and lifted up its eyes, and he saw its face. Then he shrieked and awoke.
The face of the goat had been the face of Naomi.

Now Israel knew that this was no more than a dream, coming of the passage
which he had read out of the book at sundown, but so vivid was the sense

of it that he could not rest in his bed until he had first seen Naomi
with his waking eyes, that he might laugh in his heart to think

how the eye of his sleep had fooled him. So he lit his lamp,
and walked through the silent house to where Naomi's room was

on the lower floor of it.
There she lay, sleeping so peacefully, with her sunny hair flowing

over the pillow on either side of her beautiful face, and rippling
in little curls about her neck. How sweet she looked! How like

a dear bud of womanhood just opening to the eye!
Israel sat down beside her for a moment. Many a time before,

at such hours, he had sat in that same place, and then gone his ways,
and she had known nothing of it. She was like any other maiden now.

Her eyes were closed, and who should see that they were blind?
Her breath came gently, and who should say that it gave forth no speech?

Her face was quiet, and who should think that it was not the face
of a homely-hearted girl? Israel loved these moments when he was alone

with Naomi while she slept, for then only did she seem to be entirely
his own, and he was not so lonely while he was sitting there.

Though men thought he was strong, yet he was very weak. He had no one
in the world to talk to save Naomi, and she was dumb in the daytime,

but in the night he could hold little conversations with her.
His love! his dove! his darling! How easily he could trick

and deceive himself and think, She will awake presently, and speak to me!
Yes; her eyes will open and see me here again, and I shall hear her voice,

for I love it! "Father!" she will say. "Father--father--"
Only the moment of undeceiving was so cruel!

Naomi stirred, and Israel rose and left her. As he went back to his bed,
through the corridor of the patio, he heard a night-cry behind him

that made his hair to rise. It was Naomi laughing in her sleep.
Israel dreamt again that night, and he believed his second dream

to be a vision. It was only a dream, like the first; but what his dream
would be to us is nought, and what it was to him is everything.

The vision as he thought he saw it was this, and these were the words
of it as he thought he heard them--

It was the middle of the night, and he was lying in his own room,
when a dull red light as of dying flame crossed the foot of the bed,

and a voice that was as the voice of the Lord came out of it,
crying "Israel!"

And Israel was sorely afraid, and answered, "Speak, Lord,
Thy servant heareth."

Then the Lord said, "Thou has read of the goats whereon the high priest
cast lots, one lot for the sin offering and one lot for the scapegoat."

And Israel answered trembling, "I have read."
Then the Lord said to Israel, "Look now upon Naomi, thy child,

for she is as the sin-offering for thy sins, to make atonement
for thy transgressions, for thee and for thy household, and therefore

she is dumb to all uses of speech, and blind to all service of sight,
a soul in chains and a spirit in prison, for behold, she is as the lot

that is cast for justice and for the Lord."
And Israel groaned in his agony and cried, "Would that the lot had fallen

upon me, O Lord, that Thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when Thou judgest, for I alone am guilty before Thee."

Then said the Lord to Israel, "On thee, also, hath the lot fallen,
even the lot of the scapegoat of the enemies of the people of God."

And Israel quaked with fear, and the Lord called to him again, and said,
"Israel, even as the scapegoat carries the iniquities of the people,

so cost thou carry the iniquities of thy master, Ben Aboo,
and of his wife, Katrina; and even as the goat bears the sins

of the people into the wilderness, so, in the resurrection,
shalt thou bear the sins of this man and of this woman into a land

that no man knoweth."
Then Israel wrestled no longer with the Lord, but sweated as it were drops

of blood, and cried, "What shall I do, O Lord?"
And the Lord said, "Lie unto the morning, and then arise, get thee

to the country by Mequinez and to the man there whereof thou hast heard
tidings, and he shall show thee what thou shalt do."

Then Israel wept with gladness, and cried, saying, "Shall my soul live?
Shall the lot be lifted from off me, and from off Naomi, my daughter?"

But the Lord left him, the red light died out from across the bed,
and all around was darkness.

Now to the last day and hour of his life Israel would have taken oath
on the Scriptures that he saw this vision, and he heard this voice,

not in his sleep and as in a dream, but awake, and having plain sight
of all common things about him--his room and his bed; and the canopy

that covered it. And on rising in the morning, at daydawn,
so actual was the sense of what he had seen and heard, and so powerful

the impression of it, that he straightway set himself to carry out
the injunction it had made, without question of its reality or doubt

of its authority.
Therefore, committing his household to the care of Ali, who was now grown

to be a stalwart black lad his constant right hand and helpmate,
Israel first sent to the Governor, saying he should be ten days absent

from Tetuan, and then to the Kasbah for a soldier and guide,
and to the market-place for mules.

Before the sun was high everything was in readiness, and the caravan
was waiting at the door. Then Israel remembered Naomi.

Where was the girl, that he had not seen her that morning?
They answered him that she had not yet left her room, and he sent

the black woman Fatimah to fetch her. And when she came
and he had kissed her, bidding her farewell in silence,

his heart misgave him concerning her, and, after raising his foot
to the stirrup, he returned to where she stood in the patio

with the two bondwomen beside her.
"Is she well?" he asked.

"Oh yes, well--very well," said Fatimah, and Habeebah echoed her.
Nevertheless, Israel remembered that he had not heard the only language

of her lips, her laugh, and, looking at her again, he saw that her face,
which had used to be cheerful, was now sad. At that he almost repented

of his purpose, and but for shame in his own eyes he might have gone
no farther, for it smote him with terror that, though she were sick,

nothing could she say to stay him, and even if she were dying she must
let him go his ways without warning.

He kissed her again, and she clung to him, so that at last,
with many words of tender protest which she did not hear,

he had to break away from the beautiful arms that held him.
Ali was waiting by the mules in the streets, and the soldier

and guide and muleteers and tentmen were already mounted,
amid a chattering throng of idle people looking on.

"Ali, my lad," said Israel, "if anything should befall Naomi
while I am away, will you watch over her and guard her

with all your strength?"
"With all my life," said Ali stoutly. He was Naomi's playfellow

no longer, but her devoted slave.
Then Israel set off on his journey.

CHAPTER IX
ISRAEL'S JOURNEY

MOHAMMED of Mequinez, the man whom Israel went out to seek,
had been a Kadi and the son of a Kadi. While he was still a child

his father died, and he was brought up by two uncles, his father's
brothers, both men of yet higher place, the one being Naib es-sultan,

or Foreign Minister, at Tangier, and the other Grand Vizier to the Sultan