第53章

If the angels were looking down, surely it was a pitiful sight--these children of Zion in a strange land, where they were held as dogs and vermin and human scavengers to the Muslim; thinking and speaking and acting as their fathers had done any time for five thousand years before; again judging it expedient that one man should die rather than the whole people be brought to destruction;again probing their crafty heads, if not their hearts, for an artifice whereby their scapegoat might be killed by the hand of their enemy; children indeed, for all that some of their heads were bald, and some of their beards were grizzled, and some of their faces were wrinkled and hard and fierce; little children of God writhing in the grip of their great troubleSuch was the scene to which Naomi had come, and such had been the doings of the town since the hour when her father left her.What hand had led her? What power had taught her? Was it merely that her far-reaching ears had heard the tumult? Had some unknown sense, groping in darkness, filled her with a vague terror, too indefinite to be called a thought, of great and impending evil? Or was it some other influence, some higher leading? Was it that the Lord was in His heaven that night as always, and that when the two black bondwomen in their helpless fear were following the blind maiden through the darkening streets she in her turn was following God?

When Fatimah and Habeebah saw what it was to which Naomi had led them, though they were sorely concerned at it, yet they were relieved as well, and put by the worst of the fears with which her strange behaviour had infected them.And remembering that she was the daughter of Israel, and they were his servants, and neither thinking themselves safe from danger if they stayed any longer where his name was bandied about as a reproach, nor fully knowing how many of the curses that were heaped upon him found a way to Naomi's mind, they were for turning again and going back to the house.

"Come," said Habeebah; "let us go--we are not safe.""Yes," said Fatimah; "let us take the poor child back.""Come along, then," said Habeebah, and she laid hold of Naomi's hand.

"Naomi, Naomi," whispered Fatimah in the girl's ear, "we are going home.

Come, dearest, come."

But Naomi was not to be moved.No gentle voice availed to stir her.

She stood where she had placed herself on the outskirts of the crowd, motionless save for her heaving bosom and trembling limbs, and silent save for her loud breathing and the low muttering of her pale lips, yet listening eagerly with her neck outstretched.

And if, as she listened, any human eye could have looked in on her dumb and imprisoned soul, the tumult it would have seen must have been terrible.For, though no one knew it as a certainty, yet in her darkness and muteness since the coming of her gift of hearing she had been learning speech and the different voices of men.

All that was spoken in that crowd she understood, and never a word escaped her, and what others saw she felt, only nearer and more terrible, because wrapped in the darkness outside her eyes that were blind.

First there came a lull in the general clamour, and then a coarse, jarring, stridulous voice rose in the air.Naomi knew whose voice it was--it was the voice of old Abraham Pigman, the usurer.

"Brothers of Tetuan," the old man cried, "what are we waiting for?

For the verdict of the judges? Who wants their verdict?

There is only one thing to do.Let us ask the Kaid to remove this man.

The Kaid is a humane master.If he has sometimes worked wrong by us, he has been driven to do that which in his soul he abhors.

Let us go to him and say: 'Lord Basha, through five-and-twenty years this man of our people has stood over us to oppress us, and your servants have suffered and been silent.In that time we have seen the seed of Israel hunted from the houses of their fathers where they have lived since their birth.We have seen them buffeted and smitten, without a resting-place for the soles of their feet, and perishing in hunger and thirst and nakedness and the want of all things.Is this to your honour, or your glory, or your profit?'"The people broke into loud cries of approval, and when they were once more silent, the thick voice went on: "And not the seed of Israel only, but the sons of Islam also, has this man plunged in the depths of misery.

Under a Sultan who desires liberty and a Kaid who loves justice, in a land that breathes freedom and a city that is favoured of God, our brethren the Muslimeen sink with us in deep mire where there is no standing.Every day brings to both its burden of fresh sorrow.

At this moment a plague is upon us.The country is bare;the town is overflowing; every man stumbles over his fellow our lives hang in doubt; in the morning we say 'Would it were evening';in the evening we say, 'Would it were morning'; stretch out your hand and help us!"Again the crowd burst into shouts of assent, and the stridulous voice continued: "Let us say to him 'Lord Basha, there is no way of help but one.Pluck down this man that is set over us.He belongs to our own race and nation; but give us a master of any other race and nation; any Moor, any Arab, any Berber, any negro;only take back this man of our own people, and your servants will bless you.'"The old man's voice was drowned in great shouts of "Ben Aboo!""To Ben Aboo!" "Why wait for the judges?" "To the Kasbah!""The Kasbah!"

But a second voice came piercing through the boom and clash of those waves of sound, and it was thin and shrill as the cry of a pea-hen.Naomi knew this voice also--it was the voice of Judah ben Lolo, the elder of the synagogue, who would have been sitting among the three-and-twenty-judges but that he was a usurer also.

"Why go to the Kaid?" said the voice like a peahen."Does the Basha love this Israel ben Oliel? Has he of late given many signs of such affection? Bethink you, brothers, and act wisely!