"Where is she?" said Ben Aboo.

"Sidi," said Habeebah, "I have promised that you will liberate her father."

"Fetch her," said Ben Aboo, "and it shall be done."

But meanwhile Fatimah had gone to Habeebah's room and found Naomi there, and heard of the vain hope which had brought her.

"My sweet jewel of gold and silver," the black woman cried, "you don't know what you are doing. Turn Muslima, and you will be parted from your father for ever. He is a Jew, and will have no right to you any more. You will never, never see him again. He will be lost to you—lost—I say—lost!"

Habeebah, with two of the guard, came back to take Naomi to Ben Aboo. The poor girl was bewildered. She had seen nothing but her father in Fatimah's protest, just as she had seen nothing but her father in Habeebah's promises. She did not know what to do, she was such a poor weak little thing, and there was no strong hand to guide her.

They led her through dark passages to an open place which she thought she had seen before. It was a great patio, paved and walled with tiles. Men were standing together there in red peaked caps and flowing white kaftans. And before them all was one old man in garments that were of the colour of the afternoon sun, with sleeves like the mouths of bells, a silver knife at his waistband, and little leather bags, hung by yellow cords, about his neck. Beside this man there was a woman of a laughing cruel face, and she herself, Naomi, stood in the midst, with every eye upon her. Where had she seen all this before?

Ben Aboo had often bethought him of the beautiful girl since he committed her father to prison. He cherished schemes concerning her which he did not share with his wife Katrina. But he had hitherto been withheld by two considerations: the first being that he was beset with difficulties arising out of the demands of the Sultan for more money than he could find, and the next that he foresaw the necessity that might perchance arise of recalling Israel to his post. Out of these grave bedevilments he had extricated himself at length by imposing dues on certain tribes of Reefians, who had never yet acknowledged the Sultan's authority, and by calling on the Sultan's army to enforce them. The Sultan had come in answer to his summons, the Reefians had been routed, their villages burnt, and that morning at daybreak he had received a message saying that Abd er-Rahman intended to keep the feast of the Moolood at Tetuan. So this capture of Naomi was the luckiest chance that could have befallen him at such a moment. She should witness to the Prophet; her father, the Jew, would thereby lose his rights in her; and he himself, as her sole guardian, would present her as a peace-offering to the Sultan on crossing the boundary of his bashalic.

Such was the new plan which Ben Aboo straightway conceived at hearing the news of Habeebah, and in another moment he had propounded it to Katrina. But when Naomi came into the patio, looking so soft, so timid, so tired, yet so beautiful, so unlike his own painted beauties, with the light of the dawn on her open face, with her clear eyes and the sweet mouth of a child, his evil passions had all they could do not to go back to his former scheme.

"So you wish to turn Muslima?" he said.

Naomi gave one dazed look around, and then cried in a voice of fear "No, no, no!"

Ben Aboo glanced at Habeebah, and Habeebah fell upon Naomi with protests and remonstrances. "She said so," Habeebah cried. "'I will turn Muslima,' she said. Yes, Sidi, she said so, I swear it!"

"Did you say so?" asked Ben Aboo.

"Yes," said Naomi faintly.

"Then, by Allah, there can be no going back now," said Ben Aboo; and he told her what was the penalty of apostasy. It was death. She must choose between them.

Naomi began to cry, and Ben Aboo to laugh at her and Habeebah to plead with her. Still she saw one thing only. "But what of my father?" she said.

"He shall be liberated," said Ben Aboo.

"But shall I see him again? Shall I go back to him?" said Naomi.

"The girl is a simpleton!" said Katrina.

"She is only a child," said Ben Aboo, and with one glance more at her flower-like face, he committed her for three days to the apartments of his women.

These apartments consisted of a garden overgrown by straggling weeds, with a fountain of muddy water in the middle, an oblong room that was stifling from many perfumes, and certain smaller chambers. The garden was inhabited by a gazelle, whose great startled eyes looked out through the long grass; and the oblong room by a number of women of varying ages, among whom were a matronly Mooress, called Tarha, in a scarlet head-dress, and with a string of great keys swung from shoulder to waist; a Circassian, called Hoolia, in a gorgeous rida of red silk and gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, with embroidered red slippers and black stockings; and a Jewess, called Sol, with a band of silk handkerchiefs tied round her forehead above her coal-black curls, with her fingers pricked out with henna and her eyes darkened with kohl.

Such were Ben Aboo's wives and concubines and captives, whom he had not divorced according to his promise; and when Naomi came among them they did their duty by their master faithfully. Being trapped themselves, they tried to entrap Naomi also. They overwhelmed her with caresses, they went into ecstasies over her beauty, and caused the future which awaited her to shine before her eyes. She would have a noble husband, magnificent dresses, a brilliant palace, and the world would be at her feet. "And what's the difference between Moosa and Mohammed?" said Sol; "look at me!" "Tut!" said Josephine, "there's nothing to choose between them." "For my part," said Tarha, "I don't see what it matters to us; they say Paradise is for the men!" "And think of the jewels, and the earrings as big as a bracelet," said Hoolia, "instead of this," and she drew away between her thumb and first finger the blanket which Naomi's neighbour had given her.

It was all to no purpose. "But what of my father?" Naomi asked again and again.

The women lost patience at her simplicity, gave up their solicitations, ignored her, and busied themselves with their own affairs. "Tut!" they said, "why should we want her to be made a wife of the Sultan? She would only walk over us like dirt whenever she came to Tetuan."

Then, sitting alone in their midst, listening to their talk, their tales, their jests, and their laughter, the unseen mantle fell upon Naomi at last, which made her a woman who had hitherto been a child. In this hothouse of sickly odours these women lived together, having no occupation but that of eating and drinking and sleeping, no education but devising new means of pleasing the lust of their husband's eye, no delight than that of supplanting one another in his love, no passion but jealousy, no diversion but sporting on the roofs, no end but death and the Kabar.

Seeing the uselessness of the siege, Ben Aboo transferred Naomi to the prison, and set Habeebah to guard her. The black woman was in terror at the turn that events had taken. There was nothing to do now but to go on, so she importuned Naomi with prayers. How could she be so hard-hearted? Could she keep her father famishing in prison when one word out of her lips would liberate him? Naomi had no answer but her tears. She remembered the hareem, and cried.

Then Ben Aboo thought of a daring plan. He called the Grand Rabbi, and commanded him to go to Naomi and convert her to Islam. The Rabbi obeyed with trembling. After all, it was the same God that both peoples worshipped, only the Moors called Him Allah and the Jews Jehovah. Naomi knew little of either. It was not of God that she was thinking: it was only of her father. She was too innocent to see the trick, but the Rabbi failed. He kissed her, and went away wiping his eyes.

Rumour of Naomi's plight had passed through the town, and one night a number of Moors came secretly to a lane at the back of the Kasbah, where a narrow window opened into her cell. They told her in whispers that what she held as tragical was a very simple matter. "Turn Muslima," they pleaded, "and save yourself. You are too young to die. Resign yourself, for God's sake." But no answer came back to them where they were gathered in the darkness, save low sobs from inside the wall.

At last Ben Aboo made two announcements. The first, a public one, was that Abd er-Rahman would reach Tetuan within two days, on the opening of the feast of the Moolood, and the other, a private one, that if Naomi had not said the Kelmah by first prayers the following morning she should die and her father be cut off as the penalty of her apostasy.

That night the place under the narrow window in the dark lane was occupied by a group of Jews. "Sister," they whispered, "sister of our people, listen. The Basha is a hard man. This day he has robbed us of all we had that he may pay for the Sultan's visit. Listen! We have heard something. We want Israel ben Oliel back among us. He was our father, he was our brother. Save his life for the sake of our children, for the Basha has taken their bread. Save him, sister, we beg, we entreat, we pray."

Naomi broke down at last. Next morning at dawn, kneeling among men in the Grand Mosque in the Metamar, she repeated the Word after the Iman: "I testify that there is no God but God, and that our Lord Mohammed is the messenger of God; I am truly resigned."

Then she was taken back to the women's apartments, and clad gorgeously. Her child face was wet with tears. She was only a poor weak little thing, she knew nothing of religion, she loved her father better than God, and all the world was against her.



CHAPTER XXIII

ISRAEL'S RETURN FROM PRISON

Such was the method of Israel's release. But, knowing nothing of the price which had been paid for it, he was filled with an immense joy. Nay, his happiness was quite childish, so suddenly had the darkness which hung over his life been lifted away. Any one who had seen him in prison would have been puzzled by the change as he came away from it. He laughed with the courier who walked with him to the town gate, and jested with the gate porter as with an old acquaintance. His voice was merry, his eye gleamed in the rays of the lantern, his face was flushed, and his step was light. "Afraid to travel in the night? No, no, I'll meet nothing worse than myself. Others may who meet me? Ha, ha! Perhaps so, perhaps so!" "No evil with you, brother?" "No evil, praise be God." "Well, peace be to you!" "On you be peace!" "May your morning be blessed! Good-night!" "Good-night!" Then with a wave of the hand he was gone into the darkness.

It was a wonderful night. The moon, which was in its first quarter, was still low in the east, but the stars were thick overhead, making a silvery dome that almost obliterated the blue. Rivers were rumbling on the hillside, an owl was hooting in the distance, kine that could not be seen were chewing audibly near at hand, and sheep like patches of white in the gloom were scuttling through the grass before Israel's footsteps. Israel walked quickly, tracing his course between the two arms of the Jebel Sheshawan, whose summits were visible against the sky. The air was cool and moist, and a gentle breeze was blowing from the sea. Oh! the joy of it to him who had lain long months in prison! Israel drank in the night air as a young colt drinks in the wind.

