He sipped his tea with grave pleasure.  Two female slaves were peering at the Infidel through the branches of a lemon tree, just beyond the patio, but when their master dropped his voice the heads disappeared suddenly, as though his words had kept them in place.  In the depths of the garden close, Oom el Hasan, the nightingale, awoke and trilled softly.  We listened awhile to hear the notes “ring like a golden jewel down a golden stair.”

[Illustration:  A HOUSE INTERIOR, MARRAKESH]

“My Lord el Hasan,” continued the Hadj, “was ever on horseback; with him the powder was always speaking.  First Fez rejected him, and he carried fire and sword to that rebellious city.  Then Er-Riff refused to pay tribute and he enforced it—­Allah make his kingdom eternal.  Then this ungrateful city rebelled against his rule and the army came south and fed the spikes of the city gate with the heads of the unfaithful.  Before he had rested, Fez was insolent once again, and on the road north our Master, the Ever Victorious, was (so to say, as the irreligious see it) defeated by the Illegitimate men from Ghaita, rebels against Allah, all, and his house[32] was carried away.  There were more campaigns in the North and in the South, and the Shareefian army ate up the land, so that there was a famine more fatal than war.  After that came more fighting, and again more fighting.  My lord sought soldiers from your people and from the French, and he went south to the Sus and smote the rebellious kaids from Tarudant to High.  So it fell out that my Lord was never at peace with his servants, but the country went on as before, with fighting in the north and the south and the east and the west.  The devil ships of the Nazarene nations came again and again to the bay of Tanjah to see if the Prince of the Faithful were indeed dead, as rumour so often stated.  But he was strong, my Lord el Hasan, and not easy to kill.  In the time of a brief sickness that visited him the French took the oases of Tuat, which belongs to the country just so surely as does this our Marrakesh.  They have been from times remote a place of resting for the camels, like Tindouf in the Sus.  But our Master recovered his lordship with his health, and the French went back from our land.  After that my Lord el Hasan went to Tafilalt over the Atlas, never sparing himself.  And when he returned to this city, weary and very sick, at the head of an army that lacked even food and clothing, the Spaniards were at the gates of Er-Riff once more, and the tribes were out like a fire of thorns over the northern roads.  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.”