L [ B R.ARY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 \'ER>\ 
 V. \
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT 
 
 J ROMANCE
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 THE BONDMAN. 
 
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 THE SCAPEGOAT 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 By hall CAINE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "HE BOXD^fAX," A\D " THE DEEMSTER' 
 
 Thy Toill Ic done on eartJi" 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 1891 
 
 [AI/ rights reserved'X
 
 I 8-91 
 
 NO TE 
 
 CV 
 
 My thanks are due to Chief Rabbi Adler^ for opening to my 
 
 observation the homes and lives of the Sephardic Jews of Morocco ; 
 
 '^ to Mr. Israel Abraham, Editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review, 
 
 and to another Jezoish scholar, for guidance in Jewish ceremo- 
 
 ^i ?iial latv ; to the Sub-Editor of the Lancet for the opi?tion .of 
 
 \~viedical experts ; and to Mr, Ion Ferdicaris of Tangier, and Mr. 
 
 Vj /. E. Budgett Meakin, late Editor of the Times of Morocco, for 
 
 ^ important help in nearly all that concerns the local atmosphere of 
 
 my story. Also I am once more indebted to 7ny fellow-coiintryman, 
 
 the author of " FdcWle YarnSf" for spontaneous and tmacknow- 
 
 ledged collaboration at various points. But, not to make my friends 
 
 responsible either for my errors or my fancies, I must needs confess 
 
 that, though I have spared no pains to be true to plain fact and 
 
 .> possibility^ my heart has been so much occupied with the spiritual 
 
 \ love of a Tioble man and a beautiful vjoman, that my book is less 
 
 V novel than romance, and less romance than poem. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Ci^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION .... 
 1. OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL 
 II. OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI 
 
 III. OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI 
 
 IV. OF THE DEATH OF RUTH 
 
 V, OF ruth's burial . 
 
 VI. OF THE SPIRIT-MAID 
 
 VII. OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE 
 
 VIII. OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT 
 
 IX. OF ISRAEL'S JOURNEY 
 
 X. OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MAIIDI 
 
 XI. OF ISRAEL'S HOME-COMING 
 
 XIT. OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND . 
 
 I 
 40 
 
 57 
 75 
 95 
 112 
 124 
 142 
 162 
 18 
 206 
 219 
 231
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Wjthi.w sight of an English port, and within hail of 
 English ships as they pass on to our empire in the East, 
 there is a land where tJu ways of life are the same to day 
 as they were a thousand years ago : a land wherein govern- 
 ment is oppression, wherein law is tyranny, wherein 
 justice is bought and sold, wherein it is a terror to be rich 
 and a danger to be poor, ivherein man may still be the 
 slave of man, and woman is no more than a creature of 
 lust — a reproach to Europe, a disgrace to the century, an 
 outrage on humanity, a blight on religion ! That land is 
 Morocco ! 
 
 This is a story of Morocco in the last years of tht 
 Sultan Abd er-Rahmanx 2 he ashes of that tyrant are cold^ 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 and Jiis grandson sits in his place ; hut men who earned 
 his displeasure linger yet in his noisome dungeons, and 
 women who won his embraces are starving at this hour in 
 the prison-palaces in which he i?nmured thetn. His reign 
 is a story of yesterday ; he is gone, he is forgotten ; no 
 man so meek and none so 7nean but he fnight spit upon his 
 tomb. Yet the evil work ivhich he did in his evil time is 
 done to-day, if not by his grandson, then in his grandson^s 
 name — the degradation of fnan^s honour, the cruel wrong 
 vf woman s, the shame of base usury, and the iniquity of 
 justice that may be bought ! Of such corruption this story 
 will tell, for it is a tale of tyranny that is every day 
 repeated, a voice of suffering goi fig up hourly to the powers 
 of the world, calling on them to forget the secret hopes and 
 petty jealousies ivhereof Morocco is a cause, to think no 
 more of any scramble for territory ivhen the fated day of 
 that doomed land has come, and only to look to it and see 
 that he 7vho fills the throne cf Abd er- Rahman shall be the 
 last to sit there. 
 
 After a weary journey in tlie central provinces, 
 coming up from I'ez by way of Wa^zdn, I chanced to
 
 mrRODUCTIOM. 
 
 arrive at Tetuan at a time of great excitement. It 
 was the eve of the chief feast of the Mohammedan 
 year, the feast of the birthday of the Prophet. That 
 of itself must have been a cause of sufficient com- 
 motion, for the sect of the Aissawa were expected 
 from Mequinez, and every one knew that before the 
 seven days of the feast had ended the streets of the 
 town must flow with the blood of the wildest of the 
 fanatics of Islam. But it was an event of still deeper 
 solemnity and yet grander magnificence that set in 
 motion the poor people of Tetuan. His Shereefian 
 Majesty, their Sultan Abd er-Rahmau, had announced 
 an intention of keeping the feast in their midst. 
 
 Throughout the preceding month the Sultan had 
 been among the Reef mountains with his motley army 
 of foot and horse, making one of his accustomed 
 raids on a rebellious tribe of his people, for the en- 
 forcement of the tribute they had refused to pay. 
 Once again his arms had conquered, he had driven 
 the mountaineers back into their fastnesses, confis- 
 cated all they had abandoned, devastated their homes,
 
 The scapegoat. 
 
 and left their villages in flames behind him. Thus 
 having finished the work which he had set his hand 
 to do, he bethought him of the feast of the birthday 
 of Mohammed, and so it befell that, being nearest to 
 Tetuan of the greater towns of his empire, he had 
 concluded that he would say his prayers there, the 
 better that he might meanwhile quarter his big army 
 on the town's inhabitants. 
 
 On the evening of my arrival the Sultan had been 
 heard of about four hours away, encamped witli his 
 Ministers, a portion of his hareem, and a detachment 
 of his army, somewhere by the foot of Beni Hosmar. 
 His entry was fixed for eight o'clock next morning, 
 and preparations for his coming were everywhere 
 afoot. Not in loyalty and certainly not in love did 
 the townsfolk busy themselves for the reception of 
 their prince, but nevertheless all other occupations 
 were at a standstill, and nothing was to be heard 
 but the noise and clamour of the cleansing of 
 the streets, and the hanging of flags and of carpets. 
 Only with difficulty, after much importunity and
 
 IXTRODUCTION. 
 
 many protests, had I prevailed upon the deputy of 
 the (jovernor to assign m^ a lodging for the night. 
 When at length I had secured it, and had moved 
 into it with my guid«* and companion, Jeliali, I found 
 it a damp, dark, and dirty littk* dtn under the 
 shadow of the western gat«\ It was the first place 
 for a casual stranger which had come to the Khaleefa's 
 knowledge, and it had l>'«'n thrust uiK)n mo IhT^use 
 it gave least troubh*. 
 
 J*rot«'8t, I well knew, would Ix^ vain, and, as iiiikIi 
 in pity of the confusion of tho officials, as in disgust 
 at my surroundings, I had made up half a mind to 
 relieve both ol my pn-sence, and, late as it was, srt 
 out from tho town again, in the hope of reaching 
 before night the fondak that lies in the plains between 
 Tetuan and Tangier. 
 
 I was tilt* mon* inclimnl to this course from un- 
 willingness to witness the spc^ctacle of the morning. 
 What the townsjXKjple looked to with interest, if not 
 enthusiasm, I regardt'^ in advance with languor, if 
 not distaste. Loyalty I had none, and love I had
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 less than none, for the tyrant that was to come on 
 the morrow. The Sultan was nothing to me but a 
 heartless sensualist with a black face, and not even 
 the barbaric splendour of his train had a moment's 
 power to hold me. I had seen both already, first at 
 Mequinez and again at Fez ; I was travelling under 
 the name and mockery of the Sultan's protection. I 
 had spoken with his dusky Majesty; his evil eyes 
 had smiled upon me, and the loaded fingers of his 
 clumsy hand had touched for me his dazzling breast. 
 Hence I found little interest and no novelty, but 
 certain discomfort and probable danger, in the 
 freedom of such a day of license as the Sultan's visit 
 to Tetuan would surely be to me. 
 
 That I did not leave the town the same night, having 
 so strong an impulse to go, was partly due to a 
 passive protest from my man Jellali. The poor fellow 
 was worn out with fatigue. I was myself no less 
 weary. We had travelled far that day ; the sun had 
 been hot, our mules had been stubborn, and the tracks 
 that serve as roads had been deep ^nd ugly.
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 "Jellali," I said, after another glance at the 
 reeking walls of our lodgings, '' spread the mattresses 
 on the roof : we shall sleep there to-night." 
 
 '^ Blessings on your beard ! " cried Jellali — at that' 
 time a superfluous prayer. 
 
 I could laugh to think of it, now that by so paltry 
 a chance the central fact of my life was brought 
 about. Yet, why should I laugh at chance ? Is it net 
 the master of human destiny ? The great thing that 
 we did of set design and purpose, where is it when 
 the whole reckoning of our life is made ? But the 
 little thing that chance did for us, is it not the pivot 
 whereon our fate has turned ? And surely nothing 
 but the Book of Fate itself had willed it that, coming 
 by chance, and remaining against my inclination, I 
 was in Tetuan on the day of the entry of the Sultan 
 Abd er-Rahman. Can I doubt it as I raise my eyes 
 and look about me where I write ? It is evening, in a 
 quiet room of an English house looking out on an 
 English garden, where the hawthorn and the lilac 
 bloom together, and the blackbird sings unseen from
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 the beech-tree by the wall. Jellali himself is here, as 
 sly as of old, and as faithful too, somewhat aged since 
 his transplantation, and visibly somewhat happier. 
 But it is not Jellali's tawny face and crimson kaftan 
 only that tells in my English home of the distant 
 land of the prickly pear and the long aloe. She is 
 here ; she is by my side — she whom my eyes had not 
 seen — strange as it is to think that she can ever have 
 been absent from my sight — until the early sunlight 
 of that day in Tetuan brought the best of all sunlight 
 into my life. 
 
 It was a wonderful night. The air was cool, for 
 the year was deep towards winter, but not a breath 
 of wind was stirring, and the orange gardens behind 
 the town wall did not send over the river so much as 
 the whisper of a leaf. Stars were out, and the big 
 moon of the East shone white on the white walls and 
 minarets. It was late when I went up to my mat- 
 tress on the flat roof of our unwholesome dwelling, and 
 then the traffic of the streets was done and the town 
 was quiet. Nowhere is night so full of the spirit of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sleep as in an Eastern city. Below, under the moon- 
 light, lay the square white roofs, and between them 
 were the dark streets going in and out, trailing 
 through and along, like to narrow streams of black 
 water in a bed of quarried chalk. Here or there, 
 where a belated townsman lit himself homeward with 
 a lamp, a red light gleamed out of one of the thin 
 darknesses, crept along a few paces, and then was 
 gone. Sometimes a clamour of voices came up with 
 their own echo from some unseen place, and again 
 everything was still. Sleep, sleep, all was sleep. I 
 gathered my cloak and rugs about me, and lay down 
 for the night. 
 
 In the first grey of morning I was awakened by 
 the chant of the mooddin from a minaret near at 
 hand — 
 
 " Sleep is good, but prayer is better. God is 
 great ! God is great ! " 
 
 I had heard it before, and had passed the stage of 
 Eastern experience when to the unbelieving ear that 
 wail over a sleeping town is pleasant. So I groaned
 
 10 THE SC A TEG OAT. 
 
 and shuddered, gathered my garments yet closer 
 together, and tried to sleep again. 
 
 But there was to be no more rest that night. 1 
 was hardly conscious that I had slept, before a street- 
 crier came, beating a drum, and crying in a hoarse 
 voice, " Awake ! Awake ! Come and greet your 
 Lord ! Awake ! Awake ! " 
 
 What the sumner of the Lord of Hosts had not 
 done, the sumner of the Lord Sultan very speedily 
 brought to pass. In a little while the streets were 
 alive with motley and noisy crowds. A vague and 
 confused perception of this came to me at first 
 through the outposts of slumber ; but soon the cries 
 of some of the people, and the laughter of others, 
 fell in upon me where I lay, and, early as it was, I 
 arose. 
 
 And being risen, though in moody temper, I could 
 not but allow to myself that it was a gorgeous sight 
 I looked upon. The sun was up, if still red and 
 hazy, and the sunlight came like a tunnel of gold 
 down the swampy valley and from over the sea,
 
 INTRODUCTION. It 
 
 Some orange orchards lying to the south, called the 
 gardens of the Sultan, were red rather than yellow, 
 and the snowy crests of the mountain heights above 
 them were crimson rather than white. In the town 
 itself the small red flag that is the Moorish ensign 
 seemed to hang out from every house, and carpets of 
 many colours swung on many walls. Certainly 
 Tetuan was a wondrous sight already. 
 
 The sun was not yet high before the Sultan's army 
 began to arrive. It was a mixed and noisy throng 
 that came first, a sort of ragged regiment of Arabs, 
 with long guns, and with their gun-cases wrapped 
 about their heads — a big gang of wild country-folk 
 lately enlisted as soldiers. They poured into the 
 town at the western gate, and shuffled and jostled 
 and squeezed their way through tho narrow streets, 
 firing recklessly into the air, and shouting as they 
 went, " Abd er-Kahman is coming ! The Sultan is 
 coming ! Dogs ! Men ! Believers ! Infidels ! Come 
 out! come out!" 
 
 Thus they went pufiing along, covered with dust
 
 U THE .SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 and sweltering in perspiration, and at every fresh 
 shot and shout the streets they passed through grew 
 denser. But it was a grim satire on their lawless 
 loyalty that almost at their heels there came into the 
 town, not the Sultan himself, but a troop of his 
 prisoners from the mountains. Ten of them there 
 were in all, guarded by ten soldiers, and they made 
 a sorry spectacle. They were chained together, man 
 to man in single file, not hand to hand or leg to leg, 
 but neck to neck. So had they walked a hundred 
 miles, never separated night or day, either sleeping 
 or waking, or faint or strong. The feet of some 
 were bare and torn, and dripping blood. The faces 
 of all were black with grime, and streaked with lines 
 of sweat. And thus they toiled into the streets in 
 that sunlight of God's own morning, under the red 
 ensigns of Morocco, by the many-coloured cai-pets of 
 liabat, to the Kasbah beyond the market-place. They 
 were Reefians whose homes the Sultan had just 
 stripped, whose villages he had just burnt, whose 
 wives and children he had just driven into the
 
 tNTkODVCTIOM. 13 
 
 mountains. And they were going to die in his 
 dungeons. 
 
 It was seven o'clock by this time, and rumour 
 had it that the Sultan's train was moving down the 
 valley. From the roof of my lodging by the gate I 
 could see something swarming across the plain in 
 the distance. Then came some rapid transformations 
 of the scene below. First the streets were deserted 
 by every decent blue jellab and clean white turban 
 within range of sight. These presently reappeared 
 on the roofs of the principal thoroughfare, where 
 groups of women, closely covered in their haiks, had 
 already begun to congregate with their dark attend- 
 ants. K'ext, a body of the townsmen who possessed 
 firearms mounted guard on the walls to protect the 
 town from the lawlessness of the big army that was 
 coming. Then into the Feddan, the square market- 
 place, came pouring from their own little quarter 
 within its separate walls a throng of Jewish people, 
 in their black kaftans and skuU-caps, men and 
 women and children, carrying banners that bore
 
 14 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 loyal inscriptions, twanging at tambourines and 
 crying in wild discords, "God bless onr Lord ! " 
 " God give victory to our Lord the Sultaii ! " 
 
 The poor Jews got small thanks for such loyalty to 
 the last of the Caliphs of the Prophet. Every ragged 
 Moor in the streets greeted them with exclamations 
 of menace and abhorrence. Even the blind beggar 
 crouching at the gate lifted uj^ his voice and cursed 
 them. 
 
 "Get out, you Jew ! God burn your father ! Dogs, 
 take off your slij^pers — Abd er-Rahman is coming ! " 
 
 Thus they were scolded and abused on every side, 
 kicked, cuffed, jostled, and wedged together well-nigh 
 to suffocation. Their banners were torn out of their 
 hands, their tambourines were broken, their voices 
 were drowned, and finally they were driven back 
 into their Mellah and shut up there, and forbidden to 
 look upon the entry of the Sultan, even from their 
 roofs. 
 
 And the vagabonds and ragamuffins among the 
 faithful in the streets. Laving got rid of the
 
 INTRODUCTION^. 15 
 
 unbelievers, had enough ado to keep peace among 
 themselves. They pushed and struggled and stormed 
 and cried and laughed and clamoured down this main 
 artery of the town through which the Sultan's train 
 must pass. Men and boys, women also and young 
 girls, donkeys with packs, bony mules too, and at 
 least one dirty and terrified old camel. It was a con- 
 fused and uproarious Babel. Angry black faces 
 thrust into white ones, flashing eyes and gleaming 
 white teeth, and clenched fists uplifted. Human 
 voices barking like dogs, yelping like hyenas, shrill 
 and guttural, piercing and grating. Prayings, beg- 
 gings, quarrellings, cursings. 
 
 " Arrah ! Arrah ! Arrah ! " 
 
 " Merciful ! Giver of good to all ! " 
 
 " Curses on your grandfather ! " 
 
 "Allah! Allah! Allah!" 
 
 '' Balak ! Balak ! Balak ! " 
 
 But presently the wild throng fell into order and 
 silence. The gate of the Kasbah was thrown open, 
 and a line ot soldiers came out, headed by the Kaid
 
 7tik SC A PECO AT. 
 
 of Tetuan, the Governor of the town, and moved on 
 towards the city wall. The rabble were thrust back, 
 the soldiers were drawn up in lines on either side 
 of the street, and the Kaid himself took a position 
 by the western gate. 
 
 This man was then almost facing me, where I 
 stood with my servant on the roof of my lodging, 
 yet so much were my eyes and ears engaged by the 
 sights and sounds of the streets that I should not 
 have seen or heard him, nor should I to this day 
 have any distinct impression of what manner of man 
 he was to look upon — great as the part has been that 
 his conduct has played in my life — but that he him- 
 self drew my attention upon him. It w^as now eight 
 o'clock, the sun was high, and I had put up an um- 
 brella to protect my head from the heat. No 
 thought had I given to my poor little alpaca in 
 relation to the proceedings of the day that it was 
 any dishonour to the Shereefian majesty, who alone 
 in his own presence must be so sheltered, nor had 
 any one in the streets or on the roofs appeared to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 notice it, but the eye of the Kaid caught it instantly 
 from his seat on his charger that was prancing under 
 the arch. It would seem that he called on me to 
 close it ; but I did not hear him, and neither was 
 Jellali conscious of his command. Then without 
 more ado he ordered a guard by his side to fire upon 
 it, and I first became aware of my own offence, and 
 of the Governor's presence, in having my luckless 
 umbrella riddled in my hand by a dexterous shot 
 from a long-barrelled flint-lock. 
 
 At that I closed it promptly, and proceeded to take 
 note of the Kaid. He was an elderly man, riding a 
 chestnut horse, having gorgeous trappings of crim- 
 son cloth and gold. His dress was hardly less 
 brilliant — a chocolate jellab over a kaftan of several 
 colours. There was negro blood in him, for his com- 
 plexion was of the deepest brown, and his nostrils and 
 lips were wide and heavy. His eyes were hazel, and 
 the white of them was streaked and bleared. Under 
 his turban the short curls of his hair were iron grey. 
 It was an evil face, selfish, heartless, and cruel. 
 VOL. I, B
 
 l8 THE SCAPEGCAT. 
 
 By this time there was a commotion on the town 
 walls among the townsmen who had taken up posi- 
 tions there. The Sultan's army was drawing near, 
 a confused and disorderly mass of human beings 
 moving on from the plain. As they came up to the 
 walls, we who were standing on the house roofs could 
 see them, and as they were ordered away to encamp 
 by the river, none could help but hear their shouts 
 and oaths. 
 
 When the motley and noisy concourse had been 
 driven off to their camping ground, the gates of the 
 town were thrown wide, for the Sultan himself was 
 at hand. This, which was the crisis of interest to 
 the townsfolk, bringing to their feet those who had 
 been squatting on the housetops, was to me a 
 moment of little consequence. Hitherto I had been 
 absorbed in sights such as an Eastern town only on 
 its gala day can show. With the coming of the 
 •Sultan's train my interest seemed to end, and, by 
 that strange perversity of fate which coquets with us 
 sometimes at our highest moments, I had half an
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 impulse to turn away before the red umbrella of 
 royalty had come in sight, or I had first beheld that 
 face which of all faces has since been the light of 
 my life. Nevertheless, by anotlijer whim of fate's 
 coquetry, I remained where I was standing, looking 
 languidly down on a spectacle that I had seen before, 
 and had little desire to see again. 
 
 There, as at the capital, came the two soldiers afoot, 
 and then followed the five artillery men with their 
 small pieces packed on mules. There, too, came the 
 mounted standard-bearers four deep, some in red, 
 some in blue, and some in green. There, again, 
 came the outrunners and the spearmen, and then the 
 Sultan's six led horses. It was all as I had seen it 
 at Fez. And there at length, with the great um- 
 brella held over him, came the Sultan himself, .the 
 elderly sensualist, with his dusky cheeks, his rheumy 
 eyes, his thick lips, and his heavy nostrils. The 
 fat Father of Islam was mounted that day on a 
 snow-white stallion, bedecked in gorgeous trappings. 
 Its bridle was of green silk, embroidered in gold.
 
 20 THE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 Solomon's seal was stamped on its head-gear, and 
 the tooth of a boar — a safeguard against the evil eye 
 — was suspended from its neck. Its saddle was of 
 orange damask, with girths of stout silk, and its 
 stirrups were of chased silver. The Sultan's own 
 trappings were of the colour of his horse. His 
 kaftan was of white cloth, with an embroidered 
 leathern girdle ; his turban was of white cotton, 
 and his kisa was also white and transparent. 
 
 As he passed under the archway of the town's 
 gate the cannon of the Kasbah boomed forth a salute, 
 the Kaid dismounted and kissed his stirrup, and the 
 crowds in the streets burst upon him with blessings. 
 
 *^ God bless our Lord ! " 
 
 " Sultan Abd er-Rahman ! " 
 
 " God prolong the life of our Lord ! " 
 
 He seemed hardly to hear them. Once his hand 
 touched his breast when the Kaid approached 
 him. After that he looked neither to the right 
 nor to the left, nor gave any sign of pleasure or 
 recognition. Nevertheless the people in the streets
 
 INTRODUCTION, 21 
 
 ceased not to greet him with deafening acclama- 
 tions. 
 
 *^ All's well, all's well," they told each other, and 
 pointed to the white horse — the sign of peace— 
 which the Sultan rode, and to the riderless black 
 horse — the sign of strife — that pranced behind 
 him. 
 
 The women on the housetops also, in their hooded 
 cloaks, welcomed the Sultan with a shrill ululation : 
 " Yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo, yoo-yoo ! " 
 
 Not content with this, the usual greeting of their 
 sex and nation, some of them who had hitherto been 
 closely veiled threw back their muslin coverings, 
 exposed their faces to his face, and welcomed him 
 with more articulate cries. 
 
 He gave them neither a smile nor a glance, but 
 rode straight onward. Beside him walked the fly- 
 flappers, flapping the air before his podgy cheeks 
 with long scarfs of silk, and behind him rode his 
 Ministers of State, five sleek dogs who daily fed his 
 appetites on carrion that his head might be like
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 his stomach, and their power over him thereby the 
 greater. 
 
 My gorge rose at the spectacle. This tyrant had 
 done nothing for his people but take their taxes. 
 Not a man had he protected from injustice ; not a 
 woman had he saved from dishonour. Never a rich 
 usurer among them but trembled at his messages, 
 nor a poor wretch but dreaded his dungeons. His 
 law existed only for himself; his government had 
 no object V)ut to collect his dues. And yet there he 
 was, going down the street amid wild vociferations 
 of welcome. 
 
 Fear, fear ! Fear it was in the heart of the rich 
 man on the housetop, whose moneys were hidden, as 
 well as in the darkened soul of the blind beggar at 
 the gate whose eyes had been gouged out long ago 
 because he dared not divulge the secret place of his 
 wealth. 
 
 I turned my own eyes away. And then, while all 
 other eyes, above and below, on the roofs, on the walls, 
 and on the pavement, followed the Sultan down the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 street, I saw — I alone, save my man Jellali — a scene 
 enacted, a trifling scene, a momentary incident, 
 which I regard as the central fact of my own life, and 
 at least the beginning of this story. 
 
 After the Ministers ot State came a part of the 
 royal hareem. This feature of the procession was new 
 to me, and I looked upon it with freshened interest. 
 The ladies, all but one of their number, rode on 
 mules and were attended by eunuchs. She who did 
 not so ride sat in a crimson litter swung between two 
 small milk-white Arab horses, with trappings of pale- 
 green silk. Midway she came in a line of about 
 twelve, and, like the others, she was closely veiled 
 and jealously watched. 
 
 Now this, I thought, having regard for the special 
 gaiety of her surroundings, must be the latest 
 favourite of her master and husband, happy in her 
 new splendour, envied by her rival sisters, revelling 
 for a while in their jealous anger, and recking not at 
 all of the time that will come so soon when she too, 
 Kke them, must give place to yet another concubine.
 
 54 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 '' God pity the poor little fool ! " I said to myself, 
 and even while the words were on my lips a strange 
 thing happened. 
 