And if it was night in the world without, it was day in Israel's heart. "I am going to be happy," he told himself, "yes, very happy, very happy." He raised his eyes to heaven, and a star, bigger and brighter than the rest, hung over the path before him. "It is leading me to Naomi," he thought. He knew that was folly, but he could not restrain his mind from foolishness. And at least she had the same moon and stars above her sleep, for she would be sleeping now. "I am coming," he cried. He fixed his eye on the bright star in front and pushed forward, never resting, never pausing.

The morning dawned. Long rippling waves of morning air came down the mountains, cool, chill, and moist. The grey light became tinged with red. Then the sun rose somewhere. It had not yet appeared, but the peak of the western hill was flushed and a raven flew out and perched on the point of light. Israel's breast expanded, and he strode on with a firmer step. "She will be waking soon," he told himself.

The world awoke. From unseen places birds began to sing—the wheatear in the crevices of the rocks, the sedge-warbler among the rushes of the rivers. The sun strode up over the hill summit, and then all the earth below was bright. Dewdrops sparkled on the late flowers, and lay like vast spiders' webs over the grass; sheep began to bleat, dogs to bark, kine to low, horses to cross each other's necks, and over the freshness of the air came the smell of peat and of green boughs burning. Israel did not stop, but pushed on with new eagerness. "She will have risen now," he told himself. He could almost fancy he saw her opening the door and looking out for him in the sunlight.

"Poor little thing," he thought, "how she misses me! But I am coming, I am coming!"

The country looked very beautiful, and strangely changed since he saw it last. Then it had been like a dead man's face; now it was like a face that was always smiling. And though the year was so old it seemed to be quite young. No tired look of autumn, no warning of winter; only the freshness and vigour of spring. "I am going to see my child, and I shall be happy yet," thought Israel. The dust of life seemed to hang on him no longer.

He came to a little village called Dar el Fakeer—"the house of the poor one." The place did not even justify its name, for it was a cinereous wreck. Not a living creature was to be seen anywhere. The village had been sacked by the Sultan's army, and its inhabitants had fled to the mountains. Israel paused a moment, and looked into one of the ruined houses. He knew it must have been the house of a Jew, for he could recognise it by its smell. The floor was strewn over with rubbish—cans, kettles, water-bottles, a woman's handkerchief, and a dainty red slipper. On the ragged grass in the court within there were some little stones built up into tiny squares, and bits of stick stuck into the ground in lines. A young girl had lived in that house; children had played there; the gaunt and silent place breathed of their spirits still. "Poor souls!" thought Israel, but the troubles of others could not really touch him. At that very moment his heart was joyful.

The day was warm, but not too hot for walking. Israel did not feel weary, and so he went on without resting. He reckoned how far it was from Shawan to his home near Semsa. It was nearly seventy miles. That distance would take two days and two nights to cover on foot. He had left the prison on Wednesday night, and it would be Friday at sunset before he reached Naomi. It was now Thursday morning. He must lose no time. "You see, the poor little thing will be waiting, waiting, waiting," he told himself. "These sweet creatures are all so impatient; yes, yes, so foolishly impatient. God bless them!"

He met people on the road, and hailed them with good cheer. They answered his greetings sadly, and a few of them told him of their trouble. Something they said of Ben Aboo, that he demanded a hundred dollars which they could not pay, and something of the Sultan, that he had ransacked their houses and then gone on with his great army, his twenty wives, and fifteen tents to keep the feast at Tetuan. But Israel hardly knew what they told him, though he tried to lend an ear to their story. He was thinking out a wonderful scheme for the future. With Naomi he was to leave Morocco. They were to sail for England. Free, mighty, noble, beautiful England! Ah, how it shone in his memory, the little white island of the sea! His mother's home! England! Yes, he would go back to it. True, he had no friends there now; but what matter of that? Ah, yes, he was old, and the roll-call of his kindred showed him pitiful gaps. His mother! Ruth! But he had Naomi still. Naomi! He spoke her name aloud, softly, tenderly, caressingly, as if his wrinkled hand were on her hair. Then recovering himself, he laughed to think that he could be so childish.

Near to sunset he came upon a dooar, a tent village, in a waste place. It was pitched in a wide circle, and opened inwards. The animals were picketed in the centre, where children and dogs were playing, and the voices of men and women came from inside the tents. Fires were burning under kettles swung from triangles, and sight of this reminded Israel that he had not eaten since the previous day. "I must have food," he thought, "though I do not feel hungry." So he stopped, and the wandering Arabs hailed him. "Markababikum!" they cried from where they sat within.

"You are very welcome! Welcome to our lofty land!" Their land was the world.

Israel went into one of the tents, and sat down to a dish of boiled beans and black bread. It was very sweet. A man was eating beside him; a woman, half dressed, and with face uncovered, was suckling a child while she worked a loom which was fastened to the tent's two upright poles. Some fowls were nestling for the night under the tent wing, and a young girl was by turns churning milk by tossing it in a goat's-skin and baking cakes on a fire of dried thistles crackling in a hole over three stones. All were laughing together, and Israel laughed along with them.

"On a long journey, brother?" said the man.

"No, oh no, no," said Israel. "Only to Semsa, no farther."

"Well, you must sleep here to-night," said the Arab.

"Ah, I cannot do that," said Israel.

"No?"

"You see, I am going back to my little daughter. She is alone, poor child, and has not seen her old father for months. Really it is wrong of a man to stay away such a time. These tender creatures are so impatient, you know. And then they imagine such things, do they not? Well, I suppose we must humour them—that's what I always say."

"But look, the night is coming, and a dark one, too!" said the woman.

"Oh, nothing, that's nothing, sister," said Israel. "Well, peace! Farewell all, farewell!"

Waving his hand he went away laughing, but before he had gone far the darkness overtook him. It came down from the mountains like a dense black cloud. Not a star in the sky, not a gleam on the land, darkness ahead of him, darkness behind, one thick pall hanging in the air on every side. Still for a while he toiled along. Every step was an effort. The ground seemed to sink under him. It was like walking on mattresses. He began to feel tired and nervous and spiritless. A cold sweat broke out on his brow, and at length, when the sound of a river came from somewhere near, though on which side of him he could not tell, he had no choice but to stop. "After all, it is better," he thought. "Strange, how things happen for the best! I must sleep to-night, for to-morrow night I will get no sleep at all. No, for I shall have so many things to say and to ask and to hear."

Consoling him thus, he tried to sleep where he was, and as slumber crept upon him in the darkness, with five-and-twenty heavy miles of dense night between him and his home, he crooned and talked to himself in a childish way that he might comfort his aching heart. "Yes, I must sleep—sleep—to-morrow she must sleep and I must watch by her—watch by her as I used to do—used to do—how soft and beautiful—how beautiful—sleeping—sleep—Ah!"

When he awoke the sun had risen. The sea lay before him in the distance, the blue Mediterranean stretching out to the blue sky. He was on the borders of the country of the Beni-Hassan, and, after wading the river, which he had heard in the night, he began again on his journey. It was now Friday morning, and by sunset of that day he would be back at his home near Semsa. Already he could see Tetuan far away, girt by its white walls, and perched on the hillside. Yonder it lay in the sunlight, with the snow-tipped heights above it, a white blaze surrounded by orange orchards.

But how dizzy he was! How the world went round! How the earth trembled! Was the glare of the sun too fierce that morning, or had his eyes grown dim? Going blind? Well, even so, he would not repine, for Naomi could see now. She would see for him also. How sweet to see through Naomi's eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe. All the world was new to her, and strange and beautiful. It would be a second and far sweeter youth.

Naomi—Naomi—always Naomi! He had thought of her hitherto as she had appeared to him during the few days of their happy lives at Semsa. But now he began to wonder if time had not changed her since then. Two months and a half—it seemed so long! He had visions of Naomi grown from a sweet girl to a lovely woman. A great soul beamed out of her big, slow eyes. He himself approached her meekly, humbly, reverently. Nevertheless, he was her father still—her old, tired, dim-eyed father; and she led him here and there, and described things to him. He could see and hear it all. First Naomi's voice: "A bow in the sky—red, blue, crimson—oh!" Then his own deeper one, out of its lightsome darkness: "A rainbow, child!" Ah! the dreams were beautiful!

He tried to recall the very tones of Naomi's voice—the voice of his poor dead Ruth—and to remember the song that she used to sing—the song she sang in the patio on that great night of the moonlight, when he was returning home from the Bab Ramooz, and heard her singing from the street—

Within my heart a voice Bids earth and heaven rejoice.

He sang the song to himself as he toiled along. With a little lisp he sang it, so that he might cheat himself and think that the voice he was making was Naomi's voice and not his own.

Towards midday Israel came under the walls of Tetuan, between the Sultan's gardens and the flour-mills that are turned by the escaping sewers, and there he lit upon a company of Jews. They were a deputation that had come out from the town to meet him, and at first sight of his face they were shocked. He had left Tetuan a stricken man, it was true, but strong and firm, fifty years of age and resolute. Six months had passed, and he was coming back as a weak, broken, shattered, doddering, infirm old man of eighty. Their hearts fell low before they spoke, but after a pause one of them—Israel knew him: a grey-bearded man, his name was Solomon Laredo—stepped up and said, "Israel ben Oliel, our poor Tetuan is in trouble. It needs you. Alas! we dealt ill with you, but God has punished us, and we are brothers now. Come back to us, we pray of you; for we have heard of a great thing that is coming to pass. Listen!"

