e
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 exec