But because the span
allotted him by destiny was fulfilled, and also because he was worn out
and would not rest, my Lord Hasan died near Tadla; and Ba Ahmad, his
chief wazeer, hid his death from the soldiers until his son Abd-el-Aziz
was proclaimed."
There was a pause here, as though my host were overwhelmed with
reflections and was hard driven to give sequence to his narrative. "Our
present Lord was young," he continued at last thoughtfully; "he was a very
young man, and so Ba Ahmad spoke for him and acted for him, and threw into
prison all who might have stood before his face. Also, as was natural, he
piled up great stores of gold, and took to his hareem the women he
desired, and oppressed the poor and the rich, so that many men cursed him
privately. But for all that Ba Ahmad was a wise man and very strong. He
saw the might of the French in the East, and of the Bashadors who pollute
Tanjah in the North; he remembered the ships that came to the waters in
the West, and he knew that the men of these ships want to seize all the
foreign lands, until at last they rule the earth even as they rule the
sea. Against all the wise men of the Nazarenes who dwell in Tanjah the
wazeer fought in the name of the Exalted of God,[33] so that no one of
them could settle on this land to take it for himself and break into the
bowels of the earth.
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