was sealed in the book of memory. Israel laughed. What could
his good friend mean? Behold! was he not rich? Had he not troops
of comrades and guests about him?
The prisoners turned aside, baffled and done. At length
one man--it was no other than 'Larby the wastrel--drew some
of them apart and said, "You are all wrong. It's not his former state
that he's thinking of. _I_ know what it is--who knows so well as I?
Listen! you hear his laughter! Well, he must weep, or he will be mad
for ever. He must be _made_ to weep. Yes, by Allah! and I must do it."
That same night, when darkness fell over the dark place,
and the prisoners tied up their cotton headkerchiefs and lay down
to sleep, 'Larby sat beside Israel's place with sighs and moans
and other symptoms of a
dejected air.
"Sidi, master," he faltered, "I had a little brother once,
and he was blind. Born blind, Sidi, my own mother's son.
But you wouldn't think how happy he was for all that? You see,
Sidi he never missed anything, and so his little face was like
laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world!
Women? Why--well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen,
and he used to ride on my back! Black curls all over, Sidi,
and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn't see.
Well a bleeder came from Soos--curse his great-grandfather!
Looked at little Hosain--'Scales!' said he--burn his father!
Bleed him and he'll see! So they bled him, and he did see. By Allah!
yes, for a minute--half a minute! 'Oh, 'Larby,' he cried--I was
holding him; then he--he--' 'Larby,' he cried faint, like a lamb
that's lost in the mountains--and then--and then--'Oh, oh, 'Larby,'
he moaned Sidi, Sidi, I _paid_ that bleeder--there and then--_this_ way!
That's why I'm here!"
It was a lie, but 'Larby acted it so well that his voice broke
in his
throat, and great drops fell from his eyes on to Israel's hand.
The effect on Israel himself was strange and even startling.
While 'Larby was
speaking, he was
beating his
forehead and mumbling:
"Where? When? Naomi!" as if grappling for lost treasures
in an ebbing sea. And when 'Larby finished, he fell on him
with reproaches. "And you are
weeping for that?" he cried.
"You think it much that the sweet child is dead--God rest him!
So it is to the like of you, but look at me!"
His voice betrayed a grim pride in his miseries. "Look at me!
Am I
weeping? No; I would scorn to weep. But I have more cause
a thousandfold. Listen! Once I was rich; but what were
richeswithout children? Hard bread with no water for sop. I asked God
for a child. He gave me a daughter; but she was born blind and dumb
and deaf. I asked God to take my
riches and give her
hearing.
He gave her
hearing; but what was
hearing without speech?
I asked God to take all I had and give her speech. He gave her speech,
but what was speech without sight? I asked God to take my place
from me and give her sight. He gave her sight, and I was cast out
of the town like a
beggar. What matter? She had all,
and I was
forgiven. But when I was happy, when I was content,
when she filled my heart with
sunshine, God snatched me away from her.
And where is she now? Yonder, alone, friendless, a child new-born
into the world at the mercy of liars and libertines. And where am I?
Here, like a beast in a trap, uttering abortive groans, toothless,
stupid,
powerless, mad. No, no, not mad, either! Tell me, boy,
I am not mad!"
In the breaking waters of his
madness he was struggling
like a drowning man. "Yet I do not weep," he cried in a thick voice.
"God has a right to do as He will. He gave her to me for seventeen years.
If she dies she'll be mine again soon. Only if she lives--only
if she falls into evil hands--Tell me, _have_ I been mad?"
He gave no time for an answer. "Naomi!" he cried, and the name broke
in his
throat. "Where are you now? What has--who have--your father
is thinking of you--he is--No, I will not weep. You see I have
a good cause, but I tell you I will never weep. God has a right--
Naomi!--Na--"
The name thickened to a sob as he
repeated it, and then suddenly
he rose and cried in an awful voice, "Oh, I'm a fool! God has done
nothing for me. Why should I do anything for God? He has taken
all I had. He has taken my child. I have nothing more to give Him
but my life. Let Him take that too. Take it, I
beseech Thee!"
he cried--the vault of the prison rang--" Take it, and set me free!"
But at the next moment he had fallen back to his place,
and was sobbing like a little child. The other prisoners had risen
in their
amazement, and 'Larby, who was shedding hot tears
over his cold ones, was capering down the floor, and singing,
"El Arby was a black man."
Then there was a rattling of keys, and suddenly a flood of light shot
into the dark place. The Kaid el habs was bringing a courier,
who carried an order for Israel's
release. Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan,
was to keep the feast of the Moolood at Tetuan, and Ben Aboo,
to
celebrate the visit, had pardoned Israel.
It was coals of fire on Israel's head. "God is good," he muttered.
"I shall see her again. Yes, God has a right to do as He will.
I shall see her soon. God is wise beyond all wisdom.
I must lose no time. Jailer can I leave the town to-night?
I wish to start on my journey. To-night?--yes, to-night!
Are the gates open? No? You will open them? You are very good.
Everybody is very good. God is good. God is mighty."
Then half in shame, and
partly as
apology for his late
intemperate
outburst, with a simpleness that was almost childish,
he said, "A man's a fool when he loses his only child. I don't mean
by death. Time heals that. But the living child--oh,
it's an unending pain! You would never think how happy we were.
