第95章

But, for all the religious tumult, no man was deceived by the outward marks of devotion.At the corners of the streets, on the Feddan, by the fountains, wherever men could meet and talk unheard, there they stood in little groups, crossing their forefingers, the sign of strife, or rubbing them side by side, the sign of amity.

It was clear that, notwithstanding the hubbub of their loyalty to the sultan, they knew that the Spaniard was coming and were glad of it.

Meantime Ali waited with impatience for the day that was to see the end of his enterprise.To beguile himself of his nervousness in the night, during the dark hours that trailed on to morning, he would venture out of the lodging where he lay in hiding throughout the day, and pick his steps in the silence up the winding streets, until he came under a narrow opening in an alley which was the only window to Naomi's prison.

And there he would stay the long dark hours through, as if he thought that besides the comfort it brought to him to be near to Naomi, the tramp, tramp, tramp of his footsteps, which once or twice provoked the challenge of the night-guard on his lonely round, would be company to her in her solitude.And sometimes, watching his opportunity that he might be unseen and unheard, he would creep in the darkness under the window and cry up the wall in an underbreath, "Naomi! Naomi!

It is I, Ali! I have come back! All will be well yet!"Then if he heard nothing from within he would torture himself with a hundred fears lest Naomi should be no longer there, but in a worse place; and if he heard a sob he would slink away like a dog with his muzzle to the dust, and if he heard his own name echoed in the softer voice he knew so well he would go off with head erect, feeling like a man who walked on the stars rather than the stones of the street.But, whatever befell, before the day dawned he went back to his lodging less sore at heart for his lonely vigil, but not less wrathful or resolute.

The day of the feast came at length, and then Ali's impatience rose to fever.All day he longed for the night, that the thing he had to do could be done.At last the sunset came and the darkness fell, and from his place of concealment Ali saw the soldiers of the assaseen going through the streets with lanterns to lead honoured guests to the banquet.Then he set out on his errand.His foresight and wit had arranged everything.The negro at the gate of the Kasbah pretended to recognise him as a messenger of the Vizier's, and passed him through.

He pushed his way as one with authority along the winding passages to the garden where the Mahdi had called on Abd er-Rahman and foretold his fate.The garden opened upon the great hall, and a number of guests were standing there, cooling themselves in the night air while they waited for the arrival of the Sultan.

His Shereefian Majesty came at length, and then, amid salaams and peace-blessings, the company passed in to the banquet.

"Peace on you!" "And on you the peace!" "God make your evening!""May your evening be blessed!"

Did Ali shrink from the task at that moment? No, a thousand times no!

While he looked on at these men in their muslin and gauze and linen and scarlet, sweeping in with bows and hand-touchings to sup and to laugh and to tell their pretty stories, he remembered Israel broken and alone in the poor hut which had been described to him, and Naomi lying in her damp cell beyond the wall.

Some minutes he stood in the darkness of the garden, while the guests entered, and until the barefooted servants of the kitchen began to troop in after them with great dishes under huge covers.Then he held a short parley with the negro gatekeeper, two keys were handed to him, and in another minute he was standing at the door of Naomi's prison.

Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of all--the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by the gift of sight, and would now first look upon _him_.

That he would be the same as a stranger to her, and would have to tell her who he was; that she would have to recognise him by whatsoever means remained to belie the evidence of the newborn sense--this was the least of Ali's trouble.By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand to Shawan.He was black, and she would see him.

With the gliding of the key into the lock all this, and more than this, flashed upon his mind.His shame was abject.It cut him to the quick.

On the other side of that door was she who had been as a sister to him since times that were lost in the blue clouds of childhood.

She had played with him and slept by his side, yet she had never seen his face.And she was fair as the morning, and he was black as the night!

He had come to deliver her.Would she recoil from him?

Ali had to struggle with himself not to fly away and leave everything.

But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose.

"What matter?" he thought."What matter about me?" he asked himself aloud in a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head.

Then he found himself inside the cell.

The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief.