had led him to think of other fathers with compassion.
Young or old, powerful or weak,
mighty or mean, they were all
as little children--helpless children who would sleep together
in the same bed soon.
Thinking so, Israel would have
undone the evil work of earlier years;
but that was impossible now. Many of them that had suffered were dead;
some that had been cast into prison had got their last and long discharge.
At least Israel would have relaxed the rigour
whereby his master ruled,
but that was impossible also. Katrina had come, and she was a vain woman
and a lover of all
luxury, and she commanded Israel to tax the people
afresh. He obeyed her through three bad years; but many a time
his heart reproached him that he dealt corruptly by the poor people,
and when he saw them borrowing money for the Governor's tributes
on their lands and houses, and when he stood by while they
and their sons were cast into prison for the bonds which they
could not pay to the usurers Abraham or Judah or Reuben,
then his soul cried out against him that he ate the bread
of such a mistress.
But out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong
came forth
sweetness, and out of this coming of the Spanish wife
of Ben Aboo came
deliverance for Israel from the torment
of his false position.
There was an aged and pious Moor in Tetuan, called Abd Allah,
who was rumoured to have made savings from his business as a gunsmith.
Going to mosque one evening, with fifteen dollars in his waistband,
he unstrapped his belt and laid it on the edge of the fountain
while he washed his feet before entering, for his back was
no longer supple. Then a younger Moor, coming to pray at the same time,
saw the dollars, and snatched them up and ran. Abd Allah could not follow
the thief, so he went to the Kasbah and told his story to the Governor.
Just at that time Ben Aboo had the Kaid of Fez on a visit to him.
"Ask him how much more he has got," whispered the brother Kaid
to Ben Aboo.
Abd Allah answered that he did not know.
"I'll give you two hundred dollars for the chance of all he has,"
the Kaid whispered again.
"Five bees are better than a pannier of flies--done!" said Ben Aboo.
So Abd Allah was sold like a sheep and carried to Fez, and there cast
into prison on a
penalty of two hundred and fifty dollars imposed
upon him on the
pretence of a false accusation.
Israel sat by the Governor that day at the gate of the hall of justice,
and many poor people of the town stood huddled together in the court
outside while the evil work was done. No one heard the Kaid of Fez
when he whispered to Ben Aboo, but every one saw when Israel drew
the
warrant that consigned the gunsmith to prison, and when he sealed it
with the Governor's seal.
Abd Allah had made no savings, and, being too old for work, he had lived
on the
earnings of his son. The son's name was Absalam (Abd es-Salem),
and he had a wife whom he loved very
tenderly, and one child,
a boy of six years of age. Absalam followed his father to Fez,
and visited him in prison. The old man had been ordered a hundred lashes,
and the flesh was
hanging from his limbs. Absalam was great of heart,
and, in pity of his father's
miserable condition he went to the Governor
and begged that the old man might be liberated, and that he might
be imprisoned instead. His
petition was heard. Abd Allah was set free,
Absalam was cast into prison, and the
penalty was raised from two hundred
and fifty dollars to three hundred.
Israel heard of what had happened, and he hastened to Ben Aboo,
in great
agitation, intending to say "Pay back this man's ransom,
in God's name, and his children and his children's children will live
to bless you." But when he got to the Kasbah, Katrina was sitting
with her husband, and at sight of the woman's face Israel's tongue
was frozen.
Absalam had been the favourite of his neighbours among all the gunsmiths
of the market-place, and after he had been three months at Fez
they made common cause of his calamities, sold their goods at a sacrifice,
collected the three hundred dollars of his fine, bought him out of prison,
and went in a body through the gate to meet him upon his return to Tetuan.
But his wife had died in the
meantime of fear and privation,
and only his aged father and his little son were there to
welcome him.
"Friends," he said to his neighbours
standing outside the walls,
"what is the use of sowing if you know not who will reap?"
"No use, no use!" answered several voices.
"If God gives you anything, this man Israel takes it away," said Absalam.
"True, true! Curse him! Curse his relations!" cried the others.
"Then why go back into Tetuan?" said Absalam.
"Tangier is no better," said one. "Fez is worse," said another.
"Where is there to go?" said a third.
"Into the plains," said Absalam--"into the plains and into the mountains,
for they belong to God alone."
That word was like the flint to the tinder.
"They who have least are richest, and they that have nothing are best off
of all," said Absalam, and his neighbours shouted that it was so.
"God will clothe us as He clothes the fields," said Absalam,
"and feed our children as He feeds the birds."
In three days' time ten shops in the market-place, on the side
of the Mosque, were sold up and closed, and the men who had kept them
were gone away with their wives and children to live in tents
with Absalam on the
barren plains beyond the town.
When Israel heard of what had been done he
secretly rejoiced;
but Ben Aboo was in a
commotion of fear, and Katrina was fierce
with anger, for the
doctrine which Absalam had preached to his neighbours
outside the walls was not his own
doctrine merely, but that of a great man
lately risen among the people, called Mohammed of Mequinez,
nicknamed by his enemies Mohammed the Third.
"This
madness is spreading," said Ben Aboo.
"Yes," said Katrina; "and if all men follow where these men lead,
who will supply the tables of Kaids and Sultans?"
