CORRESPONDENCE.
THE FORT DES VINGT-QUATRE HEURES.
THE other day, as I was listening to some old familiar words which have been sounding now for eighteen hundred years and more, my mind travelled back to a fort in Algiers, the Fort des Vingt-quatre Hewes, made of huge blocks, which for three hundred years remained immoveable and silent. But in 1853, a martyrdom which some people looked upon as an idle tale, others as a superstitions legend, was brought to light, and the very stones themselves, with undeniable witness, revealed the pathetic figure of the Arab martyr, Geronimo. -Just 347 years ago, a little Arab baby was taken prisoner by some Spanish soldiers, and brought to Oran to be offered up for sale as a slave. The good Vicar-General, Juan Caro, bought him, and took him to his own house to educate him, and he baptised him under the name of Geronimo. When the child was eight years old, a few Arab slaves made their escape from 'Oran, and believing they were doing the boy a kindness, they took him with them ; so for some years he lived with his people as a Mahommedan. But the holy faith which Juan Caro had planted in the child's heart, had taken such firm root that his relations could not tear it out. He remained with them till he was twenty-five, and then he took a step ;which he knew no Arab could forgive, and which, if he should be recaptured, would lead him with certainty to suffering or -death. He fled from his home and returned to the Vicar- General, and telling him of the dangers of his flight, he said, simply : "It is because I wish to live henceforth in the faith of the divine Saviour."
Juan Caro was so delighted, that he received the young Arab like a lost child, and Geronimo, on his side, could not show his benefactor love and gratitude enough. He soon entered the Spanish Guard as a paid soldier, and he performed such brave deeds that he attained very high military honours. But the height of his joy and ambition was gained
when he heard that the Vicar-General gave his consent and approval to a marriage between him and a young Arab girl (also a convert) with whom he had fallen in love. For ten years nothing but happiness shone on his life,—he won the respect and confidence of all around him, he was Juan Caro's right hand, and his wife was as a daughter to his adopted father. No shadows seemed to cross their path; no troubles seemed drawing near them.
But one bright May day in 1569, news came to Oran that a small Arab encampment had been noticed a short distance off. The rumour did not seem of importance; a handful of Spaniards could easily manage the Arabs ; at least, so Geronimo must have imagined, for he only took nine soldiers, and manned a little boat, intending to land on the coast, where the Arabs had assembled. They rowed out of the safe harbour with the sun shining on them, and sailed along the blue sea past the coral-fishery of Mers-el-Kebir, never dreaming of danger, when suddenly two Moorish brigantines, which had been lying secretly in wait for them, chased them and ran them down. The nine soldiers escaped, but Geronimo, who was too marked a man, was seized upon at once, and carried off to Euldj Ali, the Calabrian renegade. A great cry spread like wildfire among the Arabs throughout Algeria, that the apostate was captured ; that he, the traitor, who had aban- doned his own people, denied his own faith, was lying, a prisoner, in the fortress, the " Bagno." The Moors, who knew his history, made a solemn vow that they would restore him to his old religion; so they began by sending Marabouts to convert him with arguments and fair promises. But they returned discomfited to Euldj All; their fine words had availed nothing ; the apostate remained immoveable.