Something they told him then of Mohammed of Mequinez, follower of Seedna Aissa (Jesus of Nazareth), but a good man nevertheless, and also something they said of the Spaniards and of one Marshal O'Donnel, who was to bombard Marteel. But Israel heard very little. "I think my hearing must be failing me," he said; and then he laughed lightly, as if that did not greatly matter. "And to tell you the truth, though I pity my poor brethren, I can no longer help them. God will raise up a better minister."

"Never!" cried the Jews in many voices.

"Anyhow," said Israel, "my life among you is ended. I set no store by place and power. What does the English poet say, 'In the great hand of God I stand.' Shakespeare—oh, a mighty creature—one who knew where the soul of a man lay. But I forget, you've not lived in England. Do you know I am to go there again, and to take my little daughter? You remember her—Naomi—a charming girl. She can see now, and hear, and speak also! Yes for God has lifted His hand away from her, and I am going to be very happy. Well, I must leave you, brothers. The little one will be waiting. I must not keep her too long, must I? Peace, peace!"

Seeing his profound faith, no one dared to tell him the truth that was on every tongue. A wave of compassion swept over all. The deputation stood and watched him until he had sunk under the hill.

And now, being come thus near to home, Israel's impatience robbed him of some of his happy confidence and filled him with fears. He began to think of all the evil chances that might have befallen Naomi. His absence had been so long, and so many things might have happened since he went away. In this mood he tried to run. It was a poor uncertain shamble. At nearly every step the body lurched for poise and balance.

At last he came to a point of the path from which, as he knew, the little rush-covered house ought to be seen. "It's yonder," he cried, and pointed it out to himself with uplifted finger. The sun was sinking, and its strong rays were in his face. "She's there, I see her!" he shouted. A few minutes later he was near the door. "No, my eyes deceived me," he said in a damp voice. "Or perhaps she has gone in—perhaps she's hiding—the sweet rogue!"

The door was half open; he pushed it and entered the house. "Naomi!" he called in a voice like a caress. "Naomi!" His voice trembled now. "Come to me, come, dearest; come quickly, quickly, I cannot see!" He listened. There was not a sound, not a movement. "Naomi!" The name was like a gurgle in his throat. There was a pause, and then he said very feebly and simply, "She's not here."

He looked around, and picked up something from the floor. It was a slipper covered with mould. As he gazed upon it a change came over his face. Dead? Was Naomi dead? He had thought of death before—for himself, for others, never for Naomi. At a stride the awful thing was on him. Death! Oh, oh!

With a helpless, broken, blind look he was standing in the middle of the floor with the slipper in his hand, when a footstep came to the door. He flung the slipper away and threw open his arms. Naomi—it must be she!

It was Fatimah. She had come in secret, that the evil news of what had been done at the Kasbah and the Mosque might not be broken to Israel too suddenly. He met her with a terrible question. "Where is she laid?" he said in a voice of awe.

Fatimah saw his error instantly. "Naomi is alive," she said, and, seeing how the clouds lifted off his face, she added quickly, "and well, very well."

That is not telling a falsehood, she thought; but when Israel, with a cry of joy which was partly pain, flung his arms about her, she saw what she had done.

"Where is she?" he cried. "Bring her, you dear, good soul. Why is she not here? Lead me to her, lead me!"

Then Fatimah began to wring her hands. "Alas!" she said, weeping, "that cannot be."

Israel steadied himself and waited. "She cannot come to you, and neither can you go to her." said Fatimah. "But she is well, oh! very well. Poor child, she is at the Kasbah—no, no, not the prison—oh no, she is happy—I mean she is well, yes, and cared for—indeed, she is at the palace—the women's palace—but set your mind easy—she—"

With such broken, blundering words the good woman blurted out the truth, and tried to deaden the blow of it. But the soul lives fast, and Israel lived a lifetime in that moment.

"The palace!" he said in a bewildered way. "The women's palace—the women's—" and then broke off shortly. "Fatimah, I want to go to Naomi," he said.

And Fatimah stammered, "Alas! alas! you cannot, you never can—"

"Fatimah," said Israel, with an awful calm. "Can't you see, woman, I have come home? I and Naomi have been long parted. Do you not understand?—I want to go to my daughter."

"Yes, yes," said Fatimah; "but you can never go to her any more. She is in the women's apartments—"

Then a great hoarse groan came from Israel's throat.

"Poor child, it was not her fault. Listen," said Fatimah; "only listen."

But Israel would hear no more. The torrent of his fury bore down everything before it. Fatimah's feeble protests were drowned. "Silence!" he cried. "What need is there for words? She is in the palace!—that's enough. The women's palace—the hareem—what more is there to say?"

Putting the fact so to his own consciousness, and seeing it grossly in all its horror, his passion fell like a breaking in of waters. "O God!" he cried, "my enemy casts me into prison. I lie there, rotting, starving. I think of my little daughter left behind alone. I hasten home to her. But where is she? She is gone. She is in the house of my enemy. Curse her! . . . . Ah! no, no; not that, either! Pardon me, O God; not that, whatever happens! But the palace—the women's palace. Naomi! My little daughter! Her face was so sweet, so simple. I could have sworn that she was innocent. My love! my dove! I had only to look at her to see that she loved me! And now the hareem—that hell, and Ben Aboo—that libertine! I have lost her for ever! Yet her soul was mine—I wrestled with God for it—"

He stopped suddenly, his face became awfully discoloured, he dropped to his knees on the floor, lifted his eyes and his hands towards heaven, and cried in a voice at once stern and heartrending, "Kill her, O God! Kill her body, O my God, that her soul may be mine again!"

At this awful cry Fatimah fled out of the hut. It was the last voice of tottering reason. After that he became quiet, and when Fatimah returned the following morning he was talking to himself in a childish way while sitting at the door, and gazing before him with a lifeless look. Sometimes he quoted Scriptures which were startlingly true to his own condition: "I am alone, I am a companion to owls. . . . I have cleansed my heart in vain. . . . My feet are almost gone, my steps have well-nigh slipped. . . . I am as one whom his mother comforteth."

Between these Scriptures there were low incoherent cries and simple foolish play-words. Again and again he called on Naomi, always softly and tenderly, as if her name were a sacred thing. At times he appeared to think that he was back in prison, and made a little prayer—always the same—that some one should be kept from harm and evil. Once he seemed to hear a voice that cried, "Israel ben Oliel! Israel ben Oliel!" "Here! Israel is here!" he answered. He thought the Kaid was calling him. The Kaid was the King. "Yes, I will go back to the King," he said. Then he looked down at his tattered kaftan, which was mired with dirt, and tried to brush it clean, to button it, and to tie up the ragged threads of it. At last he cried, as if servants were about him and he were a master still, "Bring me robes—clean robes—white robes; I am going back to the King!"



CHAPTER XXIV

THE ENTRY OF THE SULTAN

Meantime Tetuan was looking for the visit of His Shereefian Majesty, the Sultan Abd er-Rahman. He had been heard of about four hours away, encamped with his Ministers, a portion of his hareem, and a detachment of his army, somewhere by the foot of Beni Hosmar. His entry was fixed for eight o'clock next morning, and preparations for his coming were everywhere afoot. All other occupations were at a standstill, and nothing was to be heard but the noise and clamour of the cleansing of the streets, and the hanging of flags and of carpets.

Early on the following morning a street-crier came, beating a drum, and crying in a hoarse voice, "Awake! Awake! Come and greet your Lord! Awake! Awake!"

In a little while the streets were alive with motley and noisy crowds. The sun was up, if still red and hazy, and sunlight came like a tunnel of gold down the swampy valley and from over the sea; the orange orchards lying to the south, called the gardens of the Sultan, were red rather than yellow, and the snowy crests of the mountain heights above them were crimson rather than white. In the town itself the small red flag that is the Moorish ensign hung out from every house, and carpets of various colours swung on many walls.

The sun was not yet high before the Sultan's army began to arrive. It was a mixed and noisy throng that came first, a sort of ragged regiment of Arabs, with long guns, and with their gun-cases wrapped about their heads—a big gang of wild country-folk lately enlisted as soldiers. They poured into the town at the western gate, and shuffled and jostled and squeezed their way through the narrow streets firing recklessly into the air, and shouting as they went, "Abd er-Rahman is coming! The Sultan is coming! Dogs! Men! Believers! Infidels! Come out! come out!"

Thus they went puffing along, covered with dust and sweltering in perspiration, and at every fresh shot and shout the streets they passed through grew denser. But it was a grim satire on their lawless loyalty that almost at their heels there came into the town, not the Sultan himself, but a troop of his prisoners from the mountains. Ten of them there were in all, guarded by ten soldiers, and they made a sorry spectacle. They were chained together, man to man in single file, not hand to hand or leg to leg but neck to neck. So had they walked a hundred miles, never separated night or day, either sleeping or waking, or faint or strong. The feet of some were bare and torn, and dripping blood; the faces of all were black with grime, and streaked with lines of sweat. And thus they toiled into the streets in that sunlight of God's own morning, under the red ensigns of Morocco, by the many-coloured carpets of Rabat, to the Kasbah beyond the market-place. They were Reefians whose homes the Sultan had just stripped, whose villages he had just burnt, whose wives and children he had just driven into the mountains. And they were going to die in his dungeons.

