desire without it?"

"No-o, Sidi," Ali had said doubtfully.

"Then," the Mahdi had said, "let us try."

But when the Mahdi was gone to Tetuan on his errand of warning that
proved so vain, Ali had crept back behind him, so that secretly and
independently he might carry out his fell design. The towns-people were
ready to receive him, for the air was full of rebellion, and many had
waited long for the opportunity of revenge. To certain of the Jews, his
master's people, who were also in effect his own, he went first with his
mission, and they listened with eagerness to what he had come to say.
When their own time came to speak they spoke cautiously, after the
manner of their race, and nervously, like men who knew too well what
it was to be crushed and kept under; but they gave their help
notwithstanding, and Ali's scheme progressed.

In less than three days the entire town, Moorish and Jewish, was
honeycombed with subterranean revolt. Even the civil guard, the soldiers
of the Kasbah, the black police that kept the gates, and the slaves that
stood before the Basha's table were waiting for the downfall to come.

The Mahdi had gone again by this time, and the people had resumed their
mock rejoicings over the Sultan's visit. These were the last kindlings
of their burnt-out loyalty, a poor smouldering pretence of fire. Every
morning the town was awakened by the deafening crackle of flintlocks,
which the mountaineers discharged in the Feddan by way of signal that
the Sultan was going to say his prayers at the door of some saint's
house. Beside the firing of long guns and the twanging of the ginbri the