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Whilst General de Lamoriciere was returning to Mascara, Mustapha had to gain the plain of Illill, by a direct road across the country of the Flittas. The horses were laden with booty, and the troops marching in disorder, when in the middle of a difficult pass the Kabyles suddenly fell upon the straggling band. Mustapha, always the first in danger, was one of the first who fell; on seeing this, a panic seized his men. Two cavaliers only were killed in attempting to carry off his body. All the rest fled, spreading terror through the country all the way to Oran, which was at forty leagues distance. After being stripped by the mountaineers, who knew not who it was whose death had given them such rich spoils, the body, lying stretched on a bed of brambles, was recognised by a courier of Abd-el-Kader, by a wound on the right hand, which Mustapha had received at the battle of Si-Kak. The hand and the head, cut from the body, were carried to the Emir, who gloated over this bloody proof of the death of his enemy. He invited even his mother to enjoy the spectacle, but Zora refused, saying, "Such trophies should be buried in the earth, and not carried about from tribe to tribe, like the remains of a vulgar man.” On the next day the

headless body was ransomed from the Kabyles, and brought to Oran, where the French army interred it with all the honours due to a General.

Just after his death, the spirit of Mustapha seemed, for a little while, to have abandoned his cavaliers. They appeared to be panic-stricken, but they afterwards avenged upon the enemy this moment of hesitation-for the Douairs are a valiant race, and even their women take a pride in their personal courage. The story of Bedra, who was carried off by Bou-Hamedi, near Ras-elAin, in a razzia, is an example of this. Her captors proposed to send her to the tents of a fraction of the Douairs, who had submitted to Abd-el-Kader, but she refused. "Your heart is perverse," said she; "you have abandoned your own people, and cowardice is your comrade. And you," she added, addressing herself to the Khalifat, before the crowd, who were astonished at her audacity, "you are like a robber in the night, stealing into a tent like a jackal. The shadow of a warrior would make you tremble; you dare only attack defenceless women; you would have fled before the guns of our cavaliers; you would have fled, but your flight would have been in vain; however deep may be your hiding place, the arm

of Mustapha will find you out." Bou-Hamedi sent this brave girl to Nedroma. A few months afterwards, when a French column was in this part of the country, Mustapha presented himself before the city, and demanded that Bedra, the daughter of the Douairs, should be solemnly brought to his camp on a mule, richly caparisoned, and led by the notables of the place.

Every step we took in the excursion we were now upon, recalled to our minds the majestic figure of Mustapha, whose shadow seemed still to brood over the Douairs; and whilst we were recording his actions, and sounding his praises to M. de Laussat, Ismäel-Ould-Caddi, who knew French, and understood what we were talking about, began slowly to chaunt a rhapsody, which had been composed on the death of the Aga.

"Oh, woe! woe! The son of Mustapha rushes desperate into the midst of the goum. He traverses the ranks of the cavaliers, but he sees not Mustapha-Mustapha, the protector of the weak.

"He runs through the ranks, he calls out the name of his father. Alas! the heroic man; he who maintained peace among the tribes has left the earth for ever, and we shall see him no more!

"When he put himself at the head of his goums, when, with rein and voice, he animated his impetuous charger, warriors followed him in crowds.

"Let us weep for the most intrepid of men; for him whom we have seen in the harness of war, his proud coursers decked with gold prancing under him. Let us weep for him who was the glory of all cavaliers.

"As long as men meet together, oh! merciful God! they will shed tears over his death, and mourn for him for hours and for years.

"Brave warriors, lament together; lament this sudden death, which has shut upon us the gates of hope.

'How has he, so brilliant in glory, fallen into the darkness of death, as if he had never existed, leaving his friends in affliction?

"As if our eyes had never seen him. Ah! what a wound in our hearts! We shall see him no more at our head on the day of combat.

"Warriors, why do you assemble together? Who can pretend to command you, now that he has gone who filled the country with the renown of his great deeds?

"You remember the day when he was called

to Fez by the order of the Cheriff; how he shone among the great of the court-greater than all, by the brilliancy of his actions.

“All recognised in him the blood of his noble ancestors, and the Cheriff crowned him with honours.

"Presents of all sorts, all he could desire, was offered him; horses richly caparisoned, that seemed to form an escort of honour for his own courser.

"How grand he looked, in the intoxication of triumph, when on the black courser of the Soudan, his saddle glittering with gold, he seemed like the genius of war, or the dragon of combat.

"Sovereign Dispenser of eternal justice, thou hast taken him from us; and thus death, oh! my brother, will make the source of our tears perpetual.

"Contemplate these arms, these noble spoils, and before this spectacle let your grief find fresh

vent.

"As the boughs in our gardens wither up, after having flourished, so the winds of the tempest have carried him away.

"He was the glory of our time, but the light of his house is extinguished since he has mingled his dust with the dust of the cavaliers who preceded him to the tomb.

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