Israel ben Oliel!" cried the people of the
Mellah.

"What is it? What has happened? What has befallen them?" they all asked
together.

"Balak!" cried the soldier in front, swinging his staff before him to
force a passage through the thronging multitude. "Attention! By your
leave! Away! Out of the way!"

And as they walked the criers chanted, "So shall it be done to every man
who is an enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and
a cheat."

When the people had recovered from their consternation they began to
look black into each other's face, to mutter oaths between their teeth,
and to say in voices of no pity or rush, "He deserved it!" "Ya Allah,
but he's well served!" "Holy Saints, we knew what it would come to!"
"Look at him now!" "There he is at last!" "Brave end to all his great
doings!" "Curse him! Curse him!"

And over the muttered oaths and pitiless curses, the yelping and barking
of the cruel voices of the crowd, as the procession moved along, came
still the cry of the crier, "So shall it be done to every man who is an
enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and a cheat."

Then the mood of the multitude changed. The people began to titter,
and after that to laugh openly. They wagged their heads at Israel; they
derided him; they made merry over his sorry plight. Where he was now
he seemed to be not so much a fallen tyrant as a silly sham and an
imposture. Look at him! Look at his bony and ragged ass! Ya Allah! To
think that they had ever been afraid of him!

As the procession crossed the market-place, a woman who was enveloped in
a blanket spat at Israel as he passed. Then it was come to the door of
the Mosque, an old man, a beggar, hobbled through the crowd and struck
Israel with the back of his hand across the face. The woman had lost her
husband and the man his son by death sentences of Ben Aboo. Israel
had succoured both when he went about on his secret excursions after
nightfall in the disguise of a Moor.

"Balak! Balak!" cried the soldier in front, and still the chant of the
crier rang out over all other noises.

At every step the throng increased. The strong and lusty bore down the
weak in the struggle to get near to the procession. Blind beggars and
feeble cripples who could not see or stir shouted hideous oaths at
Israel from the back of the crowd.

As the procession went past the gates of the Mellah, two companies came
out into the town. The one was a comp