A fresh treatment was next tried ; he was loaded with chains, and treated with the utmost cruelty, and when he was faint from torture and scarcely able to speak, the Marabouts stood round him, offering him liberty, power, honour, riches. But no offer made him deny his faith, no longing for freedom made him forswear for one single moment his religion. Once, after some most horrible threat, he raised his poor suffering head, and with a voice so weak it could scarcely be heard, he said : "They think they will make me a Mahommedan ; but that they shall never do, even if they kill me," For four months, Euldj All gloated over the daily tortures he was in- dieting on Geronimo ; but at last the very sameness of his cruelty palled upon him, and he was determined to invent a new and more hideous revenge for the "apostate's obstinacy." One morning the idea came to him : he was examining the works of a fort by the gate of Bab-el-Oued, when he saw a block of beton standing by the great stones. This block was a mould in the shape of the immense stones, filled with a kind of concrete ; when the concrete was sufficiently hardened, the wall was to be built with it. Here was the height of torture ! Here was the most exquisitely painful death man might devise ! The dog of a slave should be laid in a similar mould ; the liquid plaster should be poured over him ; he should be built alive into the wall; the renegade should be turned into very stone ! But as Arabs never act hastily, the Pasha deliberated most carefully whether this really could be the most brutal death be could conceive; and then, believing there was no more effectual means of barbarity, he called to a Navarrese mason, who was also a Christian slave. "Michel," he said, "you see this empty mould of beton ; for the present leave it ; I have a mind to make beton of that dog of Oran who refuses to come back to the faith of Islam." Poor Maitre Michel had to obey, but he finished his day's work with a sad heart. As soon as he entered the " Bagno " (for he also was a prisoner), he found out Geronimo and told him Euldj Al's command. Geronimo heard the command in. perfect silence, and then very calmly he answered :—" God's holy will be done. Let not those miserable men think they will frighten me out of the faith of Christ by the idea of this cruel death. May my blessed Saviour only pardon me my sins, and preserve me my soul !"
The whole of that night this brave young Arab spent in prayer and preparation for the death-tortures which he knew were awaiting him. Must not the memories of his high mili- tary honour and fame, the kindness of Juan Caro, the love of his fair young wife, have flashed through his overstrung mind. like some beautiful, glittering dream ? Was nothing left ? Nothing real ? Nothing but death,—death so ghastly in its fearful savagery that the very life beyond seemed hidden away ? Ah ! it was not too late, even now. The sentence could still be recalled, and greater earthly power than (Jeronimo had ever had was yet within his reach ! Every line in that martyr's face, as we stood before his plaster- cast, told us what his cry must have been then; told us silently how his cry for strength was answered. Between 2 and 3 o'clock the next morning, a guard summoned him to the Pasha's presence. There he stood, a suffering, patient prisoner in chains, before a great multitude of Turks and Arabs in all their gorgeous magnificence. Then he was dragged by a hooting crowd, striking him and beating him, to the gate Bab-el-Oaed, where he again stood before the Pasha in the midst of his pompous retinue. Euldj Ali then addressed him slowly and clearly ; he pointed out every detail of the fearful death ; he showed him the block of beton, and every torture of such a death was carefully explained. He then ended his speech with : " Dog ! you refuse to return to the faith of Islam "—"I am a Christian, and as a Christian I will die," was the noble Arab's answer.—" As you will," replied the Pasha. "Then here," pointing to the beton, "shall you be buried alive."—" Do your will. Death shall not make me abandon my faith," were Geronimo's last words. The Pasha raised his hand, some soldiers stepped forward, they removed the chain from the prisoner's leg, they bound his hands behind his back, they crossed his legs and tied them ; then they took him up and laid him with his face downwards into the mould. The plaster was poured over him, and Tamango, a renegade Spaniard, wanting to show what a fervent Mahommedan he was, jumped on Geronimo's body and broke his ribs. This act pleased Euldj All so much, that others followed his example. For twenty-four hours Geronimo lay bleeding, suffering, dying, in that block of beton : the jeers and oaths of his enemies must have been ringing in his ears, the African sun in its intense power must have poured upon his aching head ; but brave, faithful, and unmurmuring, this noble Arab lay there till the weary day and night were over, and another morning broke upon that beautiful Algerian land. But in the land above, we believe the gates of the kingdom of heaven were thrown open, and Geronimo, bearing the palm in his hand, was admitted into the noble army of martyrs.
For three hundred years this story was handed from one generation to another, till some people treated it as a romance ; but thirty-eight years ago, when alterations were being made, and the wall had to be taken down, the workmen came upon a strange hollow place and some human bones. The Governor, remembering this story, directed plaster-of-Paris to be thrown into the mould, and very soon the life-size figure of Geronimo appeared, proclaiming at once the truth of the martyrdom. The cast is now kept in the museum at Algiers ; it shows a slight figure, a face with the veins all raised, a poor month closed with a patient, determined expression ; the hands are tied, the legs are swollen, even the very broken ribs are lying there. Three hundred years of history holding its peace ; and lo ! the very stones, as it were, cry out, and the noble Arab's martyrdom is brought to light.
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