 The first of the horses that bore the litter stumbled 
 into a hole in the unpaved way at the moment when 
 it was abreast of me. I thought the lurch must 
 throw the rider into the street, and she seemed to 
 fear the same disaster, for she flung out both her 
 hands to break the fall. At the next instant the 
 horse had recovered his feet, the watchful eunuch in 
 attendance had restored the scattered veils, and the 
 crimson litter was moving away. But in that quick 
 instant I had seen the face of her who sat in it. 
 
 What shall I say of that face ? By later know- 
 ledge and calmer observation I could tell of the colour 
 of the eyes and of the mould of the features. But 
 what would so poor an inventory avail to make that 
 face live before you now as it then lived before me ? 
 Of the colour of those eyes I was unconscious, and of 
 the mould of those features I knew nothing. Not for 
 my life could I have told you then whether the face
 
 iNTkODUCTloM. zt, 
 
 was dark or fair. Only one thing came to me, only 
 a single impression — an impression of startling im- 
 likeness of what I had thought of and expected. 
 Only this, during that swift moment of first sight, 
 and then, when it was over, and the face that I had 
 seen as by lightning was again covered and had 
 gone, a sense of sudden gloom, as if the sun had been 
 blotted out. 
 
 But at the next instant, with recovered conscious- 
 ness, I realised in part by the mirror of the mind's 
 eye the features that had possessed me. The face 
 was not swarthy, but pale to pallidness. Neither 
 was it Moorish nor Arab nor Berber nor Negro in its 
 cast, but of that type — as I thought — that is loveliest 
 among the creatures of God — the type of a beautiful 
 English girl. And, above all else, the eyes where I 
 had looked for pride and vanity, and the light of 
 triumph, were big and soft and liquid, and seemed to 
 be on the point of breaking into tears. Sadness, 
 pain, and even anguish made up the expression of 
 that startling face. And, framed by such surround-
 
 26 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 ings, the impression it made upon me was over- 
 powering. 
 
 By a quick rebound my mind went back to the 
 bestial half-black sensualist who had just gone past 
 me under the red umbrella, and I turned away from 
 the procession and saw no more of it. What hap- 
 pened next I hardly knew, save that the town gates 
 had been closed to shut out the rabble of the Sultan's 
 army, and that I was seated in the little patio of my 
 lodging before the breakfast that Jellali had prepared 
 for me. But I could not eat ; the coffee had no 
 flavour, the dates no juice ; I was sickening with a 
 sense of I knew not yet what horror. Now I know 
 well what horror it was : it was the horror of that 
 girl in that procession. 
 
 Who was she ? What was she ? It was folly to 
 ask. Her belongings seemed to bespeak her class 
 and condition. She was a wife of the Sultan 
 Abd er-Rahman. Or, since his faith forbade that he 
 should have more than four wives, she was probably 
 his concubine. And yet that white face, those
 
 INTRODUCTION. 2^ 
 
 English features, and the great soft eyes ! Strange 
 and incongruous spectacle ! What mystery lay 
 hidden in it ? What sadness ? What tragedy ? 
 
 I resolved that Jellali should read me the riddle. 
 He was a Moor and a Mohammedan, and could ask 
 questions without exciting suspicions. But when I 
 proposed the task to him he was thrown into con- 
 vulsions of dread. I have said that he alone, besides 
 myself, seemed to have seen the girl's face. He did 
 not deny that he had seen it, and therein lay liis 
 terror. It was death to a subject of the Sultan to 
 have beheld the face of the Sultan's wife, and Jellali 
 was full of stories of the penalty of such a trans- 
 gression. I saw no reason to fear, for it was one 
 thing to have seen the face of a Sultan's wife, and 
 another thing to be known to have seen it. In any 
 case, my irrational determination was fixed. At all 
 risks, Jellali should go to the servants of the Governor, 
 with whom he had foregathered already, while 
 arrangements for our lodging were pending, and 
 find out who and what and whence was the lady
 
 2§ THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 who rode in the crimson litter swung between milk- 
 white ponies. 
 
 While he was gone I went out to the market-place, 
 being too restless to remain indoors, though the heat 
 was now great; and there, before a multitude of 
 excited spectators, certain tribes of mountaineers 
 were going through their feats of powder-play. A 
 month before I had seen it all at Mequinez, and had 
 thought it then a thrilling and splendid exhibition ; 
 but here it seemed merely frantic and barbaric. Two 
 tribes, mounted on wild barbs, charged in line from 
 opposite sides of the square — some seated, some 
 kneeling, some standing. Midway across the market- 
 place they changed horses at full gallop, fired their 
 muskets, then reined in at a horse's length, threw 
 their barbs on their haunches, wheeled round and 
 galloped back, amid deafening shouts of "Allah!'' 
 " Allah ; " " Allah \ '' Yes, yes, that was all the part 
 that God played in this land where woman was no 
 better than a slave. 
 
 When I returned home Jellali was waiting for me
 
 INTRO D UC TION. 29 
 
 with startling intelligence. The lady of the crimson 
 litter was not a wife of Abd er-Eahman, and neither 
 was she yet his concubine. She was a present that 
 the Governor had that very morning sent out as a 
 peace-offering to the Sultan on his entry into the 
 town ! 
 
 I was bewildered. To be given as a present the 
 girl must surely be a slave. But what slave-girls 
 were there now except Negresses from beyond the 
 Atlas? Was white slavery not yet extinct in 
 Morocco ? And then the girl's English face ! What 
 devil's work could be afoot ? 
 
 Bj' this time my head was hot and my heart 
 aflame. I remembered a hundred bitter stories of 
 earlier English captives, and already I saw m^'self 
 galloping to the English Minister at Tangier with a 
 wild tale of outraged honour. But Jellali must go 
 back to the servants of the Governor and learn more. 
 Who was the girl that the Kaid of Tetuan had that 
 day presented to the Sultan ? 
 
 To beguile the time of Jellali's absence, and cheat
 
 30 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 my nerves of my impatience, I went away through 
 the little postern gate of the town to where the great 
 body of the Sultan's army lay encamped by the river 
 under the walls. The townsfolk who had shut the 
 soldiers out, with all the rabble of their following, 
 had nevertheless sent them fifty camels' load of 
 kesksoo, the common dish of the country, and it was 
 being served in equal parts, half a pound to each 
 man. Where this meal had already been eaten, the 
 usual charlatans of the market-place were busily 
 plying their accustomed trades. Black jugglers 
 from Soos, sham snake-charmers from the desert, and 
 story-tellers both grave and facetious, all twanging 
 their hideous ginbri — the two-stringed Moorish 
 instrument — were seated on the ground in half-circles 
 of soldiers and their women. Such amusements were 
 of a piece with everything else. To be deceived, and 
 know you were being deceived, was a fit pleasure in 
 a land wherein all life was a deception. 
 
 ]\fy heart fell low at the news which Jellali brought 
 back \\A\\\ him. The girl was not an English captive
 
 INTRODUCTION. ' 31 
 
 — I had been mad to think she might be — but the 
 daughter of a Moorish Jew, a subject of the Sultan. 
 The father's name was Israel ben Oliel. He had lived 
 nearly thirty years in the town, and his house could be 
 seen in the Mellah. During a large part of that 
 time he had been a man of great power in Tetuan, 
 standing high in the favour of the Kaid, and being 
 master of all other men of whatsoever class and con- 
 dition, civil and military, Moor and Jew. And the 
 girl — her name was Naomi. She had fallen into the 
 Kaid's hands on some accusation relating to her 
 faith. A month ago she had been cast into prison 
 at the Kasbah, and since then she had been con- 
 demned to death. Only this morning, either at her 
 own concession or at the Kaid's caprice, she had been 
 liberated in order that she might be offered as a 
 present 'to the Sultan. 
 
 What could I do ? The girl was a subject of 
 Abd er-Rahman, and Abd er-Rahman would surely 
 have his will of her. Not all the casual strangers in 
 Morocco dare lift a finger on her behalf. Never-
 
 THE SCAPEG0A7. 
 
 theless, I would find her father, and he should tell 
 me her ofFence. 
 
 I knew it must be an idle errand, but I made my 
 way to the Mellah. The " place of the salt" stands 
 in its separate walls on the south-east of the market- 
 place, and near the south-east corner of the INIellah 
 itself stands the house of the father of Naomi. I 
 found it the largest and finest building in the quarter, 
 half Moorish with its open patio, half European with 
 its windows and doors. But it was empty ; it was a 
 wreck, and in its battered and shattered condition it 
 looked as if the fury of some mob had destroyed it. 
 What did all this mean ? 
 
 Two middle-aged Jews, with hands in their upright 
 pockets, stood leaning against a neighbouring wall. 
 I recognised them as of the number of those who had 
 been hustled and cuffed in the morning. Could they 
 tell me anything of Israel ben Oliel ? No. Was he 
 dead? No. Was he in prison ? Not now. Then what 
 had befallen him ? Who could tell ? What had been 
 the charge against his daughter ? God alone could say.
 
 IX TR OD UC TION. 3 3 
 
 It was useless to ask. Fear, fear ! The accursed 
 monster, with watchful eyes on every side of it, was 
 the quivering thing whereon the whole mockery of 
 government rested. And Naomi ! I would take the 
 word of that unhappy face for as much as my life was 
 worth. This morning in the hideous prison of the 
 Kasbah, and doomed to-night to the more hideous 
 arms of that black voluptuary-. There was villaiuy 
 somewhere, if a man could but find it out. 
 
 Returning to my lodging, I found the streets 
 cleared for the mad antics of the Aissawa. When 
 darkness fell they came forth, a score of half-naked 
 men, and one other entirely naked, attended bv their 
 high-priests, the Mukaddameen, three old patriarchs 
 with long white beards, wearing' dark' flowing robes 
 and carrying torches. Then goats and sheep and 
 dogs and cats were riven alive and eaten raw ; while 
 women and children, crouching in the darkness over- 
 head, looked down from the roofs and shuddered. 
 And as the frenzy increased among the madmen, and 
 their victims became fewer, each fanatic turned upon 
 
 VOL. I, C
 
 34 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 himself, and tore his own skin and battered his head 
 against the stones, until blood ran like water, and 
 the street was a sickening sewer. 
 
 I turned from the sight with loathing. What 
 offence against religion could have been made by 
 that soft-eyed girl of the morning, if these barbarians 
 of the night were hereby doing it honour ? 
 
 When I reached home I found Jellali waiting with 
 yet another piece of news for me. The lady of the 
 crimson litter had suddenly fallen sick and insen- 
 sible, and had been taken back from the palace to 
 the Kasbah. Cruel as it may seem to say it, my heart- 
 leapt up to hear that Naomi was ill and in prison. 
 
 Yet why should I rejoice at whatever less terrible 
 fate befell this girl to whom I was a stranger, this 
 girl who was a stranger to me ? She was a victim 
 of some base injustice — true. She was unhappy — 
 also true. But in a land where woman was a chattel, 
 and beauty a thing for sale and barter, she had not 
 been the first, and would not be the last, in that 
 same condition. And, above all and before all.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 whatever her wrongs, I was powerless to relieve 
 them. 
 
 I resolved to leave Tetuan the following day. 
 Not all the terrors of all the Jinoon of Islam should 
 keep me there after the earliest light of morning. 
 
 The mooddin was chanting the call to prayers, 
 and the old porter at the gate was muttering over 
 his rosary as we left the town in the dawn. We had 
 to pick our way among the soldiers who were lying 
 on the bare soil outside, uncovered to the sky. Not 
 one of them seemed to be awake. Even their camels 
 were still sleeping, nose to nose in the circles where 
 they had last fed. Only their mules and asses, all 
 hobbled and still saddled, were up and feeding. 
 
 Though so late in the year, the morning was soft 
 and beautiful, and I whistled as I rode, and told 
 myself what joy it was merely to be alive. When 
 this diversion failed me I took to noting the foliage 
 and the fruit, the prickly pear and the long-leaved 
 aloe, the myrtle and the twisted cactus, the quince 
 trees and the figs. Such things served me with an
 
 36 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 effort, between various loud squabbles with my mule, 
 wliile we were crossing the low-lying plain beyond the 
 bridge from which Tetuan may not be seen. But 
 when we had risen out of it to that point abreast 
 of the village of Semsa, from which the town is said 
 to look like Jerusalem. I could not help but pause, 
 that I might take one first and last look backward. 
 
 Yonder it lay in the sunlight, with the snow- 
 tipped heights above it and the broad sea at its 
 back, the place we had just left, a white thing 
 surrounded by orarge orchards. And, gazing back 
 at it from there, T knew then for the first time my 
 own now-born secret. What I was leaving behind 
 me was not Tetuan only, but a sudden and hopeless 
 and irrational love. Xo matter; my short dream 
 was over ; I Avas awake at last. 
 
 How whimsical is that coquetry of fate ! Less than 
 half an hour afterwards I stumbled upon a fact which 
 altered all my views of life. Biding at the mule's 
 walking pace, with a mind full of recollections of the 
 spectacle of yesterday, thinking with bitterness of its
 
 iNTkoDVCTIO!^, 37 
 
 barbaric splendour, and with sadness of the sorrowful 
 face so strangely placed in it, coming near to the 
 fondak, where travellers rest on their journeys, I lit 
 on the wreck of a hut, and an old man sitting at the 
 door of it. 
 
 So poor a place, I thought, I had not seen in all 
 my wanderings through that abject land. Its walls 
 were of clay that was bulged and cracked, and its 
 roof was of rushes which lay over it like sea-wrack 
 on a broken barrel. The old man w^as clearly a Jew ; 
 his clothing was one worn and torn kaftan ; his feet 
 were shoeless and his head was bare. Poverty and 
 misery sat on him, and squalor was about his home. 
 But his face arrested me. It was a bi^', stronor face, 
 with a snow-w^hite beard. His hair, too, was long 
 and white. A Jovian head, and a countenance with 
 some of the grander lines of the ancient and heroic 
 race of Israel— how did they come to be here and 
 in a case like this ? 
 
 I drew up beside the old man as he sat in his door* 
 way. He did not appear to see me. And then,
 
 38 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 being nearer to him, I noticed that his big grey eyes 
 had a look of madness. He was talking with himself, 
 and I could not help but hear. Neither could I help 
 but listen, for he was speaking in the English tongue. 
 He was mumbling terms of endearment, coupled 
 sometimes with a name. And what name was it? 
 I thought my ears deceived me : I thought my heart 
 must be ringing an echo of one only name through 
 my troubled head. But, no ; the name the old man 
 muttered in his madness, with words of love around 
 it, was no other than Naomi. 
 
 Naomi ! Could this be the father of her whom I 
 had seen amid the dazzling splendour of the Sultan's 
 procession ? I hastened to the fondak and asked, and 
 found my conclusions to be right. This, then, was 
 Israel ben Oliel ; this was the man who for near 
 thirty years had stood high in the favour of the Kaid 
 of Tetuan, being master there of all other men whom- 
 soever : this was the father of Naomi ; and while 
 she lay ill and in prison, and in imminent peril 
 of a more terrible fate, he was here in this
 
 INTRODUCTION. 39 
 
 unhappy plight — deaf, nearly blind, and insane at 
 intervals. 
 
 My curiosity, as well as my pity and my affection, 
 had by this time been engaged. If I could do 
 nothing to relieve the wrongs of these people, I could 
 at least satisfy my interest in the facts of their 
 history. 
 
 " Jellali," I cried, wheeling my mule about, " we 
 are going back to Tetuan." 
 
 We went back straightway, and there we stayed 
 during the remaining days of the feast of the Moolood, 
 But before the feast had ended I had learned all I 
 know of the strange story of Israel and Naomi. I 
 shall relate its facts in their rightful order, not 
 intruding again on my narrative until I come to 
 tell of those closing incidents wherein I too played 
 a part.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 
 
 Israel was the son of a Jewisli banker at Tangier. 
 His mother was the daughter of a banker in London. 
 T\\Q father's name was Oliel ; the mother's was Sara. 
 Oliel had held business connections with the house 
 of Sara's father, and he came over to England that he 
 might have a personal meeting with his correspon- 
 dent. The English banker lived over his office, near 
 Ilolborn Bars, and Oliel met with his family. It 
 consisted of one daughter by a first wife, long dead, 
 and three sons by a second wife, still living. They 
 were not altogether a happy household, and the chief 
 apparent cause of discord was the child of the first 
 wife in the home of the second. Oliel was a man of 
 (juick perception, and he saw the difficulty. That 
 was how it came about that he was married to Sara.
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 41 
 
 When he returned to Morocco he was some thousand 
 pounds richer than when he left it, and he had a 
 capable and personable wife into his bargain. 
 
 Oliel was a self-centred and silent man, absorbed 
 in getting and spending, always taking care to have 
 much of the one, and no more than he could help of 
 the other. Sara was a nervous and sensitive little 
 woman, hungering for communion and for sympathy. 
 She got little of either from her husband, and grew 
 to be as silent as himself. With the people of the 
 country of her adoption, whether Jews or Moors, she 
 made no headway. She never even learnt their 
 language. 
 
 Two years passed, and then a child was born to 
 her. This was Israel, and for many a year there- 
 after he was all the world to the lonely woman. His 
 coming made no apparent difiPerence to his father. 
 He grew to be a tall and comely boy, quick and 
 bright, and inclined to be of a sweet and cheerful 
 disposition. But the school of his upbringing was a 
 hard one. A Jewish child in Morocco might know
 
 42 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 from his cradle that he was not born a Moor and a 
 Mohammedan. 
 
 When the boy was eight years old his father 
 married a second wife, his first wife being still alive. 
 This was lawful, though unusual in Tangier. The 
 new marriage, which was only another business 
 transaction to Oliel, was a shock and a terror to 
 Sara. Nevertheless, she supported its penalties 
 through three weary years, sinking visibly under 
 them day after day. By that time a second family 
 had begun to share her husband's house, the rivalry 
 of the mothers had threatened to extend to the 
 children, the domesticity of home was destroyed, and 
 its harmony was no longer possible. Then she left 
 Oliel, and fled back to England, taking Israel with 
 her. 
 
 Her father was dead, and the welcome she got of 
 her half-brothers was not warm. They had no sym- 
 pathy with her rebellion against her husband's second 
 marriage. If she had married into a foreign country, 
 she should abide by the ways of it. Sara was heart-
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 43 
 
 broken. Her health had long been poor, and now it 
 failed her utterly. In less than a month she died. 
 On her death-bed she committed her boy to the care 
 of her brothers, and implored them not to send him 
 back to Morocco. 
 
 For years thereafter Israel's life in London was a 
 stern one. If he had no longer to submit to the open 
 contempt of the Moors, the kicks and insults of the 
 streets, he had to learn how bitter is the bread that 
 one is forced to eat at another's table. When he 
 should have been still at school he was set to some 
 menial occupation in the bank at Holborn Bars, and 
 when he ought to have risen at his desk he was 
 required to teach the sons of prosperous men the 
 way to go above him. Life was playing an evil 
 game with him, and, though he won, it must be 
 at a bitter price. 
 
 Thus twelve years went by, and Israel, now three- 
 and-twenty, was a tall, silent, very sedate young man, 
 clear-headed on all subjects, and a master of figures. 
 Never once during that time had his father written
 
 44 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 to him, or otherwise recognised his existence, though 
 knowing of his whereabouts from the first by the 
 zealous importunities of his uncles. Then one day a 
 letter came, written in distant tone and formal manner 
 announcing that the writer had been some time con- 
 fined to his bed, and did not expect to leave it ; that 
 the children of his second wife had died in infancy : 
 that he was alone, and had no one of his own flesh 
 and blood to look to his business, which was therefore 
 in the hands of strangers, who robbed him ; and 
 finally, that if Israel felt any duty towards his father, 
 or, failing that, if he had any wish to consult his own 
 interest, he would lose no time in leaving England 
 for Morocco. 
 
 Israel read the letter without a throb of filial 
 affection ; but, nevertheless, he concluded to obey its 
 summons. A fortnight later he landed at Tangier. 
 He had come too late. His father had died the day 
 before. The weather was stormy, and the surf on the 
 shore was heavy, and thus it chanced that, even while 
 the crazy old packet on which he sailed lay all day
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN QUEL. 45 
 
 beating about the bay, in fear of being dashed on to 
 the ruins of the mole, his father's body was being 
 buried in the little Jewish cemetery outside the 
 eastern walls, and his cousins, and cousins' cousins, 
 to the fifth degree, without loss of time or waste of 
 sentiment, were busily dividing his inheritance 
 among them. 
 
 Next day, as his father's heir, he claimed from the 
 Moorish court the restitution of his father's substance. 
 But his cousins made the Kadi, the judge, a present 
 of a hundred dollars, and he was declared to be an 
 impostor, who could not establish his identity. Pro- 
 ducing his father's letter which had summoned him 
 from London, he appealed from the Kadi to the 
 Aolama, men wise in the law, who acted as referees 
 in disputed cases ; but it was decided that as a Jew 
 he had no right in Mohammedan law to offer evidence 
 in a civil court. He laid his case before the British 
 Consul, but was found to have no claim to English 
 intervention, being a subject of the Sultan both by 
 birth and parentage. Meantime, his dispute with his
 
 46 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 cousins was set at rest for ever by the Governor of 
 the town, who, concluding that his father had left 
 neither will nor heirs, confiscated everything he had 
 possessed to the public treasury — that is to say, to 
 the Kaid's own uses. 
 
 Thus he found himself without standing ground in 
 Morocco, whether as a Jew, a Moor, or an English- 
 man, a stranger in his father's country, and openly 
 branded as a cheat. That he did not return to Eng- 
 land promptly was because he was already a man of 
 indomitable spirit. Besides that, the treatment he 
 was having now was but of a piece with what he had 
 received at all times. Nothing had availed to crush 
 him, even as nothing ever does avail to crush a man 
 of character. But the obstacles and torments which 
 make no impression on the mind of a strong man 
 often make a veiy sensible impression on his heart ; 
 the mind triumphs, it is the heart that suffers ; the 
 mind strengthens and expands after every besetting 
 plague of life, but the heart withers and wears away. 
 
 So far from flying from Morocco when things con-
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 47 
 
 spired together to beat him down, Israel looked about 
 with an equal mind for the means of settling there. 
 
 His opportunity came early. The Governor, either 
 by qualm of conscience or further freak of selfishness, 
 got him the place of head of the Oomana, the three 
 Administrators of Customs at Tangier. He held the 
 post six months only, to the complete satisfaction of 
 the Kaid, but amid the muttered discontent of the 
 merchants and tradesmen. Then the Governor of 
 Tetuan, a bigger town lying a long day's journey to 
 the east, hearing of Israel that as Ameen of Tangier 
 he had doubled the custom revenues in half a year, 
 invited him to fill an informal, unofficial, and irregular 
 position as assessor of tributes. 
 
 Now, it would be a long task to tell of the work 
 which Israel did in his new calling : how he regulated 
 the market dues and appointed a Mut'hasseb, a clerk 
 of the market, to collect them — so many moozoonahs 
 for every camel sold, so many for every horse, 
 mule and ass, so many floos for every fowl, and so 
 many metkals for the purchase and sale of every slave ;
 
 48 THE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 how he numbered the houses and made lists of the 
 trades, assessing their tribute by the value of their 
 businesses — so much for gun-making, so much for 
 weaving, so much for tanning, and so on through the 
 line of them, great and small, good and bad, even 
 from the trades of the Jewish silversmiths and the 
 Moorish packsaddle-makers down to the callings of 
 the Arab water-carriers and the ninety public 
 women. 
 
 All this h(^ did by th<' strict law and hotter of the 
 Koran, which entitled the Sultan to a tithe of all 
 earnings whatsoever; but it would not wrong the 
 truth to say that he did it, also, by the impulse of a 
 sour and saddened heart. The world had shown no 
 mercy to him, and he need show no mercy to the 
 world. Why talk of pity ? It was only a name, an 
 idea, a mocking thought. In the actual reckoning of 
 life there was no such thing as pity. Thus did 
 Israel justify himself in all his dealings, what- 
 ever their severity and the rigour wherewith they 
 wrought.
 
 OF ISRAEL BES O'UEL. 49 
 
 And the people felt tlie strong hand that was on 
 them, and they cursed it. 
 
 " Ya Allah ! Allah ! " the Moors would cry. " Who 
 is this Jew — this son of the English — that he should 
 be made our master ? *' 
 
 They muttered at him in the streets, they scowled 
 upon him, and at length they insulted him openly. 
 Since his return from England he had resumed the 
 dress of his race in his country — the long dark kaftan, 
 with a scarf for girdle, the black slippers, and the 
 black skull-cap. And, going one day by the Grand 
 Mosque, a group of the beggars, who lay always by 
 the gate, called on him to uncover his feet. 
 
 ''Jew! Dog!" they cried, "'there is no god but 
 God! Curses on your relations! Off with your 
 slippers ! " 
 
 He paid no heed to their commands, but made 
 straight onward. Then one blear-eyed and scab-faced 
 cripple scrambled up and struck off his cap with a 
 crutch. He picked it up again without a look or a 
 word, and strode away. But next morning, at early 
 
 VOJ.. I. D
 
 56 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 prayers, there was a place empty at the door of the 
 mosque. Its accustomed occupant lay in the prison 
 at the Kasbah. 
 
 And if the Muselmeen hated Israel for what he was 
 doing for their Governor, the Jews hated hira yet 
 more because it was being done for a Moor. 
 
 " He has sold himself to our enemy/" they said, 
 " against the welfare of his own nation." 
 
 At the synagogue they ignored him, and in taking 
 the votes of their people they counted others and 
 passed him by. He showed no malice. Only his 
 strong face twitched at each fresh insult, and his 
 head was held higher. Only this, and one other 
 sign of suffering in that secret place of his wither- 
 inor heart, which God's eve alone could ree. 
 