It was seven o'clock by this time, and rumour had it that the Sultan's train was moving down the valley. From the roofs of the houses a vast human ant-hill could be seen swarming across the plain in the distance. Then came some rapid transformations of the scene below. First the streets were deserted by every decent blue jellab and clean white turban within range of sight. These presently reappeared on the roofs of the principal thoroughfare, where groups of women, closely covered in their haiks, had already begun to congregate with their dark attendants. Next, a body of the townsmen who possessed firearms mounted guard on the walls to protect the town from the lawlessness of the big army that was coming. Then into the Feddan, the square marketplace, came pouring from their own little quarter within its separate walls a throng of Jewish people, in their black gabardines and skull-caps, men and women and children, carrying banners that bore loyal inscriptions, twanging at tambourines and crying in wild discords, "God bless our Lord!" "God give victory to our Lord the Sultan!"

The poor Jews got small thanks for such loyalty to the last of the Caliphs of the Prophet. Every ragged Moor in the streets greeted them with exclamations of menace and abhorrence. Even the blind beggar crouching at the gate lifted up his voice and cursed them.

"Get out, you Jew! God burn your father! Dogs, take off your slippers—Abd er-Rahman is coming!"

Thus they were scolded and abused on every side, kicked, cuffed, jostled, and wedged together well-nigh to suffocation. Their banners were torn out of their hands, their tambourines were broken, their voices were drowned, and finally they were driven back into their Mellah and shut up there, and forbidden to look upon the entry of the Sultan even from their roofs.

And the vagabonds and ragamuffins among the faithful in the streets, having got rid of the unbelievers had enough ado to keep peace among themselves. They pushed and struggled and stormed and cried and laughed and clamoured down this main artery of the town through which the Sultan's train must pass. Men and boys, women also and young girls, donkeys with packs, bony mules too, and at least one dirty and terrified old camel. It was a confused and uproarious babel. Angry black faces thrust into white ones, flashing eyes and gleaming white teeth, and clenched fists uplifted. Human voices barking like dogs, yelping like hyenas, shrill and guttural, piercing and grating. Prayings, beggings, quarrellings, cursings.

"Arrah! Arrah! Arrah!"

"O Merciful! O Giver of good to all!"

"Curses on your grandfather!"

"Allah! Allah! Allah!"

"Balak! Balak! Balak!"

But presently the wild throng fell into order and silence. The gate of the Kasbah was thrown open, and a line of soldiers came out, headed by the Kaid of Tetuan, and moved on towards the city wall. The rabble were thrust back, the soldiers were drawn up in lines on either side of the street, and the Kaid, Ben Aboo himself, took a position by the western gate.

By this time there was commotion on the town walls among the townsmen who had gathered there. The Sultan's army was drawing near, a confused and disorderly mass of human beings moving on from the plain. As they came up to the walls, the people who were standing on the house-roofs could see them, and as they were ordered away to encamp by the river, none could help but hear their shouts and oaths.

When the motley and noisy concourse had been driven off to their camping-ground, the gates of the town were thrown wide, for the Sultan himself was at hand.

First came two soldiers afoot, and then followed five artillerymen, with their small pieces packed on mules. Next came mounted standard-bearers four deep, some in red, some in blue, and some in green. Then came the outrunners and the spearmen, and then the Sultan's six led horses. And then at length with the great red umbrella of royalty held over him, came the Sultan himself, the elderly sensualist, with his dusky cheeks, his rheumy eyes, his thick lips, and his heavy nostrils. The fat Father of Islam was mounted that day on a snow-white stallion, bedecked in gorgeous trappings. Its bridle was of green silk, embroidered in gold. Solomon's seal was stamped on its headgear, and the tooth of a boar—a safeguard against the evil eye—was suspended from its neck. Its saddle was of orange damask, with girths of stout silk, and its stirrups were of chased silver. The Sultan's own trappings were of the colour of his horse. His kaftan was of white cloth, with an embroidered leathern girdle; his turban was of white cotton, and his kisa was also white and transparent.

As he passed under the archway of the town's gate the cannon of the Kasbah boomed forth a salute, Ben Aboo dismounted and kissed his stirrup, and the crowds in the streets burst upon him with blessings.

"God bless our Lord!"

"Sultan Abd er-Rahman!"

"God prolong the life of our Lord!"

He seemed hardly to hear them. Once his hand touched his breast when the Kaid approached him. After that he looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor gave any sign of pleasure or recognition. Nevertheless the people in the streets ceased not to greet him with deafening acclamations.

"All's well, all's well," they told each other, and pointed to the white horse—the sign of peace—which the Sultan rode, and to the riderless black horse—the sign of strife—that pranced behind him.

The women on the housetops also, in their hooded cloaks, welcomed the Sultan with a shrill ululation: "Yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo!"

Not content with this, the usual greeting of their sex and nation, some of them who had hitherto been closely veiled threw back their muslin coverings, exposed their faces to his face, and welcomed him with more articulate cries.

He gave them neither a smile nor a glance, but rode straight onward. Beside him walked the fly-flappers, flapping the air before his podgy cheeks with long scarfs of silk, and behind him rode his Ministers of State, five sleek dogs who daily fed his appetites on carrion that his head might be like his stomach, and their power over him thereby the greater. After the Ministers of State came a part of the royal hareem. The ladies rode on mules, and were attended by eunuchs.

Such was the entry into Tetuan of the Sultan Abd er-Rahman. In their heart of hearts did the people rejoice at his visit? No. Too well they knew that the tyrant had done nothing for his subjects but take their taxes. Not a man had he protected from injustice; not a woman had he saved from dishonour. Never a rich usurer among them but trembled at his messages, nor a poor wretch but dreaded his dungeons. His law existed only for himself; his government had no object but to collect his dues. And yet his people had received him amid wild vociferations of welcome.

Fear, fear! Fear it was in the heart of the rich man on the housetops, whose moneys were hidden, as well as in the darkened soul of the blind beggar at the gate, whose eyes had been gouged out long ago because he dared not divulge the secret place of his wealth.

But early in the evening of that same day, at the corners of quiet streets, in the covered ways, by the doors of bazaars, among the horses tethered in the fondaks, wheresoever two men could stand and talk unheard and unobserved by a third, one secret message of twofold significance passed with the voice of smothered joy from lip to lip. And this was the way and the word of it:

"She is back in the Kasbah!"

"The daughter of Ben Oliel? Thank God! But why? Has she recanted?"

"She has fallen sick."

"And Ben Aboo has sent her to prison?"

"He thinks that the physician who will cure her quickest."

"Allah save us! The dog of dogs! But God be praised! At least she is saved from the Sultan."

"For the present, only for the-present."

"For ever, brother, for ever! Listen! your ear. A word of news for your news: the Mahdi is coming! The boy has been for him."

"Bismillah! Ben Oliel's boy?"

"Ali. He is back in Tetuan. And listen again! Behind the Mahdi comes the—"

"Ya Allah! well?"

"Hark! A footstep on the street—some one is near—"

"But quick. Behind the Mahdi—what?"

"God will show! In peace, brother, in peace!"

"In peace!"



CHAPTER XXV

THE COMING OF THE MAHDI

The Mahdi came back in the evening. He had no standard-bearers going before him, no outrunners, no spearmen, no fly-flappers, no ministers of state; he rode no white stallion in gorgeous trappings, and was himself bedecked in no snowy garments. His ragged following he had left behind him; he was alone; he was afoot; a selham of rough grey cloth was all his bodily adornment; yet he was mightier than the monarch who had entered Tetuan that day.

He passed through the town not like a sultan, but like a saint; not like a conquering prince, but like an avenging angel. Outside the town he had come upon the great body of the Sultan's army lying encamped under the walls. The townspeople who had shut the soldiers out, with all the rabble of their following, had nevertheless sent them fifty camels' load of kesksoo, and it had been served in equal parts, half a pound to each man. Where this meal had already been eaten, the usual charlatans of the market-place had been busily plying their accustomed trades. Black jugglers from Zoos, sham snake-charmers from the desert, and story-tellers both grave and facetious, all twanging their hideous ginbri, had been seated on the ground in half-circles of soldiers and their women. But the Mahdi had broken up and scattered every group of them.

"Away!" he had cried. "Away with your uncleanness and deception."

And the foulest babbler of them all, hot with the exercise of the indecent gestures wherewith he illustrated his filthy tale, had slunk off like a pariah dog.

As the Mahdi entered the town a number of mountaineers in the Feddan were going through their feats of wonder-play before a multitude of excited spectators. Two tribes, mounted on wild barbs, were charging in line from opposite sides of the square, some seated, some kneeling, some standing. Midway across the market-place they were charging, horses at full gallop, firing their muskets, then reining in at a horse's length, throwing their barbs on their haunches, wheeling round and galloping back, amid deafening shouts of "Allah! Allah! Allah!"

"Allah indeed!" cried the Mahdi, striding into their midst without fear. "That is all the part that God plays in this land of iniquity and bloodshed. Away, away!"

The people separated, and the Mahdi turned towards the Kasbah. As he approached it, the lanes leading to the Feddan were being cleared for the mad antics of the Aissawa. Before they saw him the fanatics came out in all the force of their acting brotherhood, a score of half-naked men, and one other entirely naked, attended by their high-priests, the Mukaddameen, three old patriarchs with long white beards, wearing dark flowing robes and carrying torches. Then goats and dogs were riven alive and eaten raw; while women and children; crouching in the gathering darkness overhead looked down from the roofs and shuddered. And as the frenzy increased among the madmen, and their victims became fewer, each fanatic turned upon himself, and tore his own skin and battered his head against the stones until blood ran like water.

