At this juncture, Muley Hamet having been secretly apprised of the disaster which had befallen his former vanquisher, re-appeared upon the plains of Marmora; and, at the head of an armed multitude of Moors and Arabs, marched towards Mequinez.
Sidi Solyman, his near kinsman and secret partisan, was then in the capital. He was ready on any promising occasion to blow the flame of sedition; and, with great industry and dispatch, prepared the way for Muley Hamet, by publishing the reverses of the campaign. He accused the great officers of state of mal-administration; their chief agent, the renegade Duke, as an infamous trafficker of his faith; and urged, that Abdallah, having introduced the Christian impostor into the councils of the empire, had rendered himself obnoxious to the prophet's vengeance; the people, at present, lay under the same curse; and their first act must be to appease the heavenly power, by the deposition of the Emperor, and the delivery of Aben Humeya to the expiation of the laws!
The ever discontented and tumultuous rabble of Mequinez listened to these suggestions in the very spirit that was desired. They set fire to the imperial palace, and marched out of the town, headed by the incendiary, Solyman, to meet his kinsman on the plain.
Abdallah, at that time, was with a few chosen troops, winding his way through the Habad mountains, to support the joint authority of Ali and Adelmelek with his presence; and also to ameliorate the fury of those two commanders against the Spanish Basha, whom he still believed to be as true as he was brave.
Adelmelek was so well aware of the consequence to him of the Emperor's arrival, should he hear from Ali that the battle of Ceuta was lost by the disobedience of the army of the interior to the summons of Aben Humeya; that on the very day he was told of Abdallah's approach, he caused Ali to be assassinated, and detached a body of troops to escort the Emperor with honour to his camp. But an honest Moor, who knew the designs of the Hadge, made his escape into the mountains, and informed the Emperor, not merely of the murder of the Sidi, but that Adelmelek intended his sovereign the same fate; after which he would march upon Tetuan, where the Basha was shut up, utterly helpless from his numerous wounds; and storming the place, deliver the whole with the empire, into the hands of Muley Hamet. Other information more than corroborated this statement; and Abdallah soon saw that temporary flight was his only resource. He called his few faithful followers together, and taking a circuit through the mountains, made a safe retreat into the desert regions of his empire.