There was a tumult of many voices and of hurrying feet; and presently the police entered, holding their prisoner between them, and followed by a vast concourse of townspeople. I held my ground in front of the alcove; the Berber was brought up near to my side, and I saw and heard all. "This man," said one of the police, "killed so-and-so, of Sidi Gali's saint's house." "When?" said the Kadi. "This moment," said the police. "How?" said the Kadi. "With this knife," said the police. The knife, stained, and still wet, was handed to the judge. He shook it, and asked the prisoner one question: "Why?" Then the Berber flung himself on his knees--his shaven head brushed my hand--and began to plead extenuating circumstances. "It is true, my lord, I killed him, but he called me dog and infidel, and spat at me--" The Kadi gave back the knife and waved his hand. "Take him away," he said. That was all, as my guide interpreted it. "Come," he whispered again, and he led me by a passage into a sort of closet where a man lay on a mattress. This was the porch to the prison, and the man on the mattress was the jailer. In one wall there was a low door, barred and clamped with iron, and having a round peephole grated across. At the next instant the police brought in their prisoner. The jailer rattled a big key in the lock, the low door swung open, I saw within a dark den full of ghostly figures dragging chains at their ankles; a foul stench came out of it, the prisoner bent his head and was pushed in, the door slammed back--and that was the end. Everything occurred in no more time than it takes to tell it. "Is that all his trial?" I asked. "All," said my guide. "How long will he lie there?" "Until death." "But," I said, "I have heard that a Kadi of your country may be bribed to liberate a murderer." "Ah, my lord is right," said my guide, "but not the murderer of a saint." Less than five minutes before I had seen the stalwart young Berber swaggering down the hillside in the afternoon sunshine. Now he was in the gloom of the noisome dungeon, with no hope of ever again looking upon the light of day, doomed to drag out an existence worse than death, and all for what? For taking life? No, no, no--life in that land is cheap, cheaper than it ever was in the Middle Ages--but for doing dishonor to a superstition of the faith of Islam.