 Thus far he had done no more to Moor and Jew 
 than exact that tenth part of their substance which 
 the faiths of both required that they should pay. 
 But now his work w^ent further. A little group of 
 old Jews, all held in honour among their people — ■ 
 Abraham Ghana, nicknamed Pigman, son of a former 
 rabbi; Judah ben Lolo, an elder of his synagogue j and
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 51 
 
 Reuben Maliki, keeper of the poor-box — were seized 
 and cast into the Kasbah for gross and base usur}^ 
 
 At this the Jewish quarter was thrown into wild 
 hubbub. The hand that was on their people was 
 a daring and terrible one. None doubted whose hand 
 it was — it was the hand of young Israel the Jew. 
 
 When the three old usurers had bought themselves 
 out of the Kasbah, they put their heads together and 
 said, " Let us drive this fellow out of the Mellah, and 
 so shall he be driven out of the town." Then the 
 owner of the house which Israel rented for his lodging 
 evicted him by a poor excuse, and all other Jewish 
 owners refused him as tenant. But the conspiracy 
 failed. By command of the Governor, or by hia 
 influence, Israel was lodged by the Nadir, the ad- 
 ministrator of mosque property, in one of the houses 
 belonging to the mosque on the Moorish side of the 
 Mellah walls. 
 
 Seeing this, the usurers laid their heads together 
 again, and said, "Let us see that no man of our 
 nation serve him, and so shall his life be a burden." 
 Then the two Jews who had been his servants 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF IIUNOU
 
 52 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 deserted him, and when he asked for Moors he was 
 told that the faithful might not obey the unbeliever ; 
 and when he would have sent for negroes out of the 
 Soudan he was warned that a Jew might not hold 
 a slave. But the conspiracy failed again. Two 
 black female slaves from Soos, named Fatimah and 
 Habeebah, were bought in the name of the Governor 
 and assigned to Israel's service. 
 
 And when it was seen at length that nothing 
 availed to disturb Israel's material welfare, the three 
 base usurers laid their heads together yet again, that 
 they might prey upon his superstitious fears, and 
 they said, '• He is our enemy, but he is a Jew : let 
 the woman who is named the prophetess put her 
 curse upon him." Then she who was so called, one 
 Rebecca Bensabbot, deaf as a stone, weak in her 
 intellect, seventy years of age, and living fifty years 
 on the poor-box which Reuben Maliki kept, crossed 
 Israel in the streets, and cursed him as a son of 
 Beelzebub, predicting that, even as he had made the 
 Walls of the Kasbah to echo with the groans of God a
 
 OF ISRAEL BEX OLIEL. 53 : 
 
 elect, so should his own spii-it he broken within them, 
 and his forehead humbled to the earth. He stood 
 while he heard her out, and his strong lip trembled 
 at her words ; but he only smiled coldly, and passed 
 on in silence. 
 
 " The clouds are not hurt," he thought, " by the 
 bark of dogs." 
 
 Thus did his brethren of Judah revile him, and 
 thus did they torture him ; yet there was one among 
 them who did neither. This was the daughter of 
 their Grand Rabbi, David ben Ghana. Her name 
 was Ruth. She was young, and God had given her 
 grace, and she was beautiful, and many young Jewish 
 men of Tetuan had vied with each other in vain for 
 her favour. Of Israel's duty she knew little, save 
 what report had said of it, that it was evil, and of the 
 acts which had made him an outcast among his own 
 people,, and an Ishmael among the sons of Ishmael. 
 she could form no judgment. But what a woman's 
 eyes might see in him, without help of other know 
 ledge, that she saw.
 
 54 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 She had marked him in the synagogue, that his 
 face was noble and his manners gracious ; that lie 
 was young, but only as one who had been cheated of 
 his youth and had missed his early manhood ; that 
 w^hen he was ignored he ignored his insult, and when 
 he was reviled he answered not again ; in a word, 
 that he w^as silent and strong and alone, and, above 
 all, that he was sad. 
 
 These were credentials enough to the true girl's 
 favour, and Israel soon learnt that the house of the 
 Rabbi was open to him. There the lonely man first 
 found himself. The cold eyes of his little world had 
 seen him only as his father's son, but the light and 
 warmth of the eyes of Ruth saw him as the son of 
 his mother also. The Rabbi himself was old, very 
 old — ninety years of age — and length of days had 
 taught him charity. And so it w^as that when, in 
 due time, Israel came with many excuses and asked 
 for Ruth in marriage, the Rabbi gave her to him. 
 
 The betrothal followed, but none save the notary 
 Rnd his witnesses stood beside Israel when he crossed
 
 OF ISRAEL BEN OLIEL. 55 
 
 hands over the handkerchief ; and, when the marriage 
 came in its course, few stood beside the Chief Rabbi. 
 NeverthelesSj all the Jews of the quarter and all the 
 Moors of Tetuan were alive to what was happening, 
 and on the night of the marriage a great company 
 of both peoples, though chiefly of the rabble among 
 them, gathered in front of the Rabbi's house that 
 they might hiss and jeer. 
 
 The Chacham heard them from where he sat under 
 the stars in his patio, and when at last the voice of 
 Rebecca the prophetess came to him above the 
 tumult, crying, " Woe to her that has married the 
 enemy of her nation, and woe to him that gave her 
 against the hope of his people ! They shall taste 
 death. He shall see them fall from his side and die," 
 then the old man listened and trembled visibly. In 
 confusion and fierce anger he rose up and stumbled 
 through the crooked passage to the door, and flinging 
 it wide he stood in the doorway, facing them that 
 stood without. 
 
 *' Peace I peace 1 " he cried, '' and shame I shame 1
 
 56 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Komember the doom of him that shall curse the 
 high-priest of the Lord/' 
 
 This he spoke in a voice that shook with wrath. 
 Then suddenly, his voice failing him, he said in a 
 broken whisper, "My good people, what is this? 
 Your servant is grown old in your service. Sixty 
 and odd years he has shared your sorrows and your 
 burdens. 'What has he done this day that your 
 women should lift up their voices against him ? " 
 
 But, in awe of his white head in the moonlight, 
 the rabble that stood in the darkness were silent 
 and made no answer. Then he staggered back, and 
 Israel helped him into his house, and Ruth did what 
 che could to compose him. But he was wofully 
 shaken, and that night he died. 
 
 When the Babbi's death became known in the 
 morning, the Jews whispered, *' It is the first-fruits ! '' 
 and the Moors touched their foreheads and mur- 
 mured, ''It is written ! "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 
 
 Israel paid no heed to Jew or Moor, but in due time 
 he set about the building of a house for himself and 
 for Ruth, that they might live in comfort many years 
 together. In the south-east corner of the Mellah he 
 placed it, and he built it partly in the Moorish and 
 partly in the English fashion, with an open court 
 and corridors, marble pillars, and a marble staircase, 
 walls of small tiles, and ceilings of stalactites, but 
 also with windows and with doors. And when his 
 house was raised he put no haities into it, and 
 spread no mattresses on the floors, but sent for 
 tables and chairs and couches out of England ; and 
 everything he did in this wise cut him off the more 
 from the people about him, both [Moors and Jews. 
 And being settled at last, and his own master in
 
 58 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 his own dwelling, out of the ^oower of his enemies to 
 push him back into the streets, suddenly it smote him 
 for the first time that whereas the house he had built 
 was a refuge for himself, it was doomed to be little 
 better than a prison for his wife. In marrying lluth 
 he had enlarged the circle of his intimates by one 
 faithful and loving soul ; but, in marrying him, she 
 had reduced even her friends to that number. Her 
 father was dead ; if she was the daughter of a Chief 
 Rabbi she was also the wife of an outcast, the com- 
 panion of a pariah, and, save for him, she must be 
 for ever alone. Even their bondwomen still spoke a 
 foreign dialect, and commerce with them was mainly 
 by signs. 
 
 Thinking of all this with some remorse, one idea 
 fixed itself on Israel's mind, one hope on his heart — 
 that Ruth might soon bear a child. Then would her 
 solitude be broken by the dearest company that a 
 woman might know on earth. And, if he had 
 wronged her, his child would make amends. 
 
 Israel thought of this again and again* The
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 59 
 
 delicious hope pursued him. It was his secret, and 
 he never gave it speech. But time passed, and no 
 child was born. And Ruth herself saw that she was 
 barren, and she began to cast down her head before 
 her husband. Israel's hope was of longer life, but 
 the truth dawned upon him at last. Then, when he 
 saw that his wife was ashamed, a great tenderness 
 came over him. He had been thinking of her, that 
 a child would bring her solace, and meanwhile she 
 had thought only of him, that a child would be his 
 pride. After that he never went abroad but he 
 came home with stories of women w^ailing at the 
 cemetery over the tombs of their babes, of men 
 broken in heart for loss of their sons, and of how they 
 were best treated of God who were given no children. 
 This served his big soul for a time to cheat it of 
 its disappointment, half deceiving Ruth, and de- 
 ceiving himself entirely. But one day the woman 
 Rebecca met him again at the street-corner by his 
 own house, and she lifted her gaunt finger into his 
 face, and cried, ''Israel ben Oliel, the judgment of
 
 6o THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 the Lord is upon you, and will not suffer you to raise 
 up children to be a reproach and a curse among 
 your people ! " 
 
 '' Out upon you, woman ! '' cried Israel, and almost 
 in the first delirium of his pain he had lifted his 
 hand to strike her. Her other predictions had 
 passed him by, but this one had smitten him. He 
 went home and shut himself in his room, and 
 throughout that day he let no one come near to him. 
 
 Israel knew his own heart at last. At his wife's 
 barrenness he was now angry with the anger of a 
 proud man whose pride had been abased. What 
 was the worth of it, after all, that he had conquered 
 tlie fate that had first beaten him down ? What 
 did it come to that the world was at his feet ? 
 Heaven was above him. and the poorest man in the 
 Mellah who was the father of a child might look 
 down on him with conttnnpt. 
 
 That night sleep forsook his eyelids, and his mouth 
 was parched and his spirit bitter. And sometimes 
 he reproached himself witli a thousand offences, and
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOML 6i 
 
 sometimes lie searched the Scriptures, that he might 
 persuade himself that he had walked blameless before 
 the Lord in the ordinances and commandments of God. 
 
 Meantime, Ruth, in her solitude, remembered that 
 it was now three years since she had been married 
 to Israel, and that bv the laws both of their race and 
 their country a woman who had been long barren 
 might straightway be divorced by her husband. 
 
 Next morning a message of business came from 
 the Khaleefa, but Israel would not answer it. Then 
 came an order to him from the Governor, but still he 
 paid no heed. At length he heard a feeble knock at 
 the door of his room. It was Ruth, his w"ife, and he 
 opened to her and she entered. 
 
 *•' Send me away from you ! '' she cried. " Send 
 me away ! " 
 
 '*Not for the place of the Ivaid," he answered 
 stoutly ; "no, nor the throne of the Sultan ! " 
 
 At that she fell on his neck and kissed him, and 
 they mingled their tears together. But he comforted 
 her at length, and said, '"'Look up, my dearest! look
 
 62 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 up ! I am a proud man among men, but it is even 
 as the Lord may deal with me. And which of us 
 shall murmur against God ? *' 
 
 At that word Ruth lifted her head from his bosom, 
 and her eyes were full of a sudden thought. 
 
 ^'Then let us ask of the Lord," she whispered 
 hotly, •' and surely lie will hear our prayer." 
 
 ''It is the voice of the Lord Himself!" cried 
 Israel ; " and this day it shall be done ! " 
 
 At the time of evening prayers Israel and Ruth 
 went up hand in hand, together to the synagogue, 
 in a narrow lane, off the Sok el Fuki. And Ruth 
 knelt in her place in the gallery close under the iron 
 grating and the candles that hung above it, and she 
 prayed : " Lord, have pity on this Thy servant, and 
 take away her reproach among women. Give her 
 grace in Thine eyes, Lord, that her husband be not 
 ashamed. Grant her a child of Thy mercy, that his 
 eye may smile upon her. Yet not as she willeth, but 
 as Thou wiliest, Lord, and Thy servant will be 
 satisfied."
 
 OP THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 63 
 
 But Israel stood long on the floor with his hand on 
 his heart and his eyes to the ground, and he called 
 on God as a debtor that will not be appeased, saying : 
 " How long wilt Thou forget me, Lord ? My enemies 
 triumph over me and foretell Thy doom upon me. 
 They sit in the lurking-places of the streets to deride 
 me. Confound my enemies, Lord, and rebuke their 
 counsels. Remember Euth, I beseech Thee, that she 
 is patient and her heart is humbled. Give her chil- 
 dren of Thy servant, and her first-born shall be 
 sanctified unto Thee. Give her one child, and it shall 
 be Thine — if it is a son, to be a Rabbi in Thy syna- 
 gogues. Hear me, Lord, and give heed to my cry, 
 for behold I swear it before Thee. One child, but one, 
 only one, son or daughter, and all my desire is before 
 Thee. How long wilt Thou forget me, Lord ? " 
 
 Now, the message of the Khaleefa which Israel had 
 not answered in his trouble was a request from the 
 Shereef of Wazzan that he should come without delay 
 to that town to count his rent-charges and assess his 
 dues. This request the Governor had transformed
 
 64 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 into a command, for the Shereef was a prince of Islam 
 in his own country, and in many provinces the be- 
 lievers paid him tribute. So in three days' time 
 Israel was ready to set forth on his journey, with men 
 and mules at his door, and camels packed with tents. 
 
 He was likely to be some months absent from Tetuan, 
 and it was impossible that Ruth should go with him. 
 They had never been separated before, and Ruth's 
 concern was that thay should be so long parted, but 
 Israel's was a deeper matter. 
 
 " Ruth," he said, when his time came, " I am going 
 away from you, but my enemies remain. They see 
 evil in all my doings, and in this act also they will 
 find offence. Promise me that if they make a mock 
 at you, for your husband's sake you will not see 
 them ; if they taunt you that you will not hear them ; 
 and if they ask anything concerning me that you will 
 answer them not at all.'' 
 
 And Ruth promised him that if his enemies made 
 a mock at her she should be as one that was blind, if 
 they taunted her as one that was deafj and if
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF XAOMI. 65 
 
 they questioned her concerning her husband as ono 
 that was dumb. Then they parted with many tears 
 and embraces. 
 
 Israel was half a year absent in the town and pro- 
 vince of Wazzan, and, having finished the work which 
 he came to do, he was sent back to Tetuan loaded 
 with presents from the Shereef, and surrounded by 
 soldiers and attendants, who did not leave him until 
 they had brought him to the door of his own house. 
 
 And there, in her chamber, sat Euth awaiting him, 
 her eyes dim with tears of joy. her throat throbbing 
 like the throat of a bird, and great news on her 
 tongue. The prayer in the synagogue had been 
 heard, and the child they had asked for was to come. 
 
 Israel was like a man beside himself with joy. He 
 burst in upon the message of his wife, and caught 
 htr to his breast again and again, and kissed her, 
 Long they stood together so, while he told her of the 
 chances which had befallen him during his absence 
 from her, and she told him of her solitude of six long 
 months, unbroken save for the poor company of 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Fatimali and Habeebah, wherein she had been blind 
 and deaf and dumb to all the world. 
 
 During the months thereafter until Kuth's time 
 was full Israel sat with her constantly. He could 
 scarce suffer himself to leave her company. He 
 covered her chamber with fruits and flowers. There 
 was no desire of her heart but he fulfilled it. And 
 they talked together lovingly of how they would 
 name the child when the time came to name it. 
 Israel concluded that if it was a son it should be 
 called David, and liuth decided that if it was a 
 daughter it should be called Naomi. And Euth 
 delighted to tell of how when it was weaned she 
 should take it up to the sjTiagogue, and say : ** 
 Lord ! I am the woman that knelt before Thee 
 praying. For this child I prayed, and Thou hast 
 heard my prayer." And Israel told of how liis son 
 should grow up to be a Rabbi to minister before 
 God, and how in those days it should come to pass 
 that the children of his fathers enemies should 
 crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 67 
 
 bread. Thus they built themselves castles in the air 
 for the future of the child that was to come. 
 
 Ruth's time came at last, and it was also the time 
 of the Feast of the Passover, being in the month of 
 Nisan. This was a cause of joy to Israel, for he was 
 eager to triumph over his enemies face to face, and 
 he could not wait eight other days for the Feast ot 
 the Circumcision. So, he set a supper fit for a 
 king : the fore-leg of a sheep and the fore-leg of an 
 ox, the ^g^ roasted in ashes, the balls of Charoseth, 
 the three Mitzvoth, and the wine. And by the 
 time the supper was ready the midwife had been 
 summoned, and it was the day of the night of the 
 Seder. 
 
 Then Israel sent messengers round the Mellah to 
 summon his guests. Only his enemies he invited, 
 his bitterest foes, his unceasing revilers, and among 
 them were the three base usurers, Abraham Pigman, 
 Judah ben Lolo, and Reuben Maliki. " They cursed 
 me," he thought, " and I shall look on their con- 
 fusion." His heart thirsted to summon Rebecca
 
 68 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Bensabbot also, but well he knew that her dainty 
 masters would not sit at meat with her. 
 
 And when the enemies were bidden, all of them 
 excused themselves and refused, saying it was the 
 Feast of the Passover, when no man should sit save 
 in his own house, and at his own table. But Israel 
 was not to be gainsaid. He went out to them him- 
 self, and said, " Come, let bygones be bygones. 
 It is the feast of our nation. Let us eat and drink 
 together." 80, partly by his importunity, but 
 mainly in their bewilderment, yet against all rule 
 and custom, they suffered themselves to go with him. 
 
 And when they were come into his house and were 
 seated about his table in the patio, and he had 
 washed his hands and taken the wine and blessed it, 
 and passed it to all, and they had drunk together, he 
 could not keep back his tongue from taunting them. 
 Then when he had washed again and dipped the 
 celery in the vinegar, and they had drunk of the 
 wine once more, he taunted them afresh and laughed. 
 But nothing yet had they understood of his meaning,
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 69 
 
 and they looked into each other's faces and asked, 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Wait! Only wait!" Israel answered. ''You 
 shall see ! " 
 
 At that moment Ruth sent for him to her chamber 
 and he went in to her. 
 
 *'I am a sorrowful woman," she said. '•' Some evil 
 is about to befall — I know it, I feel it." 
 
 But he only rallied her and laughed again, and 
 prophesied joy on the morrow. Then, returning to 
 the patio, where the passover cakes had been broken, 
 he called for the supper, and bade his guests to 
 eat and drink as much as their hearts desired. 
 
 They could do neither now, for the fear that pos- 
 sessed them at sight of Israel's frenzy. The three old 
 usurers, Abraham, Judah, and Reuben, rose to go, 
 but Israel cried, " Stay ! Stay, and see what is to 
 come ! " and under the very force" of his will they 
 yielded and sat down again. 
 
 Still Israel drank and laughed and derided them. 
 In the wild torrent of his madness he called them by
 
 70 TJIE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 names they knew and by names they did not know 
 — Harpagon, Shylock, Bildad, Elihu — and at every 
 new name he lanprhed again. And wliilo he carried 
 himself so in tlie outer court the slave woman 
 Fatimah came from tlie inuer room with word tliat 
 the child was born. 
 
 ■ At that Israel was like a man distraught. He 
 leapt up from the table and faced full upon his 
 guests, and cried, " Now you know what it is ; 
 and now you know why you are bidden to this 
 supper ! You are here to rejoice with me over 
 my enemies ! Drink ! drink I Confusion to all of 
 them ! " And he lifted a winecup and drank himself. 
 
 They were abashed before him, and tried to 
 edge out of the patio into the street; but he 
 put his back to the passage, and faced them 
 again. 
 
 "You will not drink?" he said. "Then listen to 
 me." He dashed the winecup out of his hand, and 
 it broke into fragments on the floor. His laughter 
 was gone, his face was aflame, and his voice
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 
 
 rose to a shrill cry. " Yoii foretold the doom of 
 God upon me; you brought me low, you made me 
 ashamed : but l^ehold how the Lord has lifted me 
 up ! You set your women to prophesy that God 
 would not suffer me to raise up children to be a 
 reproach and a curse among my people ; but God 
 has this day given me a son like the best of you. 
 More than that — more than that — my son shall yet 
 see '' 
 
 The slave woman was touching his arm. ''It is a 
 girl," she said ; " a girl ! " 
 
 For a moment Israel stammered and paused. 
 Then he cried : '' No matter ! She shall see your 
 own children fatherless, and with none to show them 
 mercy ! She shall see the iniquity of their fathers 
 remembered against them ! She shall see them beg 
 their bread, and seek it in desolate places ! And 
 now you can go ! Go ! go ! '" 
 
 He had stepped aside as he spoke, and with a 
 sweep of his arm he was driving them all out like 
 sheep before him, dumbfounded and with their eyes
 
 72 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 in the dust, when suddenly there was a low cry from 
 the inner room. 
 
 It was llutli calling for her husband. Israel 
 wheeled about and went into her hurriedly, and his 
 enemies, by one impulse of evil instinct, followed 
 him and listened from the threshold. 
 
 Piuth's face was a face of fear, and her lips moved, 
 but no voice came from them. 
 
 And Israel said : " How is it with you, my dearest, 
 joy of my joy and pride of my pride ? " 
 
 Then Euth lifted the babe from her bosom and 
 said : " The Lord has counted my prayer to me as 
 sin — look, see, the child is both dumb and blind ! " 
 
 At that word Israel's heart died within him, but 
 he muttered out of his dry throat, " No, no, never 
 believe it ! " 
 
 *' True, true, it is true," she moaned, " the child 
 has not uttered a cry, and its eyelids have not 
 blinked at the light." 
 
 *' Never believe it, I say ! " Israel growled, and he 
 lilted the babe in his arms to try it.
 
 OF THE BIRTH OF NAOMI. 73 
 
 But when he held it to the fading light of the 
 window which opened upon the street where the 
 woman called the prophetess had cursed him, the 
 eyes of the child did not close, neither did their 
 pupils diminish. Then his limbs began to tremble, 
 so that the midwife took the babe out of his arms 
 and laid it again on its mother's bosom. 
 
 And lluth wept over it, saying, " Even if it were 
 a son never could it serve in the synagogue ! 
 Never ! Xever ! "' 
 
 At that Israel began to curse and to swear. His 
 enemies had now pushed themselves into the cham- 
 ber, and they cried, "Peace! Peace!'' And old 
 Judah ben Lolo, the elder of the synagogue, grunted, 
 and said, "Is it not w^ritten that no one afflicted of 
 God shall minister in His temples ? " 
 
 Israel stared around in silence into the faces 
 about him, first into the face of his wife and then 
 into the faces of his enemies whom he had bidden. 
 Then he fell to laughing hideously and crying, 
 " What matter ? Every monkey is a gazelle to
 
 74 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 its mother ? " But after that he staggered, his knees 
 gave way. he pitched half forward and half aside, 
 like a falling horse, and with a deep groan he fell 
 witli his face to the floor. 
 
 The midwife and the slave lifted him up and 
 moistened his lips with water ; but his enemies 
 turned and left him, muttering among themselves, 
 "The Lord killeth and maketh alive, He bringeth 
 low and lifteth up, and into the pit that the evil 
 man diggeth for another He causeth his foot to 
 slip."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI. 
 
 Throughout Tetnan and the country round about, 
 Israel was now an object of contempt. God bad de- 
 clared against bim, God bad brought bim low, God 
 Himself bad filled bim witb confusion. Tben wliy 
 should man show him mercy ? 
 
 But if he was despised he was still powerfuL 
 None dare openly insult him. And, between their 
 fear and their scorn of him, the shifts of the rabble 
 to give vent to their contempt were often ludicrous 
 enough. Thus, they would call their dogs and their 
 asses by his name, and the dogs would be the scabbiest 
 in the streets, and the asses the laziest in the 
 markets. 
 
 He would be caught in the crush of the traffic at 
 the town gate or at the gate of the Mellab, and while
 
 76 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 he stood aside to allow a line of pack-mules to pass 
 lie would hear a voice from behind him crying 
 huskily, "Accursed old Israel ! Get on home to your 
 mother!" Then, turning quickly round, he would 
 find that close at his heels a negro of most innocent 
 countenance was cudgelling his donkey by that title. 
 
 He would go past the Saints' Houses in the public 
 ways, and at the sound of his footstep the bleached 
 and eyeless lepers who sat under the white walls, 
 crying " Allah ! Allah ! Allah ! " would suddenly 
 change their cry to " Arrah ! Arrah ! Arrah ! " ''Go 
 on ! Go on ! GJo on ! " 
 
 He would walk across the Sok on Fridays, and 
 hear shrieks and peals of laughter, and see grinning 
 faces with gleaming white teeth turned in his direc- 
 tion, and he would know that the story-tellers were 
 mimicking his voice and the jugglers imitating his 
 gestures. 
 
 His prosperity counted for nothing against the 
 open brand of God's displeasure. The veriest muck- 
 worm in the market-place spat out at sight of him.
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF XAOMI. 77 
 
 Moor and Jew, Arab and Berber — they all despised 
 him ! 
 
 Nevertheless, the disaster which had befallen his 
 house had not crushed him. It had brought out 
 every fibre of his being, every muscle of his soul. 
 He had quarrelled with God by reason of it, and his 
 quarrel with God had made his quarrel with his 
 fellow-man the fiercer. 
 
 There was just one man in the town who found no 
 offence in either form of warfare. The more wicked 
 the one and the more outrageous the other, the 
 better for this person. 
 
