Those nearest him, meanwhile, had seized and cudgelled the old man, and some of the escort had taken him to the guard-house.  When it became known what had happened, a great cry arose in Jeddah, and old and young, and women and children, and citizens and strangers wept together.  I have heard the scene described as one beyond description moving, and the women shrieked and wailed the whole night long.  El Husseyn was beloved, and he was taken in the flower of his manhood.

No satisfactory judicial investigation seems to have been made of the deed, though a formal mejlis was held at Mecca whither the assassin was immediately transferred, and on the fourth day he was publicly executed.  Who and what he was it is difficult to determine.  The Turkish bulletin on the event described him as a Persian fanatic, but no one confessed to having known him, and those who saw and spoke to him while in custody maintain that he was an Afghan and a Sunite.  He seems to have given half-a-dozen contradictory accounts of himself; but the general impression remains that he came from Turkey, and was by profession a dervish.  He had not come with the Haj, but had been first noticed as a beggar at Mecca ten days before, when he had asked and received an alms of the Sherif, and had since been several times found obtrusively in El Husseyn’s path.  No one at Jeddah holds the Turkish Governor to have been cognisant of the crime.  He was personally on good terms with El Husseyn, and has since been disgraced; but all point to the Stamboul Camarilla and even the Sultan himself as its author.  It is known that Abd el Hamid constantly employs dervishes as his spies and private agents, and some who pretend to know best affirm that the old man received his mission directly from the Caliph.  I do not affect to decide upon the point, but think the onus probandi to lie with those who would deny it.

Assassination of a dangerous rival or of too powerful a chieftain has been the resource time out of mind of the Ottoman sovereigns, and they can hardly claim indulgence now from public opinion.  The Sheykh of the Dervishes is all powerful with his fanatical followers, and he is the Sultan’s servant; a word from him would doubtless have secured the services of twenty such devotees.  One circumstance points decidedly to Constantinople.  It is known in Jeddah that El Husseyn’s successor, who had long been resident at Constantinople, sent orders to his agent at Jeddah to prepare for his return as Grand Sherif two months before El Husseyn, who was a young man, died; and that he had, moreover, dispatched most of his baggage in anticipation.

The last words of the old assassin are curious.  Having done his deed he seemed quite happy, and neither ate nor drank, but prepared for the next world.  A little while before he was executed he related a story.  “There was once,” he said, “an elephant, a great and noble beast, and to him God sent a gnat, the smallest thing which is.  It stung him on the trunk and the elephant died.  Allah Kerim:  God is merciful.”