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Hay, the British Consul-General, who had just started to give personal counsels of moderation to the Emperor Muley Abderrahman. "But indeed, General," I replied, "I shall be too glad not to take my ships to Tangier, nor to any other point on the Morocco coast, during the negotiations. We are tired of the state of things caused by the insolence and hostility of the Moors along our frontier.
When you have chosen, it will be decided whether you are to go to Khartoum or to be put to death. That is his last word." "They won't take ransom?" "Wad Ibrahim would, but the Emir Abderrahman is a terrible man. I advise you to give in to him." "What have you done yourself? You are a Christian, too." Mansoor blushed as deeply as his complexion would allow. "I was yesterday morning.
"So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost before the eyes of the army that came to save it, and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems toward the inhabitants of the city were like the fury and cruelty of raging tigers.
Failing his prompt acquiescence with my demands, I was to use force at sea, in concert with General Bugeaud on land, to force Muley Abderrahman to submit. But I had been expressly desired to carry forbearance to its furthest possible limit, and in case of our being obliged to take action to let it be known in the most public manner that we had no idea of conquest.
Looking at his chief councillor, Azim Reverdi, he demanded whether some of the wanderers of their order, whom he named, could not be sent through the mountains to discover where any such prisoners might be; but after going into the court in quest of these persons, Azim returned with tidings that a Turkish soldier had returned on the previous day to the town, and had mentioned that on Mount Couco, Sheyk Abderrahman was almost at war with his subordinates, Eyoub and Ben Yakoub, about some shipwrecked Frank captives, if they had not already settled the matter by murdering them all, and, as was well known, nothing would persuade this ignorant, lawless tribe that nothing was more abhorrent to the Prophet than human sacrifices.
After all had solemnly taken their seats there was a fresh arrival of Sheyk Abderrahman and his ferocious-looking following. He himself was a man of fine bearing, with a great black beard, and a gold-embroidered sash stuck full of pistols and knives, and with poor Madame de Bourke's best pearl necklace round his neck.
With bows and suppliant sweepings of his hands the dragoman explained that the Christians were already full of doubt, and that it needed but a little more light of knowledge to guide them on to the path of Allah. The two Emirs stroked their beards and gazed suspiciously at them. Then Abderrahman spoke in his crisp, stern fashion to the dragoman, and the two strode away together.
So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost before the eyes of the army that came to save it; and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems towards the inhabitants of the city were like the fury and cruelty of raging tigers.
If Abderrahman boasted that he would rear a shrine to the joy of earthly life and the hope of an earthly heaven, in the place of the Christian temple which he would throw down, I should like to overhear what his disembodied spirit would have to say to the saint whose shrine he demolished.
In addition to his cardinal military virtues, Abderrahman is described by the Arab writers as a model of integrity and justice. The first two years of his second administration in Spain were occupied in severe reforms of the abuses which under his predecessors had crept into the system of government, and in extensive preparations for his intended conquest of Gaul.
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