 It was the Goveraor of Tetuan. His name was 
 El i Arby, but he was known as Ben Aboo, the son of 
 his father. That father had been none other than 
 the late Sultan. Therefore Ben Aboo was a brother 
 of Abd er-Eahman, though by another mother, a negro 
 slave. To be a Sultan's brother in Morocco is not to 
 be a Sultan's favourite, but a possible aspirant to his 
 throne. Nevertheless Ben Aboo had been made a 
 Kaid, a chief, in the Sultan's army, and eventually a
 
 78 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 commander-in-chief of his cavaln'. In that capacity- 
 he had led a raid for arrears of tribute on the Beni 
 Hasan, the Beni Idar, and tlie Wad lias. These re- 
 bellious tribes inhabit the country near to Tetuan, 
 and hence Ben Aboo's attention had been first directed 
 to that town. When he had returned from his ex- 
 pedition he offered the vSultan fifteen thousand 
 dollars for the place of its Basha, or Governor, and 
 promised him thirty thousand dollars a year as 
 tribute. The Sultan took his money, and accepted 
 his promise. There was a Basha at Tetuan already, 
 but that was a trilling difficulty. The good man was 
 summoned to the Sultan's presence, accused of 
 appropriating the Shereefian tributes, stripped of all 
 he had, and cast into prison. 
 
 That was how Ben Aboo had become Governor of 
 Tetuan, and the story of how Israel had become his 
 informal Administrator of Affairs is no less curious. 
 At first Ben Aboo seemed likely to lose by his dubious 
 transaction. His new function was partly military 
 and partly civil; He was a valiant soldier — the black
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI. 79 
 
 blood of his slave-mother had counted for so much ; 
 but he was a bad administrator — he could neither 
 read nor write nor reckon figures. In this dilemma 
 his natural colleague would have been his Khaleefa, 
 his deputy, Ali bin Jillool, but because this man had 
 been the deputy of his predecessor also, he could not 
 trust him. He had two other immediate subordin- 
 ates, his Commander of Artillery and his Commander 
 of Infantry, but neither of them could spell the letters 
 of his name. Then there was his Taleb the Adel, his 
 scribe the notary, Hosain ben Hashen, styled Haj, 
 because he had made the pilgi'image to Mecca, but 
 he was also the Imam, or head of the Mosque, and 
 the wily Ben Aboo foresaw the danger of some day 
 coming into collision with the religious sentiment of 
 his people. Finally, there was the Kadi^ Mohammed 
 ben Arly, but the judge was an official outside his 
 jurisdiction, and he wanted a man who should be 
 under his hand. That was the combination of cir- 
 cumstances whereby Israel came to Tetuan. 
 
 Israel's first years in his strange office had satisfied
 
 8 3 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 his master entirely. lie had carried the Basha's seal 
 and acted for him in all affairs of money. The 
 revenues had risen to fifty thousand dollars, so that 
 the Basha had twenty thousand to the good. Then 
 Ben Aboo's ambition began to override itself. He 
 started an oil-mill, and wanted Israel to select a 
 hundred houses owned by rich men, that he 
 might compel each house to take ten kollahs of oil 
 — an extravagant quantity, at seven dollars for each 
 kollah — an exorbitant price. Israel had refused. 
 *' It is not just," he had said. 
 
 Other expedients for enlarging his revenue Ben 
 Aboo had suggested, but Israel had steadfastly re- 
 sisted all of them. Sometimes the Governor had 
 pretended that he had received an order from the 
 Sultan to impose a gross and wicked tax, but Israel's 
 answer had been the same. '• There is no evil in 
 the world but injustice," he had said. '' Do justice, 
 and you do all that God can ask or man expect.'' 
 
 For such opposition to the vrill of the Basha any 
 other person would have been cast into a damp
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF XAOML Si 
 
 dungeon at night, and chained in the hot sun by- 
 day. Israel was still necessary. So Ben Aboo merely 
 longed for the dawn of that day whereon he should 
 need him no more. 
 
 But since the disaster which had befallen Israel's 
 house everything had undergone a change. It was 
 now Israel himself who suggested dubious means of 
 revenue. There was no device of a crafty brain for 
 turning the very air itself into money — ransoms, 
 promissory notes, and false judgments — but Israel 
 thought of it. Thus he persuaded the Governor to 
 send his small currency to the Jewish shops to be 
 changed into silver dollars at the rate of nine ducats 
 to the dollar, when a dollar was worth ten in cur- 
 rency. And after certain of the shopkeepers, having 
 changed fifty thousand dollars at that rate, fled to 
 the Sultan to complain, Israel advised that their 
 debtors should be called together, their debts 
 purchased, and bonds drawn up and certified for 
 ten times the amounts of them. Thus a few were 
 banished from their homes in fear of imprisonment, 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 many were sorely harassed, and some were entirely 
 ruined. 
 
 It was a strange spectacle. He whom the rabble 
 gibed at in the public streets held the fate of eveiy 
 man of them in his hand. Their dogs and their 
 asses might bear his name, but their own lives and 
 liberty must answer to it. 
 
 Israel looked on at ail with an equal mind, neither 
 flinching at his indignities nor glorying in his power. 
 He beheld the wreck of families without remorse, and 
 heard the wail of women and the cry of children 
 without a qualm. Neither did he delight in the 
 sufferings of them that had derided him. His evil 
 impulse was a higher matter — his faith in justice 
 had been broken up. He had been wrong. There 
 there was no such thing as justice in the world, and 
 there could, therefore, be no such thing as injustice. 
 There was nothing but the blind swirl of chance, and 
 the wild scramble for life. The man had quarrelled 
 with God. 
 
 But Israel's heart was not yet dead. There was
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMf. 83 
 
 one place, where he who bore himself with such 
 austerity towards the world was a man of great 
 tenderness. That place was his own home. What 
 he saw there was enough to stir the fountains of his 
 being — nay, to exhaust them, and to send him abroad 
 as a river-bed that is dry. 
 
 In that first hour of his abasement, after he had 
 been confounded before the enemies whom he had 
 expected to confound, Israel had thought of himself, 
 but Euth's unselfish heart had even then thought 
 only of the babe. 
 
 The child was born blind and dumb and deaf. At 
 the feast of life there was no place left for it. So 
 Ruth turned her face from it to the wall, and called 
 on God to take it. 
 
 ^•' Take it ! " she cried—'' take it ! ]\Iake haste, 
 God, make haste and take it ! " 
 
 But the child did not die. It lived and grew 
 strong. Ruth herself suckled it, and as she nourished 
 it in her bosom her heart yearned over it, and she 
 forgot the prayer she had prayed concerning it. So,
 
 84 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 little by little, her spirit returned to her, and day by 
 day her soul deceived her, and hour by hour an angel 
 out of heaven seemed to come to her side and whisper, 
 " Take heart of hope, Ruth ! God does not afflict 
 willingly. Perhaps the child is not blind, perhaps 
 it is not deaf, perhaps it is not dumb. Who shall 
 yet say ? Wait and see ! " 
 
 And, during the first few months of its life, Ruth 
 could see no difference in her child from the children 
 of other women. Sometimes she would kneel by its 
 cradle and gaze into the flower-cup of its eye, and 
 the eye was blue and beautiful, and there was nothing 
 to say that the little cup was broken, and the little 
 chamber dark. And sometimes she would look at 
 the pretty shell of its ear, and the ear was round and 
 full as a shell on the shore, and nothing told her that 
 the voice of the sea was not heard in it, and that all 
 within was silence. 
 
 So Ruth cherished ]ier hope in secret, and wliis- 
 pered her heart and said, " It is well, all is well with 
 the child. She will look upon my face and see it,
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI, 
 
 and listen to my voice and hear it, and lier own 
 little tongue will yet speak to me, and make me 
 very glad.'' And then an ineffable serenity would 
 spread over her face and transJSgure it. 
 
 But when the time was come that a child's eyes, 
 having grown familiar with the light, should look on 
 its little hands, and stare at its little fingers, and 
 clutch at its cradle, and gaze about in a peaceful per- 
 plexity at everything, still the eyes of Ruth's child 
 did not open in seeing, but lay idle and empty. And 
 when the time was ripe that a child's ears should 
 hear from hour to hour the sweet babble of a 
 mother's love, and its tongue begin to give back 
 the words in lisping sounds, the ear of Ruth's child 
 heard nothing, and its tongue was mute. 
 
 Then Ruth's spirit sank, but still the angel out of 
 heaven seemed to come to her, and find her a thou- 
 sand excuses, and say, " Wait, Ruth ; only wait, only 
 a little longer." 
 
 So Ruth held back her tears, and bent above her 
 babe again, and watched for its smile that should
 
 b'6 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 iiiiswer to lier smile, and listened for the prattle of 
 its little lips. But never a sound as of speech seemed 
 to break the silence between the words that trembled 
 from her own tongue, and never once across her 
 baby's face passed the light of her tearful smile. 
 
 It w^as a pitiful thing to see her wasted pains, and 
 most pitiful of all for the pains she was at to conceal 
 then?. Thus, every day at midday she would carry 
 Jier little one into the patio, and w^atch if its eyes 
 should blink in the sunshine; but if Israel chanced 
 to come upon her then, she would drop her head and 
 say, " How sweet the air is to-day, and how pleasant 
 to sit in the sun ! " 
 
 Thus, too, when a bird was singing from the fig- 
 tree that grew in the court, she would catch up her 
 child and carry it close, and watch if its ears should 
 hear ; but if Israel saw her, she would laugh — a little 
 shrill laugh like a cry — and cover her face in con- 
 fusion. 
 
 For a time Israel tried to humour her, seeming not 
 to see what he saw, and pretending not to hear what
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI. S7 
 
 he heard. But every day his heart bled at sight of 
 her, and one day he coukl bear up no longer, for his 
 very soul had sickened, and he cried, " Have done, 
 Euth ! — for mercy's sake, have done ! The child is 
 a soul in chains, and a spirit in prison. Her eyes are 
 darkness, like the tomb's, and her ears are silence, 
 like the grave's. Never will she smile to her mother's 
 smile, or answer to her father's speech. The first 
 sound she will hear will be the last trump, and the 
 first face she will see will be the face of God." 
 
 At that, Ruth flung herself down and burst into a 
 flood of tears. The hope that she had cherished was 
 dead. Israel could comfort her no longer. The 
 fountain of his own- heart was dry. He drew a long 
 breath, and went away to his bad work at the 
 Kasbah. 
 
 The child lived and thrived. They had called her 
 Naomi, as they had agi-eed to do before she was born, 
 though no name she knew of herself, and a mockery 
 it seemed to name her. At four years of age she 
 was a creature of the most delicate beauty. Notwith-
 
 88 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 standing her Jewisli parentage, she was fair as the 
 day and fresh as the dawn. And if her eyes were 
 darkness, there was light within her soul ; and if her 
 ears were silence, there was music within her heart. 
 She was brighter than the sun which she could not 
 see, and sweeter than the songs which she could not 
 hear. She was joyous as a bird in its narrow cage, 
 and never did she fret at the bars which bound her. 
 And, like the bird that sings at miduight, her cheery 
 soul sang in its darkness. 
 
 Only one sound seemed ever to come from her 
 little lips, and it was the sound of laughter. With 
 this she lay down to sleep at night, and rose again 
 in the morning. She laughed as she combed her hair, 
 and laughed again as she came dancing out of her 
 chamber at dawn. 
 
 She had only one sentinel on the outpost of her 
 spirit, and that was the sense of touch and feeling. 
 With this she seemed to know the day from the 
 night, and when the sun was shining and when the 
 sky w^as dark. She knew her mother, too, by the
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF XAOMl. 89 
 
 toucli of her fingers, and her father by the brushing 
 of his beard. She knew the flowers that grew in the 
 fields outside the gate of the town, and she would 
 gather them in her lap, as other children did, and 
 bring them home with her in her hands. She 
 seemed almost to know their colours also, for the 
 flowers which she would twine in her hair were red, 
 and the white were thos3 which she would lay on her 
 bosom. And truly a flower she was of herself, 
 whereto the wind alone could whisper, and only the 
 sun could speak aload. 
 
 Sweet and touchins' were the efforts she sometimes 
 
 o 
 
 made to cling to them that were about her. Thus 
 her heart was the heart of a child, and she knew no 
 delight like to that of playing with other children. 
 But her father's house was under a ban ; no child of 
 any neighbour in Tetuan was allowed to cross its 
 threshold, and, save for the children whom she met 
 in the fields when she walked there by her mother's 
 hand, no child did she ever meet. 
 
 Ruth saw this, and then, for the first time, she
 
 93 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 became conscious of the isolation in which she had 
 lived since her marriacre with Israel. vShe herself 
 had her husband for companion and comrade, but 
 her little Naomi was doubly and trebly alone — first, 
 alone as a child that is the only child of her parents ; 
 again, alone as a child whose parents are cut off from 
 the parents of other children ; and yet again, once 
 more, alone as a child that is blind and dumb. 
 
 But Israel saw it also, and one day he brought 
 home with him from the Kasbah a little black boy 
 with a sweet round face and big innocent white eyes 
 which might have been the eyes of an angel. The 
 boy's name was Ali, and he was four years old. Ilis 
 father had killed his mother for infidelity and neglect 
 of their child, and, having no one to buy him out of 
 prison, he had that day been executed. Then little 
 Ali had been left all 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 there-
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAO.VI. 91 
 
 after no difference did she make between liim 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 ! 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 Xaomi 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
 
 92 'I HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 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 
 antica 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 !" 
 "Arr-ah!" 
 
 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
 
 OF THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI. 93 
 
 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 
 raeant. At the time of the harvest, when Ruth 
 took them out into the fields, she would ride on 
 All'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. 
 
 Pretty and piteous sights ! Who could look on 
 them without tears ? One thinoj at least w^as clear :
 
 94 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 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.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE DEATH OF EUTH. 
 
 For all her joy and all her prettiness, Naomi was a 
 burden which only love could bear. To think of the 
 girl by day, and to dream of her by night, never to 
 sit by her without pity of her helplessness, and 
 never to leave her without dread of the mischances 
 that might so easily befall, to see for her, to hear for 
 her, to speak for her, truly the tyranny of the burden 
 was terrible. 
 
 Ruth sank under it. Through seven years she 
 was eyes of the child's eyes, and ears of her ears, 
 and tongue of her tongue. After that her own 
 sight became dim, and her hearing faint. It was 
 almost as if she had spent them on Naomi in the 
 yearning of love and pity. Soon afterwards her 
 bodily strength failed her also, and then she knew 
 that her time had come, and that she was to lay
 
 96 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 down lier burden for ever. But her burden had 
 become dear, and she clung to it. Slie coukl not 
 look upon the child and think it, that she, who had 
 spent her strength for her from the first, must leave 
 her now to other love and tending. 80 she betook 
 herself to an upper room, and gave strict orders to 
 Fatiraah and Habeebah that Naomi was to be kept 
 from her altogether, that sight of the child's helpless 
 happy face might tempt her soul no more. 
 
 And there in her death-chamber Israel sat with 
 her constantly, settling his countenance steadfastly, 
 and coming and going softly. He was more constant 
 than a slave, and more tender than a woman. His 
 love was great, but also he was eating out his big 
 heart with remorse. The root of his trouble was the 
 child. He never talked of her, and neither did lluth 
 dwell upon her name. Yet they thought of little 
 else while they sat together. 
 
 And even if they had been minded to talk of the 
 child, what had they to say of her ? They had no 
 memories to recall, no sweet childish sayings, no
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. 97 
 
 simple broken speech, no pretty lisp — nothing had 
 they to bring back out of any harvest of the past of 
 all the dear delicious wealth that lies stored in the 
 treasure-houses of the hearts of happy parents. That 
 way everything was a waste. Always, as Israel 
 entered her room, Euth would say, " How is the 
 child ? " And always Israel would answer, " She is 
 well." Bat, if at that moment Naomi's laughter 
 came up to them from the patio, where she played 
 with All, they would cover their faces and be silent. 
 
 It was a melancholy parting. No one came near 
 them — neither Moor nor Jew, neither Rabbi nor 
 elder. The idle women of the Mellah would some- 
 times stand outside in the street and look up at their 
 house, knowing that the black camel of death was 
 kneeling at their gate. Other company they had 
 none. In such solitude they passed four weeks, and 
 when the time of the end seemed near, Israel himself 
 read aloud the prayer for the dyiug, the prayer 
 Shema' Yisrael, and Ruth repeated the words of it 
 after him. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 9S THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Meantime, while Rnth lay in the upper chamber, 
 little Naomi sported and played in the patio with 
 Ali, bat she missed her mother constantly. This she 
 made plain by many silent acts of helpless love that 
 knew no way to speak aloud. Thus she would lay 
 flowers on the seats where her mother had used to 
 sit, and, if at night she found them untouched where 
 she had left them, her little face would fall, and her 
 laughter die otf her lips ; but if they had withered 
 and some one had cast them into the oven, she would 
 laugh again and fetch other flowers from the fields, 
 until the house would be full of the odour of the 
 meadow and the scent of the hill. 
 
 And well they knew, who looked upon her then, 
 whom she missed, and what the question was tbat 
 halted on her tongue ; yet how could they answer 
 her ? There was no way to do that until she herself 
 knew how to ask. 
 
 But this she did on a day near to the end. It was 
 evening, and she was being put to bed by Habeebah, 
 and had just risen from her innocent pantomime of
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. 99 
 
 prayer beside Ali, wlien Israel, coming from Ruth's 
 chamber, entered the children's room. Then, touch- 
 ing with her hand the seat whereon Ruth had used 
 to sit, Naomi laid down her head on the pillow, and 
 then rose and lay down again, and rose yet again 
 and yet again lay down, and then came to where 
 Israel was and stood before him. And at that Israel 
 knew that the soul of his helpless child had asked 
 him, as plainly as words of the tongue can speak, 
 how often she should lie to sleep at night and rise 
 to play in the morning before her mother came to 
 her again. 
 
 The tears gushed into his eyes, and he left the 
 children and returned to his wife's chamber. 
 
 " Ruth," he cried, '' call the child to you, I beseech 
 you ! " 
 
 '' No, no, no ! " cried Ruth. 
 
 '•' Let her come to you and touch you and kiss you, 
 and be with you before it is too late," said Israel. 
 *' She misses you, and fills the house with flowers for 
 you. It breaks my heart to see her."
 
 100 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 " It will break mine also/' said llutli. 
 
 But she consented that Naomi should be called, 
 and Fatimah was sent to fetch her. 
 
 The sun was setting, and through the window 
 which looked out to the west, over the river and the 
 orange orcliards and the palpitating plains beyond, 
 its dying rays came into the room in a bar of golden 
 litj-ht. It fell at that instant on Ruth's face, and she 
 was white and wasted. And through the other 
 window of the room, which looked out over the 
 Mellah into the town, and across the market-place to 
 the mosque and to the battery on the hill, there came 
 up from the darkening streets below the shuffle of 
 the feet of a crowd and the sound of many voices. 
 The Jews of Tetuan were trooping back to their own 
 little quarter, that their Moorish masters might lock 
 them into it for the night. 
 
 Naomi was already in bed, and Fatimah brought 
 her away in her nightdress. She seemed to know 
 where she was to be taken, for she laughed as 
 Fatimah held her by the hand, and danced as she
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. loi 
 
 was led to her mother's chamber. But when she 
 was come to the door of it, suddenly her laughter 
 ceased, and her little face sobered, as if something 
 in the close abode of pain had troubled the senses 
 that were left to her. 
 
 It is, perhaps, the most touching experience of the 
 deaf and blind that no greeting can ever welcome 
 them. When Naomi stood like a little white vision 
 at the threshold of the room, Israel took her hand in 
 silence, and drew her up to the pillow of the bed 
 where her mother rested, and in silence Iiuth brought 
 the child to her bosom. 
 
 Then a strange thing happened. For a moment 
 Naomi seemed to be perplexed. She touched her 
 mother's fingers, and they were changed, for they 
 had grown thin and long. Then she felt her face, 
 and that was changed also, for it was become 
 withered and cold. And, missing the grasp of the 
 one and the smile of the other, she first turned her 
 little head aside as one that listens closely, and then 
 gently withdrew herself from the arms that held her.
 
 I02 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Ruth had watched her with eyes that overflowed, 
 and now she burst into sobs outright. 
 
 " The child does not know me ! " she cried. " Did 
 I not tell you it would break my heart ? " 
 
 " Try her again/' said Israel ; " try her again." 
 
 Ruth devoured her tears, and called on Fatimah to 
 bring the child back to her side. Then, loosening 
 the necklace that was about her own neck, she 
 bound it about the neck of Naomi, and also the 
 bracelets that were on her wrists she unclasped and 
 clasped them on the waists of the child. This she 
 did that Naomi might remember the hands that had 
 been kind to her always. But when the child felt 
 the ornaments she seemed only to know, by the 
 quick instinct of a girl, that she was decked out 
 bravely, and giving no thought to Ruth, who waited 
 and watched for the grasp of recognition and the 
 kiss of joy, she withdrew herself again from her 
 mother's arms, and bounded into the middle of the 
 room, and suddenly began to laugh and to dance. 
 
 It was an awful thing to look upon in that still
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. 103 
 
 hour. The sun's dying light, which had rested on 
 Euth's wasted face, now glistened and sparkled on 
 the jewels of the child, and glowed on her blind 
 eyes, and gleamed on her fair hair, and reddened 
 her white nightdrest while she danced and laughed 
 to her mother's death. Nothing did the child know 
 of death, any more than Adam himself before Abel 
 was slain, and it was almost as if a devil out of hell 
 had entered into her innocent heart, and possessed 
 it that she might make a mock of the dying of the 
 dearest friend she had known on earth. 
 
 It was a weird dream, a terrible nightmare, a con« 
 suming horror. On and on she danced, to no 
 measure and no time, and not with a child's uncer- 
 tain step which breaks down at motion as its tongue 
 breaks down at speech, but wildly and deliriously. 
 The room was darkening fast, but still across the 
 nether end, by the foot of the bed, streamed the 
 dull red bar of sunlight with the little red figure 
 leaping and prancing and laughing in the midst 
 of it.
 
 104 ^J'HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 With an awful cry Ruth fell back on the pillow 
 and turned her eyes to the wall. The black woman 
 dropped her head that she might not see. And 
 Israel covered liis face and groaned in his tearless 
 agony, '• Lord God, long hast thou chastised me 
 "with whips, and now I am chastised with scoi';[oions ! " 
 
 lluth recovered herself quickly. *' Bring her to 
 me again I "' she faltered ; and once more Fatimah 
 brought Naomi back to the bedside. Tlien, em- 
 bracing and kissing the child, and seeming to forget 
 in the torment of her trouble that Xaomi could not 
 hear her, she cried, " It's your mother, Naomi ! 
 your mother, darling, though so sick and changed ! 
 Don't you know her, Naomi ? Your mother, your 
 own mother, sweet one, your dear mother who loves 
 you so, and must leave you now and see you no 
 more ! " 
 
 Now what it was in that wild plea that touched 
 the consciousness of the child at last, only God 
 Himself can say. But first Naomi's cheeks grew 
 pale at the embrace of the arms that held her, and
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. 105 
 
 then tliey reddened, and then lier little nervous 
 fingers grasped at Ruth's hands again, and then her 
 little lips trembled, and then, at length, she fluug 
 herself along Ruth's bosom and nestled close in her 
 embrace. 
 
 Ruth fell back on her pillow now with a cry of 
 joy ; the black woman stood and wept by the wall ; 
 and Israel, unable to bear up his heart any longer, 
 was melted and unmanned. The sun had gone 
 down, and the room was darkening rapidl}^, for the 
 twilight in that land is short ; the streets were 
 quiet, and the mooddin of the neighbouring minaret 
 was chanting in the silence, "■ God is great, God is 
 great ! " 
 
 After awhile the little one fell asleep at her 
 mother's bosom, and, seeing this, Fatimah would 
 have lifted her away and carried her back to her 
 own bed ; but Ruth said, " No ; leave her, let me 
 have her with me while I may." 
 
 '•No one shall take her from you," said Israel. 
 
 Then she gazed down at the child's face and said,
 
 io6 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 "It is hard to leave her and never once to have 
 heard her voice." 
 
 "That is the bitterest cup of all,'"' said Israel. 
 
 "I shall not return to her," said lluth, ''but she 
 shall come to me, and then, perhaps — who knows ? 
 — perhaps in the resurrection I shall hear it," 
 
 Israel made no answer. 
 
 Ruth gazed down at the child again, and said, 
 " My helpless darling ! Who will care for you when 
 I am gone ? " 
 
 " Rest, rest, and sleep ! " said Israel. 
 
 '•Ah ! yes, I know," said Ruth. " How foolish of 
 me ! You are her father, and you love her also. 
 Yet promise me — promise " 
 
 " For love and tending she shall never lack," said 
 Israel. " And now lie you still, my dearest, lie 
 still and sleep." 
 
 She stretched out her hand to him. '• Yes, that 
 was what I meant," she said, and smiled. Then a 
 shadow crossed her face in the gloom. "But 
 when ] am gone," she said, "will Naomi ever
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. 107 
 
 know tliat her mother who is dead had wronged 
 her ? " 
 
 '' You have never wronged her,*' said Israel. 
 " Have done, oh, have done I "" 
 
 " God punished us for our prayer, my husband/' 
 said Ruth. 
 
 '•' Peace, peace ! " said IsraeL 
 
 '' But God is good,'" said Euth, •• and surely He 
 will not afflict our child much longer.'' 
 
 " Hush ! Hush ! You will awaken her," said 
 Israel, not thinking what he said. '* Xow lie-still 
 and sleep, dearest. You are tired also." 
 
