But soon a wild burst of irony: "You are like him who killed
the dog and fell into the river. See! thus I teach you to boast

over your betters! I shave your beard! There!--there!--and there!"
In the middle of the reeking floor, so placed that the thin shaft

of light from the clefts at the ends might fall on them--a barber-doctor
was bleeding a youth from a vein in the arm. "We're all having it done,"

he was saying. "It's good for the internals. I did it to a shipload
of pilgrims once." A wild-looking creature sat in a corner--he was

a saint, a madman, of the sect of the Darkaoa--rocking himself to and fro,
and crying "Allah! All-lah! All-l-lah! All-l-l-lah!"

Near to this person a haggard old man of the Grega sect was shaking
and dancing at his prayers. And not far from either a Mukaddam,

a high-priest of the Aissa, brotherhood--a juggler who had travelled
through the country with a lion by a halter--was singing a frantic mockery

of a Christian hymn to a tune that he had heard on the coast.
Such was the scene of Israel's imprisonment, and such were the companions

that were to share it. There had been a moment's pause in the clamour
of their babel as the door opened and Israel entered. The prisoners

knew him, and they were aghast. Every eye looked up and
every mouth was agape. Israel stood for a time with the closed door

behind him. He looked around, made a step forward, hesitated,
seemed to peer vainly through the darkness for bed or mattress,

and then sat down helplessly" target="_blank" title="ad.无能为力地">helplessly by a pillar on the ground.
A young negro in a coarse jellab went up to him and offered

a bit of bread. "Hungry, brother? No?" said the youth. "Cheer up, Sidi!
No good letting the donkey ride on your head!"

This person was the Irishman of the company--a happy, reckless,
facetious dog, who had lost little save his liberty and cared nothing

for his life, but laughed and cheated and joked and made doggerel songs
on every disaster that befell them. He made one song on himself--

El Arby was a black man
They called him "'Larby Kosk:"

He loved the wives of the Kasbah,
And stole slippers in the Mosque.

Israel was stunned. Since his arrest he had scarcely spoken.
"Stay here," he had said to Naomi when the first outburst

of her grief was quelled; "never leave this place. Whatever they say,
stay here. I will come back." After that he had been like a man

who was dumb. Neither insult nor tyranny had availed to force a word
or a cry out of him. He had walked on in silence doggedly,

hardly once glancing up into the faces of his guard, and never breaking
his fast save with a draught of water by the way.

At Shawan, as elsewhere in Barbary, the prisoners were supported
by their own relatives and friends, and on the day after Israel's arrival

a number of women and children came to the prison with provisions.
It was a wild and gruesome scene that followed. First, the frantic search

of the prisoners for their wives and sons and daughters,
and their wild shouts as each one found his own. "Blessed be God!

She's here! here!" Then the maddening cries of the prisoners
whose relatives had not come. "My Ayesha! Where is she?

Curses on her mother! Why isn't she here?" After that the shrieks
of despair from such as learned that their breadwinners were dying off

one by one. "Dead, you say?" "Dead!" "No, no!" "Yes, yes!"
"No, no, I say!" "I say yes! God forgive me! died last week.

But don't you die too. Here take this bag of zummetta."
Then inquiries after absent children. "Little Selam, where is he?"

"Begging in Tetuan." "Poor boy! poor boy! And pretty M'barka,
what of her?" "Alas! M'barka's a public woman now in Hoolia's house

at Marrakesh. No, don't curse her, Jellali; the poor child was driven
to it. What were we to do with the children crying for bread?

And then there was nothing to fetch you this journey, Jellali."
"I'll not eat it now it's brought. My boy a beggar

and my girl a harlot? By Allah! May the Kaid that keeps me here
roast alive in the fires of hell!" Then, apart in one quiet corner,

a young Moor of Tangier eating rice out of the lap of his
beautiful young wife. "You'll not be long coming again, dearest?"

he whispers. She wipes her eyes and stammers, "No--that is--well--"
"What's amiss?" "Ali, I must tell you--" "Well?" "Old Aaron Zaggoory

says I must marry him, or he'll see that both of us starve."
"Allah! And you--_you_?" "Don't look at me like that, Ali;

the hunger is on me, and whatever happens I--I can love nobody else."
"Curses on Aaron Zaggoory! Curses on you! Curses on everybody!"

No one had come with food for Israel, and seeing this 'Larby the negro
swaggered up to him, singing a snatch and offering a round cake of bread--

Rusks are good and kiks are sweet
And kesksoo is both meat and drink;

It's this for now, and that for then,
But khalia still for married men.

"You're like me, Sidi," he said, "you want nothing," and he made
an upwardmovement of his forefinger to indicate his trust in Providence.

That was the gay rascal's way of saying that he stole from the bags
of his comrades while they slept.

"No? Fasting yet?" he said, and went off singing as he came--
It will make your ladies love you;

It will make them coo and kiss--
"What?" he shouted to some one across the prison "eating khalia

in the bird-cage? Bad, bad, bad!"
All this came to Israel's mind through thick waves of half-consciousness,

but with his heart he heard nothing, or the very air of the place
must have poisoned him. He sat by the pillar at which he had first

placed himself, and hardly ever rose from it. With great slow eyes
he gazed at everything, but nothing did he see. Sometimes he had the look

of one who listens, but never did he hear. Thus in silence and languor
he passed from day to day, and from night to night, scarcely sleeping,

rarely eating, and seeming always to be waiting, waiting, waiting.
Fresh prisoners came at short intervals, and then only

was Israel's interest awakened. One question he asked of all.
"Where from?" If they answered from Fez, from Wazzan, from Mequinez,

or from Marrakesh, Israel turned aside and left them without more words.
Then to his fellows they might pour out their woes in loud wails

and curses, but Israel would hear no more.
Strangers from Europe travelling through the country were allowed

to look into the prison through the round peephole of the door
kept by the Kaid el habs, who played the ginbri. The Jews who made

baskets took this opportunity to offer their work for sale;
and so that he might see the visitors and speak with them Israel

would snatch up something and hang it out. Always his question was
the same. "Where from last?" he would say in English, or Spanish,

or French, or Moorish. Sometimes it chanced that the strangers knew him.
But he showed no shame. Never did their answers satisfy him.

He would turn back to his pillar with a sigh.
Thus weeks went on, and Israel's face grew worn and tired.

His fellow prisoners began to show him deference in their own rude way.
When he came among them at the first they had grinned and laughed

a little. To do that was always the impulse of the poor souls,
so miserably imprisoned, when a new comrade joined him.

But the majesty and the suffering in Israel's face told on their hearts
at last. He was a great man fallen, he had nothing left to him;

not even bread to eat or water to drink. So they gathered about him
and hit on a way to make him share their food. Bringing their sacks

to his pillar, they stacked them about it, and asked him to serve out
provisions to all, day by day, share and share alike. He was honest,

he was a master, no one would steal from him, it was best,
the stuff would last longest. It was a touching sight.