of their own hushed tongues and the songless and voiceless world,
the fingers of the little ones closed
tightly upon her own.
Then the children cried in
terror, "See!"
"What is it?" said Naomi.
The little ones could not tell her. It was only the noiseless summer
lightning, but the children had never seen it before.
With broad white flashes it lit up the land as far as from the bed
of the river in the
valley to the white peaks of the mountains.
At every flash the little people shrieked in their fear,
and there was no one there to comfort them save Naomi only,
and she was blind and could not see what they saw. With
helpless hands
she held to their hands and
hurried home, over the darkening fields,
through the palpitating sheets of dazzling light, leading on,
yet
seeing nothing.
But Israel saw Naomi's shame. The
blindness which was a sense
of
humiliation to her became a sense of burning wrong to him.
He had asked God to give her speech, and had promised to be satisfied.
"Give her speech, O Lord," he had cried, "speech that shall lift her
above the creatures of the field, speech
whereby alone she may ask
and know." But what was speech without sight to her who had always
been blind? What was all the world to one who had never seen it?
Only as Paradise is to Man, who can but idly dream of its glories.
Israel took back his prayer. There were things to know
that words could never tell. Now was Naomi blind for the first time,
being no longer dumb. "Give her sight, O Lord," he cried;
"open her eyes that she may see; let her look on Thy beautiful world
and know it! Then shall her life be safe, and her heart be happy,
and her soul be Thine, and Thy servant at last be satisfied!"
CHAPTER XVII
ISRAEL'S GREAT RESOLVE
It was six-and-twenty days since the night of the meeting on the Sok,
and no rain had yet fallen. The eggs of the
locust might be hatched
at any time. Then the wingless creatures would rise on the face
of the earth like snow, and the poor lean stalks of wheat and barley
that were coming green out of the ground would
wither before them.
The country people were in
despair. They were all but stripped
of their cattle; they had no milk; and they came afoot to the market.
Death seemed to look them in the face. Neither in the mosques
nor in the synagogues did they offer petitions to God for rain.
They had long ceased their prayers. Only in the Feddan at the mouths
of their tents did they lift up their heavy eyes to the hot haze
of the
pitiless sky and
mutter, "It is written!"
Israel was busy with other matters. During these six-and-twenty days
he had been asking himself what it was right and needful
that he should do. He had concluded at length that it was his duty
to give up the office he held under the Kaid. No longer could he serve
two masters. Too long had he held to the one, thinking that
by
recompense and restitution, by fair
dealing and even-handed justice,
he might atone to the other. Recompense was a mockery
of the sufferings which had led to death; restitution was no longer
possible--his own purse being empty--without
robbery of the treasury
of his master; fair
dealing and even justice were a vain hope in Barbary,
where every man who held office, from the heartless Sultan
in his hareem to the pert Mut'hasseb in the market, must be only
as a human torture-jellab, made and designed to
squeeze the life-blood
out of the man beneath him.
To
endure any longer the taunts and
laughter of Ben Aboo was impossible,
and to
resist the covetous importunities of his Spanish woman, Katrina,
was a waste of shame and spirit. Besides, and above all,
Israel remembered that God had given him grace in the sacrifices
which he had made already. Twice had God rewarded him,
in the mercy He had shown to Naomi, for putting by the pomp
and circumstance of the world. Would His great hand be idle now--now
when he most needed its
mighty and
miraculous power when Naomi,
being
conscious of her
blindness, was
mourning and crying for sweet sight
of the world and he himself was about to put under his feet the last
of his possessions that separated him from other men--his office
that he
wrought for in the early days with sweat of brow and blood,
and held on to in the later days through evil report and hatred,
that he might
conquer the fate that had first
beaten him down!
Israel was in the way of bribing God again, forgetting, in the heat
of his desire, the shame of his journey to Shawan. He made
his preparations, and they were few. His money was gone already,
and so were his dead wife's jewels. He had determined that he would keep
his house, if only as a shelter to Naomi (for he owed something
to her material comfort as well as her
spiritual welfare),
but that its furniture and
belongings were more
luxurious than
their necessity would require or altered state allow.
So he sold to a Jewish merchant in the Mellah the couches and
great chairs which he had bought out of England, as well as the carpets
from Rabat, the
silken hangings from Fez, and the
purple canopies
from Morocco city. When these were gone, and nothing remained
but the simple rugs and mattresses which are all that the house
of a poor man needs in that land where the skies are kind,
he called his servants to him as he sat in the patio--Ali as well as
the two bondwomen--for he had
decided that he must part with them also,
and they must go their ways.
"My good people," he said, "you have been true and
faithful servants
to me this many a year--you, Fatimah, and you also, Habeebah,
since before the days when my wife came to me--and you too, Ali, my lad,
since you grew to be big and helpful. Little I thought to part
with you until my good time should come; but my life in our poor Barbary
is over already, and to-morrow I shall be less than the least
of all men in Tetuan. So this is what I have concluded to do.
You, Fatimah, and you, Habeebah, being given to me as bondwomen
by the Kaid in the old days when my power, which now is little
and of no moment, was great and necessary--you belong to me.
Well, I give you your liberty. Your papers are in the name of Ben Aboo,
and I have sealed them with his seal--that is the last use but one
that I shall put it to. Here they are, both of them. Take them
to the Kadi after prayers in the morning, and he will
ratify your title.
Then you will be free women for ever after."
