The news fell like a thunderbolt upon the camp. It was true that by the concealment of the Sultan’s death they had escaped from Tedla; but there still remained dangers almost equally as great. Would not the tribes of Shauia, through which they had yet to pass _en route_ to Rabat, pillage the camp, for there was plenty to loot there? And even if they refrained from doing so, could the horde of ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-paid soldiers be trusted? The camp split up into a hundred parties, each distrustful of the other, though all intent upon one object, a retreat to the coast. Each tribe represented in the camp collected its forces, and marched in a band together and camped together, not fearing so much any general outbreak as an attack on the part of members of some other tribe, between whom there may have been some long-standing feud, only prevented by fear of the Sultan from bursting into warfare. By forced marches the camp and the army proceeded to Rabat, constantly hampered by the surrounding tribes, who, too timid to attack so large a force, contented themselves and satisfied their love of plunder by cutting off and robbing every straggler who happened to lag behind. The poor soldiers they killed for their rifles, and, if they possessed none, out of pure devilry. Many of the troops took advantage of the lack of order and government to run away and return to their homes—whence they had been taken by a systemless conscription to starve in the Sultan’s service, or gain a precarious livelihood by theft. Meanwhile Abdul Aziz had been proclaimed in Rabat, and letters were sent in all directions announcing his accession to the throne. In no period of modern Moorish history had there been a week of such suspense as then ensued. The Sultan was a boy, separated from his Ministers and Viziers by a long distance, in traversing which they ran a great danger of being plundered and murdered. Had such an event occurred, and Mulai Abdul Aziz’s supporters been killed, his reign must have terminated at once, for the treasury would have fallen into other hands, and another Sultan been proclaimed. With all possible speed the army marched towards the coast, bearing their now loathsome burden of the Sultan’s body with them. There was a terrible mockery in the whole thing,—the decomposing corpse borne in royal state with the Shereefian banners waving before it, with the spear-bearers on either side, and the troop of mounted bodyguard and _askars_ on foot.