第11章

Then little Ali had been left alone in the world, and so Israel had taken him.

Ruth welcomed the boy, and adopted him.He had been born a Mohammedan, but secretly she brought him up as a Jew.And for some years thereafter no difference did she make between him and her own child that other eyes could see.They ate together, they walked abroad together, they played together, they slept together, and the little black head of the boy lay with the fair head of the girl on the same white pillow.

Strange and pathetic were the relations between these little exiles of humanity I One knew not whether to laugh or cry at them.

First, on Ali's part, a blank wonderment that when he cried to Naomi, "Come!" she did not hear, when he asked "Why?" she did not answer;and when he said "Look!" she did not see, though her blue eyes seemed to gaze full into his face.Then, a sort of amused bewilderment that her little nervous fingers were always touching his arms and his hands, and his neck and his throat.But long before he had come to know that Naomi was not as he was, that Nature had not given her eyes to see as he saw, and ears to hear as he heard, and a tongue to speak as he spoke, Nature herself had overstepped the barriers that divided her from him.He found that Naomi had come to understand him, whatever in his little way he did, and almost whatever in his little way he said.So he played with her as he would have played with any other playmate, laughing with her, calling to her, and going through his foolish little boyish antics before her.

Nevertheless, by some mysterious knowledge of Nature's own teaching, he seemed to realise that it was his duty to take care of her.

And when the spirit and the mischief in his little manly heart would prompt him to steal out of the house, and adventure into the streets with Naomi by his side, he would be found in the thick of the throng perhaps at the heels of the mules and asses, with Naomi's hand locked in his hand, trying to push the great creatures of the crowd from before her, and crying in his brave little treble, "Arrah!" "Ar-rah!" "Ar-r-rah!"As for Naomi, the coming of little black Ali was a wild delight to her.

Whatever Ali did, that would she do also.If he ran she would run;if he sat she would sit; and meanwhile she would laugh with a heart of glee, though she heard not what he said, and saw not what he did, and knew not what he meant.At the time of the harvest, when Ruth took them out into the fields, she would ride on Ali's back, and snatch at the ears of barley and leap in her seat and laugh, yet nothing would she see of the yellow corn, and nothing would she hear of the song of the reapers, and nothing would she know of the cries of Ali, who shouted to her while he ran, forgetting in his playing that she heard him not.And at night, when Ruth put them to bed in their little chamber, and Ali knelt with his face towards Jerusalem, Naomi would kneel beside him with a reverent air, and all her laughter would be gone.Then, as he prayed his prayer, her little lips would move as if she were praying too, and her little hands would be clasped together, and her little eyes would be upraised.

"God bless father, and mother, and Naomi, and everybody," the black boy would say.

And the little maid would touch his hands and hi throat, and pass her fingers over his face from his eyelids to his lips, and then do as he did, and in her silence seem to echo him.

Pretty and piteous sights! Who could look on them without tears?

One thing at least was clear if the soul of this child was in prison, nevertheless it was alive; and if it was in chains, nevertheless it could not die, but was immortal and unmaimed and waited only for the hour when it should be linked to other souls, soul to soul in the chains of speech.But the years went on, and Naomi grew in beauty and increased in sweetness, but no angel came down to open the darkened windows of her eyes, and draw aside the heavy curtains of her ears.