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, standing" target="_blank" title="prep.&conj.虽然；还是">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;