"In peace!"




CHAPTER XXV

THE COMING OF THE MAHDI


The Mahdi came back in the evening. He had no standard-bearers going
before him, no outrunners, no spearmen, no fly-flappers, no ministers of
state; he rode no white stallion in gorgeous trappings, and was himself
bedecked in no snowy garments. His ragged following he had left behind
him; he was alone; he was afoot; a selham of rough grey cloth was all
his bodily adornment; yet he was mightier than the monarch who had
entered Tetuan that day.

He passed through the town not like a sultan, but like a saint; not like
a conquering prince, but like an avenging angel. Outside the town he had
come upon the great body of the Sultan's army lying encamped under
the walls. The townspeople who had shut the soldiers out, with all the
rabble of their following, had nevertheless sent them fifty camels' load
of kesksoo, and it had been served in equal parts, half a pound to each
man. Where this meal had already been eaten, the usual charlatans of
the market-place had been busily plying their accustomed trades.
Black jugglers from Zoos, sham snake-charmers from the desert, and
story-tellers both grave and facetious, all twanging their hideous
ginbri, had been seated on the ground in half-circles of soldiers and
their women. But the Mahdi had broken up and scattered every group of