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Updated: June 15, 2025
On the fifth day his messenger returned with a letter to say that the king of the land of the north would not sell, but he would give, the king the slave girl and her son. The king was overjoyed. He sent for his Grand Wazeer and told him that he was going on one of his lonely expeditions, and that the Wazeer must invent some excuse to account for his absence.
Keeping the death of the old Sultan secret for a few days, the Wazeer meantime bribed and forced the Ministers to accept the young heir as Sultan, hurried to Fez, summoned every citizen to the mosque, had the doors locked, proclaimed the news of the Sultan's death, and surprised or forced the whole mosqueful into swearing allegiance to the present ruler.
In all Mohammedan countries a Believer may rise without any handicap on account of lowly origin, and so it fell out that the late Grand Wazeer, Ba Ahmad, during a visit to Djedida heard of the young cobbler's gifts, and straightway gave him a place in his household.
Ever since the accession of the present Sultan, Mulai Abd el Azîz IV., on his attaining the age of twenty in 1900, Morocco has been more than ever the focus of foreign designs, both public and private, which have brought about a much more disturbed condition than under his father, or even under the subsequent Wazeer Regent.
But they took little land, they sent few to Court, the country was ours until the wazeer had fulfilled his destiny and died. Allah pardon him, for he was a man, and ruled this country, as his Master before him, with a rod of very steel."
Asad, waiting to learn who came, halted at the foot of the white glistening steps, whilst from doors and lattices of the palace flooded light to suffuse the courtyard and set the marbles shimmering. A dozen Nubian javelin-men advanced, then ranged themselves aside whilst into the light stepped the imposing, gorgeously robed figure of Asad's wazeer, Tsamanni.
"To-day," concluded my informant, "he has palaces and slaves and a great hareem, he is a Chief Wazeer and head of the Sultan's forces, but he still owes a merchant in Djedida some few dollars on account of leather he had bought and forgot to pay for when Ba Ahmad took him to Marrakesh."
On returning home he despatched a messenger to the quarters of the Embassy, appointing an hour on the morrow for a conference, and when this came the Ambassador found himself in for a stormy interview. The Wazeer, with his snuff-box in constant use, sat cool and collected on his mattress on the floor, the Ambassador sitting uneasily on a chair before him.
It was written, too, that in the courtyard of the Kasbah he should stumble upon Ayoub, who indeed had by his mistress's commands been set to watch for the wazeer. The fat fellow rolled forward, his hands supporting his paunch, his little eyes agleam. "Allah increase thy health, Tsamanni," was his courteous greeting. "Thou bearest news?" "News? What news?" quoth Tsamanni.
And then there is always the chance of driving a bargain, so dear to the Moorish heart, for the wazeer knows full well that although the Nazarene may be prepared to bombard, as he has done from time to time, he is no more desirous than the Sultan that such an extreme measure should be necessary.
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