 She lay quiet for a time, gazing, while the light 
 remained, into the face of the sleeping child, and 
 listening, when the light failed, to her gentle 
 breathing. Then she babbled and crooned over her 
 with a childish joy. ''Yes, yes, father is right, 
 and mother must lie quiet — very quiet, and so 
 her little Xaomi will sleep long — very long, and 
 wake happy and well in the morning. How bonny 
 she will look ! How fresh and rosv ! "
 
 icS THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 She paused a moment. Her laboured breathing 
 came quick and fast. '• J3ut shall / be here to see 
 her? Shall I?" 
 
 She i^aused again, and then, as though to banish 
 thought, she began to sing in a low voice that was 
 like a moan. Presently her singing ceased, and she 
 Sjioke again, but this time in broken whispers. 
 
 "How soft and glossy her hair is! I wonder if 
 Fatimah will remember to wash it every day. She 
 should twist it around her fingers to keep it in pretty 
 
 curls Oh, why did God make my child so 
 
 beautiful ? . . . . Dear me, her morning frock wanted 
 stitching at the sleeves ; it's a chance if Habeebah 
 
 has seen to it. Then there's her underclothing 
 
 Will she be deaf and blind and dumb always? I 
 wonder if I shall see her when I . . . . They say that 
 
 angels are sent Yes, yes, that's it; when 
 
 I am there — there — I will go to (Jod and say, '0 
 Lord ! my little girl whom I have left behind, she 
 is ... . You would never think, Lord, how 
 many things may happen to one like her. Let me
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. IC9 
 
 go — only let me watch over — Lord, let me be lier 
 guar ' " 
 
 Her weakness had conquered her, and she was 
 quiet at last. Israel sat in silence by the post of 
 the bed. His heart was surging itself out of his 
 choking breast. The black woman stood somewhere 
 by the wall. After a time Ruth seemed to awake as 
 from sleep. She was in great excitement. 
 
 '•Israel, Israel!" she cried in a voice of joy, '*'! 
 have seen a vision. It was Naomi. She was no 
 longer deaf and blind and dumb. She was grown to 
 be a woman, but I knew her instantly. Kot a woman 
 either, but a young maiden, and so beautiful, so 
 beautiful ! Yes, and she could see and hear and 
 speak."' 
 
 Israel thought Ruth had become delirious, and he 
 tried to soothe her, but her agitation was not to be 
 overcome. '-'The Lord has seen our tears at last," 
 she cried. ''He has put our sin beneath His feet. 
 "We are forgiven. It will be well with the child 
 
 yet."
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Israel did not try to gainsay lier, and at sight and 
 sound of her joy, seeing it so beautiful, yet thinking 
 it so vain, he could not help at last but weep. 
 Presently she became quiet again, and then again, 
 after a little while, she woke as from a sleep. 
 
 ^'I am ready now," she said in a whisper, ^' quite 
 ready, sweet Heaven, quite, quite ready now." 
 
 Then with her one free hand she felt in the dark- 
 ness for Israel, where he sat beside her, and touching 
 his forehead she smoothed it, and said very softly, 
 '' Farewell, my husband ! " 
 
 And Israel answered her, " Farewell ! " 
 ^' Good-night ! " she whispered. 
 And Israel drew down her hand from his forehead 
 to his lips and sobbed and said, " Good-night, 
 beloved ! " 
 
 Tlien she put her white lips to the child's blind 
 eyes, and at that moment the spirit of tlie Lord came 
 to her, and the Lord took her, and she died. 
 
 When lamps had been brought into the room, and 
 Fatimah saw that the end had come, she would have
 
 OF THE DEATH OF RUTH. in 
 
 lifted Naomi from Eiitli's bosom, but the cliild awoke 
 as slie was being moved, and clasped her little fingers 
 about the dead mother's neck, and covered the mouth 
 with kisses. And when she felt that the lips did not 
 answer to her lips, and that the arms which had held 
 her did not hold her any longer, but fell away useless 
 she clung the closer, and bright tears started to her 
 eyes. 
 
 And Israel groaned in his spirit, and said, '' 
 heavy hour ! vain hope in death ! Dost thou not 
 see her now, Ruth, and where thou art canst thou 
 not wipe away the tears of thy child, and whisper 
 tidings to her soul how she shall meet thee yet
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF u r T ir S IJ U R I A L. 
 
 The people of Tetnan were not melted towards Israel 
 by the depth of his sorrow, and the breadth of 
 shadow that lay upon him. By noon of the day 
 following the night of Ruth's death, Israel knew that 
 he was to be left alone. It was a rule of the Mellah 
 that on notice being given of a death in their quarter 
 the clerk of the synagogue should publish it at the 
 first service thereafter, in order that a body of 
 men, called the Ilebra Kadisha of Kabranim, the 
 Holy Society of the Buriers, might straightway 
 make arrangements for burial. Earh^ prayers had 
 been held in the synagogue at eight o'clock that 
 morning, and no one had yet come near to Israel's 
 house. The men of the Hebra were going about their 
 ordinary occupations. They knew nothing of Ruth's
 
 OF RUTH'S BURIAL. 
 
 death by official announcement. The clerk had not 
 published it. Israel remembered with bitterness that 
 notice of it had not been sent. Nevertheless, the fact 
 was known throughout Tetuan. There was not a 
 water-carrier in the market-place but had taken it to 
 each house he called at, and passed it to every man 
 he met. Little groups of idle Jewish women had 
 been many hours congregated in the streets outside, 
 talking of it in whispers and looking up at the dark- 
 ened windows with awe. But the synagogue knew 
 nothing of it. Israel had omitted the customary 
 ceremony, and in that omission lay the advantage of 
 his enemies. He must humble himself and send to 
 them. Until he did so they would leave him alone. 
 
 Israel did not send. Never once since the birth of 
 Naomi bad he crossed the threshold of the synagogue. 
 He would not cross it now, whether in body or in 
 spirit. But he was still a Jew, with Jewish customs, 
 if he had lost the Jewish faith, and it was one of the 
 customs of the Jews that a body should be buried 
 within twenty-four hours, at farthest, from the time 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 of death, lie iiiiist do something immediately. 
 Some help must be summoned. AVliat help could it 
 be? 
 
 It was useless to think of the Muselmeen. No 
 believer would lend a hand to dig a grave for an un- 
 believer, or to make apparel for his dead. It was 
 just as idle to think of the Jews. If the synagogue 
 knew nothing of this burial, no Jew^ in the Mellah 
 would be found so poor that he would have need to 
 know more. And of Christians, of any sort or con- 
 dition, there were none in all Tetuan. 
 
 The gall of Israel's heart rose to his throat. Was 
 he to be left alone with his dead wife ? Did his 
 enemies wish to see him howk out her grave with his 
 ow^n hands ? Or did they expect him to come to them 
 with bowed forehead and bended knee ? Either way 
 their reckoning was a mistake. They might leave 
 him terribly and awfully alone — alone in his hour of 
 mourning even as they had left him alone in his hour 
 of rejoicing, when he had married the dear soul who 
 was dead* But his strength and energy they should
 
 OF RUTirs BURIAL. 115 
 
 not crush : his vital and intellectual force they should 
 not wither away. Only one thing they could do to 
 touch him — they could shrivel up his last impulse of 
 sweet human sympathy. They were doing it now. 
 
 When Israel had put matters to himself so, he 
 despatched a message to the Governor at the 
 Kasbah, and received, in answer, six State prisoners, 
 fettered in pairs, under the guard of two soldiers. 
 
 The burial took place within the limit of twenty- 
 four hours prescribed by Jewish custom. It was 
 twilight when the body was brought doAvn from the 
 upper room to the patio. There stood the coffin on 
 a trestle that had been raised for it on chairs stand- 
 ing back to back. And there, too, sat Israel, with 
 Naomi and little black Ali beside him. 
 
 Israel's manner was composed ; his face was as firm 
 as a rock, and his dress was more costly than Tetuan 
 had ever seen him wear before. Everyt-hing that 
 related to the burial he had managed himself, down 
 to the least or poorest detail. But there w^as nothing 
 poor about it in the larger sense. Israel was a rich
 
 ii6 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 man now, and lie set no value on his riches except 
 to subdue the fate that had first beaten him down, 
 and to abash the enemies who still menaced him. 
 Nothing was lacking that money could buy in Tetuau 
 to make this burial an imposing ceremony. Only 
 one thiug it wanted — it wanted mourners, and it had 
 but one. 
 
 Unlike her father, little Naomi was visibly excited. 
 She ran to and fro, clutched at Israel's clothes and 
 seemed to look into his face, clasped the hand of 
 little Ali and held it long as if in fear. Whether she 
 knew what work was afoot, and, if she knew it, by 
 what channel of soul or sense she learnt it, no man 
 can say. That she was conscious of the presence of 
 many strangers is certain, and when the men from 
 the Kasbah brought the roll of white linen down the 
 stairway, with the two black women clinging to it, 
 kissing its fringe and wailing over it, she broke away 
 from Israel and ruslied in among them with a startled 
 cry, and her little white arms upraised. But, what- 
 ever her impulse., there was no need to check her.
 
 OF RUTH'S BURIAL. 117 
 
 The moment she had touched the cold body of 
 her mother she crept back ia dread to her father's 
 side. 
 
 It was a strange procession which then passed out 
 of the patio. Four of the prisoners carried the coffin 
 on their shoulders, walking in pairs according to 
 their fetters. They were gaunt and bony creatures. 
 Hunger had wasted their sallow cheeks, and the air 
 of noisome dungeons had sunken their rheumy eyes. 
 Their clothes were soiled rags, and over them, and 
 concealing them down to their waists and yet lower, 
 hung the deep, rich, velvet pall, with its long silk 
 fringes. In front walked the two remaining prisoners, 
 each bearing a great plume in his left hand — the 
 right arm, as well as the right leg, being chained. 
 On either side was a soldier, carrying a lighted 
 lantern, which burnt small and feeble in the twilight, 
 and last of all came Israel himself, unsupported and 
 alone. Thus they passed through the little crowd of 
 idlers that had congregated at the door, through the 
 streets of the Mellah, and out into the market-place,
 
 ii8 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 and up the narrow lane that leads to the chief town 
 gate. 
 
 There is something in the very nature of power 
 that demands homage, and the people of Tetuan 
 could not deny it to Israel. As the procession went 
 through the town they cleared a way for it, and they 
 were silent until it had gone. Within the gate of 
 the Mellah, a shochet was killing fowls and taking 
 his tribute of copper coins, but he stopped his work 
 and fell back as the procession approached. A blind 
 beggar crouching at the other side of the gate was 
 reciting passages of the Koran, and two Arabs close 
 at his elbow were wrangling over a game at draughts 
 which they were playing by the light of a flare, but 
 both curses and Koran ceased as the procession 
 passed under the arch. In the market-place a Soosi 
 juggler was performing before a throng of laughing 
 people, and a story-teller was shrieking to the twang 
 of his ginbri ; but the audience of the juggler broke 
 up as the procession appeared, and the ginbri of the 
 story-teller was no more heard. The hammering in
 
 OF RUTHS BURIAL, 119 
 
 the shops of the gun-smiths was stopped, and the 
 tinkling of the bells of the water-carriers was silenced. 
 Mules bringing wood from the country were dragged 
 out of the path, and the town asses, with their 
 panniers full of street-filth, were drawn up by the 
 wall. From the market-place and out of the shops, 
 out of the houses and out of the mosque itself, the 
 people came trooping in crowds, and they made a 
 long close line on either side of the course which the 
 procession must take. And through this avenue of 
 onlookers the strange company made its way — the 
 two prisoners bearing the plumes, the four others 
 bearing the coffin, the two soldiers carrying the 
 lanterns, and Israel last of all, unsupported and 
 alone. Nothing was heard in the silence of the 
 people but the tramp of the feet of the six 
 men, and the clank of their chains. The light of 
 the lanterns was on the faces of some of them, and 
 every one knew them for what they were. It was 
 on the face of Israel also, yet he did not flinch. 
 His head was held steadily upward; he looked
 
 I20 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 neither to the right nor to the left, but strode firmly 
 along. 
 
 The Jewish cemetery was outside the town walls, 
 and before the procession came to it the darkness had 
 closed in. Its flat white tombstones, all pointing 
 towards Jerusalem, lay in the gloom like a flock of 
 sheep asleep among the grass. It had no gate but a 
 gap in the fence, and no fence but a hedge of the 
 prickly pear and the aloe. 
 
 Israel had opened a grave for lluth beside the 
 grave of the old rabbi her father. He had asked no 
 man's permission to do so, but, if no one had helped 
 at that day's business, neither had any one dared to 
 hinder. And when the cofiin was set down by the 
 grave-side no ceremony did Israel forget, and none 
 did he omit. He repeated the Kaddesh and cut the 
 notch in his kaftan ; he took from his breast the little 
 linen bag of the white earth of the land of promise 
 and laid it under the head ; he locked a padlock 
 and flung away the key. Last of all, when the 
 body had been taken out of the coffin and lowered
 
 OF RUTH'S BURIAL. 
 
 to its long home, lie stepped in after it, and 
 called on one of the soldiers to lend him a lantern. 
 And then, kneeling at the foot of his dead wife, 
 he touched her with both his hands, and spoke 
 these words in a clear, firm voice, looking down at 
 her where she lay in the veil that she had used to 
 wear in the synagogue, and speaking to her as though 
 she heard : " Ruth, my wife, my dearest, for the 
 cruel wrong which I did you long ago when I suffered 
 you to marry me, being a man such as I was, under 
 the ban of my people, forgive me now, my beloved, 
 and ask God to forgive me also." 
 
 It was a strange sight and a strange sound : the 
 dark cemetery, the six prisoners in their clanking 
 irons, the two soldiers with their lanterns, the open 
 grave, and this strong-hearted man kneeling within 
 it, that he might do his last duty, according to the 
 custom of his race and faith, to her whom he had 
 wronged and should meet no more until the resurrec- 
 tion itself reunited them. The traffic of the streets 
 had beofun aofain bv this time, and between the words
 
 •122 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 wliicli Israel had spoken the low hum of many 
 voices liacl come over the dark town walls. 
 
 The six prisoners went back to the Kasbah with 
 joyful liearts, for each carried with him a paper 
 which procured his freedom on the day following. 
 But Israel returned to his liome with a soured and 
 darkened mind. As he had plucked his last handful 
 of the grass, and flung it over his shoulder, saying, 
 " They shall spring in the cities as the grass in the 
 earth," he had asked himself what it mattered to him, 
 though all the world were peopled, now that she, who 
 had been all the world to liim, was dead. God had 
 left him as a lonely pilgrim in a dreary desert. Only 
 one glimpse of human affection had he known as a 
 man, and here it was taken from him for ever. 
 
 And when he remembered Naomi, he quarrelled 
 with God again. She was a helpless exile among 
 men, a creature banished from all human intercourse, 
 a living soul locked in a tabernacle of flesh. Was it 
 a good God who had taken the mother from such a 
 child — the child from such a mother ? Israel was
 
 OF RUTHS BURIAL. 
 
 heart-smitten, and his soul blasphemed. It was not 
 God but the devil that ruled the \Yorld. It was not 
 justice but evil that governed it. 
 
 Thus did this outcast man rebel against God, 
 thinking of the child's loss and of his own; but 
 nevertheless by the child itself he was yet to be saved 
 from the devil's snare, and tbe ways wherein this 
 sweet flower, fresh from God's hand, wrought upon 
 his heart to redeem it were very strange and beau- 
 tiful.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE SPIRIT -MAID. 
 
 The promise which Israel made to Ruth at her 
 death that Naomi shoukl not lack for love and tend- 
 ing he foithfully fulfilled. From that time forward 
 he became as father and mother both to the child. 
 
 At the outset of his charge he made a survey 
 of her condition, and found it more terrible than 
 imagination of the mind could tbink or words of 
 the tongue express. It was easy to say that she was 
 deaf and dumb and blind, but it was hard to realise 
 wliat so great an affliction implied. It implied that 
 she was a little human sister standing close to the 
 rest of the family of man, yet very far away from 
 them. She was as much apart as if she had inhabited 
 a different sphere. No human sympathy could reach 
 her in joy or pain and sorrow. She had no part to
 
 OF. THE SPIRIT-MAID. 125 
 
 play in life. In tlie midst of a world of light she 
 was in a land of darkness, and she was in a world of 
 silence in the midst of a land of sweet sounds. She 
 was a living and bmied soul. 
 
 And of that soul itself, what did Israel know ? 
 He knew that it had memory, for Naomi had remem- 
 bered her mother ; and he knew that it had love, for 
 she had pined for Ruth, and clung to her. But what 
 were love and memory without sight and speech ? 
 They were no more than a magnet locked in a casket 
 —idle and useless to any purposes of man or the 
 world. 
 
 Thinking of this, Israel realised for the first time 
 how awful was the affliction of his motherless girl. 
 To be blind was to be afflicted once, but to be both 
 blind and deaf was not only to be afflicted twice, but 
 twice ten thousand times, and to be blind and deaf 
 and dumb was not merely to be afflicted thrice, but 
 beyond all reckonings of human speech. 
 
 For though Naomi had been blind, yet, if she could 
 have had hearing, her father might have spoken with
 
 126 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 lier, aucl if she liad sorrows lie must have soothed 
 them, and if she had joys he must have shared them, 
 aud iu this beautiful world of God, so full of things 
 to look upon and to love, he must have been eyes of 
 her eyes that could not see. On the other hand, 
 though Naomi had been deaf, yet if she could have 
 had sight her father might ha\'e held intercourse with 
 her by the light of her eyes, and if she felt pain he 
 must have seen it, and if she had found pleasure he 
 must have known it, and what man is, and what 
 woman is, and what the world and what the sea and 
 what the sky, would have been as an open book for 
 her to read. J3ut, being blind and deaf together, 
 aud, by fault of being deaf, being dumb as well, wdiat 
 word was to describe the desolation of her state, the 
 blank void of her isolation- -cut off, apart, aloof, shut 
 in, imprisoned, enchained, a soul without communion 
 with other souls : alive, and yet dead ? 
 
 Thus realising Naomi's condition in the deep infir- 
 mity of her nature, Israel set himself to consider how 
 he could reach her darkened and silent souL And
 
 OF THE SPlRir-MAlD. 127 
 
 first he tried to learn what good gifts were left to her 
 that he might foster them to her advantage and 
 nourish them to his own great comfort and joy. Yet 
 no gift whatever could he find in her but the one 
 gift only whereof he had known from the begin- 
 ning — the gift of touch and feeling. With this he 
 must make her to see, or else her light should 
 always be darkness, and with this he must make her 
 to hear, or silence should be her speech for ever. 
 
 Then he remembered that during his years in 
 England he had heard strange stories of how the 
 dumb had been made to speak though they could not 
 hear, and the blind and deaf to understand and to 
 answer. So he sent to England for many books, 
 written on the treatment of these children of afiliction, 
 and when they were come he pondered them closely 
 and was thrilled by the marvellous works they 
 described. But when he came to practise the precepts 
 they had given him, his spirits flagged, for the im- 
 pediments were great. Time after time he tried, and 
 failed always^ to touch by so much as one shaft of
 
 128 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 light the hidden sonl of the cliild tlirongh its tene- 
 ment of flesh and blood. Neither the simplest 
 thought nor the poorest element of an idea found any- 
 way to her mind, so dense were the walls of the prison 
 that encompassed it. " Yes " was a mystery that 
 could not at first be revealed to her, and " No " was 
 a problem beyond her power to apprehend. Smiles 
 and frowns were useless to teach her. No discipline 
 could be addressed to her miud or heart. Except 
 mere bodily restraint, no control could be imposed 
 upon her. She was swayed by her impulses alone. 
 
 Israel did not despair. If he was broken down 
 to-day he strengthened his hands for to-morrow. At 
 length he had got so far, after a world of toil and 
 thought, that Naomi knew when he patted her head 
 that it was for approval, and when he touched her 
 hand it was for assent. Then he stopped very 
 suddenly. His hope had not drooped, and neither 
 had his energy failed, but the conviction had fastened 
 upon him that such effort in his case must be an 
 offence against Heaven. Naomi was not merely an
 
 OF THE SPIRI7-MA/D. 129 
 
 infirm creature from the left hand of Nature ; she 
 was an afflicted being from the right hand of God. 
 She was a living monument of sin that was not her 
 own. It was useless to go farther. The child must 
 be left where God had placed her. 
 
 But meanwhile, if Naomi lacked the senses of the 
 rest of the human kind, she seemed to communicate 
 with Nature by other organs than they possessed. It 
 was as if the spiritual world itself must have taught 
 her, and from that source alone could she have im- 
 bibed her power. To tell of all she could do to guide 
 her steps, and to minister to her pleasures, and to 
 cherish her affections, would be to go beyond the 
 limit of belief. Truly it seemed as if Naomi, being 
 blind with her bodily eyes, could yet look upon a 
 light that no one else could see, and, being deaf with 
 her bodily ears, could yet listen to voices that no one 
 else could hear. 
 
 Thus, if she came skipping through the corridor 
 of the patio, she knew when any one approached her, 
 for she would hold out her hands and stop. Nay ; 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 but she knew also who it would be as well as if her 
 eyes or ears had taught her ; for always, if it was her 
 father, she reached out her hands to take his left 
 hand in both of hers, and then she pressed it against 
 her cheek ; and always, if it was little Ali, she curved 
 .her arms to encircle his neck ; and always^ if it was 
 Fatimah, she leapt up to her bosom ; and always, if it 
 was Habeebah, she passed her by. Did she go with 
 Ali into the streets, she knew the Mellah gate from 
 the gate of the town, and the narrow lanes from the 
 open Sok. Did she pass the lofty mosque in the 
 market-place, she knew it from the low shops that 
 nestled t 'ider and behind and around. Did a troop 
 of m lies and camels come near her, she knew them 
 from a crowd of people ; and did she pass where two 
 streets crossed, she would stand and face both ways. 
 And as the years grew she came to know all places 
 within and around Tetnan, the town of the Moors 
 and the Mellah of the Jews, the Kasbah and the 
 narrow lane leading up to it, the fort on the hill and 
 the river under the town walls, the mountains on
 
 OF THE SPIRir-MAID. 131 
 
 either side of the valley, and even some of their rocky 
 gorges. She could find her way among them all 
 without help or guidance, and no control could any 
 one impose upon her to keep her out of the way of 
 harm. While Ali was a little fellow he was her 
 constant companion, always ready for any adventure 
 that her unquiet heart suggested ; but when he grew 
 to be a boy, and was sent to school every day early 
 and late, she would fare forth alone save for a tiny 
 white goat which her father had bought to be another 
 playfellow. 
 
 And because feeling was sight to her, and touch 
 was hearing, and the crown of her head felt the 
 winds of the heavens and the soles of her feet felt 
 the grass of the fields, she loved best to go bare- 
 headed whether the sun was high or the air was cool 
 and barefooted also, from the rising of the morning 
 until the coming of the stars. So, casting off her 
 slippers and the great straw hat which a Jewish 
 maiden wears, and clad in her white woollen shawl, 
 wrapped loosely about her in folds of airy grace, and
 
 132 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 with the little goat going before her, though she saw 
 it not, and neither heard its bleat nor the beat of its 
 feet, she wonld climb the hill beyond the battery, 
 even to the topmost peak of it, and stand on the 
 summit, like a spirit poised in air. Nothing could 
 she see of the green valley then stretched before her. 
 or of the white town lying below, with its domes and 
 minarets, but she seemed to exult in her lofty place, 
 and to drink new life from the rush of mighty winds 
 about her. Then coming back to the dale, she 
 would seem, to those who looked up at her, with fear 
 and with awe, to h^'ip as the goat leapt in the rocky 
 places ; and as a bird sweeps over the grass witli 
 wings outstretched, so witli her arms spread out, and 
 her long fair hair flying loose, she would seem to 
 sweep down the hill, as though her very tiptoes did 
 not touch it. 
 
 By what power she did these things no man 
 could tell, except it were the power of tbe spiritual 
 world itself ; but the distemper of the mind, which 
 loved such dangers, increased upon her as she grew
 
 OF THE SPIklT-MAlD. 133 
 
 from a child into a maid, and it found new ways of 
 strangeness. Thus, in the spring, when the rain fell 
 heavily, or in the winter, when the great winds were 
 abroad, or in the summer, when the lightning 
 lightened and the thunder thundered, her restless 
 spirit seemed to be roused to sympathetic tumults, 
 and if she could escape the eyes that watched her she 
 would run and race in the tempest, and her eyes 
 would be aglitter, and laughter would be on her lips. 
 Then Israel himself would go out to find her, and, 
 having found her in the pelting storm without cover- 
 ing on her head or shoes on her feet, he would fetch 
 her home by the hand, and as they passed through 
 the streets together his forehead would be bowed and 
 his eyes bent down. 
 
 But it was not always that Naomi made her father 
 ashamed. More often her joyful spirit cheered him, 
 for above all things else she was a creature of joy. 
 A circle of joy seemed to surround her always. Her 
 heart in its darkness was full of radiance. As she grew 
 her comeliness increased, though this was strange and
 
 134 'J'HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 touching in her beauty, that her face did not become 
 older with her years, but was still the face of a child, 
 with a child's expression of sweetness through the 
 bloom and flush of early maidenhood. Her love of 
 flowers increased also, and the sense of smell seemed 
 to come to her, for she filled the house with all 
 fragrant flowers in their season, twining them in 
 wreaths about the white pillars of the patio, and 
 binding them in rings around the brown water-jars 
 that stood in it. And with the girl's expanding 
 nature her love of dress increased as well ; but it wa]5 
 not a young maid's love of lovely things ; it was a 
 wild passion for light, loose garments that swayed 
 and swirled in native grace about her. Truly she 
 was a spirit of joy and gladness. She was happy 
 as a day in summer, and fresh as a dewy morning in 
 spring. The ripple of her laughter was like sunshine. 
 A flood of sunshine seemed to follow in the air 
 wheresoever she went. And certainly for Israel, her 
 father, she was as a sunbeam gathering sunshine 
 into his lonely house.
 
