CHAPTER XIV.

RETRIBUTION.

Hassan returned to his home, a prey to remorse. Azora had escaped this time, but the final scene awaited her. Men's motives are of a mixed nature, and difficult to analyse. I do not assume that he was solely moved by the stings of conscience, or that he had any great horror of perjury in the abstract; but, however the customs of a country may modify the modes of expressing the feelings, and of acting under their guidance, there is no doubt that he entertained for Azora a pure and ardent love. Prompted by his false friend and urged on by his passion, he had adopted the only course which appeared to him capable of compassing his end, without calculating the obstacles which might arise, and which he could not foresee, and when the full view of the consequences of his act was forced upon him he was appalled. Not only to lose one he loved so deeply, but to feel that he, who would willingly have sacrificed his life for her, had been the means of bringing her to an awful and cruel death; it was more than his mind could bear. Azora's forgiveness was no relief to him in the bitterness of his grief; the more he felt the innocence and purity of her nature, the deeper he felt the enormity of his own guilt, in devoting such an angel to destruction; reproaches, even curses, he could have borne, her gentleness and forgiveness were intolerable.

To-night, as he entered his dwelling, he felt a gloomy foreboding, as if some heavy retribution were hanging over him. His little sister,--a bright creature with hazel eyes and a laughing face,--ran to meet him. The care of this child had devolved upon him since the death of his parents, and she was now coming to the age when her playful and affectionate manners began to reward him for his care and protection; his little darling sprang joyfully into his arms, and kissed his cold lips; he clasped her to his breast, and felt a transient feeling of relief.

"Oh, how happy we might have been," he said, half aloud,--"lost!--lost!" and the conviction of his misery overpowered every other sensation. He smoothed back the silken tresses from her fair forehead, and gazed on her sweet face, talking almost involuntarily. "Once I was like you,--innocent,--but now--"

"Are you ill, brother dear?" said the child, putting its arms round his neck. "Brother, don't play with me, but brother is pale,--not well, and I don't want to play. If you are sick, I shall cry all night."

"No, love," said Hassan, shrinking from her innocent scrutiny, "I am not sick, but very tired; and now it is time for you to go to bed; is it not late?"

The child allowed itself to be put to bed quietly, in the adjoining room, the door of which was left ajar, that Hassan might hear if she wanted anything during the night. He was now alone, he tried in vain to make light of the weight, and cast off the gloom which oppressed his spirits, and he sat with his hands pressed to his forehead harrowed with inward suffering; presently a ghastly smile overspread his features, as a horrible thought presented itself to his mind, and he drew his dagger with a convulsive start. "Thus, then, I can escape this load of misery," said he, gazing at its keen tapering point. "Why should man live and suffer with such an antidote as this?--But stop! will not this add another crime to my account? And I may yet be of service to Azora. O Azora, Azora! what woe has not your love brought upon me? And alas! upon you. And who, when I am gone, will take care of this sweet child?" As these thoughts succeeded each other, his resolution gradually gave way, and with a shudder he hurled the weapon of death to the other end of the room. A shrill, prolonged scream of infant agony instantly burst on his ears; and as he sprang aghast to the spot, his little sister fell writhing at his feet transfixed by the deadly steel. The child had been impressed with the idea that her brother was ill; and when she heard him talking to himself, and so uneasy, with child-like curiosity she crept quietly from her bed, and had just entered the half-open door, when she was struck by the fatal dagger, and fell deluged in blood.

Hassan remained fixed to the spot, paralysed with horror, his eyes starting from their sockets, his mouth open, his hands clenched, a petrified image of despair. For some minutes he seemed not to breathe; presently he dropped on his knees, he raised the child's head, and pressed his lips to hers; the blood oozed from the pressure and ran a crimson stream down her neck, staining her silken hair; his lips were damp with her blood; his brain, already shaken, could no longer bear up against the shock, gasping for breath he fell senseless on the floor. Gradually, after some time, sensation returned, but when it did, his reason had left him. He sat up, and looked round the room with a vacant stare, till his eye rested on the body of the child; this recalled the lost thread of his thoughts; snatching the dagger from the wound, he sprang to his feet with a heart-freezing yell, as he brandished it aloft.

"Ha! ha! ha! fiends, are ye content? No! I come! I come! Shower down upon me the burning rafters of hell!--O Azora, you are avenged! God, how my heart burns, it is like a ball of fire in my bosom, and this red-tempered steel will fuse, ere it pierce it. Lo, I come!"

His hand was already raised to accomplish his purpose, when Ali, who had just entered, rushed forward and wrenched the dagger from his grasp, in doing which he stumbled against the child.

"Hassan! what mean you? Whose work is this? Are you mad?"

Hassan sprang frantically forward--

"Mad, did you say?" he yelled; "mad! aye, mad! mad! mad!" and he dashed himself on the earth and howled hideously in a paroxysm of fury. Ali perceived at once that his reason had given way, and supposed that he had destroyed his sister in the blindness of his rage. Leaving him to exhaust himself where he lay, Ali removed the body to the adjoining room, and having washed away the stains from the floor, he sat down to consider the best course to adopt to prevent harm to Hassan or himself on account of the crime of the former. He was fearful of exciting Hassan by asking an explanation; but from this he was saved by Hassan himself, who now rose slowly from the ground, and looked with a long searching glance round the room. His appearance was frightful; his turban had fallen off, exposing his shaven head; his pallid face, stained with blood, contrasted with his black moustaches and glittering eyes; the veins in his neck and temples were swollen to bursting,--his whole face distorted. The stout heart of the Arab could not divest him of a superstitious misgiving, as he looked on the figure of his friend; he, lately so calm, now the prey of insanity.

Hassan pressed his hands to his eyes, to try and realise the past, and then stood wreathing and winding his fingers together.

"Horrid dream! what art thou?" he said, in a hollow voice, and turning to Ali, "O Moslem, let me remember; yes, she is safe. O Azora, thou art safe! Methought I returned home--home? My destiny was darkened--clouds and darkness were over me. Methought my little darling flew into my arms--I kissed her. Ha! again! is it blood? No! no! I dream still! I laid her in her bed--she sleeps--no noise--she sleeps! I laid my burning brow on the table; I thought it would have burnt into it. When I lifted my eyes, Iblis stood before me. My dagger was in my hand. 'Strike!' he said." Here Hassan twisted his hands more eagerly, and his whole frame was trembling. "The keen blade glittered like a lambent moonbeam; I sprang to my feet. Satan avaunt! I cast it from me. Ha! what do I hear? the demoniac laugh of the retreating fiend, and the agonized cry of my murdered child. There she is, see, at my feet--bleeding--dead!"

Large drops followed one another down the brow and face of Hassan, but he was deadly calm, and seemed to repeat the words from memory, but to have no feeling of their meaning.

Ali, finding he did not relapse, took advantage of the pause to soothe his spirits and divert his thoughts--it was needless. His memory just recollected the bare outline of the scene, but without consciousness, and he did not even ask for his sister.

"God has smitten the oppressors of the innocent," muttered Ali, while Hassan fell into an apathetic stupor; reaction of the violent emotions which had so shaken him. Ali had now to consider what was best to be done; Hassan could no further co-operate with him, and for him to present himself to the authorities under any circumstances would ensure his destruction. Ali wrote on a piece of paper, "Hassan Ibn Ibrahim, possessed with an evil spirit, slew his sister," and after removing Hassan's dagger, and everything he might make use of to injure himself, he took the child's body, and, during the night, left it with the billet at the gate of the Cadi, knowing that, when discovered in the morning, inquiry would be made, the truth be apparent, and the affair hushed up.