The black women had more than once broken in upon Israel's words
with exclamations of surprise and
consternation. "Allah!"
"Bismillah!" "Holy Saints!" "By the beard of the Prophet!"
And when at length he put the deeds of
emancipation into their hands
they fell into loud fits of
hysterical weeping.
"As for you, Ali, my son," Israel continued, "I cannot give you
your freedom, for you are a
freeman born. You have been a son to me
these fourteen years. I have another task for you--a
perilous task,
a
solemn duty--and when it is done I shall see you no more.
My brave boy, you will go far, but I do not fear for you.
When you are gone I shall think of you; and if you should sometimes think
of your old master who could not keep you, we may not always be apart."
The lad had listened to these words in blank bewilderment.
That strange disasters had of late
befallen their household was an idea
that had forced itself upon his
unwilling mind. But that Israel,
the greatest, noblest, mightiest man in the world--let the dogs
of rasping Jews and the scurvy hounds of Moors yelp and bark
as they would--should fall to be less than the least in Tetuan,
and, having fallen that he should send him away--him, Ali,
his boy whom he had brought up, Naomi's old playfellow--Allah!
Allah! in the name of the
merciful God, what did his master mean?
Ali's big eyes began to fill, and great beads rolled down
his black cheeks. Then, recovering his speech he blurted out
that he would not go. He would follow his father and serve him
until the end of his life. What did he want with wages?
Who asked for any? No going his ways for him! A pretty thing, wasn't it,
that he should go off, and never see his father again, no,
nor Naomi--Naomi--that-that--but God would show! God would show!
And, following Ali's lead, Fatimah stepped up to Israel and offered her
paper back. "Take it," she said; "I don't want any liberty.
I've got liberty enough as I am. And here--here," fumbling
in her waistband and bringing out a knitted purse; "I would have offered
it before, only I thought shame. My wages? Yes. You've paid us wages
these nine years, haven't you; and what right had we to any,
being slaves? You will not take it, my lord? Well, then,
my dear master, if I must go, if I must leave you, take my papers
and sell me to some one. I shall not care, and you have a right to do it.
Perhaps I'll get another good master--who knows?"
Her brows had been knitted, and she had tried to look stern and angry,
but suddenly her cheeks were a flood of tears.
"I'm a fool!" she cried. "I'll never get a good master again;
but if I get a bad one, and he beats me, I'll not mind,
for I'll think of you, and my precious jewel of gold and silver,
my pretty gazelle, Naomi--Allah
preserve her!--that you took my money,
and I'm
bearing it for both of you, as we might say--working
for you--night and day--night and day--"
Israel could
endure no more. He rose up and fled out of the patio
into his own room, to bury his swimming face. But his soul was big
and
triumphant. Let the world call him by what names it would--tyrant,
traitor, outcast pariah--there were simple hearts that loved
and honoured him--ay, honoured him--and they were the hearts
that knew him best.
The
perilous task reserved for Ali was to go to Shawan and to liberate
the followers of Absalam, who, less happy than their leader,
whose strong soul was at rest, were still in prison without abatement
of the miseries they lay under. He was to do this by power
of a
warrant addressed to the Kaid of Shawan and drawn under the seal
of the Kaid of Tetuan. Israel had drawn it, and sealed it also,
without the knowledge or
sanction of Ben Aboo; for,
knowing what manner
of man Ben Aboo was, and
knowing Katrina also, and the sway she held
over him, and thinking it
useless to attempt to move either to mercy,
he had determined to make this last use of his office,
at all risks and hazards.
Ben Aboo might never hear that the people were at large,
for Ali was to
forbid them to return to Tetuan, and Shawan was
sixty weary miles away. And if he ever did hear, Israel himself
would be there to bear the brunt of his
displeasure, but Ali
the
instrument of his design, must be far away. For when the gates
of the prison had been opened, and the prisoners had gone free,
Ali was neither to come back to Tetuan nor to remain in Morocco,
but with the money that Israel gave him out of the last wreck
of his fortune he was to make haste to Gibraltar by way of Ceuta,
and not to consider his life safe until he had set foot in England.
"England!" cried Ali. "But they are all white men there."
"White-hearted men, my lad," said Israel; "and a Jewish man may find rest
for the sole of his foot among them."
That same day the black boy bade
farewell to Israel and to Naomi.
He was leaving them for ever, and he was broken-hearted.
Israel was his father, Naomi was his sister, and never again should
he set his eyes on either. But in the pride of his
perilous mission
he bore himself bravely.
"Well, good-night," he said,
taking Naomi's hand, but not looking
into her blind face.
"Good-night," she answered, and then, after a moment, she flung her arms
about his neck and kissed him. He laughed
lightly, and turned to Israel.
"Good-night, father," he said in a
shrill voice.
"A safe journey to you, my son," said Israel; "and may you do
all my errands."
"God burn my great-grandfather if I do not!" said Ali stoutly.
But with that word of his country his brave
bearing at length broke down,
and
drawing Israel aside, that Naomi might not hear, he whispered,
sobbing and stammering, "When--when I am gone, don't, don't tell her
that I was black."
Then in an
instant he fled away.
"In peace!" cried Israel after him. "In peace! my brave boy,
simple, noble, loyal heart!"
Next morning Israel, leaving Naomi at home, set off for the Kasbah,
that he might carry out his great
resolve to give up the office
he held under the Kaid. And as he passed through the streets