 OF THE SPlRlT-iMAID. 135 
 
 Nevertheless, the sunbeam had its cloud-shapes of 
 gloom, and if Israel in his darker hours hungered for 
 more human company, and wished that the little 
 playfellow of the angels which had come down to his 
 dwelling could only be his simple human child, he 
 sometimes had his wish, and many throbs of anguish 
 with it. For often it happened, and especially at 
 seasons when no winds were stirring, and blank 
 peace and a doleful silence haunted the air, that 
 Naomi would seem to fall into a sick longing from 
 causes that were beyond Israel's power to fathom. 
 Then her sweet face would sadden, and her beautiful 
 blind eyes would fill, and her pretty laughter would 
 echo no more through the house. And sometimes, 
 in the dead of the night, she would rise from her 
 bed and go through the dark corridors, for darkness 
 and light were as one to her, until she came to 
 Israel's room, and he would awake from his sleep to 
 find her, like a little white vision, standing by his 
 bedside. What she wanted there he could never 
 know, for neither had he power to ask nor she to
 
 136 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 answer, whether she were sick or in pain, or whether 
 in her sleep she had seen a face from the invisible 
 world, and heard a voice that called her away, or 
 whether her mother's arms had seemed to be about 
 her once again and then to be torn from her afresh, 
 and she had come to him on awakening in her 
 trouble, not knowing what it is to dream, but think- 
 ing all evil dreams to be true fact and new sorrow. 
 So, with a sigh, he would arise and light his lamp 
 and lead her back to her bed, and more scalding than 
 the tears that would be standing in Naomi's eyes 
 would be the hot drops that would gush into his 
 own. 
 
 Most of all when such things befell would Israel 
 long for some miracle out of heaven to find a way to 
 the little maiden's mind that she might ask and 
 answer and know, yet he dared not to pray for it, for 
 still greater than his pity for the child was his fear 
 of the wrath of God. And out of this fear there 
 came to him at length an awful and terrible thought ; 
 though so severed on earth, his child and he, yet
 
 OF 7 HE SPIRIT-MAID. 137 
 
 before the bar of judgment they would one day be 
 brought together, and then how should it stand with 
 her soul ? 
 
 Naomi knew nothing of God, having no way of 
 speech with man. Would God condemn her for 
 that, and cast her out for ever ? No, no, no ! God 
 would not ask her for good works in the land of 
 silence, and for labour in the land of night. She 
 had no eyes to see God's beautiful world, and no ears 
 to hear His holy word. God had created her so, and 
 He would not destroy what He had made. Far 
 rather would He look with love and pity on His 
 little one, so long and sorely tried on earth, and 
 send her at last to be a blessed saint in heaven. 
 
 Israel tried to comfort himself so, but the effort 
 was vain. He was a Jew to the inmost fibre of his 
 being, and he answered himself out of his own mouth 
 that it was his own sinful wish, and not God's will, 
 that had sent Naomi into the world as she was. 
 Then, on the day of the great account, how should 
 he answer to her for her soul ?
 
 138 I HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Visions stood up before him of endless retribution 
 for the soul that knew not God. These were the 
 most awful terrors of his sleepless nights, but at 
 length peace came to him, for he saw his path of 
 duty. It was his duty to Naomi that he should tell 
 her of God and reveal the word of the Lord to her ! 
 What matter if she could not hear ? Thougrh she 
 had senses as the sands of the seashore, yet in the 
 way of light the Lord alone could lead her. What 
 matter though she could not see ? The soul was the 
 eye that saw God, and witli bodily eyes had no man 
 seen Him. 
 
 So every day thereafter at sunset Lsrael took 
 Naomi by the hand and led her to an upper room, the 
 same wherein her mother died, and, fetching from a 
 cupboard of the wall the Book of the Law, he read 
 to her of the commandments of the Lord by Moses, 
 and of the Prophets, and of the Kings. And while 
 he read, Naomi sat in silence at his feet, with his 
 one free hand in both of her hands, clasped close 
 against her cheek.
 
 OF 'I HE SPIRIT-MAID. 139 
 
 What the little maid in her darkness thought of 
 this custom, what mystery it was to her and where- 
 fore, only the eye that looks into darkness could see ; 
 but it was so at length that as soon as the sun had 
 set — for she knew when the sun was gone — Naomi 
 herself would take her father by the hand, and lead 
 him to the upper room, and fetch the book to his 
 knees. 
 
 And sometimes as Israel read, an evil spirit would 
 seem to come to him, and make a mock at him, and 
 say, '• The child is deaf and hears not — go read your 
 book in the tombs ! '' But he only hardened his neck 
 and laughed proudly. And, again, sometimes the 
 evil spirit seemed to say, " Why waste yourself in 
 this misspent desire ? The child is buried while she 
 is still alive, and who shall roll away the stone ? " 
 But Israel only answered, '' It is for the Lord to do 
 miracles, and the Lord is mighty.'' 
 
 So, great in his faith, Israel read to Naomi night 
 after night, and when his spirit was sore of many 
 taunts in the day his voice would be hoarse, and he
 
 HO tHE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 would read the law which says, *' Thou shalt iwt curse 
 the deaf^ nor piU a stumUing-block he fore the blind." 
 But when his heart was at peace liis voice would be 
 soft, and he would read of the child Samuel sanctified 
 to the Lord in the temple, and how the Lord called 
 him and he answered — 
 
 " Afid it came to pass at that time, when Ell was 
 laid doini in liis place ^ and his ojes hefjan to wax dim 
 that lie could not see; and ere the lamp of God went 
 out J in the temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God 
 VMS, and Samuel v:as laid doicn to sleep, that the Lord 
 called Samuel, and he ansu-ered, Here am L. And he 
 ran unto Eli and said, Here am L, for thou callest me. 
 And he said, I called not ; lie down ayain. And he 
 went and lay down. And the Lord called yet again, 
 Samud. And Samuel rose and went to Eli and said. 
 Here am L,for thou didst ccdl me. And he answered, 
 L called 7iot, my son; lie down ayain. Kow Samuel 
 did not yet know the Lord, neither was the Word of the 
 Ljord yet revecded to him.'" 
 And, having finished his reading, Israel would close
 
 OF THE SPIRIT-MAID. 141 
 
 the book and sing out of the Psalms of David the 
 psalm which says : "It is good for me that I have 
 been in trouble, that I may learn Thy statutes." 
 
 Thus, night after night, when the sun was gone 
 down, did Israel read of the law and sing of the 
 Psalms to Naomi, his daughter, who was both blind 
 and deaf. And though Xaomi heard not, and 
 neither did she see, yet in their silent hour together 
 there was another in their chamber always with 
 them — there was a third, for there was God.
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 OF THE AXGEL IX ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 
 
 When Israel had been some twenty years at 
 Tetuan, Naomi being then fourteen years of age, 
 Ben Aboo, the Basha, married a Christian wife. The 
 woman's name was Katrina. She was a Spaniard 
 by birth, and had first come to Morocco at the tail of 
 a Spanish embassy, which travelled througb Tetuan 
 from Ceuta to the Sultan at Fez. AVhat her belong- 
 ings were, and what her antecedents had been, no 
 one appeared to know, nor did Ben Aboo himself seem 
 to care. She answered all his present needs in her 
 own person, which was ample in its proportions and 
 abundant in its charms. 
 
 In marrying Ben Aboo, the wily Katrina imposed 
 two conditions. The first was that he should put 
 8,way the full Mohammedan complement of four
 
 OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. ■ 143 
 
 Moorish wives, whom he had married already, as 
 well as the many concubines that he had annexed in 
 his way through life, and now kept lodged in one 
 unquiet nest in the women's hidden quarter of the 
 Palace. The second condition was that she herself 
 should never be banished to such seclusion, but, like 
 the wife of any European governor, should openly 
 share the state of her husband. 
 
 Ben Aboo was in no mood to stand on the rights of 
 a strict Mohammedan, and he accepted both of her 
 conditions. The first he never meant to abide by, 
 but the second she took care he should observe, and, 
 as a prelude to that public life which she intended 
 to live by his side, she insisted on a public 
 marriage. 
 
 They were married according to the rites of the 
 Catholic Church by a Franciscan friar settled at 
 Tangier, and the marriage festival lasted six days. 
 Great was the display, and lavish the outlay. Every 
 morning the cannon of the fort fired a round of 
 shot from the hill, every evening the tribesmen from
 
 141 {THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 the mountains went through their feats of powder- 
 play in the market-place, and every night a body 
 of Aissdwa from Mequinez yelled and shrieked in the 
 enclosure called the M'salla, near the Bab er-Ilemoosh. 
 Feasts were spread in tlie Kasbah, and relays of 
 guests from among the chief men of the town were 
 invited daily to partake of them. 
 
 No man dared to refuse his invitation, or to neg- 
 lect the tribute of a present, though the Moors well 
 knew that they were lending the light of their 
 countenance to a brazen outrage on their faith, and 
 though it galled the hearts of the Jews to make 
 merry at the marriage of a Christian and a ]\ruslim 
 — no man except Israel, and he excused himself 
 with what grace he could, being in no mood for 
 rejoicing, but sick with sorrow of the heart. 
 
 The Spanish woman was not to be gainsaid. She 
 had taken her measure of the man, and had resolved 
 that a servant so powerful as Israel should pay her 
 court and tribute before all. Therefore she caused him 
 to be invited again ; but Israel had taken his measure
 
 OF THF: AIsGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 145 
 
 of the woman, and with some lack of courtesy he 
 excused himself afresh. 
 
 Katrina was not yet done. She was a creature 
 of resource, and having heard of Naomi, with strange 
 stories concerning her, she devised a children's feast 
 for the last day of the marriage festival, and caused 
 Ben Aboo to write to Israel a formal letter, beginning, 
 " To our well-beloved the excellent Israel ben Oliel, 
 Praise to the one God," and setting forth that on the 
 morrow, when the " Sun of the world "should " place 
 his foot in the stirrup of speed,*" and gallop " from 
 the kingdom of shades," the Governor would " hold 
 a gathering of delight " for all the children of Tetuan, 
 and he, Israel, was besought to " lighten it with the 
 rays of his face, rivalled only by the sun," and to 
 bring with him his little daughter Naomi, whose 
 arrival,/' similar to a spring breeze," should '' dissi^Date 
 the dark night of solitude and isolation." This 
 despatch, written in the common cant of the people, 
 concluded with quotations from the Prophet on 
 brotherly love, and a significant and more sincere 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 assurance that the Basha would uot admit of excuses 
 '• of the thickness of a hair." 
 
 When Israel received the missive, his anger was 
 hot and furious. He leapt to the conclusion that, in 
 demanding the presence of Naomi, the Spanish 
 woman, who must know of the child's condition, 
 desired only to make a show of it. But, after a 
 time, he put that thought from him as uncharitable 
 and unwarranted, and resolved to obey the 
 summons. 
 
 And, indeed, if he had felt any further diffi- 
 dence, the sight of Naomi's own eagerness must 
 have driven it away. The little maid seemed to 
 know that something unusual was going on. 
 Troops of poor villagers from every miserable 
 quarter of the bashalic came into the town each 
 day, beating drums, firing long guns, driving their 
 presents before them — bullocks, cows, and sheep — 
 and trying to make believe that they rejoiced and 
 were glad. Naomi appeared to be conscious of 
 many tents pitched in the market-place, of denser
 
 OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAELS HOUSE. 147 
 
 crowds in the streets, and of much bustle every- 
 where. 
 
 Also she seemed to catch the contagion of little 
 Ali's excitement. The children of all the schools 
 of the town, both Jewish and Moorish, had been 
 summoned through their Talebs to the festival ; 
 there was to be dancing and singing and playing 
 on musical instruments ; and Ali himself, who had 
 lately practised the kanoon — the lute, the harp — under 
 his teacher, was to show his skill before the Governor. 
 Therefore, great was the little black man's excitement, 
 and, in the fever of it, he would talk to every one 
 of. the event forthcoming — to Fatimah, to Habeebah, 
 and often to Naomi also, until the memory of her 
 infirmity would come to him, or perhaps the derisive 
 laugh of his schoolfellows would stop him, and 
 then, thinking they were laughing at the girl, he 
 would fall on them like a fury, and they would 
 scamper away. 
 
 When the great day came, Ali went off to the 
 Kasbah with his school and Taleb, in the long pro-
 
 148 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 cession of many schools and many Talebs. It was a 
 strange and touching spectacle, whereat a man's eyes 
 might fill and his gorge rise together. Every child 
 carried a present for the rich Basha ; now a boy with 
 a goat, then a girl with a lamb, again a poor tattered 
 mite with a hen, all cuddling them close like pets 
 they must part with, yet all looking radiantly happy 
 in their sweet innocency, which had no alloy of pain 
 from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 Israel took Naomi by the hand, but no present 
 with either of them, and followed the children, going 
 past the booths, the blind beggars, the lepers, and 
 the shrieking Arabs that lay thick about the gate, 
 through the iron-clamped door, and into the quad- 
 rangle, where groups of women stood together closely 
 covered in their blankets — the mothers and sisters of 
 the children, permitted to see their little ones pass 
 into the Kasbah, but allowed to go no farther — then' 
 down the crooked passage, past the tiny mosque, like 
 a closet, and the bath, like a dungeon, and finally 
 into the pillared patio, paved and walled with tileSi
 
 OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 149 
 
 This was the place of the festival, and it was filled 
 already with a great company of children, their 
 fathers and their teachers. Moors, Arabs, Berbers, 
 and Jews, clad in their various costumes of white and 
 blue and black and red — they were a gorgeous, a 
 voluptuous, and, perhaps^ a beautiful spectacle in the 
 morning sunlight. 
 
 As Israel entered, with Naomi by the hand, he was 
 conscious that every eye was on them, and as they 
 passed through the way that was made for them, he 
 heard the whispered exclamations of the people. 
 "Shoof!" muttered a Moor. *SSee!" "It's him- 
 self," said a Jew. '' And the child," said another Jew. 
 " Allah has smitten her," said an Arab. " Blind and 
 dumb and deaf," said another Moor. "God be 
 gracious to my father ! " said another Arab. 
 
 Musicians were playing in the gallery that ran 
 round the court, and from the flat roof above it the 
 women of the Governor's hareem, not yet dispersed, 
 his four lawful Mohammedan waves, and many con- 
 cubines, were gazing furtively down from behind
 
 I50 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 their haiks. There was a fountain in the middle of 
 the patio, and at the farther end of it, within an 
 alcove that opened out of a horseshoe arch, beneath 
 ceilings hung with stalactites, against walls covered 
 with silken haities, and on Rabat rugs of many 
 colours, sat Ben Aboo and his Christian bride. 
 
 It was there that Israel saw the Spaniard for the 
 first time, and at the instant of recognition he 
 shivered as with cold. She was a handsome woman, 
 but plainly a heartless one — selfish, vain, and vulgar. 
 
 Ben Aboo hailed Israel with welcomes and peace- 
 blessings, and Katrina drew Naomi to her side. 
 
 ^' So this is the little maid of whom wonderful 
 rumours are so rife ? " said Katrina. 
 
 Israel bent his head and shuddered at seeing the 
 child at the woman's feet. 
 
 "The darling is as fair as an angel." said 
 Katrina, and she kissed Naomi. 
 
 The kiss seemed to Israel to smite his own cheeks 
 like a blow. 
 
 Then the performances of the children began, and
 
 OF 7HE ANGEL AV ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 151 
 
 truly they made a pretty and affecting sight ; the white 
 walls, the deep blue sky, the black shadows of the 
 gallery, the bright sunlight, the grown people massed 
 around the patio, and these sweet little faces coming 
 and going in the middle of it. First, a line of 
 Moorish girls in their embroidered hazzams dancing 
 after their native fashion, bending and rising, twist- 
 ing and turning, but keeping their feet in the same 
 place constantly. Then, a line of Jewish girls in their 
 kilted skirts dancing after the Jewish manner, tripping 
 on their slippered toes, whirling and turning around 
 with rapid motions, and playing timbrels and tam- 
 bourines held high above their heads by their shapely 
 arms and hands. Then passages of the Koran chanted 
 by a group of Moorish boys in their jellabs, purple 
 and chocolate and white, peaked above their red 
 tarbooshes. Then a psalm by a company of Jewish 
 boys in their black skull-caps — a brave old song of 
 Zion sung by silvery young voices in an alien land. 
 Finally, little black Ali, led out by his teacher, with 
 his diminutive Moorish harp in his hands, showing
 
 152 7 HE SCAPEG0A7. 
 
 no fear at all, but only a negro boy's sby looks of 
 pleasure — his head aside, his eyes gleaming, his white 
 teeth glinting, and his face aglow. 
 
 Now down to this moment Naomi, at the feet of 
 the woman, had been agitated and restless, sometimes 
 rising, then sinking back, sometimes playing with 
 her nervous fingers, and then pushing off her slippers. 
 It was as though she was conscious of the fine show 
 which was going forward, and knew that they were 
 children who were making it. Perhaps the breath of 
 the little ones beat her on the level of her cheeks, or 
 perhaps the light air made by the sweep of their 
 garments was wafted to her sensitive body. What- 
 soever the sense whereby the knowledge came to her, 
 clearly it was there in her flushed and twitching face, 
 which was full of that old hunger for child-company 
 which Israel knew too well. 
 
 But when little Ali was brought out and lie began 
 to play on his kanoon. his harp, it was impossible to 
 repress Naomi's excitement. The girl leaped up from 
 her place at the woman's feet, and with the utmost
 
 OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 153 
 
 rapidity of motion she passed like a gleam of light 
 across the patio to the boy's side. And, being there, 
 she touched the harp as he played it, and then a low 
 cry came from her lips, xigain she touched it, and 
 her eyes, though blind, seemed for an instant to 
 flame like fire. Then, with both her hands she clung 
 to it, and with her lips and her tongue she kissed it, 
 while her whole body quivered like a reed in the wind. 
 
 Israel saw what she did, and his very soul trembled 
 at the sight with wild thoughts that did not dare to 
 take the name of hope. As well as he could in the 
 confusion of his own senses he stepped forward to 
 draw the little maiden back, but the wife of the 
 Governor called on him to leave her. 
 
 *' Leave her ! " she cried. ^' Let us see what the 
 child will do ! " 
 
 At that moment All's playing came to an end, and 
 the boy let the harp pass to Naomi's clinging fingers, 
 and then, half sitting, half kneeling on the gi'ouud 
 beside it, the girl took it to herself. She caressed it, 
 she patted it with her hand, she touched its strings,
 
 154 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 and then a faint smile crossed her rosy lips. She 
 laid her cheek against it and touched its strings 
 again, and then she laughed aloud. She flung off 
 her slippers and the garment that covered her 
 beautiful arms, and laid her pure flesh against the 
 harp wheresoever her flesh might cling, and touched 
 its strings once more, and then her very heart seemed 
 to laugh with delight. 
 
 Now, what is to follow will seem to be no better 
 than a superstitious saying, but true it is, neverthe- 
 less, and simple sooth for all it sounds so strange, 
 that though Naomi was deaf as the grave, and had 
 never yet heard music, and though she was untaught 
 and knew nothing of the notes of a harp to strike 
 them, yet she swept the strings to strange harmonies 
 such as no man had ever listened to before and none 
 could follow. 
 
 It was not music that th<' little maiden made to 
 her ear. but only motion to her body, and just as the 
 deaf who are deaf alone are sometimes found to take 
 pleasure in all forms of percussion, and to deriv©
 
 OF THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 155 
 
 from them some of the sensations of sound — the 
 trembling of the air after thunder, the quivering of 
 the earth after cannon, and the quaking of vast walls 
 after the ringing of mighty bells — so Naomi, who was 
 blind as well and had no sense save touch, found 
 in her fingers, which had gathered up the force of 
 all the other senses, the power to reproduce on this 
 instrument of music the movement of all things that 
 moved about her — the patter of the leaves of the fig- 
 tree in the patio of her home, the swirl of the great 
 winds on the hill-top, the plash of rain on her face, 
 and the rippling of the levanter in her hair. 
 
 This was. all the witchery of Naomi's playing, yet, 
 because every emotion in Nature has its harmony, so 
 there was harmony of some wild sort in the music 
 that was struck by the girl's fingers out of the strings 
 of the harp. But, more than her music, which was, 
 perhaps, only a rhapsody of sound, was the frenzy of 
 the girl herself as she made it. She lifted her head 
 like a bird, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, and, 
 as she played, she laughed again and again,
 
 156 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 There was something fascinating and magical in 
 the spectacle of tlie beautiful fair face aglow with 
 joy, the rounded limbs (visible through the robes) 
 clinging to the sides of the harp, and the delicate 
 white fingers flying across the strings. There was 
 something gruesome and awful, as well, for the fac<' 
 of the girl was blind, and her ears heard nothing of 
 the music that her fingers were making. 
 
 Every eye was on her, and in the wide circle 
 around every mouth was agape. And when those 
 who looked on and listened had recovered from their 
 first surprise, very strange and various were the 
 whispered words they passed between them. " Where 
 has she learnt it?" asked a Moor. ''From her 
 master himself," muttered a Jew. " Who is it ? " 
 asked the Moor. " Beelzebub," growled the Jew. 
 " God pity me, the evil eye is on her," said an Arab. 
 " God w411 show," said a Shereef from Wazzan, 
 " They say her mother was a childless woman, and 
 offered petitions for Hannah's blessing at the tcmb 
 of Rabbi Amran." "No," said the Arab; ''she
 
 (9/ THE ANGEL AV ISRAEVS HOUSE. 1 57 
 
 sent lier girdle." " Anylio\Y, the child is a saint," 
 whispered the Shereef. " No, but a devil," snorted 
 the Jew. 
 
 " Brava, brava, brava ! " cried the new wife of 
 Ben AboOj and she cheered and laughed as the girl 
 played. " What did I tell you ? " she said, looking 
 toward her husband, " The child is not deaf, no, nor 
 blind either. Oh, it's a brave imposture ! Brava, 
 brava ! " 
 
 Still the little maiden played, but now her brow 
 was clouded, her head dropped, her eyelashes were 
 downcast, and she hung over the harp and sighed 
 audibly. 
 
 '' Good again ! " cried the woman. '' Very good ! " 
 and she clapped her hands, whereupon the Arabs and 
 the Moors, forgetting their dread, felt constrained to 
 follow her example, and they cheered ill their wilder 
 way, but the Jews continued to mutter, " Beelzebub, 
 Beelzebub ! " 
 
 Israel saw it all, and at first, amid the commotion 
 of his mind and the confusion of his senses, his heart
 
 158 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 melted at sight of what Naomi did. Had God opened 
 a gateway to her soul ? Were the poor wings of her 
 spirit to spread themselves out at last ? Was this, 
 then, the way of speech that Heaven had given her ? 
 But hardly had Israel overflowed with the tenderness 
 of such thoughts when the bleating and barking of 
 the faces about him awakened his anger. Then, like 
 blows on his brain, came the cries of the wife of the 
 Governor, who cheered this awakening of the girl's 
 soul, as it were no better than a vulgar show ; and 
 at that Israel's wrath rose to his throat. 
 
 *' Brava, brava!" cried the woman again; and, 
 turning to Israel, she said, " You shall leave the 
 child with me. I must have her with me always." 
 
 Israel's throat seemed to choke him at that word. 
 He looked at Katrina, and saw that she was a 
 woman lustful of breath and vain of heart, who had 
 married Ben Aboo because he was rich. Then he 
 looked at Naomi, and remembered that her heart was 
 clear as the water, and sweet as the morning, and 
 pure as the snow.
 
 OP THE ANGEL IN ISRAEL'S HOUSE. 159 
 
 And at that moment the wife of the Governor 
 cheered again, and again the people echoed her, and 
 even the women on the housetops made bold to take 
 up her cry with their cooing ululation. The playing 
 had ceased, the spell had dissolved, Naomi's fingers 
 had fallen from the harp, her head had dropped into 
 her breast, and with a sigh she had sunk forward on 
 to her face. 
 
 " Take her in ! *' said the wife of Ben Aboo, and 
 two Arab soldiers stepped up to where the little 
 maiden lay. But before they had touched her 
 Israel strode out with swollen lips and distended 
 nostrils. 
 
 " Stop ! " he cried. 
 
 The Arabs hesitated, and looked towards their 
 master. 
 
 ''Do as you are bidden — take her in!" said 
 Ben Aboo. 
 
 ''Stop!" cried Israel again, in a loud voice that 
 rang through the court. Then, parting the Arabs 
 with a sweep of his arms, he picked up the uncon-
 
 i6o The scapegoat. 
 
 scious maiden, and faced about on the new wife of 
 Ben Aboo. 
 
 '•'Madam," he cried, *' I, Israel ben Oliel, may 
 belong to the Governor ; but my child belongs to 
 me." 
 
 So saying, he passed out of the court, carrying the 
 girl in his arms, and in the dead silence and blank 
 stupor of that moment none seemed to know what he 
 had done until he was gone. 
 
