTER XXVI.
OUT OF HARNESS.
Though Sir John had severed his official connection with Morocco, he retained his villa at Ravensrock. ”

“ It is fifteen miles from Raida to Kosseir. We were quite determined, after the severe lesson we had had two days previously, to go to windward of Sarrar. When we passed a well there I was requested to detach myself from the party and go and let some women see me, and then the soldiers begged that I would show off Basha prancing about that the women might see that I did not want holding on, [218] and finally they shouted 'Shilloh!' to make him gallop away, amid screams of delight. I dare say these women had never seen a horse. The sultans at Sheher had only three. ”

“ Sakr-el-Bahr salaamed. “My house is honoured.” With a gesture he dismissed Ali.
“I come to thee a suppliant,” said Asad, advancing.
“A suppliant, thou? No need, my lord. I have no will that is not the echo of thine own.”
The Basha’s questing eyes went beyond him and glowed as they rested upon Rosamund.
“I come in haste,” he said, “like any callow lover, guided by my every instinct to the presence of her I seek—this Frankish pearl, this pen-faced captive of thy latest raid. I was away from the Kasbah when that pig Tsamanni returned thither from the sôk ”