第72章

More satisfying still to the hunger of his heart as a man was his delicious pleasure in Naomi's new-found life.She was like a creature born afresh, a radiant and joyful being newly awakened into a world of strange sights.

But it was not at once that she fell upon this pleasure.

What had happened to her was, after all, a simple thing.

Born with cataract on the pupils of her eyes, the emotion of the moment at the Kasbah, when her father's life seemed to be once more in danger, had--like a fall or a blow--luxated the lens and left the pupils clear.That was all.Throughout the day whereon the last of her great gifts came to her, when they were cast out of Tetuan, and while they walked hand in hand through the country until they lit upon their home, she had kept her eyes steadfastly closed.

The light terrified her.It penetrated her delicate lids, and gave her pain.When for a moment she lifted her lashes and saw the trees, she put out her hand as if to push them away;and when she saw the sky, she raised her arms as if to hold it off.

Everything seemed to touch her eyes.The bars of sunlight seemed to smite them.Not until the falling of darkness did her fears subside and her spirits revive.Throughout the day that followed she sat constantly in the gloom of the blackest corner of their hut.

But this was only her baptism of light on coming out of a world of darkness, just as her fear of the voices of the earth and air had been her baptism of sound on coming out of a land of silence.

Within three days afterwards her terror began to give place to joy;and from that time forward the world was full of wonder to her opened eyes.Then sweet and beautiful, beyond all dreams of fancy, were her amazement and delight in every little thing that lay about her--the grass, the weeds, the poorest flower that blew, even the rude implements of the house and the common stones that worked up through the mould--all old and familiar to her fingers, but new and strange to her eyes, and marvellous as if an angel out of heaven had dropped them down to her.

For many days after the coming of her sight she continued to recognise everything by touch and sound.Thus one morning early in their life in the cottage, and early also in the day, after Israel had kissed her on the eyelids to awaken her, and she had opened them and gazed up at him as he stooped above her, she looked puzzled for an instant, being still in the mists of sleep, and only when she had closed her eyes again, and put out her hand to touch him, did her face brighten with recognition and her lips utter his name."My father," she murmured, "my father."Thus again, the same day, not an hour afterwards, she came running back to the house from the grass bank in front of it, holding a flower in her hand, and asking a world of hot questions concerning it in her broken, lisping, pretty speech.Why had no one told her that there were flowers that could see? Here was one which while she looked upon it had opened its beautiful eye and laughed at her.

"What is it?" she asked; "what is it?"

"A daisy, my child," Israel answered.

"A daisy!" she cried in bewilderment; and during the short hush and quick inspiration that followed she closed her eyes and passed her nervous fingers rapidly over the little ring of sprinkled spears, and then said very softly, with head aslant as if ashamed, "Oh, yes, so it is; it is only a daisy."But to tell of how those first days of sight sped along for Naomi, with what delight of ever-fresh surprise, and joy of new wonder, would be a long task if a beautiful one.They were some miles inside the coast, but from the little hill-top near at hand they could see it clearly; and one day when Naomi had gone so far with her father, she drew up suddenly at his side, and cried in a breathless voice of awe, "The sky! the sky! Look! It has fallen on to the land.""That is the sea, my child," said Israel.

"The sea!" she cried, and then she closed her eyes and listened, and then opened them and blushed and said, while her knitted brows smoothed out and her beautiful face looked aside, "So it is--yes, it is the sea."Throughout that day and the night which followed it the eyes of her mind were entranced by the marvel of that vision, and next morning she mounted the hill alone, to look upon it again; and, being so far, she walked farther and yet farther, wandering on and on, through fields where lavender grew and chamomile blossomed, on and on, as though drawn by the enchantment of the mighty deep that lay sparkling in the sun, until at last she came to the head of a deep gully in the coast.

Still the wonder of the waters held her, but another marvel now seized upon her sight.The gully was a lonesome place inhabited by countless sea-birds.From high up in the rocks above, and from far down in the chasm below, from every cleft on every side, they flew out, with white wings and black ones and grey and blue, and sent their voices into the air, until the echoing place seemed to shriek and yell with a deafening clangour.

It was midday when Naomi reached this spot, and she sat there a long hour in fear and consternation.And when she returned to her father, she told him awesome stories of demons that lived in thousands by the sea, and fought in the air and killed each other."And see!" she cried;"look at this, and this, and this!"

Then Israel glanced at the wrecks she had brought with her of the devilish warfare that she had witnessed and "This," said he, lifting one of them, "is a sea-bird's feather; and this,"lifting another, "is a sea-bird's egg; and this," lifting the third, "is a dead sea-bird itself."Once more Naomi knit her brows in thought, and again she closed her eyes and touched the familiar things wherein her sight had deceived her.