第57章

Israel could hear his breathing, and smell his rags.Also he could hear the thud of his own temples like the beating of a drum in his brain.

At length, as he was groping feebly through the crooked passage, a new thought came to him."Naomi," he told himself in a whisper of awe.

It was she.By the full flood of the moonlight in the patio he saw her.

She was on the balcony.Her beautiful white-robed figure was half sitting on the rail, half leaning against the pillar.The whole lustre of the moon was upon her.A look of joy beamed on her face.

She was singing her mother's song with her mother's voice, and all the air, and the sky, and the quiet white town seemed to listen:--Within my heart a voice Bids earth and heaven rejoice Sings--"Love, great Love O come and claim shine own, O come and take thy throne Reign ever and alone, Reign, glorious golden Love."Then Israel's fear was turned to rapture.Why had he not thought of this before? Yet how could he have thought of it? He had never once heard Naomi's voice save in the utterance of single words.

But again, why had he not remembered that before the tongues of children can speak words of their own they sing the words of others?

The singing ended, and then Israel, struggling with his dry throat, stepped a pace forward--his foot grated on the pavement--and he called to the singer--"Naomi!"

The girl bent forward, as if peering down into the darkness below, but Israel could see that her fixed eyes were blind.

"My father!" she whispered.

"Where did you learn it?" said Israel.

"Fatimah, she taught me," Naomi answered; and then she added quickly, as if with great but childlike pride, saying what she did not mean, "Oh yes, it was I! Was I not beautiful?"After that night Naomi's shyness of speech dropped away from her, and what was left was only a sweet maidenly unconsciousness of all faults and failings, with a soft and playful lisp that ran in and out among the simple words that fell from her red lips like a young squirrel among the fallen leaves of autumn.

It would be a long task to tell how her lisping tongue turned everything then to favour and to prettiness.On the coming of the gift of hearing, the world had first spoken to her; and now, on the coming of the gift of speech, she herself was first speaking to the world.

What did she tell it at that first sweet greeting? She told it what she had been thinking of it in those mute days that were gone, when she had neither hearing nor speech, but was in the land of silence as well as in the land of night.

The fancies of the blind maid so long shut up within the beautiful casket of her body were strange and touching ones.Israel took delight in them at the beginning.He loved to probe the dark places of the mind they came from, thinking God Himself must surely have illumined it at some time with a light that no man knew, so startling were some of Naomi's replies, so tender and so beautiful.

One evening, not long after she had first spoken, he was sitting with her on the roof of their house as the sun was going down over the palpitating plains towards Arzila and Laraiche and the great sea beyond.Twilight was gathering in the Feddan under the Mosque, and the last light of day, which had parleyed longest with the snowy heights of the Reef Mountains, was glowing only on the sky above them.

"Sweetheart," said Israel, "what is the sun?""The sun is a fire in the sky," Naomi answered; "my Father lights it every morning.""Truly, little one, thy Father lights it," said Israel; "thy Father which is in heaven.""Sweetheart," he said again, "what is darkness?""Oh, darkness is cold," said Naomi promptly, and she seemed to shiver.

"Then the light must be warmth, little one?" said Israel.

"Yes, and noise," she answered; and then she added quickly, "Light is alive."Saying this, she crept closer to his side, and knelt there, and by her old trick of love she took his hand in both of hers, and pressed it against her cheek, and then, lifting her sweet face with its motionless eyes she began to tell him in her broken words and pretty lisp what she thought of night.In the night the world, and everything in it, was cold and quiet.That was death.

The angels of God came to the world in the day.But God Himself came in the night, because He loved silence, and because all the world was dead.Then He kissed things, and in the morning all that God had kissed came to life again.If you were to get up early you would feel God's kiss on the flowers and on the grass.

And that was why the birds were singing then.God had kissed them in the night, and they were glad.

One day Israel took Naomi to the mearrah of the Jews, the little cemetery outside the town walls where he had buried Ruth.And there he told her of her mother once more; that she was in the grave, but also with God;that she was dead, but still alive; that Naomi must not expect to find her in that place, but, nevertheless, that she would see her yet again.

"Do you remember her, Naomi?" he said."Do you remember her in the old days, the old dark and silent days? Not Fatimah, and not Habeebah, but some one who was nearer to you than either, and loved you better than both; some one who had soft hands, and smooth cheeks, and long, silken, wavy hair--do you remember, little one?""Y-es, I think--I _think_ I remember," said Naomi.

"That was your mother, my darling."

"My mother?"

"Ah, you don't know what a mother is, sweetheart.How should you?

And how shall I tell you? Listen.She is the one who loves you first and last and always.When you are a babe she suckles you and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue.

When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you, and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak.