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 eye