Ali found her there, and brought her home to her father's house
in the Mellah, and her dying
champion with her. And out
of this hard chance, and not out of Israel's teaching, Naomi was first
to learn what life is and what is death. She felt the goat
with her hands, and as she did so her fingers shook. Then she lifted it
to its feet, and when they slipped from under it she raised
her white face in wonder. Again she lifted it, and made strange noises
at its ear; but when it did not answer with its bleat her lips
began to tremble. Then she listened for its
breathing, and felt
for its
breath; but when neither the one came to her ear, nor the other
to her cheek, her own
breath beat hot and fast. At length she fondled it
in her arms, and kissed it with her lips; and when it gave back no sign
of
motion nor any sound of voice, a wild labouring rose at her heart.
At last, when the power of life was low in it, the goat opened
its heavy eyes upon her and put forth its tongue and licked her hand.
With that last
farewell the brave heart of the little creature broke,
and it stretched itself and died.
Israel saw it all. His heart bled to see the
parting in silence
between those two, for not more dumb was the goat that now was dead
than the human soul that was left alive. He tried to put the goat
from Naomi's arms,
saying, "It was only a goat, my child;
think of it no more," though it smote him with pain to say it,
for had not the creature given its life for her life? And where, O God,
was the difference between them? But Naomi clung to the goat,
and her
throat swelled and her bosom fluttered, and her whole body panted,
and it was almost as if her soul were struggling to burst
through the bonds that bound it, that she might speak and ask and know.
"Oh, what does it mean? Why is it? Why? Why?"
Such were the questions that seemed ready to break from her tongue.
And, thinking to answer her, Israel drew her to him and said, "It is dead, my child--the goat is
dead."
But as he spoke that word he saw by her face, as by a flash
of light in a dark place, that, often as he had told her of death,
never until that hour had she known what it was. Then,
if the words that he had
spoken of death had carried no meaning,
what could he hope of the words that he had
spoken of life,
and of the little things which
concerned their household?
And if Naomi had not heard the words he had said of these--if she had not
pondered and interpreted them--if they had fallen on her ear
only as voices in a dark cavern--only as dead birds on a dead sea--what
of the other words, the greater words, the words of the Book of the Law
and the Prophets, the words of heaven and of the resurrection and of God ?
Had the hope of his heart been
vanity? Did Naomi know nothing?
Was her great gift a mockery?
Israel's feet were set in a
slippery place. Why had he boasted himself
of God's mercy? What were ears to hear to her that could not understand?
Only a
torment, a
terror, a
plague, a
perpetual desolation!
When Naomi had heard nothing she had known nothing, and never had
her spirit asked and cried in vain. Now she was dumb for the first time,
being no longer deaf. Miserable man that he was, why had the Lord heard
his supplication and why had He received his prayer?
But, repenting of such reproaches, in memory of the joy
that Naomi's new gift had given her, he called on God to give her speech
as well.
"Give her speech, O Lord!" he cried, "speech that shall lift her
above the creatures of the field, speech
whereby alone she may ask
and know! Give her speech, O God my God, and Thy servant
will be satisfied!"
CHAPTER XIV
ISRAEL AT SHAWAN
AFTER Israel's return from his journey he had followed the precepts
of the young Mahdi of Mequinez. Taking a view of his situation,
that by his
hardness of heart in the early days, and by base submission
to the will of Katrina, the Kaid's Christian wife, in the later ones,
he had filled the land with miseries, he now spared no cost to restore
what he had unjustly extorted. So to him that had paid double
in the taxings he had returned double--once for the tax and once
for the
excess; and if any man, having been unjustly taxed
for the Kaid's
tribute, had given bond on his lands for his debt
and been cast into the Kasbah and died, without ransoming them,
then to his children he had returned fourfold--double for the lands
and double for the death. Israel had done this continually,
and said nothing to Ben Aboo, but paid all charges out of his own purse,
so that from being a rich man he had fallen within a month
to the condition of a poor one, for what was one man's wealth
among so many? Yet no
goodwill had he won
thereby, but only pity
and
contempt, for the people that had taken his money had thanked
the Kaid for it, who, according to their supposals, had called on him
to correct what he had done amiss. And with Ben Aboo himself
he had fared no better, for the Basha was provoked to anger with him
when he heard from Katrina of the good money that he had been casting away
in pity for the poor.
"What have I told you a score of times?" said the woman.
"That man has mints of money."
"My money, burn his grandfather," said Ben Aboo.
Thus, on every side Israel had fallen in the world's reckoning.
When he lifted his hand from off that
ploughwherewith he had done
the devil's work, he had made many enemies, and such as he had before
he had made more powerful. People who had showed him lip-service
when he was thought to be rich did not
conceal the joy they had
that he was brought down so near to be a
beggar. Upstarts,
who owed their pro
motion to his intercession, found in his charities
an easy handle given them to be
insolent, for, by carrying to Katrina
their secret messages of his mercy to the people, they brought things
at length to such a pass between him and the Kaid that Ben Aboo
openly upbraided Israel for his
weakness, not once or twice
but many times.
"And pray what is this I hear of your fine charities, master Israel?"
said Ben Aboo. "Ah, do not look surprised. There are little birds enough
to
twitter of such follies. So you are throwing away silver like bones
to the dogs! Pity you've got too much of it, Israel ben Oliel;
pity you've got too much of it, I say."