"Fools and blind guides!" cried the Mahdi sweeping them before him like sheep. "Is this how you turn the streets into a sickening sewer? Oh, the abomination of desolation! You tear yourselves in the name of God, but forget His justice and mercy. Away! You will have your reward. Away! Away!"

At the gate of the Kasbah he demanded to see the Kaid, and, after various parleyings with the guards and negroes who haunted the winding ways of the gloomy place, he was introduced to the Basha's presence. The Basha received him in a room so dark that he could but dimly see his face. Ben Aboo was stretched on a carpet, in much the position of a dog with his muzzle on his forepaws.

"Welcome," he said gruffly, and without changing his own unceremonious posture, he gave the Mahdi a signal to sit.

The Mahdi did not sit. "Ben Aboo," he said in a voice that was half choked with anger, "I have come again on an errand of mercy, and woe to you if you send me away unsatisfied."

Ben Aboo lay silent and gloomy for a moment, and then said with a growl, "What is it now?"

"Where is the daughter of Ben Oliel?" said the Mahdi.

With a gesture of protestation the Basha waved one of the hands on which his dusky muzzle had rested.

"Ah, do not lie to me," cried the Mahdi. "I know where she is—she is in prison. And for what? For no fault but love of her father, and no crime but fidelity to her faith. She has sacrificed the one and abandoned the other. Is that not enough for you, Ben Aboo? Set her free."

The Basha listened at first with a look of bewilderment, and some half-dozen armed attendants at the farther end of the room shuffled about in their consternation. At length Ben Aboo raised his head, and said with an air of mock inquiry, "Ya Allah! who is this infidel?"

Then, changing his tone suddenly, he cried, "Sir, I know who you are! You come to me on this sham errand about the girl, but that is not your purpose, Mohammed of Mequinez! Mohammed the Third! What fool said you were a spy of the Sultan? Abd er-Rahman is here—my guest and protector. You are a spy of his enemies, and a revolutionary, come hither to ruin our religion and our State. The penalty for such as you is death, and by Allah you shall die!"

Saying this, he so wrought upon his indignation, that in spite of his superstitious fears, and the awe in which he stood of the Mahdi, he half deceived himself, and deceived his attendants entirely. But the Mahdi took a step nearer and looked straight into his face, and said—

"Ben Aboo, ask pardon of God; you are a fool. You talk of putting me to death. You dare not and you cannot do it."

"Why not?" cried Ben Aboo, with a thrill of voice that was like a swagger. "What's to hinder me? I could do it at this moment, and no man need know."

"Basha," said the Mahdi, "do you think you are talking to a child? Do you think that when I came here my visit was not known to others than ourselves outside? Do you think there are not some who are waiting for my return? And do you think, too," he cried, lifting one hand and his voice together, "that my Master in heaven would not see and know it on an errand of mercy His servant perished? Ben Aboo, ask pardon of God, I say; you are a fool."

The Basha's face became black and swelled with rage. But he was cowed. He hesitated a moment in silence, and then said with an air of braggadocio—

"And what if I do not liberate the girl?"

"Then," said the Mahdi, "if any evil befalls her the consequences shall be on your head."

"What consequences?" said the Basha.

"Worse consequences than you expect or dream," said the Mahdi.

"What consequences?" said the Basha again.

"No matter," said the Mahdi. "You are walking in darkness, and do not know where you are going."

"What consequences?" the Basha cried once more.

"That is God's secret," said the Mahdi.

Ben Aboo began to laugh. "Light the infidel out of the Kasbah," he shouted to his people.

"Enough!" cried the Mahdi. "I have delivered my message. Now woe to you, Ben Aboo! A second time I have come to you as a witness, but I will come no more. Fill up the measure of your iniquity. Keep the girl in prison. Give her to the Sultan. But know that for all these things your reward awaits you. Your time is near. You will die with a pale face. The sword will reach to your soul."

Then taking yet another step nearer, until he stood over the Basha where he lay on the ground, he cried with sudden passion, "This is the last word that will pass between you and me. So part we now for ever, Ben Aboo—I to the work that waits for me, and you to shame and contempt, and death and hell."

Saying this, he made a downward sweep of his open hand over the place where the Basha lay, and Ben Aboo shrank under it as a worm shrinks under a blow. Then with head erect he went out unhindered.

But he was not yet done. In the garden of the palace, as he passed through it to the street, he stood a moment in the darkness under the stars before the chamber where he knew the Sultan lay, and cried, "Abd er-Rahman! Abd er-Rahman! slave of the Merciful! Listen: I hear the sound of the trumpet and the alarum of war. My heart makes a noise in me for my country, but the day of her tribulation is near. Woe to you, Abd er-Rahman! You have filled up the measure of your fathers. Woe to you, slave of the Compassionate!"

The Sultan heard him, and so did the Ministers of State; the women of the hareem heard him, and so did the civil guards and the soldiers. But his voice and his message came over them with the terror of a ghostly thing, and no man raised a hand to stop him.

"The Mahdi," they whispered with awe, and fell back when he approached.

The streets were quiet as he left the Kasbah. The rabble of mountaineers of Aissawa were gone. Hooded Talebs, with prayer-mats under their arms, were picking their way in the gloom from the various mosques; and from these there came out into the streets the plash of water in the porticos and the low drone of singing voices behind the screens.

The Mahdi lodged that night in the quarter of the enclosure called the M'Salla, and there a slave woman of Ben Aboo's came to him in secret. It was Fatimah, and she told him much of her late master, whom she had visited by stealth, and just left in great trouble and in madness; also of her dead mistress, Ruth who was like rose-perfume in her memory, as well as of Naomi, their daughter, and all her sufferings. In spasms, in gasps, without sequence and without order, she told her story; but he listened to her with emotion while the agitated black face was before him, and when it was gone he tramped the dark house in the dead of night, a silent man, with tender thoughts of the sweet girl who was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Kasbah, and of her stricken father, who supposed that she was living in luxury in the palace of his enemy while he himself lay sick in the poor hut which had been their home. These false notions, which were at once the seed and the fruit of Israel's madness, should at least be dispelled. Let come what would, the man should neither live nor die in such bitterness of cruel error.

The Mahdi resolved to set out for Semsa with the first grey of morning, and meantime he went up to the house-top to sleep. The town was quiet, the traffic of the street was done, the raggabash of the Sultan's following had slunk away ashamed or lain down to rest. It was a wonderful night. The air was cool, for the year was deep towards winter, but not a breath of wind was stirring, and the orange-gardens behind the town wall did not send over the river so much as the whisper of a leaf. Stars were out and the big moon of the East shone white on the white walls and minarets. Nowhere is night so full of the spirit of sleep as in an Eastern city. Below, under the moonlight, lay the square white roofs, and between them were the dark streets going in and out, trailing through and along, like to narrow streams of black water in a bed of quarried chalk. Here or there, where a belated townsman lit himself homeward with a lamp, a red light gleamed out of one of the thin darknesses, crept along a few paces, and then was gone. Sometimes a clamour of voices came up with their own echo from some unseen place, and again everything was still. Sleep, sleep, all was sleep.

"O Tetuan," thought the Mahdi, "how soon will your streets be uprooted and your sanctuaries destroyed!"

The Mooddin was chanting the call to prayers, and the old porter at the gate was muttering over his rosary as the Mahdi left the town in the dawn. He had to pick his way among the soldiers who were lying on the bare soil outside, uncovered to the sky. Not one of them seemed to be awake. Even their camels were still sleeping, nose to nose, in the circles where they had last fed. Only their mules and asses, all hobbled and still saddled, were up and feeding.

The Mahdi found Israel ben Oliel in the hut at Semsa. So poor a place he had not seen in all his wanderings through that abject land. Its walls were of clay that was bulged and cracked, and its roof was of rushes, which lay over it like sea-wreck on a broken barrel. Israel was in his right mind. He was sitting by the door of his house, with a dejected air, a hopeless look, but the slow sad eyes of reason. His clothing was one worn and torn kaftan; his feet were shoeless, and his head was bare. But so grand a head the Mahdi thought he had never beheld before. Not until then had he truly seen him, for the poverty and misery that sat on him only made his face stand out the clearer. It was the face of a man who for good or ill, for struggle or submission, had walked and wrestled with God.

With salutations, barely returned to him, the Mahdi sat down beside Israel at a little distance. He began to speak to him in a tender way, telling him who he was, and where they had met before, and why he came, and whither he was going. And Israel listened to him at first with a brave show of composure as if the very heart of the man were a frozen clod, whereby his eyes and the muscles of his face and even the nerves of his fingers were also frozen.

Then the Mahdi spoke of Naomi, and Israel made a slow shake of the head. He told him what had happened to her when her father was taken to prison, and Israel listened with a great outward calmness. After that he described the girl's journey in the hope of taking food to him, and how she fell into the hands of Habeebah; and then he saw by Israel's face that the affection of the father was tearing his old heart woefully. At last he recited the incidents of her cruel trial, and how she had yielded at length, knowing nothing of religion, being only a child, seeing her father in everything and thinking to save his life, though she herself must see him no more (for all this he had gathered from Fatimah), and then the great thaw came to Israel, and his fingers trembled, and his face twitched, and the hot tears rained down his cheeks.

"My poor darling!" he muttered in a trembling undertone, and then he asked in a faltering voice where she was at that time.

