There were two small mean houses on the opposite side of the alley, and Ben Aboo tried to take refuge in the first of them.  But the woman who came with uncovered face to the door was the widow of the mason who had built his strong-room.  “Murderer and dog!” she cried, and shut the door against him.  He tried the other house.  It was the house of the mason’s son.  “Forgive me,” he cried.  “I am corrected by Allah!  Yes, yes, it is true I did wrong by your father, but forgive me and save me.”  Thus he pleaded, throwing himself on the ground and crawling there.  “Dog and coward,” the young man shouted, and beat him back into the street.

Ben Aboo’s terror was now appalling to look upon.  His face was that of a snared beast.  With bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks, and short thick breath, he ran from dark alley to dark alley, trying every house where he thought he might find a friend.  “Alee, don’t you know me?” “Mohammed, it is I, Ben Aboo.”  “See, El Arby, here’s money, money; it’s yours, only save me, save 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.