 Israel went home in his anger ; but, nevertheless, 
 out of this event he found courage of his heart to 
 begin of his task again. Let his enemies bleat and 
 bark " Beelzebub," yet the child was an angel, though 
 suffering for his sin, and her soul was with God. 
 She was a spirit, and the songs she had played were 
 the airs of paradise. But, comforting himself so, 
 Israel remembered the vision of Ruth, wherein 
 Naomi had recovered her powers. He had put it 
 from him hitherto as the delirium of death, but 
 would the Lord yet bring it to pass ? Would God in 
 His mercy some day take the angel out of his house,
 
 OF THE AXGEL JX ISRAEL'S HOUSE. i6i 
 
 though so strangely gifted, so radiant and beautiful 
 and joyful, and gi7e him instead for the hunger of 
 his heart as a man this sweet human child, his little 
 fair-haired Naomi, though helpless and simple and 
 weak ? 
 
 Vol. t»
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Israel's instinct had been sure : the coming of 
 Katrina proved to be the beginning of his end. 
 He kept his office, but he lost his power. No longer 
 did he work his own will in Tetuan ; he was required 
 to work the will of the woman. Katrina's will 
 was an evil one, and Israel got the blame of it, for 
 still he seemed to stand in all matters of tribute and 
 taxation between the people and the Governor. It 
 galled him to take the woman's wages, but it vexed 
 him yet more to do her work. Her work was to 
 burden the people with taxes beyond all their power 
 of paying ; her wages, was to be hated as the bane 
 of the Bashalic, to be clamoured against as the tyrant 
 of Tetuan, and to be ridiculed by the very offal of 
 the streets.
 
 OF tHE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 163 
 
 One day a gang of dirty Arabs in the market- 
 place dressed up a blind beggar in clothes such 
 as Israel wore, and sent him abroad through the 
 town to beg as one that was destitute and in a 
 miserable condition. But nothing seemed to move 
 Israel to pity. Men were cast into prison for no 
 reason save that they were rich, and the relations 
 of such as were there already were allowed to 
 redeem them for money, so that no felon suffered 
 punishment except such as could pay nothing. 
 People took fright and fled to other cities. Israel's 
 name became a curse and a reproach throughout 
 Barbary. 
 
 Yet all this time the man's soul was yearning with 
 pity for the people. Since the death of Ruth his 
 heart had grown merciful. The care of the child had 
 softened him. It had brought hira to look on other 
 children with tenderness, and looking tenderly on 
 other children had led him to think of other fathers 
 with compassion. Young or old, powerful or weak, 
 mighty or mean, they were all as little children —
 
 164 'i'HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 helpless children who would sleep together in the 
 same bed soon. 
 
 Thinking so, Israel would have undone the evil 
 ■work of earlier years ; but that was impossible now. 
 Many of them that had suffered were dead ; some 
 that had been cast into prison had got their last and 
 long discharge. At least Israel would have relaxed 
 the rigour whereby his master ruled, bat that was 
 impossible also. Katrina had come, and she was 
 a vain woman and a lover of all luxury, and she 
 commanded Israel to tax the people afresh. He 
 obeyed her through three bad years ; but many a 
 time his heart reproached him that he dealt corruptly 
 by the poor people, and when Le saw them borrowing 
 money for the Governor's tributes on their lands and 
 houses, and when he stood by while they and their 
 sons were cnst into prison for the bonds w^hich they 
 could not pay to the usurers Abraham or Judah or 
 Reuben, then his soul cried out against him that he 
 ate the bread of such a mistress. 
 
 But out of the eater came forth meat, and out of
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT 165 
 
 'the strong came forth sweetness, and out of this 
 coming of the Spanish wife of Ben Aboo came deliver- 
 ance for Israel from the torment of his false position. 
 Now there was an aged and pious Moor in Tetuan, 
 called Abd Allah, who was rumoured to have made 
 savings from his business as a gunsmith. Going to 
 mosque one evening, with fifteen dollars in his 
 waistband, he unstrapped his belt and laid it 
 on the edge of the fountain while he washed 
 his feet before entering, for his back was no 
 longer supple. Then a younger Moor, coming to 
 pray at the same time, saw the dollars, and snatched 
 them up and ran. Abd Allah could not follow the 
 thief, so he went to the Kasbah and told his story to 
 the Governor. 
 
 Just at that time Ben Aboo had the Kaid of Fez on 
 a visit to him. "Ask him how much more he has 
 got," whispered the brother Kaid to Ben Aboo. 
 Abd Allah answered that he did not know. 
 " I'll give you two hundred dollars for the chance 
 of all he has," the Kaid whispered again.
 
 i66 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 " Five bees are better than a pannier of flies — 
 done ! " said Ben Aboo. 
 
 So Abd Allali was sold like a sheep and carried to 
 Fez, and there cast into prison on a penalty of two 
 hundred and fifty dollars imposed upon him on the 
 pretence of a false accusation. 
 
 Israel sat by the Governor that day at the gate 
 of the hall of justice, and many poor people of the 
 town stood huddled together in the court outside 
 w^hile the evil work was done. No one heard the 
 Kaid of Fez when he whispered to Ben Aboo, but 
 every one saw when Israel drew the warrant that 
 consigned the gunsmith to prison, and when he 
 sealed it with the Governor's seal. 
 
 Abd Allah had made no savings, and, being too old 
 for work, he had lived on the earnings of his son. 
 The son's name was Absalam (Abd es-Salam), and he 
 had a wife whom he loved very tenderly, and one 
 child, a boy of six years of age. Absalam followed his 
 father to Fez, and visited him in prison. The old man 
 had been ordered a hundred lashes, and the flesh wai
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 167 
 
 hanging from his limbs. Absalam was great of heart, 
 and, in pity of his father's miserable condition, he 
 went to the Governor and begged that the old man 
 might be liberated, and that he might be imprisoned 
 instead. His petition was heard. Abd Allah was 
 set free, Absalam was cast into prison, and the 
 penalty was raised from two hundred and fifty 
 dollars to three hundred. 
 
 Israel heard of what had happened, and he 
 hastened to Ben Aboo in great agitation, intending 
 to say, '' Pay back this man's ransom, in God's 
 name, and his children and his children's children 
 will live to bless you." But when he got to the 
 Kasbah, Katrina was sitting with her husband, 
 and at sight of the woman's face Israel's tongue 
 was frozen. 
 
 Absalam had been the favourite of his neighbours 
 among all the gunsmiths of the market-place, and 
 after he had been three months at Fez they made 
 common cause of his calamities, sold their goods at a 
 eacrifice, collected the three hundred dollars of his
 
 i68 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 fine, bought him out of prison, and went in a body 
 through tlie gate to meet him upon his return to 
 Tetuau. But his wife had died in the meantime, 
 of fear and privation, and only his aged father and 
 his little son were there to welcome him. 
 
 '' Friends," he said to his neighbours standing out- 
 side the walls, '^ what is the use of sowing if you 
 know not who will reap ? " 
 
 *'No use, no use ! " answered several voices. 
 
 " If God gives you anything, this man Israel takes 
 it away," said Absalam. 
 
 '^ True, true ! Curse him ! Curse his relations ! " 
 cried the others. 
 
 " Then why go back into Tetuan ? " said Absalam. 
 
 "Tangier is no better," said one. *' Fez is worse," 
 said another. " Where is there to go ? " said a 
 third. 
 
 '- Into the plains," said Absalam — ^' into the plains 
 and into the mountains, for they belong to God 
 alone." 
 
 That word was like the flint to the tinder.
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 169 
 
 ''They who have least are richest, and they that 
 have nothing are best off of all," said Absalam, and 
 his neighbours shouted that it was so. 
 
 '' God will clothe us as he clothes the fields,'' said 
 Absalam, " and feed our children as he feeds the 
 birds." 
 
 In three days' time ten shops in the market-place, 
 on the side of the mosque, were sold up and closed, 
 and the men who had kept them were gone away 
 with their wives and children to live in tents with 
 Absalam on the barren plains beyond the town. 
 
 When Israel heard of what had been done he 
 secretly rejoiced ; but Ben Aboo was in a commotion 
 of fear, and Katrina was fierce with anger, for the 
 doctrine which Absalam had preached to his neigh- 
 bours outside the walls was not his own doctrine 
 merely, but that of a great man lately risen among 
 the people, called Mohammed of Mequinez, nick- 
 named by his enemies Mohammed the Third. 
 
 " This madness is spreading," said Ben Aboo. 
 
 " Yes," said Katrina ; " and if all men follow
 
 170 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 where these men lead, who vvill supply the tables of 
 Kaids and Sultans ? " 
 
 *' What can I do with them ? " said Ben Aboo. 
 
 ** Eat them up," said Katrina. 
 
 Ben Aboo proceeded to put a literal interpretation 
 upon his wife's counsel. With a company of cavalry 
 he prepared to follow Absalam and his little fellow- 
 ship, taking Israel along with him to reckon their 
 taxes, that he might compel them to return to Tetuan, 
 and be town-dwellers and house-dwellers, and buy 
 and sell and pay tribute as before, or else deliver 
 themselves to prison. 
 
 But Absalam and his people had secret word that 
 the Governor was coming after them, and Israel with 
 him. So they rolled their tents, and fled to the 
 mountains that are midway between Tetuan and the 
 Ileef country, and took refuge in the gullies of that 
 rugged land, living in caves of the rock, with only 
 the table-land of mountain behind them, and nothing 
 but a rugged precipice in front. This place they 
 selected for its safety, intending to push forward, a^
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 171 
 
 occasion offered, to the sanctuaries of Shawan, trust- 
 ing rather to the humanity of the wild people, called 
 the Shawanis, than to the mercy of their late cruel 
 masters. But the valley wherein they had hidden is 
 thick with trees, and Ben Aboo tracked them and came 
 up with them before they were aware. Then, sending 
 soldiers to the mountain at the back of the caves, 
 with instructions that they should come down to the 
 precipice steadily, and kill none that they could 
 take alive, Ben Aboo himself drew up at the foot 
 of it, and Israel with him, and there called on the 
 people to come out and deliver themselves to his 
 will. 
 
 When the poor people came from their hiding-places 
 and saw that they were surrounded, and that escape 
 was not left to them on any side, they thought their 
 death was sure. But without a shout or a cry they 
 knelt, as with one accord, at the mouth of the preci- 
 pice, wdth their backs to it, men and women and 
 children, knee to knee in a line, and joined hands, 
 Rnd looked towards the soldiers, who were coming
 
 172 THE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 steadily down on them. On and on the soldiers 
 came, eye to eye with the people, and their swords 
 were drawn. - 
 
 Israel gasped for his breath, and waited to see 
 the people cut in pieces at the next instant, when 
 suddenly they began to sing where they knelt at the 
 edge of the precijoice, "God is our refuge and our 
 strength, a very present help in trouble." 
 
 In another moment the soldiers had drawn up as if 
 swords from heaven had fallen on them, and Israel 
 was crying out of his dry throat, '' Fear nothing ! 
 Only deliver your bodies to the Governor, and none 
 shall harm you." 
 
 Then a terrible thing happened. Absalam rose up 
 from his knees and called to his father and his son. 
 And standing between them to be seen by all, and 
 first looking upon both with eyes of pity, he drew 
 from the folds of his selham a long knife such as the 
 Reefians wear, and taking his father by his white 
 hair he slew him and cast his body down the rocks. 
 After that he turned towards his son, and the boy
 
 OF THE VtSIOX OF THE SCAPEGOAT. i/'j 
 
 was golden-haired and his face was like the morning. 
 Israel's heart bled to see him. 
 
 " Absalam/' he cried in a moving voice, " Absalam, 
 wait, wait ! " 
 
 But Absalam killed his son also and cast him down 
 after his father. Then, looking around on his people 
 with eyes of compassion, as seeming to pity them 
 that they must fall again into the hands of Israel and 
 his master, he stretched out his knife and sheathed 
 it in his own breast, and fell towards the precipice. 
 
 Israel covered his face and groaned in his heart, 
 and said : " It is the end, Lord God, it is the end — 
 polluted wretch as I am, with the blood of these 
 people upon me ! " 
 
 The companions of Absalam delivered themselves 
 to the soldiers, who committed them to the prison at 
 Shawan, and Ben Aboo went home in content. 
 
 Rumour of what had come to pass was not long in 
 reaching Tetuan, and Israel was charged with the 
 guilt of it. In passing through the streets the next 
 day on his way to his house the people hissed him
 
 174 THE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 openly. " Allah had not written it ! " a Moor shouted 
 as he passed. " Take care ! " cried an Arab, "Mo- 
 hammed of Mequinez is coming ! " 
 
 Now it chanced that night, after sundown, when 
 Naomi, according to her wont, led her father to the 
 upper room, and fetched the Book of the Law from 
 the cupboard of the wall and laid it upon his knees, 
 that he read the passage whereon the page opened of 
 itself, scarce knowing what he read when he began 
 to read it, for his spirit was heavy with the bad 
 doings of those days. And the passage whereon the 
 book opened was this — 
 
 " Aaron slmll cast lots upon the tico goats : one lot for 
 the Lord J and the other lot for the scapegoat. . . . Then 
 shall he hill the goat (f tlie sin-offering that is for the 
 people, and bring his Hood icithin the Vail, and he 
 shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of 
 the unA^leanness of the children of Israel, and because 
 of their transgressions in all their sins. . . . And when 
 he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and 
 the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he
 
 OF THE VISION' OF THE SCAPEGOAT 175 
 
 shcdl bring the live goatj and Aaron shall lay both hi* 
 hands ujxm the live goaty and confess over him all the 
 iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their trans- 
 gressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head 
 of the goat J and shall send him avxiy hy the hand of a 
 fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall hear 
 2ipan him all their iniquities into a land not in- 
 habited." 
 
 That same night Israel dreamt a dream. He had 
 been asleep, and had awakened in a place which he 
 did not know. It was a great arid wilderness. Ashen 
 sand lay on every side ; a scorching sun beat down 
 on it, and nowhere was there a gUnt of water. Israel 
 gazedj and slowly through the blazing sunlight he 
 discerned white roofless walls like the ruins of little 
 sheepfolds. " They are tombs/' he told himself, '• and 
 this is a Mukabar — an Arab graveyard — the most 
 desolate place in the world of God." But, looking 
 again, he saw that the roofless walls covered the 
 ground as far as the eye could see, and the thought 
 came to him that this ashen desert was the earth
 
 i;6 THE SCAPEGOA'l. 
 
 itself, and that all the world of life and man was dead. 
 Then, suddenly, in the motionless wilderness, a solitary 
 creature moved. It was a goat, and it toiled over the 
 hot sand with its head hang down and its tongue 
 lolled out. •* Water ! " it seemed to cry, though it 
 made no voice, and its eyes traversed the plain aa 
 if they would pierce the ground for a spring. Fever 
 and delirium fell upon Israel. The goat came near 
 to him and lifted up its eyes, and he saw its face. 
 Then he shrieked and awoke. The face of the goat 
 had been the face of Naomi. 
 
 Now Israel knew that this was no more than a 
 dream, coming of the passage which he had read out 
 of the book at sundown, but so vivid was the sense 
 of it that he could not rest in his bed until he had 
 first seen Naomi with his waking eyes, that he might 
 laugh in his heart to think how the eye of his sleep 
 had fooled him. So he lit his lamp and walked 
 through the silent house to where Naomi's room was 
 on the lower floor of it. 
 
 There she lay, sleeping so peacefully, with her
 
 OF 7 HE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. iTj 
 
 sunny hair flowing over the pillow on either side of 
 her beautiful face, and rippling in little curls about 
 her neck. How sweet she looked ! How like a dear 
 bud of womanhood just opening to the eye ! 
 
 Israel sat down beside her for a moment. Many a 
 time before, at such hours, he had sat in that same 
 place, and then gone his ways, and she had known 
 nothing of it. She was like any other maiden now. 
 Her eyes were closed, and who should see that they 
 were blind ? Her breath came gently, and who 
 should say that it gave forth no speech ? Her face 
 was quiet, and who should think that it was not the 
 face of a homely hearted girl ? Israel loved these 
 moments when he was alone with Xaomi while she 
 slept, for then only did she seem to be entirely his 
 own, and he was not so lonely while he was sitting 
 there. Though men thought he was strong, yet he 
 was very weak. He had no one in the world to talk 
 to save Naomi, and she was dumb in the daytime, 
 but in the night he could hold little conversations 
 with her. His love ! his dove ! his darling ! How 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 easily he could trick and deceive himself and think, 
 She will awake presently, and speak to me I Yes ; 
 her eyes will open and see me here again, and I shall 
 hear her voice, for I love it ! '* Father ! " she will 
 say. '' Father — father " 
 
 Only the moment of undeceiving was so cruel ! 
 
 Naomi stirred, and Israel rose and left her. As 
 he went back to his bed, through the corridor of 
 the patio, he heard a night-cry behind him that 
 made his hair to rise. It was Naomi laughing in 
 her sleep. 
 
 Israel dreamt again that night, and he believed 
 his second dream to be a vision. It was only a 
 dream, like the first ; but what his dream would be 
 to us is nought, and what it was to him is everything. 
 The vision as he thought he saw it was this, and 
 these were the words of it as he thought he heard 
 them — 
 
 It was the middle of the night, and he was lying 
 in his own room, when a dull red light as of dying 
 flame crossed the foot of the bed, and a voice that
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 179 
 
 was as the voice of the Lord came out of it, crying 
 "Israel." 
 
 And Israel was sorely afraid and answered, 
 " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.'* 
 
 Then the Lord said, '' Thou hast read of the 
 goats whereon the high-priest cast lots, one lot foi 
 the sin-offering and one lot for the scapegoat." 
 
 And Israel answered trembling, " I have read.*' 
 
 Then the Lord said to Israel, " Look now upon 
 Naomi, thy child, for she is as the sin-offering for 
 thy sins, to make atonement for thy transgressions, 
 for thee and for thy household, and therefore she is 
 dumb to all uses of speech, and blind to all service 
 of sight, a soul in chains and a spirit in prison, for 
 behold, she is as the lot that is cast for justice and 
 for the Lord.'' 
 
 . And Israel groaned in his agony and cried, 
 ''Would that the lot had fallen upon me, Lord. 
 that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, 
 and be clear when thou judgest, fo; I alone am guilty 
 before thee."
 
 i8o THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Then said tJie Lord to Israel, " On thee, also, hath 
 the lot fallen, even the lot of the scapegoat of the 
 enemies of the people of God." 
 
 And Israel quaked with fear, and the Lord called 
 to him again, and said, " Israel, even as the scape- 
 goat carries the iniquities of the people, so dost thou 
 carry the iniquities of thy master, Ben Aboo, and of 
 his wife, Katrina ; and even as the goat bears the 
 sins of the people into the wilderness, so, in the 
 resurrection, shalt thou bear the sins of this man and 
 of this woman into a land that no man knoweth." 
 
 Then Israel wrestled no longer with the Lord, but 
 sweated as it were drops of blood, and cried, " What 
 shall I do, Lord ? " 
 
 And the Lord said, ''Lie unto the morning and 
 then arise, get thee to the country by Mequinez and 
 to the man there whereof thou hast heard tidings, 
 and he shall show thee what thou shalt do.' 
 
 Then Israel wept with gladness, and cried, saying, 
 •' Shall my soul live ? Shall the lot be lifted from 
 off me, and from ofif Naomi, my daughter ? "
 
 OF THE VISION OF I HE SCAPEGOAT. i8i 
 
 But the Lord left him, the red light died out from 
 across the bed, and all around was darkness. 
 
 Now to the last day and hour of his life Israel 
 would have taken oath on the Scriptures that he 
 saw this vision, and heard this voice, not in his 
 sleep and as in a dream, but awake, and having 
 plain sight of all common things about him — his 
 room and his bed, and the canopy that covered it. 
 And on rising in the morning, at daydawn, so actual 
 was the sense of what he had seen and heard, and 
 so powerful the impression of it, that he straightway 
 set himself to carry out the injunction it had made, 
 without question of its reality or doubt of its 
 authority. 
 
 Therefore, committing his household to the care 
 of Ali, who was now grown to be a stalwart black 
 lad, his constant right hand and helpmate, Israel 
 first sent to the Governor, saying he should be ten 
 days absent from Tetuan, and then to the Kasbah for 
 a soldier and guide, and to the market-place for 
 mules.
 
 1 82 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Before the sun was high everything was in 
 readiness, and the caravan was waiting at the door. 
 Then Israel remembered Naomi. Where was the 
 girl tlif.t he had not seen her that morning ? They 
 answered him that she had not yet left her room, and 
 he sent the black woman Fatimah to fetch her. And 
 when she came and he had kissed her, bidding her 
 farewell in silence, his heart misgave him con- 
 cerning her, and, after raising his foot to the stirrup, 
 he returned to where she stood in the patio with the 
 two bondwomen beside her. 
 
 "' Is she well ? "' he asked. 
 
 '•Oh yes, well— very well," said Fatimah, and 
 Habeebah echoed her. Nevertheless, Israel remem- 
 bered that he had not heard the only language of 
 her lips, her laugh, and, looking at her again, he 
 saw that her face, which had used to be cheerful, 
 was now sad. At that he almost repented of his 
 purpose, and but for shame in his own eyes he 
 might have gone no farther, for it smote him with 
 terror that, though she were sick, nothing could
 
 OF THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT. 183 
 
 she say to stay him, and even if she were dying 
 she must let him go his ways without warning. 
 
 He kissed her again, and she clung to him, so 
 that at last, with many words of tender protest 
 which she did not hear, he had to break away from 
 the beautiful arms that held him. 
 
 Ali was waiting by the mules in the streets, and 
 the soldier and guide and muleteers and tentmen 
 were already mounted, amid a chattering throng 
 of idle people looking on. 
 
 *' Ali, my lad," said Israel, " if anything should 
 befall Naomi while I am away, will you watch over 
 her and guard her with all your strength." 
 
 ^'With all my life," said Ali stoutly. He was 
 Naomi's playfellow no longer, but her devoted slave. 
 
 Then Israel set off on his journey.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF Israel's journey. 
 
 Kow Moliammed of Mequinez, the man whom 
 Israel went out to seek, was a Kadi and the son of a 
 Kadi. While he was still a child his father died, 
 and he was brought up by two uncles, his father's 
 brothers, both men of yet higher place, the one 
 being Naib es-sultan, or Foreign Minister, at Tan- 
 gier, and the other Grand Mzier to the Sultan, 
 at Morocco. Thus in a land where there is one 
 noble only, the Sultan himself, where ascent and 
 descent are as free as in a Republic, though the ways of 
 both are mired with crime and corruption, Mohammed 
 was come as from the highest nobility. Nevertheless, 
 he renounced his rank and the hope of wealth that 
 went along with it at the call of duty and the cry 
 of misery.
 
 OJ^l ISRAEL'S JO URNE V. 185 
 
 He parted from his uncles, abandoned bis judge- 
 ship, and went out into the plains. The poor and 
 outcast and downtrodden among the people, the 
 shamed, the disgraced, and the neglected left the 
 towns and followed him. He established a sect. 
 They were to be despisers of riches and lovers of 
 poverty. No man among them was to have more 
 than another. They were never to buy or sell 
 among themselves, but every one was to give what 
 he had to him that wanted it. They were to avoid 
 swearing, yet whatever they said was to be firmer 
 than an oath. They were to be ministers of peace, 
 and if any man did them violence they were never 
 to resist him. Nevertheless they were not to lack 
 for courage, but to laugh to scorn the enemies that 
 tormented them, and smile in their pains and shed 
 no tear. And as for death, if it was for their glory 
 they were to esteem it more than life, because their 
 bodies only were corruptible, but their souls were 
 immortal and would mount upwards when released 
 from the bondage of the flesh. Not dissenters from
 
 1 86 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 the Koran, but stricter conformers to it ; not Naza- 
 renes and not Jews, yet followers of Jesus in their 
 customs and of Moses in their doctrines. 
 
 And Moors and Berbers, Arabs and Negroes, 
 Muslimeen and Jews heard the cry of Mohammed 
 of Mequinez, and he received them all. From the 
 streets, from the market-places, from the doors of 
 the prisons, from the service of hard masters and 
 from the ragged army itself, they arose in hundreds 
 and trooped after him. They needed no badge but 
 the badge of poverty, and no voice of pleading but 
 the voice of misery. Most of them brought nothing 
 with them in their hands, and some brought little on 
 their backs save the stripes of their tormentors. A 
 few had flocks and herds which they drove before 
 them ; a few had tents, which they shared with their 
 fellows, and a few had guns with which they shot the 
 wild boar for their food and the hyena for their 
 safety. Thus, possessing little and desiring nothing, 
 having neither houses nor lands, and only considering 
 themselves secure from their rulers in having no
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JO URNE Y. 187 
 
 money, this company of battered human wrecks, life- 
 broken and crime-logged and stranded, passed with 
 their leader from place to place of the waste country 
 about Mequinez. And he, being as poor as they were, 
 though he might have been so rich, cheered them 
 always, even when they murmured against him, as 
 Absalam had cheered his little fellowship at Tetuan : 
 " God will feed us as He feeds the birds of the air, 
 and clothe our little ones as He clothes the fields." 
 
 Such was the man whom Israel went out to seek. 
 But Israel knew his people too well to make known 
 his errand. His besetting difficulties were enough 
 already. The year was young, but the days were 
 hot ; a palpitating haze floated always in the air, and 
 the grass and the broom had the dusty and tired look 
 of autumn. It was also the month of the fast of 
 Ramadhan, and Israel's men were Muslims. So, to 
 save himself the double vexation of oppressive days 
 and the constant bickerings of his famished people, 
 Israel found it necessar}^ at length to travel in the 
 night. In this way his journey was the shorter for
 
 188 THE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 the absence of some obstacles, but lils time was 
 long. 
 
 And, just as he had hidden his errand from the 
 men of his own caravan, so he concealed it from the 
 people of the country that he passed through, and 
 many and various, and sometimes ludicrous and 
 sometimes very pitiful, were the conjectures they 
 made concerning it. While he was passing through 
 his own province of Tetuan nothing did the poor 
 people think but that he had come to make a new 
 assessment of their lands and holdings, their cattle 
 and belongings, that he might tax them afresh and 
 more fully. So, to buy his mercy in advance, many 
 of them came out of their houses as he drew near, 
 and knelt on the ground before his horse, and 
 kissed the skirts of his kaftan, and his knees, and 
 even his foot in his stirrup, and called him aSVV/i 
 (master, my lord), a title never before given to a 
 Jew, and offered him presents out of their meagre 
 substance. 
 