The Mahdi told him that she was back in prison, for rebelling against the fortune intended for her—that of becoming a concubine of the Sultan.

"My brave girl!" he muttered, and then his face shone with a new light that was both pride and pain.

He lifted his eyes as if he could see her, and his voice as if she could hear: "Forgive me, Naomi! Forgive me, my poor child! Your weak old father; forgive him, my brave, brave daughter!"

This was as much as the Mahdi could bear; and when Israel turned to him, and said in almost a childish tone, "I suppose there is no help for it now, sir. I meant to take her to England—to my poor mother's home, but—"

"And so you shall, as sure as the Lord lives," said the Mahdi, rising to his feet, with the resolve that a plan for Naomi's rescue which he had thought of again and again, and more than once rejected, which had clamoured at the door of his heart, and been turned away as a barbarous impulse, should at length be carried into effect.



CHAPTER XXVI

ALI'S RETURN TO TETUAN

The plan which the Mahdi thought of had first been Ali's, for the black lad was back in Tetuan. After he had fulfilled his errand of mercy at Shawan; he had gone on to Ceuta; and there, with a spirit afire for the wrongs of his master, from whom he was so cruelly parted, he had set himself with shrewdness and daring to incite the Spanish powers to vengeance upon his master's enemies. This had been a task very easy of execution, for just at that time intelligence had come from the Reef, of barbarous raids made by Ben Aboo upon mountain tribes that had hitherto offered allegiance to the Spanish crown. A mission had gone up to Fez, and returned unsatisfied. War was to be declared, Marteel was to be bombarded, the army of Marshal O'Donnel was to come up the valley of the river, and Tetuan was to be taken.

Such were the operations which by the whim of fate had been so strangely revealed to Ali, but Ali's own plan was a different matter. This was the feast of the Moolood, and on one of the nights of it, probably the eighth night, the last night, Friday night, Ben Aboo the Basha was to give a "gathering of delight," to the Sultan, his Ministers, his Kaids, his Kadis, his Khaleefas, his Umana, and great rascals generally. Ali's stout heart stuck at nothing. He was for having the Spaniards brought up to the gates of the town, on the very night when the whole majesty and iniquity of Barbary would be gathered in one room; then, locking the entire kennel of dogs in the banqueting hall, firing the Kasbah and burning it to the ground, with all the Moorish tyrants inside of it like rats in a trap.

One danger attended his bold adventure, for Naomi's person was within the Kasbah walls. To meet this peril Ali was himself to find his way into the dungeon, deliver Naomi, lock the Kasbah gate, and deliver up to another the key that should serve as a signal for the beginning of the great night's work.

Also one difficulty attended it, for while Ali would be at the Kasbah there would be no one to bring up the Spaniards at the proper moment for the siege—no one in Tetuan on whom the strangers could rely not to lead them blindfold into a trap. To meet this difficulty Ali had gone in search of the Mahdi, revealed to him his plan, and asked him to help in the downfall of his master's enemies by leading the Spaniards at the right moment to the gates that should be thrown open to receive them.

Hearing Ali's story, the Mahdi had been aflame with tender thoughts of Naomi's trials, with hatred of Ben Aboo's tyrannies, and pity of Israel's miseries. But at first his humanity had withheld him from sympathy with Ali's dark purpose, so full, as it seemed, of barbarity and treachery.

"Ali," he had said, "is it not all you wish for to get Naomi out of prison and take her back to her father?"

"Yes, Sidi," Ali had answered promptly.

"And you don't want to torture these tyrants if you can do what you desire without it?"

"No-o, Sidi," Ali had said doubtfully.

"Then," the Mahdi had said, "let us try."

But when the Mahdi was gone to Tetuan on his errand of warning that proved so vain, Ali had crept back behind him, so that secretly and independently he might carry out his fell design. The towns-people were ready to receive him, for the air was full of rebellion, and many had waited long for the opportunity of revenge. To certain of the Jews, his master's people, who were also in effect his own, he went first with his mission, and they listened with eagerness to what he had come to say. When their own time came to speak they spoke cautiously, after the manner of their race, and nervously, like men who knew too well what it was to be crushed and kept under; but they gave their help notwithstanding, and Ali's scheme progressed.

In less than three days the entire town, Moorish and Jewish, was honeycombed with subterranean revolt. Even the civil guard, the soldiers of the Kasbah, the black police that kept the gates, and the slaves that stood before the Basha's table were waiting for the downfall to come.

The Mahdi had gone again by this time, and the people had resumed their mock rejoicings over the Sultan's visit. These were the last kindlings of their burnt-out loyalty, a poor smouldering pretence of fire. Every morning the town was awakened by the deafening crackle of flintlocks, which the mountaineers discharged in the Feddan by way of signal that the Sultan was going to say his prayers at the door of some saint's house. Beside the firing of long guns and the twanging of the ginbri the chief business of the day seemed to be begging. One bow-legged rascal in a ragged jellab went about constantly with a little loaf of bread, crying, "An ounce of butter for God's sake!" and when some one gave him the alms he asked he stuck the white sprawling mess on the top of the loaf and changed his cry to "An ounce of cheese for God's sake!" A pert little vagabond—street Arab in a double sense—promenaded the town barefoot, carrying an odd slipper in his hand, and calling on all men by the love of God and the face of God and the sake of God to give him a moozoonah towards the cost of its fellow. Every morning the Sultan went to mosque under his red umbrella, and every evening he sat in the hall of the court of justice, pretending to hear the petitions of the poor, but actually dispensing charms in return for presents. First an old wrinkled reprobate with no life left in him but the life of lust: "A charm to make my young wife love me!" Then an ill-favoured hag behind a blanket: "A charm to wither the face of the woman that my husband has taken instead of me!" Again, a young wife with a tearful voice: "A charm to make me bear children!" A greasy smile from the fat Sultan, a scrap of writing to every supplicant, chinking coins dropped into the bag of the attendant from the treasury, and then up and away. It was a nauseous draught from the bitterest waters of Islam.

But, for all the religious tumult, no man was deceived by the outward marks of devotion. At the corners of the streets, on the Feddan, by the fountains, wherever men could meet and talk unheard, there they stood in little groups, crossing their forefingers, the sign of strife, or rubbing them side by side, the sign of amity. It was clear that, notwithstanding the hubbub of their loyalty to the sultan, they knew that the Spaniard was coming and were glad of it.

Meantime Ali waited with impatience for the day that was to see the end of his enterprise. To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night, during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick his steps in the silence up the winding streets, until he came under a narrow opening in an alley which was the only window to Naomi's prison. And there he would stay the long dark hours through, as if he thought that besides the comfort it brought to him to be near to Naomi, the tramp, tramp, tramp of his footsteps, which once or twice provoked the challenge of the night-guard on his lonely round, would be company to her in her solitude. And sometimes, watching his opportunity that he might be unseen and unheard, he would creep in the darkness under the window and cry up the wall in an underbreath, "Naomi! Naomi! It is I, Ali! I have come back! All will be well yet!"

Then if he heard nothing from within he would torture himself with a hundred fears lest Naomi should be no longer there, but in a worse place; and if he heard a sob he would slink away like a dog with his muzzle to the dust, and if he heard his own name echoed in the softer voice he knew so well he would go off with head erect, feeling like a man who walked on the stars rather than the stones of the street. But, whatever befell, before the day dawned he went back to his lodging less sore at heart for his lonely vigil, but not less wrathful or resolute.

The day of the feast came at length, and then Ali's impatience rose to fever. All day he longed for the night, that the thing he had to do could be done. At last the sunset came and the darkness fell, and from his place of concealment Ali saw the soldiers of the assaseen going through the streets with lanterns to lead honoured guests to the banquet. Then he set out on his errand. His foresight and wit had arranged everything. The negro at the gate of the Kasbah pretended to recognise him as a messenger of the Vizier's, and passed him through. He pushed his way as one with authority along the winding passages to the garden where the Mahdi had called on Abd er-Rahman and foretold his fate. The garden opened upon the great hall, and a number of guests were standing there, cooling themselves in the night air while they waited for the arrival of the Sultan. His Shereefian Majesty came at length, and then, amid salaams and peace-blessings, the company passed in to the banquet. "Peace on you!" "And on you the peace!" "God make your evening!" "May your evening be blessed!"

Did Ali shrink from the task at that moment? No, a thousand times no! While he looked on at these men in their muslin and gauze and linen and scarlet, sweeping in with bows and hand-touchings to sup and to laugh and to tell their pretty stories, he remembered Israel broken and alone in the poor hut which had been described to him, and Naomi lying in her damp cell beyond the wall.

Some minutes he stood in the darkness of the garden, while the guests entered, and until the barefooted servants of the kitchen began to troop in after them with great dishes under huge covers. Then he held a short parley with the negro gatekeeper, two keys were handed to him, and in another minute he was standing at the door of Naomi's prison.

Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of all—the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by the gift of sight, and would now first look upon him. That he would be the same as a stranger to her, and would have to tell her who he was; that she would have to recognise him by whatsoever means remained to belie the evidence of the newborn sense—this was the least of Ali's trouble. By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand to Shawan. He was black, and she would see him.

With the gliding of the key into the lock all this, and more than this, flashed upon his mind. His shame was abject. It cut him to the quick. On the other side of that door was she who had been as a sister to him since times that were lost in the blue clouds of childhood. She had played with him and slept by his side, yet she had never seen his face. And she was fair as the morning, and he was black as the night! He had come to deliver her. Would she recoil from him?

