There is scarcely an instance on record of a homicide who has paid the _dya_ being otherwise proceeded against, or of the parents or the children of the deceased hesitating to accept this satisfaction. But if he be too poor to pay it, or if the Government has thought fit to interfere in the matter, he is condemned to suffer like for like, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. When I was consul for France at Mascara, in 1837, accredited to Abd-el-Kader, I had an opportunity of witnessing the application of the _lex talionis_ in its utmost rigour. Two children having quarrelled in the street, their fathers interposed, and from insults proceeded to threats, until one of them, gradually becoming infuriated, drew his knife and stabbed his adversary, who fell down dead upon the spot. The latter received five wounds; one on his right, a second on his left, breast, two in the stomach, and the fifth in the back. A mob collected, and the _shaoushs_, or police agents seized the murderer and led him before the _hakem_, or mayor of the town. The _aoulemas_, or doctors of the law, immediately assembled, and constituted themselves a tribunal. In less than half an hour the witnesses were heard, and the culprit was sentenced to undergo the full penalty of the _lex talionis_ at the hands of his victim's brother. At a signal given by the Cadi, two _shaoushs_ bound his wrists together with a rope, and, placing themselves on either side of him, conducted him, preceded by the executioner, to the market-place, thronged at the time by two or three thousand Arabs. However horrible might be the singular drama about to be acted, it furnished me with an opportunity for a rare experience, and I succeeded in overcoming the instinctive repugnance, which I at first felt, to being present. By the time I reached the spot, the _shaoushs_, by dint of freely plying their sticks, had forced back the crowd to the circumference of a spacious circle, the centre of which was occupied by the executioner and his victim, the one with his knife in his hand, the other calm and indifferent to what was about to happen. According to the sentence, the murderer was to receive as many stabs as he had inflicted, and in the same order and in the same parts of the body as the man he had murdered. When all was ready,—and the preparations were merely what I have described,—a _shaoush_ raised his staff, by way of signal. The Arab with the knife immediately rushed on his victim, and stabbed him first on the right and then on the left breast, but evidently without touching the heart, for the poor wretch cried aloud: "Strike! Strike! But think not that it is thou who takest my life. Allah alone takes away life." The punishment, however, was continued with horrible fury, and the criminal, whose entrails protruded from two fresh wounds he received in the belly, never ceased to revile his executioner. There still remained one other blow to give.