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The Scapegoat-Part22_Hall Caine(1853-1931)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"The girl was right," said Fatimah; "something has happened."



"What is it?" said Habeebah.

"Nay, how should I know that either?" said Fatimah.



"I tell you we are a pair of fools," said Habeebah.

Meantime Naomi held their hands, and they must needs follow



where she led. Her body was between them; they were borne along

by her feeble frame as by an irresistible force. And pitiful



it would have seemed, and perhaps foolish also, if any human eye had seen

them then, these helpless children of God, going whither they knew not



and wherefore they knew not, save that a fear that was like to madness

drew them on.



"Listen! I hear something," said Fatimah.

"Where?" said Habeebah.



"The way we are going," said Fatimah.

On and on Naomi passed from street to street. They were the same streets



whereby she had returned to her father's house on the day that her goat

was slain. Never since then had she trodden them, but she neither



altered not turned aside to the right or the left, but made

straight forward, until she came to the Sok el Foki, and to the place



where the goat had fallen before the foaming jaws of the dog

from the Mukabar. Then she could go no farther.



"Holy saints, what is this?" cried Habeebah.

"Didn't I tell you- the girl heard something?" said Fatimah.



"God's face shine on us," said Habeebah. "What is all this crowd?"

An immensethrong covered the upper half of the market-square,



and overflowed into the streets and arched alleys leading to the Kasbah.

It was not a close and dense crowd of white-hooded forms such as gathered



on that spot on market morning--a seething, steaming, moving mass

of haiks and jellabs and Maghribi blankets, with here and



there a bare shaven head and plaited crown-lock--but a great crowd

of dark figures in black gowns and skull-caps. The assemblage was of Jews



only--Jews of every age and class and condition, from the comely

young Jewish butcher in his blood-stained rags to the toothless old



Jewish banker with gold braid on his new kaftan.

They were gathered together to consider the posture of affairs



in regard to the plague of locusts. Hence the Moorish officials

had suffered them to remain outside the walls of their Mellah after sunset.



Some of the Moors themselves stood aside and watched, but at a distance,

leaving a vacant space to denote the distinction between them.



The scribes sat in their open booths, pretending to read their Koran

or to write with their reed pens; the gunsmiths stood at their shop-doors;



and the country Berbers, crowded out of their usual camping ground

on the Sok, squatted on the vacant spots adjacent. All looked on eagerly,



but apparently impassively, at the vast company of Jews.

And so great was the concourse of these people, and so wild



their commotion, that they were like nothing else but a sea-broken

by tempestuous winds. The market-place rang as a vault with the sounds



of their voices, their harsh cries, their protests, their pleadings,

their entreaties, and all the fury of their brazenthroats.



And out of their loud uproar one name above all other names rose

in the air on every side. It was the name of Israel ben Oliel.



Against him they were breathing out threats, foretelling imminent dangers

from the hand of man, and predicting fresh judgments from God.



There was no evil which had befallen him early or late

but they were remembering it, and reckoning it up and rejoicing in it.



And there was no evil which had befallen themselves but they were laying

it to his charge.



Yesterday, when they passed through the town in their procession

of penance, following their Grand Rabbi as he walked abreast of the Imam,



that they might call on God to destroy the eggs of the locust,

they had expected the heavens to open over their heads,



and to feel the rain fall instantly. The heavens had not opened,

the rain had not fallen, the thick hot cake as of baked air had continued



to hang and to palpitate in the sky, and the fierce sun had beaten down

as before on the parched and scorching earth. Seeing this,



as their petitions ended, while the Muslims went back to their houses,

disappointed but resigned, and muttering to themselves,



"It is written" they had returned to their synagogues,

convinced that the plague was a judgment, and resolved,



like the sailors of the ship going down to Tarshish, to cast lots and

to know for whose cause the evil was upon them.



They were more than a hundred and twenty families, and had thought

they were therefore entitled to elect a Synhedrin. This was in defiance



of ceremonial law, for they knew full well that the formation




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