Ali had to struggle with himself not to fly away and leave everything. But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose. "What matter?" he thought. "What matter about me?" he asked himself aloud in a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head. Then he found himself inside the cell.

The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah, and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her feet. In his confusion Ali said simply, "It is I," as though that meant everything. Recovering himself in a moment he spoke again, and then she knew his voice: "Naomi!"

"It's Ali," she whispered to herself. After that she cried in a trembling undertone "Ali! Ali! Ali!" and came straight in the accustomed darkness to the spot where he stood.

Then, gathering courage and voice together, Ali told her hurriedly why he was there. When he said that her father was no longer in prison, but at their home near Semsa and waiting to receive her, she seemed almost overcome by her joy. Half laughing, half weeping, clutching at her breast as if to ease the wild heaving of her bosom she was transformed by his story.

"Hush!" said Ali; "not a sound until we are outside the town," and Naomi knitted her fingers in his palm, and they passed out of the place.

The banquet was now at its height, and hastening down dark corridors where they were apt to fall, for they had no light to see by, and coming into the garden, they heard the ripple and crackle of laughter from the great hall where Ben Aboo and his servile rascals feasted together. They reached the quiet alley outside the Kasbah (for the negro was gone from his post), and drew a lone breath, and thanked Heaven that this much was over. There had been no group of beggars at the gate, and the streets around it were deserted; but in the distance, far across the town in the direction of the Bab el Marsa, the gate that goes out to Marteel, they heard a low hum as of vast droves of sheep. The Spaniard was coming, and the townsmen were going out to meet him. Casual passers-by challenged them, and though Ali knew that even if recognised they had nothing to fear from the people, yet more than once his voice trembled when he answered, and sometimes with a feeling of dread he turned to see that no one was following.

As he did so he became aware of something which brought back the shame of that awful moment when he stood with the key in hand at the door of Naomi's prison. By the light of the lamps in the hands of the passers-by Naomi was looking at him. Again and again, as the glare fell for an instant, he felt the eyes of the girl upon his face. At such moments he thought she must be drawing away from him, for the space between them seemed wider. But he firmly held to the outstretched arm, kept his head aside, and hastened on.

"What matter about me?" he whispered again. But the brave word brought him no comfort. "Now she's looking at my hand," he told himself, but he could not draw it away. "She is doubting if I am Ali after all," he thought. "Naomi!" he tried to say with averted head, so that once again the sound of his voice might reassure her; but his throat was thick, and he could not speak. Still he pushed on.

The dark town just then was like a mountain chasm when a storm that has been gathering is about to break. In the air a deep rumble, and then a loud detonation. Blackness overhead, and things around that seemed to move and pass.

Drawing near to the Bab Toot, the gate that witnessed the last scene of Israel's humiliation and Naomi's shame, Ali, with the girl beside him, came suddenly into a sheet of light and a concourse of people. It was the Mahdi and his vast following with lamps in their hands, entering the town on the west, while the Spaniards whom they had brought up to the gates were coming in on the east. The Mahdi himself was locking the synagogues and the sanctuaries.

"Lock them up," he was saying. "It is enough that the foreigner must burn down the Sodom of our tyrant; let him not outrage the Zion of our God."

Ali led Naomi up to the Mahdi, who saw her then for the first time.

"I have brought her," he said breathlessly; "Naomi, Israel's daughter, this is she." And then there was a moment of surprise and joy, and pain and shame and despair, all gathered up together into one look of the eyes of the three.

The Mahdi looked at Naomi, and his face lightened. Naomi looked at Ali, and her pale face grew paler, and she passed a tress of her fair hair across her lips to smother a little nervous cry that began to break from her mouth. Then she looked at the Mahdi, and her lips parted and her eyes shone. Ali looked at both, and his face twitched and fell.

This was only the work of an instant, but it was enough. Enough for the Mahdi, for it told him a secret that the wisdom of life had not yet revealed; enough for Naomi, for a new sense, a sixth sense, had surely come to her; enough for Ali also, for his big little heart was broken.

"What matter about me?" thought Ali again. "Take her, Mahdi," he said aloud in a shrill voice. "Her father is waiting for her—take her to him."

"Lady," said the Mahdi, "can you trust me?"

And then without a word she went to him; like the needle to the magnet she went to the Mahdi—a stranger to her, when all strangers were as enemies—and laid her hand in his.

Ali began to laugh, "I'm a fool," he cried. "Who could have believed it? Why, I've forgotten to lock the Kasbah! The villains will escape. No matter, I'll go back."

"Stop!" cried the Mahdi.

But Ali laughed so loudly that he did not hear. "I'll see to it yet," he cried, turning on his heel. "Good night, Sidi! God bless you! My love to my father! Farewell!"

And in another moment he was gone.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE FALL OF BEN ABOO

The roysterers in the Kasbah sat a long half-hour in ignorance of the doom that was impending. Squatting on the floor in little circles, around little tables covered with steaming dishes, wherein each plunged his fingers, they began the feast with ceremonious wishes, pious exclamations, cant phrases, and downcast eyes. First, "God lengthen your age," "God cover you," and "God give you strength." Then a dish of dates, served with abject apologies from Ben Aboo: "You would treat us better in Fez, but Tetuan is poor; the means, Seedna, the means, not the will!" Then fish in garlic, eaten with loud "Bismillah's." Then kesksoo covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and meat on skewers, and browned fowls, and fowls and olives, and flake pastry and sponge fritters, each eaten in its turn amid a chorus of "La Ilah illa Allah's." Finally three cups of green tea, as thick and sweet as syrup, drunk with many "Do me the favour's," and countless "Good luck's." Last of all, the washing of hands, and the fumigating of garments and beard and hair by the live embers of scented wood burning in a brass censer, with incessant exchanges of "The Prophet—God rest him—loved sweet odours almost as much as sweet women."

But after supper all this ceremony fell away, and the feasters thawed down to a warm and flowing brotherhood. Lolling at ease on their rugs, trifling with their egg-like snuff-boxes, fumbling their rosaries for idleness more than piety, stretching their straps, and jingling on the pavement the carved ends of their silver knife-shields, they laughed and jested, and told dubious stories, and held doubtful discourse generally. The talk turned on the distinction between great sins and little ones. In the circle of the Sultan it was agreed that the great sins were two: unbelief in the Prophet, whereby a man became Jew and dog; and smoking keef and tobacco, which no man could do and be of correct life and unquestionable Islam. The atonement for these great sins were five prayers a day, thirty-four prostrations, seventeen chapters of the Koran, and as many inclinations. All the rest were little sins; and as for murder and adultery, and bearing false witness—well, God was Merciful, God was Compassionate, God forgave His poor weak children.

This led to stories of the penalises paid by transgressors of the great sins. These were terrible. Putting on a profound air, the Vizier, a fat man of fifty, told of how one who smoked tobacco and denied the Prophet had rotted piecemeal; and of how another had turned in his grave with his face from Mecca. Then the Kaid of Fez, head of the Mosque and general Grand Mufti, led away with stories of the little sins. These were delightful. They pictured the shifts of pretty wives, married to worn out old men, to get at their youthful lovers in the dark by clambering in their dainty slippers from roof to roof. Also of the discomfiture of pious old husbands and the wicked triumph of rompish little ladies, under pretences of outraged innocence.

Such, and worse, and of a kind that bears not to be told, was the conversation after supper of the roysterers in the Kasbah. At every fresh story the laughter became louder, and soon the reserve and dignity of the Moor were left behind him and forgotten. At length Ben Aboo, encouraged by the Sultan's good fellowship, broke into loud praises of Naomi, and yet louder wails over the doom that must be the penalty of her apostasy; and thereupon Abd er-Rahman, protesting that for his part he wanted nothing with such a vixen, called on him to uncover her boasted charms to them. "Bring her here, Basha," he said; "let us see her," and this command was received with tumultuous acclamations.

It was the beginning of the end. In less than a minute more, while the rascals lolled over the floor in half a hundred different postures, with the hazy lights from the brass lamps and the glass candelabras on their dusky faces, their gleaming teeth, and dancing eyes, the messenger who had been sent for Naomi came back with the news that she was gone. Then Ben Aboo rose in silent consternation, but his guests only laughed the louder, until a second messenger, a soldier of the guard, came running with more startling news. Marteel had been bombarded by the Spaniards; the army of Marshall O'Donnel was under the walls of Tetuan, and their own people were opening the gates to him.

The tumult and confusion which followed upon this announcement does not need to be detailed. Shoutings for the mkhaznia, infuriated commands to the guards, racings to the stables and the Kasbah yard, unhobbling of horses, stamping and clattering of hoofs, and scurryings through dark corridors of men carrying torches and flares. There was no attempt at resistance. That was seen to be useless. Both the civil guard and the soldiery had deserted. The Kasbah was betrayed. Terror spread like fire. In very little time the Sultan and his company with their women and eunuchs, were gone from the town through the straggling multitude of their disorderly and dissolute and worthless soldiery lying asleep on the southern side of it.

Ben Aboo did not fly with Abd er-Rahman. He remembered that he had treasure, and as soon as he was alone he went in search of it. There were fifty thousand dollars, sweat of the life-blood of innocent people. No one knew the strong-room except himself, for with his own hand he had killed the mason who built it. In the dark he found the place, and taking bags in both his hands and hiding them under the folds of his selham, he tried to escape from the Kasbah unseen.