"What can I do with them?" said Ben Aboo.
"Eat them up," said Katrina.
Ben Aboo proceeded to put a literal
interpretation upon his wife's counsel.
With a company of
cavalry he prepared to follow Absalam
and his little
fellowship,
taking Israel along with him
to
reckon their taxes, that he might compel them to return to Tetuan,
and be town-dwellers and house-dwellers and buy and sell and pay tribute
as before, or else deliver themselves to prison.
But Absalam and his people had secret word that the Governor was coming
after them, and Israel with him. So they rolled their tents,
and fled to the mountains that are
midway between Tetuan
and the Reef country, and took
refuge in the gullies of that
rugged land,
living in caves of the rock, with only the table-land of mountain
behind them, and nothing but a
ruggedprecipice in front.
This place they selected for its safety, intending to push forward,
as occasion offered, to the sanctuaries of Shawan,
trusting rather
to the
humanity of the wild people, called the Shawanis, than to the mercy
of their late cruel masters. But the
valleywherein they had hidden
is thick with trees, and Ben Aboo tracked them and came up with them
before they were aware. Then, sending soldiers to the mountain
at the back of the caves, with instructions that they should come down
to the
precipicesteadily, and kill none that they could take alive,
Ben Aboo himself drew up at the foot of it, and Israel with him,
and there called on the people to come out and deliver themselves
to his will.
When the poor people came from their hiding-places and saw
that they were surrounded, and that escape was not left to them
on any side, they thought their death was sure. But without a shout
or a cry they knelt, as with one
accord, at the mouth of the
precipice,
with their backs to it, men and women and children, knee to knee
in a line, and joined hands, and looked towards the soldiers,
who were coming
steadily down on them. On and on the soldiers came,
eye to eye with the people, and their swords were drawn.
Israel gasped for his
breath, and waited to see the people cut
in pieces at the next
instant, when suddenly they began to sing
where they knelt at the edge of the
precipice, "God is our
refugeand our strength, a very present help in trouble."
In another moment the soldiers had drawn up as if swords from heaven
had fallen on them, and Israel was crying out of his dry throat,
"Fear nothing! Only deliver your bodies to the Governor,
and none shall harm you."
Absalam rose up from his knees and called to his father and his son.
And
standing between them to be seen by all, and first looking upon both
with eyes of pity, he drew from the folds of his selham a long knife
such as the Reefians wear, and
taking his father by his white hair
he slew him and cast his body down the rocks. After that he turned
towards his son, and the boy was golden-haired and his face was like
the morning, and Israel's heart bled to see him.
"Absalam!" he cried in a moving voice; "Absalam, wait, wait!"
But Absalam killed his son also, and cast him down after his father.
Then, looking around on his people with eyes of compassion,
as
seeming to pity them that they must fall again into the hands
of Israel and his master, he stretched out his knife and sheathed it
in his own breast, and fell towards the
precipice.
Israel covered his face and groaned in his heart, and said,
"It is the end, O Lord God, it is the end--polluted
wretch that I am,
with the blood of these people upon me!"
The companions of Absalam delivered themselves to the soldiers,
who committed them to the prison at Shawan, and Ben Aboo went home
in content.
Rumour of what had come to pass was not long in reaching Tetuan,
and Israel was charged with the guilt of it. In passing through
the streets the next day on his way to his house the people hissed him
openly. "Allah had not written it!" a Moor shouted as he passed.
"Take care!" cried an Arab, "Mohammed of Mequinez is coming!"
It chanced that night, after
sundown, when Naomi,
according to her wont,
led her father to the upper room, and fetched the Book of the Law
from the
cupboard of the wall and laid it upon his knees,
that he read the passage
whereon the page opened of itself,
scarce
knowing what he read when he began to read it, for his spirit
was heavy with the bad
doings of those days. And the passage
whereon the book opened was this--
"_Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord,
and the other lot for the scapegoat. . . . Then shall he kill the goat
of the sin-offering that is for the people, and bring his blood
within the vail. And he shall make an atonement for the holy place,
because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because
of their transgressions in all their sins. . . . And when he hath,
made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle
of the
congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat,
and
confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel,
and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head
of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man
into the
wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him
all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited._"
That same night Israel dreamt a dream. He had been asleep,
and had awakened in a place which he did not know.
It was a great arid
wilderness. Ashen sand lay on every side;
a scorching sun beat down on it, and
nowhere was there a glint of water.
Israel gazed, and slowly through the blazing
sunlight he discerned
white roofless walls like the ruins of little sheepfolds.
"They are tombs," he told himself, "and this is a Mukabar--
an Arab graveyard--the most
desolate place in the world of God."
But, looking again, he saw that the roofless walls covered the ground
as far as the eye could see, and the thought came to him
that this ashen desert was the earth itself, and that all the world
of life and man was dead. Then, suddenly, in the
motionlesswilderness,
a
solitary creature moved. It was a goat, and it toiled
over the hot sand with its head hung down and its tongue lolled out.
"Water!" it seemed to cry, though it made no voice, and its eyes
traversed the plain as if they would
pierce the ground for a spring.
Fever and delirium fell upon Israel. The goat came near to him