Her pretty ways were all my joy. Yes, for her voice was music,
and her
breath was like the dawn. Do you know, I was very fond
of the little one--I was quite
miserable if I lost sight of her
for an hour. And then to be wrenched away ! . . . . But I must
hasten back. The little one will be
waiting. Yes, I know quite well
she'll be looking out from the door in the
sunshine when she awakes
in the morning. It's always the way of these tender creatures,
is it not? So we must
humour them. Yes, yes, that's so that's so."
His fellow-prisoners stood around him each in his night-headkerchief
knotted under his chin--gaunt, hooded figures, in the shifting light
of the jailer's lantern.
"Farewell, brothers!" he cried; and one by one they touched his hand
and brought it to their breasts.
"Farewell, master!" "Peace, Sidi!" "Farewell!" "Peace!" "Farewell!"
The light shot out; the door clasped back; there were footsteps
dying away outside; two loud bangs as of a closing gate,
and then silence--empty and ghostly.
In the darkness the hooded figures stood a moment listening,
and then a croaking, breaking, husky, merry voice began to sing--
El Arby was a black man,
They called him "'Larby Kosk;"
He loved the wives of the Kasbah,
And stole slippers in the Mosque.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW NAOMI TURNED MUSLIMA
What had happened to Naomi during the two months and a half
while Israel lay at Shawan is this: After the first agony
of their
parting, in which she was
driven back by the soldiers
when she attempted to follow them, she sat down in a maze of pain,
without any true
perception of the evil which had
befallen her,
but with her father's
warning voice and his last words in her ear:
"Stay here. Never leave this place. Whatever they say, stay here.
I will come back."
When she awoke in the morning, after a short night of broken sleep
and fitful dreams, the voice and the words were with her still,
and then she knew for the first time what the meaning was,
and what the
penalty, of this strange and dread asundering.
She was alone, and, being alone, she was
helpless; she was no better
than a child, without
kindred to look to her and without power to look
to herself, with food and drink beside her, but no skill to make
and take them.
Thus her
awakening sense was like that of a lamb whose mother
has been swallowed up in the night by the sand-drifts of the simoom.
It was not so much love as loss. What to do, where to look,
which way to turn first, she knew no longer, and could not think,
for lack of the hand that had been wont to guide her.
The neighbouring Moors heard of what had happened to Naomi,
and some of the women among them came to see her. They were poor
farming people, oppressed by cruel taxmasters; and the first things
they saw were the cattle and sheep, and the next thing was
the simple girl with the child-face, who knew nothing yet of the ways
wherein a
lonely woman must fend for herself.
"You cannot live here alone, my daughter," they said; "you would perish.
Then think of the danger--a child like you, with a face like a flower!
No, no, you must come to us. We will look to you like one of our own,
and protect you from evil men. And as for the creatures--"
"But he said I was never to leave this place," said Naomi. "'Stay here,'
he said; '
whatever they say, stay here. I will come back.'"
The women protested that she would
starve, be
stolen, ruined,
and murdered. It was in vain. Naomi's answer was always the same:
"He told me to stay here, and surely I must do so."
Then one after another the poor folks went away in anger.
"Tut!" they thought, "what should we want with the Jew child? Allah!
Was there ever such a simpleton? The good creatures going to waste, too!
And as for her father, he'll never come back--never. Trust the Basha
for that!"
But when the
humanity of the true souls had conquered their selfishness,
they came again one by one and vied with each other in many simple
offices--milking and churning, and
baking and delving--in pity
of the sweet girl with the great eyes who had been left to live alone.
And Naomi,
seeing her
helplessness at last, put out all her powers
to
remedy it, so that in a little while she was able to do
for herself nearly everything that her neighbours at first did for her.
Then they would say among themselves, "Allah! she's not such a baby
after all; and if she wasn't quite so beautiful, poor child,
or if the world wasn't so wicked--but then, God is great! God is great!"
Not at first had Naomi understood them when they told her
that her father had been cast into prison, and every night
when she left her lamp
alight by the little skin-covered window
that was half-hidden under the dropping eaves, and every morning
when she opened her door to the
radiance of the sun she had whispered
to herself and said, "He will come back, Naomi; only wait, only wait;
maybe it will be tonight, maybe it will be to-day; you will see,
you will see."
But after the awful thought of what prison was had fully dawned upon her
as last, by help of what she saw and heard of other men
who had been there, her old content in her father's command
that she should never leave that place was
shaken and broken by a desire
to go to him.
"Who's to feed him, poor soul? He will be famishing.
If the Kaid finds him in bread, it will only be so much more added
to his
ransom. That will come to the same thing in the end,
or he'll die in prison."
Thus she had heard the gossips talk among themselves when they thought
she did not listen. And though it was little she understood of Kaids
and
ransoms, she was quick to see the nature of her father's peril,
and at length she concluded that, in spite of his injunction,
go to him she should and must. With that
resolve, her mind,
which had been the mind of a child seemed to spring up instantly
and become the mind of a woman, and her heart, that had been timid,
suddenly grew brave, for pity and love were born in it.
"He must be starving in prison," she thought, "and I will take him food."
When her neighbours heard of her
intention they lifted their hands
in
consternation and
horror. "God be
gracious to my father!" they cried.
"Shawan? You? Alone? Child, you'll be lost, lost--worse,
a thousand times worse! Shoof! you're only a baby still."
But their protests availed as little to keep Naomi at her home now