It was too late; the Spanish soldiers were coming up the arcades, and Ben Aboo, with his money-bags, took refuge in a granary underground, near the wall of the Kasbah gate. From that dark cell, crouching on the grain, which was alive with vermin, he listened in terror to the sounds of the night. First the galloping of horses on the courtyard overhead; then the furious shouts of the soldiers, and, finally, the mad cries of the crowd. "Damn it—they've given us the slip." "Yes; they've crawled off like rats from a sinking ship." "Curse it all, it's only a bungle." This in the Spanish tongue, and then in the tongue of his own country Ben Aboo heard the guttural shouts of his own people: "Sidi, try the palace." "Try the apartments of his women, Sidi." "Abd er-Rahman's gone, but Ben Aboo's hiding." "Death to the tyrant!" "Down with the Basha!" "Ben Aboo! Ben Aboo!" Last of all a terrific voice demanding silence. "Silence, you shrieking hell-babies, silence!"

Ben Aboo was in safety; but to lie in that dark hole underground and to hear the tumult above him was more than he could bear without going mad. So he waited until the din abated, and the soldiers, who had ransacked the Kasbah, seemed to have deserted it; and then he crept out, made for the women's apartments, and rattled at their door. It was folly, it was lunacy; but he could not resist it, for he dared not be alone. He could hear the sounds of voices within—wailing and weeping of the women—but no one answered his knocking. Again and again he knocked with his elbows (still gripping his money-bags with both hands), until the flesh was raw through selham and kaftan by beating against the wood. Still the door remained unopened, and Ben Aboo, thinking better of his quest for company, fled to the patio, hoping to escape by a little passage that led to the alley behind the Kasbah.

Here he encountered Katrina and a guard of five black soldiers who were helping her flight. "We are safe," she whispered—"they've gone back into the Feddan—come;" and by the light of a lamp which she carried she made for the winding corridor that led past the bath and the sanctuary to the Kasbah gate. But Ben Aboo only cursed her, and fumbled at the low door of the passage that went out from the alcove to the alley. He was lumbering through with his armless roll, intending to clash the door back in Katrina's face, when there was a fierce shout behind him, and for some minutes Ben Aboo knew no more.

The shout was Ali's. After leaving the Mahdi on the heath outside the Bab Toot, the black lad had hunted for the Basha. When the Spanish soldiers abandoned the Kasbah he continued his search. Up and down he had traversed the place in the darkness; and finding Ben Aboo at last, on the spot where he had first seen him, he rushed in upon him and brought him to the ground. Seeing Ben Aboo down, the black soldiers fell upon Ali. The brave lad died with a shout of triumph. "Israel ben Oliel," he cried, as if he thought that name enough to save his soul and damn the soul of Ben Aboo.

But Ben Aboo was not yet done with his own. The blow that had been aimed at his heart had no more than grazed his shoulder. "Get up," whispered Katrina, half in wrath; and while she stooped to look for his wounds, her face and hands as seen in the dim light of the lantern were bedaubed with his blood. At that moment the guards were crying that the Kasbah was afire, and at the next they were gone, leaving Katrina alone with the unconscious man. "Get up," she cried again, and tugging at Ben Aboo's unconscious body she struck it in her terror and frenzy. It was every one for himself in that bad hour. Katrina followed the guards, and was never afterwards heard of.

When Ben Aboo came to himself the patio was aglow with flames. He staggered to his feet, still grappling to his breast the money-bags hidden under his selham. Then, bleeding from his shoulder and with blood upon his beard, he made afresh for the passage leading to the back alley. The passage was narrow and dark. There were three winding steps at the end of it. Ben Aboo was dizzy and he stumbled.

But the passage was silent, it was safe, and out in the alley a sea of voices burst upon him. He could hear the tramp of countless footsteps, the cries of multitudes of voices, and the rattle of flintlocks. Lanterns, torches, flares and flashes of gunpowder came and went at both ends of the long dark tunnel. In the light of these he saw a struggling current of angry faces. The living sea encircled him. He knew what had happened. At the first certainty that his power was gone and that there was nothing to fear from his vengeance, his own people had gathered together to destroy him.

There were two small mean houses on the opposite side of the alley, and Ben Aboo tried to take refuge in the first of them. But the woman who came with uncovered face to the door was the widow of the mason who had built his strong-room. "Murderer and dog!" she cried, and shut the door against him. He tried the other house. It was the house of the mason's son. "Forgive me," he cried. "I am corrected by Allah! Yes, yes, it is true I did wrong by your father, but forgive me and save me." Thus he pleaded, throwing himself on the ground and crawling there. "Dog and coward," the young man shouted, and beat him back into the street.

Ben Aboo's terror was now appalling to look upon. His face was that of a snared beast. With bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks, and short thick breath, he ran from dark alley to dark alley, trying every house where he thought he might find a friend. "Alee, don't you know me?" "Mohammed, it is I, Ben Aboo." "See, El Arby, here's money, money; it's yours, only save me, save me!" With such frantic cries he raced about in the darkness like a hunted wolf. But not a house would shelter him. Everywhere he met relatives of men who had died through his means, and he was driven away with curses.

Meantime, a rumour that Ben Aboo was in the streets had been bruited abroad among the people, and their lust of blood was thereby raised to madness. Screaming and spitting and raving, and firing their flintlocks, they poured from street into street, watching for their victim and seeing him in every shadow. "He's here!" "He's there!" "No, he's yonder!" "He's scaling the high wall like a cat!"

Ben Aboo heard them. Their inarticulate cries came to him laden with one message only—death. He could see their faces, their snarling teeth. Sometimes he would rave and blaspheme. Then he would make another effort for his life. But the whirlpool was closing in upon him; and at last, like one who flings himself over a precipice from dizziness, fears, and irresistible fascination, he flung himself into the middle of the infuriated throng as they scurried across the open Feddan.

From that moment Ben Aboo's doom was sealed. The people received him with a long furious roar, a cry of triumphant execration, as if their own astuteness at length had entrapped him. He stood with his back to the high wall; the bellowing crowd was before him on either side. By the torches that many carried all could see him. Turban and shasheeah had fallen off, and the bald crown of his head was bare. His face retained no human expression but fear. He was seen to draw his arms from beneath his selham, to hold both his money-bags against his breast, to plunge a hand into the necks of them, and fling handfuls of coins to the people. "Silver," he cried; "silver, silver for everybody."

The despairing appeal was useless. Nobody touched the money. It flashed white through the air, and fell unheard. "Death to the Kaid!" was shouted on every side. Nevertheless, though half the men carried guns, no man fired. By unspoken consent it seemed to be understood that the death of Ben Aboo was not to be the act of one, but of all. "Stones," cried somebody out of the crowd, and in another moment everybody was picking stones, and piling them at his feet or gathering them in the skirt of his jellab.

Ben Aboo knew his awful fate. Gesticulating wildly, having flung the money-bags from him, slobbering and screaming, the blighted soul was seen to raise his eyes towards the black sky, his thick lubber lips working visibly, as if in wild invocation of heaven. At the next instant the stones began to fall on him. Slowly they fell at first, and he reeled under them like a drunken man; the back of his neck arched itself like the neck of a bull, and like the roar of a bull was the groan that came from his throat. Then they fell faster, and he swayed to and fro, and grunted, with his beard bobbing at his breast, and his tongue lolling out. Faster and faster, and thicker and thicker they showered upon him, darting out of the darkness like swallows of the night. His clothes were rent, his blood spirted over them, he staggered as a beast staggers in the slaughter, and at length his thick knees doubled up, and he fell in a round heap like a ball.

The ferocity of the crowd was not yet quelled. They hailed the fall of Ben Aboo with a triumphant howl, but their stones continued to shower upon his body. In a little while they had piled a cairn above it. Then they left it with curses of content and went their ways. When the Spanish soldiers, who had stood aside while the work was done, came up with their lanterns to look at this monument of Eastern justice, the heap of stones was still moving with the terrific convulsions of death.

Such was the fall of El Arby, nicknamed Ben Aboo.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"ALLAH-U-KABAR"

Travelling through the night,—Naomi laughing and singing snatches in her new-found joy, and the Mahdi looking back at intervals at the huge outline of Tetuan against the blackness of the sky,—they came to the hut by Semsa before dawn of the following day. But they had come too late. Israel ben Oliel was not, after all, to set out for England. He was going on a longer journey. His lonely hour had come to him, his dark hour wherein none could bear him company. On a mattress by the wall he lay outstretched, unconscious, and near to his end. Two neighbours from the village were with him, and but for these he must have been alone—the mighty man in his downfall deserted by all save the great Judge and God.

What Naomi did when the first shock of this hard blow fell upon her, what she said, and how she bore herself, it would be a painful task to tell. Oh, the irony of fate! Ay, the irony of God! That scene, and what followed it, looked like a cruel and colossal jest—none the less cruel because long drawn out and as old as the days of Job.

It was useless to go out in search of a doctor. The country was as innocent of leechcraft as the land of Canaan in the days of Abraham. All they could do was to submit, absolutely and unconditionally. They were in God's hands.

The light was coming yellow and pink through the window under the eaves as Israel awoke to consciousness. He opened his eyes as if from sleep, and saw Naomi beside him. No surprise did he show at this, and neither did he at first betray pleasure. Dimly and softly he looked upon her, and then something that might have been a smile but for lack of strength passed like sunshine out of a cloud across his wasted face. Naomi pressed a pillow-under his loins, and another under his head, thinking to ease the one and raise the other. But the iron hand of unconsciousness fell upon him again, and through many hours thereafter Naomi and the Mahdi sat together in silence with the multitudinous company of invisible things.