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The Scapegoat-Part16_Hall Caine(1853-1931)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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At the first glint of daylight in the morning the lad was up and gone,



and away through the town-gate to the heath beyond, as far as

to the fondak, which stands on the hill above it, that he might



strain his wet eyes in the pitilesssunlight for Israel's caravan

that should soon come. On the first morning he saw nothing,



but on the second morning he came upon Israel's men returning

without him, and telling their lying story that he had been stripped



of everything by the Sultan at Fez, and was coming behind them penniless.

Now, Israel was to Ali the greatest, noblest, mightiest man among men.



That he should fall was incredible, and that any man should say

he had fallen was an affront and an outrage. So, stripling as he was,



the lad faced the rascals with the courage of a lion.

"Liars and thieves!" he cried; "tell that story to another soul in Tetuan,



and I will go straight to the Kaid at the Kasbah, and have

every black dog of you all whipped through the streets



for plundering my master."

The men shouted in derision and passed on, firing their matchlocks



as a mock salute. But Ali had his will of them; they told their tale

no more, and when they entered Tetuan, and their fellows questioned them



concerning their journey, they took refuge in the reticence

that sits by right of nature on the tongues of Moors--they said and



knew nothing.

While Ali was on the heath looking out for Israel, the doctor



out of Tangier came to Naomi. The girl was still unconscious,

and the wise leech shook his head over her. Her case was hopeless;



she was sinking--in plain words, she was dying--and if her father

did not come before the morrow he would come too late to find her alive.



Then the black women fell to weeping and wailing, and after that

to spiritualconflict. Both were born in Islam, but Fatimah had



secretly become a Jewess by persuasion of her mistress who was dead.

She was, therefore, for sending for the Chacham. But Habeebah had



remained a Muslim, and she was for calling the Imam. "The Imam is good,

the Imam is holy; who so good and holy as the Imam?"



"Nay, but our Sidi holds not with the Imam, for our lord is a Jew,and

our lord is our master, our lord is our sultan, our lord is our king."



"Shoof! What is Sidi against paradise? And paradise is for her

who makes a follower of Moosa into a follower of Mohammed.



Let but the child die with the Kelmah on her lips, and we are all three

blest for ever--otherwise we will burn everlastingly in the fires



of Jehinnum." "But, alack! how can the poor girl say the Kelmah,

being as dumb as the grave?" "Then how can she say the Shemang either?"



Having heard the verdict of the doctor, Ali returned in hot haste

and silenced both the bondwomen: "The Imam is a villain, and



the Chacham is a thief." There was only one good man left in Tetuan,

and that was his own Taleb, his schoolmaster, the same that had taught him



the harp in the days of the Governor's marriage. This person was

an old negro, bewrinkled by years, becrippled by ague, once stone deaf,



and still partially so, half blind, and reputed to be only half wise,

a liberated slave from the Sahara, just able to read the Koran and



the Torah, and willing to teach either impartially, according

to his knowledge, for he was neither a Jew nor a Muslim,



but a little of both, as he used to say, and not too much of either.

For such a hybrid in a land of intolerance there must have been no place



save the dungeons of the Kasbah, but that this good nondescript

was a privileged pet of everbody. In his dark cellar,



down an alley by the side of the Grand Mosque in the Metamar,

he had sat from early morning until sunset, year in year out,



through thirty years on his rush-covered floor, among successive

generations of his boys; and as often as night fell he had gone hither



and thither among the sick and dying, carrying comfort of kind words,

and often meat and drink of his meagre substance.



Such was Ali's hero after Israel, and now, in Israel's absence

and his own great trouble, he tried away for him.



"Father," cried the lad," does it not say in the good book

that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much?"



"It does, my son," said the Taleb "You have truth. What then?"

"Then if you will pray for Naomi she will recover," said Ali.



It was a sweet instance of simple faith. The old black Taleb dismissed

his scholars, closed down his shutter, locked it with a padlock,



hobbled to Naomi's bedside in his tattered white selham, looked down

at her through the big spectacles that sprawled over his broad black nose,



and then, while a dim mist floated between the spectacles and his eyes,




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