"The people are poor, Lord Basha," said Israel; "they are famishing,
and they have no
refuge save with God and with us."
"Tut!" cried Ben Aboo. "A
famine in my bashalic! Let no man dare
to say so. The whining dogs are preying upon your simpleness,
mistress Israel. You poor old grandmother! I always suspected,"
he added, facing about upon his attendants, "I always suspected
that I was served by a woman. Now I am sure of it."
Israel felt the indignity. He had given good proof of his manhood
in the past by
standing five-and-twenty years scapegoat for Ben Aboo
between him and his people, making him rich by his extortions,
keeping him safe in his seat, and
thereby saving him
from the
wooden jellab which Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan,
kept for Kaids that could not pay. But Israel mastered his anger
and held his peace.
Word went through the town that Israel had fallen from the favour
of the Basha, and then some of the more bold and free laughed at him
in the streets when they saw him
relieve the miseries of the poor,
thinking himself accountable to God for their sufferings.
He could have crushed the better part of his insulters to death
in his brawny arms, but he was slow to anger and long-suffering.
All the heed he paid to their insults was to do his good work
with more secrecy.
Remembering his Moorish jellab, and how
effectually it had
disguised him
on the night of his return home, he had
recourse to it in this difficulty.
When darkness fell he donned it again,
drawing the hood well down
over his black Jewish skull-cap and as far as might be over his face.
In this
innocentdisguise he went out night after night for many nights
among the poorer Moors that lived in the
dismal quarters
of the grain markets near the Bab Ramooz. How he bore himself
being there, with what
harmless deceptions he unburdened his soul
by stealth, what guileless pretences he made that he might restore
to the poor the money that had been
stolen from them,
would be a long story to tell.
"Who are you?" he was asked a hundred times.
"A friend," he answered
"Who told you of our trouble?"
"Allah has angels," he would reply.
Often, on his
nightly rambles, he heard himself reviled, and saw
the very children of the streets spit over their fingers at the mention
of his name. And sometimes as he passed he heard blind people
whisper together and say, "He is a saint. He comes from the Kabar
at
nightfall. Allah sends him to help poor men who have been
in the clutches of Israel the Jew."
Nevertheless, Israel kept his secret. What did the word of man avail
for good or evil? It would count for nothing at the last.
Do justice and ask
nought; neither praise, for it was a
wayward wind,
nor
gratitude, for it was the
breath of angels.
One day, about a month after his return from his journey,
when he was near to the end of his substance, a message came to him
that the followers of Absalam were perishing of
hunger in their prison
at Shawan. Their relatives in Tetuan had found them in food until now,
but the
plague of the
locust had fallen on the bread-winners,
and they had no more bread to send. Israel concluded that it was
his duty to succour them. From a just view of his responsibilities
he had gone on to a morbid one. If in the Judgment the blood
of the people of Absalam cried to God against him, he himself,
and not Ben Aboo, would be cast out into hell.
Israel juggled with his heart no further, but
straightway began
to take a view of his condition. Then he saw, to his dismay,
that little as he had thought he possessed, even less remained to him
out of the wreck of his
riches. Only one thing he had still,
but that was a thing so dear to his heart that he had never looked
to part with it. It was the
casket of his dead wife's jewels.
Nevertheless, in his
extremity he
resolved to sell it now, and,
taking the key, he went up to the room where he kept it--a closet
that was
sacred to the relics of her who lay in his heart for ever,
but in his house no more.
Naomi went up with him, and when he had broken the seal from the doorpost,
and the little door creaked back on its hinge, the ashy odour came out
to them of a
chamber long shut up. It was just as if the buried air itself
had fallen in death to dust, for the dust of the years lay on everything.
But under its dark
mantle were soft silks and
delicate shawls
and gauzy haiks, and veils and embroidered sashes and light red slippers,
and many
dainty things such as women love. And to him that came again
after ten heavy years they were as a dream of her that had worn them
when she was young that now was dead when she was beautiful
that now was in the grave.
"Ah me, ah me! Ruth! My Ruth!" he murmured. "This was her shawl.
I brought it from Wazzan. . . . And these slippers--they came from Rabat.
Poor girl, poor girl! . . . . This sash, too, it used to be
yellow and white. How well I remember the first time she wore it!
She had put it over her head for a hood, pretending to be a Moorish woman.
But her brown curls fell out over her face, or she could not
imprison them.
And then she laughed. My poor dear girl. How happy we were once
in spite of everything! It is all like
yesterday. When I think Ah no,
I must think no more, I must think no more."
Israel had little heart for such visions, so he turned to the
casketof the jewels where it stood by the wall. With trembling hands
he took it and opened it, and here within were necklaces and bracelets,
and rings and earrings, glistening of gold and rubies under their covering
of dust. He lifted them one by one over his wrinkled fingers,
and looked at them while his eyes grew wet.
"Not for myself," he murmured, "not for myself would I have sold them,
not for bread to eat or water to drink; no, not for a
wilderness of worlds!"
All this time he had given little thought to Naomi, where she stood
by his side, but in her darkness and silence she touched the silks
and looked serious, and the slippers and looked perplexed,
and now at the jingling of the jewels she stretched out her hand
and took one of them from her father's fingers, and feeling it,