 . *' A gift for my lord," they would say, "of the
 
 OF ISRAELS JOURNEY. 189 
 
 little that God has ^^iven us, praise His merciful 
 jiame for ever ! " 
 
 Then they would push forward a sheep or a goat, 
 or a string of hens tied by the legs so as to hang 
 across his saddle-bow, or, perhaps, at the two 
 trembling hands of an old woman living alone on a 
 hungry scratch of land in a desolate place, a bowl of 
 buttermilk. 
 
 Israel was touched by the people's terror, but he 
 betrayed no feeling. 
 
 " Keep them," he would answer ; '' keep them 
 until I come again," intending to tell them, when 
 that time came, to keep their poor gifts altogether. 
 
 And when he had passed out of the province of 
 Tetuan into the bashalic of El Kasar, the bareheaded 
 country-people of the valley of the Koos hastened 
 before him to the Kaid of that grey town of bricks 
 and storks and palm-trees and evil odours, and the 
 Kaid, with another notion of his errand, came to 
 the tumble-down bridge to meet him on his approach 
 in the early morning.
 
 190 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 ''Peace be with you I "' said the Kaid. ''So my 
 lord is going again to the Shereef at Wazzan ; may 
 the mercy of the Merciful protect him ! " 
 
 Israel neither answered yea nor nay, but threaded 
 the maze of crooked lanes to the lodging which had 
 been provided for him near the market-place, and the 
 same night he left the town (laden with the presents 
 of the Kaid) through a line of famished and half- 
 naked beggars who looked on with feverish eyes. 
 
 Next day, at dawn, he came to the heights of 
 Wazzan (a holy city of Morocco) by the olives and 
 junipers and evergreen oaks that grow at the foot of 
 the lofty, double-peaked Boo-Hallal, and there the 
 young Grand Shereef himself, at the gate of his 
 odorous orange gardens, stood waiting to give 
 audience with yet another conjecture as to the 
 intention of his journey. 
 
 '' Welcome ! welcome ! " said the Shereef ; " all you 
 see is yours until Allah shall decree that you leave me 
 too soon on your happy mission to our lord the Sultan 
 at Fez — may God prolong his life and bless him ! "
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JOURXEY. 191 
 
 ^' God make you happy I " said Israel ; but he 
 offered no answer to the question tliat was implied. 
 
 "It is twenty and odd years, my lord," the Shereef 
 continued, '•' since my father sent for you out of 
 Tetuan, and many are the ups and downs that time 
 has wrought since then, under Allah's will ; but none 
 in the past have been so grateful as the elevation of 
 Israel ben Oliel, and none in the future can be so 
 joyful as the favours which the Sultan (God keep our 
 lord Abd er-Kahman I ; has still in store for him. 
 
 " God will show," said Israel. 
 
 Xo Jew had ever yet ridden in this Moroccan 
 Mecca ; but the Shereef alighted from his horse and 
 offered it to Israel, and took Israel's horse instead, 
 and together they rode through the market-place, 
 and past the old Mos-que that is a ruin inhabited 
 by hawks, and the other mosque of the Aissawa, and 
 the three squalid fondaks wherein the Jews live like 
 cattle. A swarm of Arabs followed at their heels in 
 tattered and greasy rags, a group of Jews went by 
 them barefoot, and a knot of bedraggled renegades
 
 192 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 leaning against the walls of the prison doffed the 
 caps from their dishevelled heads and bowed. 
 
 Thqt day, while the poor people of the town fasted 
 according to the ordinance of the Ramadhan, Israel's 
 little company of Muslimeen — guests in the house of 
 the descendants of the Prophet — were, by special 
 Shereefian dispensation, permitted as travellers to eat 
 and drink at their pleasure. And before sunset, but 
 at the verge of it, Israel and his men started on 
 their journey afresh, going out of the town, with 
 the Shereefs black bodyguard riding before them for 
 guide and badge of honour, through the dense and 
 noisome market-place, where (like a clock that is 
 warning to strike) a multitude of hungry and thirsty 
 people with fierce and dirty faces, under a heavy 
 wave of palpitating heat, and amid clouds of hot 
 dust, were waiting for the sound of the cannon that 
 should proclaim the end of that day's fast. Water- 
 carriers at the fountains stood ready to fill their 
 empty goats' skins, women and children sat on the 
 ground with dishes of greasy soup on their knees
 
 OF IS K A EL'S JOURNEY. 193 
 
 and balls of grain rolled in tlieir fingers, men lay 
 about holding pipes charged with keef. and flint and 
 tinder to light them, and the mneddin himself in 
 the minaret, stood looking abroad (unless he were 
 blind) to where the red sun was lazily sinking under 
 the plain. 
 
 Israel's soul sickened within hiin, for w^ell he knew 
 that, lavish as were the honours that were shown him, 
 they were offered by the rich out of their selfish- 
 ness and by the poor out of their fear. While they 
 thought the Sultan had sent for him they kissed his 
 foot who desired no homage, and loaded him with 
 presents who needed no gifts. But one word out of 
 Ms mouth, only one little word, one other name, and 
 what then of this lip-service, and what of this mock- 
 honour ! 
 
 Two days later Israel and his company reached be- 
 fore dawn the snake-like ramparts of Mequinez, the 
 city of walls. And toiling in the darkness over the 
 barren plain and the belt of carrion that lies in front 
 of the town, through the heat and f ume8 of the fetid 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 place, and amid the furious barks of the scavenger 
 dogs which prowl in the night around it, they 
 came in the grey of morning to the city gate 
 over the stream called the Father of Tortoises. 
 The gate was closed and the night police that kept 
 it were snoring in their rags, under the arch of the 
 wall within. 
 
 '' Selam ! M'barak ! Abd el Kader ! Abd el Kareem ! " 
 shouted the Shereef s black guard to the sleepy gate- 
 keepers. They had come thus far iu Israel's honour 
 and would not return to Wazzan until they liad seen 
 him housed within. 
 
 From the other side of the gate, through the mist 
 and the gloom, came yawns and broken snores and 
 then snarls and curses. " Burn your father ! Pretty 
 hubbub in the middle of the night ! "' 
 
 " Selam ! "' shouted one of the black guard. " You 
 dog of dogs ! Your father was bewitched by a hyena ! 
 ril teach you to curse your betters. Quick ! Get up, 
 or I'll shave your beard. Open ! Or I'll ride the 
 donkey on your head ! There ! — and there ! — and
 
 OF iSRAEVS jOURXEY. f^S 
 
 there again ! "' and at every word the butt of his long 
 gun rang on the old oaken gate. 
 
 " Hamed el Wazzani ! " muttered several voices 
 within. 
 
 " Yes/' shouted the Shereef's man. " And my 
 Lord Israel of Tetuan on his way to the Sultan, God 
 grant him victory. Do you hear, you dogs ? Sidi 
 Israel el Tetawani sitting here in the dark, while you 
 are sleeping and snoring in your dirt.'' 
 
 There was a whispered conference on the inside, 
 then a rattle of keys, and then the gate groaned back 
 on its hinges. At the next moment two of the four 
 gatemen were on their knees at the feet of Israel's 
 horse, asking forgiveness by grace of Allah and his 
 Prophet. In the meantime, the other two had sped 
 away to the Kasbah, and before Israel had ridden far 
 into the town, the Kaid — ao-ainst all usaofe of his 
 class and country — ran and met him — afoot, slipper- 
 less, wearing nothing but selham and tarboosh, out 
 of breath, yet with a mouth full of excuses. 
 
 " I heard you were coming," he panted — '" sent for
 
 1^6 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 by tlie Sultan — AHah preserve him ! — but had I 
 known YOU were to be here so soon — I — that is " 
 
 " Peace be with you ! "' interrupted Israel. 
 
 " God grant you peace. The Sultan — praise the 
 merciful Allah ! " the Kaid continued, bowing low over 
 Israel's stirrup — " he reached Fez from Marrakesh 
 last sunset; you will be in time for him." 
 
 " God will show," said Israel, and he pushed for- 
 ward. 
 
 '' Ah, true — yes — certainly — my lord is tired," 
 puffed the Kaid, bowing again most profoundly. 
 " Well, your lodging is ready — the best in Mequinez 
 — and your mona is cooking — all the dainties of 
 Barbary — and when our merciful Abder-Rahman has 
 made you his Grand Vizier " 
 
 Thus the man chattered like a jny, bowing low ct 
 nigh every word, until they came to the house wherein 
 Israel and his people were to rest until sunset; and 
 always the burden of his words was the same — the 
 Sultan, the Sultan, the Sultan, and Abd er-Rahman, 
 Abd er-Rahman !
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JOURNEY. 197 
 
 Israel could bear no more. " Basha/' he said, " it 
 ii a mistake ; the Sultan has not sent for me, and 
 neither am I going to see him." 
 
 *' Not going to him ?*' the Kaid echoed vacantly. 
 
 " No, but to another," said Isra.l, '• and you of all 
 men can best tell me where that other is to be fcund. 
 A great man, newly risen — yet a poor man — the 
 young Mahdi Mohammed of Mequinez." 
 
 Then there was a long silence. 
 
 Israel did not rest in Mequinez until sunset of that 
 day. Soon after sunrise he went out at the gate at 
 which he had so lately entered, and no man showed 
 him honour. The black guard of the Shereef of 
 Wazzan had gone off before him, chuckling and 
 grinning in their disgust, and behind him his own 
 little company of soldiers, guides, muleteers, and tent- 
 men, who, like himself, had neither slept nor eaten, 
 were dragging along in dudgeon. The Kaid had 
 turned them out of the town. 
 
 Later in the day, while Israel and his people lay 
 sheltering within their tents on the plain of Sais,
 
 198 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 by the river Xagar, near the teDt-village called a 
 Douar, and the palm-tree by the bridge, there passed 
 them in the fierce sunshine two men in the peaked 
 shasheeah of the soldier, riding at a furious gallop 
 from the direction of Fez, and shouting to all they 
 came upon to fly from the path they had to pass over. 
 They were messengers of the Sultan, carrying letters 
 to the Kaid of Mequinez, commanding him to present 
 himself at the palace without delay, that he might 
 give good account of his stewardship, or else deliver 
 up his substance and be cast into prison for the 
 defalcations with which rumour had charged him. 
 
 Such was the errand of the soldiers, according to 
 the country-people, who toiled along after them on 
 their way home from the markets at Fez ; and great 
 was the glee of Israel's men on hearing it, for they 
 remembered with bitterness how basely the Kaid had 
 treated them at last in his false loyalty and hypocrisy. 
 But Israel himself was too nearly touched by a sense 
 of Fate's coquetry to rejoice at this new freak of its 
 whim, though the victim of it had so lately turned
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JO URNE V. 1 99 
 
 hiin from his door. Miserable was the man who laid 
 up his treasure in money-bags and built his happiness 
 on the favour of princes ! When the one was taken 
 from him and the other failed him, where then was 
 the hope of that man's salvation, whether in this 
 world or the next ? The dungeon, the chain, the lash, 
 the wooden jellab — what else was left to him ? Only 
 the wail of the poor whom he has made poorer, the 
 curse of the orphan whom he has made fatherless', 
 and the execration of the down-trodden whom he has 
 oppressed. These followed him into his prison, and 
 miDgled their cries with the clank of his irons, for 
 they were voices which had never yet deserted the 
 man that made them, but clamoured loud at the last 
 when his end had come, above the death-rattle in his 
 throat. One dim hour waited for all men always, 
 ^Yllether in the prison or in the palace — one lonely 
 hour wherein none could bear him company — and 
 what was wealth and treasure to man's soul beyond 
 it ? Was it power on earth ? Was it glory ? Was 
 it riches ? Oh ! glory of the earth — wliat could it be
 
 200 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 but a will-o'-the-wisp pursued in the darkness of the 
 night ! Oh ! riches of gold and silver — what had 
 they ever been but marsh-fire gathered in the dusk ! 
 The empire of the world was evil, and evil was the 
 service of the prioce of it ! 
 
 Then Israel thought of Naomi, his sweet treasure 
 so far away. Though all else fell from him like dry 
 sand from graspless fingers, yet if by God's good 
 mercy the lot of the sin-offering could bo lifted away 
 from his child he would be content and happy. 
 Naomi ! His love ! His darling ! His sweet flower 
 afflicted for his transgression. Oh ! let him lose any- 
 thing, everything, all that the world and all that the 
 devil had given him ; but let the curse be lifted from 
 his helpless child ! For what was gold without glad- 
 ness, and what was plenty without peace ? 
 
 Israel lit upon the Mahdi at last in the country 
 of the verbena and the musk that lies outside the 
 walls of Fez. The prophet was a young man of 
 unusual stature, but no great strength of body, with 
 a head that drooped like a flower and with the wild
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JOURNEY. 201 
 
 eyes of an enthusiast. His people were a vast 
 concourse that covered the x^lain a furlong square, 
 auvi included multitudes of women and children. 
 Israel had come upon them at an evil moment. The 
 people were murmuring against their leader. Six 
 months ago they had abandoned their houses and 
 followed him. They had passed from Mequinez to 
 Eabat, from Rabat to Mazagan, from Mazagan to 
 Mogador, from Mogador to Marrakesh, and finally 
 from Marrakesh through the treacherous Beui 
 Magild to Fez. At every step their numbers had 
 increased but their substance had diminished, for 
 only the destitute had joined them. Nevertheless, 
 while they had their flocks and herds they had 
 borne their privations patiently — the weary journeys, 
 the exposure, the long rains of the spring and the 
 scorching heat of summer. But the soldiers of the 
 Kaids whose provinces they had passed through had 
 stripped them of both in the name of tribute. The 
 last raid on their poverty had been made that very 
 day by the Kaid of Fez, and now they were without
 
 203 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 goats or sheep or oxen, or e\"en the guns with which 
 they had killed the wild boar, and their children 
 were crying to them for bread. 
 
 So the people's faces grew black, and they looked 
 into each other's eyes in their impotent rage. Why 
 had they been brought out of the cities to starve ? 
 Better to stay there and suffer than come out and 
 perish ! What of the vain promises that had been 
 made to them that God would feed them as He fed 
 the birds ! God was witness to all their calamities ; 
 He was seeing them robbed day by day, He was 
 seeing them famish hour by hour, He was seeing 
 them die. They had been fooled ! A vain man had 
 thought to plough his way to power. Through 
 their bodies he was now ploughing it. " The hunger 
 is on us ! " " Our children are perishing ! " '' Find 
 us food!" ''Food!" ''Food!" 
 
 With such shouts, mingled with deep oaths, the 
 hungry multitude in their madness had encompassed 
 Mohammed of Mequinez as Israel and his company 
 came up with them. And Israel heard their cries,
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JOURNEY. 203 
 
 and also the voice of their leader ^Yhen he answered 
 them. 
 
 And first the young prophet rose up among his 
 people, with flashing eyes and quivering nostrils. 
 '' Do you think I am Moses,'"' he cried, " that I 
 should smite the rock and work you a miracle ! If 
 you are starving, am I full ? If you are naked, am I 
 clothed ? " 
 
 But in another instant the fire of anger was gone 
 from his face, and he was saying in a very moving 
 voice, " My good people, who have followed me 
 through all these miseries, I know that your burdens 
 are heavier than you can bear, and that your lives 
 are scarce to be endured, and that death itself 
 would be a relief. Nevertheless, who shall say but 
 that Allah sees a way to avert these trials of His 
 poor servants, and that, unknown to us all. He is 
 even at this moment bringing His mercy to pass ! 
 Patience, I beg of you ; patience, my poor people — 
 patience and trust ! " 
 
 At that the murmurs of discontent were hushed.
 
 204 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 Then Israel remembered the presents with which the 
 Kaid of El Kasar and the Shereef of Wazzan had 
 burdened him. They were jewels and ornaments such 
 as are sometimes worn unlawfully by vain men in that 
 country — silver signet rings and earrings, chains for 
 the neck, and Solomon's seal to hang on the breast 
 as safeguard against the evil eye — as well as much 
 gold filagree of the kind that men give to their 
 women. Israel had packed them in a box and laid 
 them in the leaf pannier of a mule and then given 
 no further thought to them ; but, calling now to 
 the muleteer who had charge of them, he said, 
 *' Take them quickly to the good man yonder, and 
 say, ^ A present to the man of God and to his 
 people in their trouble.' " 
 
 And when the muleteer had done this, and laid 
 the box of gold and silver open at the feet of the 
 young Mahdi, saying what Israel had bidden 
 him, it was the same to the young man and his 
 followers as if the sky had opened and rained manna 
 on their heads. ''It is an answer to your prayer,"
 
 OF ISRAEL'S JOURNEY, 205 
 
 lie cried ; " an angel from heaven lias sent ii"." 
 Then his people, as soon as they realised what 
 good thing had happened to them, took up his 
 shout of joy, and shouted out of their own parched 
 throats, " Prophet of Allah, we will follow you to the 
 w^orld's end ! " And then, down to their knees they 
 fell around him, the vast concourse of men and 
 women, all grinning like apes in their hunger and 
 glee together, and sobbing and laughing in a breath, 
 like children, and sent up a great broken cry of thanks 
 to God that He had sent them succour, that they 
 might not die. At last, when they had risen to 
 their feet again, every man looked into the eyes of 
 his fellow, and said, as if ashamed, "I could have 
 borne it myself, but w^hen the children called to me 
 for bread, I was a fool."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MAHDI. 
 
 The next day thereafter Israel set his face home- 
 ward, with tliis old word of the new prophtt for his 
 guide and motto: " Exact no more than is just; do 
 violence to no man ; accuse none falsely ; part with 
 your riches and give to the poor." That was all the 
 answer he got out of his journey, and if any man had 
 come to him in Tetuan with no newer story, it must 
 have been an idle and a foolish errand ; but after 
 El Kasar, after Wazzao, after Mequinez, and now 
 after Fez, it seemed to be the sum of all wisdom. 
 " I'll do it," he said ; '' at all risks and all costs I'll 
 do it." 
 
 And, as a prelude to that change in his way 
 of life which he meant to bring to pass, he sent 
 forward his men and mules ahead of him, emptied
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OP THE MAHDI. 207 
 
 his pockets of all that he should not need on his 
 journey, and prepared to return to his own country 
 on foot and alone. The men had first gaped in 
 amazement, and then laughed in derision ; and finally 
 they had gone their ways by themselves, telling all 
 who encountered them that the Sultan at Fez had 
 stripped their master of everything, and that he was 
 coming behind them penniless. 
 
 But, knowing nothing of this graceless service, 
 Israel began on his homeward journey wdth a happy 
 heart. He had less than thirty dollars in his waist- 
 band of the more than three hundred with which he 
 had set out from Tetuan : he was a hundred and 
 fifty miles from that town, or five long days' travel ; 
 the sun was still hot, and he must walk in the day- 
 time. Surely the Lord would see it that never before 
 had any man done so much to wipe out God's dis- 
 pleasure as he was now doing and yet would do. 
 He had said nothing of Naomi to the Mahdi even 
 when he told him of his vision ; but all his hopes 
 had centred in the child. The lot of the sin-
 
 2oiJ 7 HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 offering must be gone from her now, and in the 
 resurrection he would meet her witliout shame. 
 If he had brought fruits meet to repentance, then 
 must her debt also be wiped away. Surely never 
 before had any child been so smitten of God, and 
 never had any father of an afflicted child bought 
 God's mercy at so dear a price ! 
 
 Such were the thoughts that Israel cherished secretly, 
 though he dared not to utter them lest he should 
 seem to be bribing God out of his love of the child. 
 And thus if his heart was glad as he turned towards 
 home, it was proud also, and if it was grateful it was 
 also vain ; but vanity and pride were both smitten out 
 of it in an hour, before he went through the gates of 
 Fez (wherein he had slept the night preceding), by 
 three sights which, though stern and pitiful, were of 
 no uncommon occurrence in that town and province. 
 First, it chanced that as he was passing from the 
 south-east of the new town of Fez to the gate that 
 is at the north-west corner, going by the high walls 
 of the Sultan's hareem, where there is room for a
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MAHDL 209 
 
 thousand women, and near to the Kariieein mosque 
 that is the greatest in Morocco and rests on eight 
 hundred pillars, he came upon two slaveholders selling 
 twelve or fourteen slaves. The slaves were all girls, 
 and all black, and of varying ages, ranging from ten 
 years to about thirty. They had lately arrived in 
 caravans from the Soudan, by way of Tafilelt and 
 the Waghar, and some of them looked worn from the 
 desert passage. Others were fresh and cheerful, and 
 such as had claims to negro beauty were adorned, 
 after their doubtful fashion, or the fancy of their 
 masters, with love-charms of silver, worn about their 
 necks, with their fingers pricked out with hennah, 
 and their eyelids darkened with kohl. Thus they 
 were drawn up in a line for public auction ; but before 
 the sale of them could begin cimong the buyers that 
 had gathered about them in the street, the overseers 
 of the Sultan's hareem had to come and make a selec- 
 tion for their master. This the eunuchs presently 
 did, and when two of them nicknamed Areefahs — 
 gaunt and hairless men, with the faces of evil old 
 VOL. I.
 
 'I HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 women and the hoarse voices of ravens — had picked 
 out three fat black maidens, the business of the 
 auction began by the sale of a negro girl of seven- 
 teen who was brought out from the rest and passed 
 around. 
 
 Israel's blood tingled to see how the bidders 
 handled the girl, and to hear what shameless ques- 
 tions the}' asked of her, and wdth a long sigh he was 
 turning away from the crowd, when another man 
 came up to it. The man was black and old and hard- 
 feat ared, and visibly poor in his torn white selham. 
 But when he had looked over the heads of those in 
 front of him, he made a great shout of anguish, and, 
 parting the people, pushed his way to the girl's side, 
 and opened his arms to her, and she fell into them 
 with a cry of joy and pain together. 
 
 It turned out that he was a liberated slave, who, 
 ten years before, had been brought from the Soos 
 through the country of 8idi Hasham ben Hosain, 
 having been torn away from his wife, who was since 
 dead, and from his only child, who thus strangely
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MA HDL 211 
 
 rejoined liiro. Tliis story lie told, in broken Arabic, 
 to those that stood around, and, hard as were the 
 faces of the bidders, and brutal as was their trade, 
 there was not an eye among them all bat was melted 
 at his story. 
 
 Seeing this, Israel cried from the back of the 
 crowd, " I will give t^venty dollars to buy him the 
 girl's liberty,'' and straightway another and another 
 offered like sums for the same purpose until the 
 amount of the last bid had been reached, and the 
 slave-master took it, and the girl was free. Then 
 the poor negi'o, still holding his daughter by the 
 hand, came to Israel, with the tears dripping down 
 his black cheeks, and said in his broken way : " The 
 blessing of Allah upon you, white brother, and if you 
 have a child of your own may you never lose her, 
 but may Allah favour her and let you keep her witli 
 you always ! " 
 
 That blessing of the old black man was more than 
 Israel could bear, and, facing about before hearing the 
 last of it, he turned down the dark arcade that descends
 
 THE SCAPEGOAl. 
 
 into t/ie old town as into a vault, and having crossed 
 the markets, he came upon the second of the three 
 sights that were to smite out of his heart his }3ride 
 towards God. A man in a blue tunic girded with a 
 red sasli, and witli a red cotton handkerchief tied about 
 his head, was driving a donkey laden with trunks of 
 light trees cut into short lengths to lie over its panniers. 
 He w^as clearly a Spanish woodseller, and he had the 
 weary, averted, and downcast look of a race that is 
 despised and kept under. His donkey was a bony 
 creature, with raw places on its flank and shoulders 
 where its hide had been w^orn by the friction of its 
 burdens. He drove it slowly, crying " Arrah ! " to 
 it in the tongue of its own country, and not beating 
 it cruelly. At the bottom of the arcade there was 
 an open place where a foul ditch was crossed 
 by a rickety bridge. Coming to this the man 
 hesitated a moment, as if doubtful whether to drive 
 his donkey over it or to make the beast trudge 
 through the water. Concluding to cross the bridge 
 he cried "Arrah!" again, and drove the donkey
 
 OF 'I HE WATCHWORD OF THE MAHDf. 213 
 
 forward with one blow of his stick. But when the 
 donkey was in the middle of it the rotten thing gave 
 way, and the beast and its burden fell into the ditch. 
 The donkey's legs were broken, and when a throng 
 of Arabs, who gathered at the Spaniard's cry, had 
 cut away its ^^anuiers and dragged it out of the 
 water on to the paving stones of the street, the film 
 covered its eyes, and in a moment it was dead. 
 
 At that the man knelt down beside it, and patted 
 it on its neck and called on it by its name, as if 
 unwilling to believe that it w^as gone. And wdiile 
 the Arabs laughed at him for doing so— for none 
 seemed to pity him — a slatternly girl of sixteen or 
 seventeen came scudding down the arcade, and push- 
 ing her way through the crowd until she stood where 
 the dead ass lay with the man kneeling beside it. 
 Then she fell on the man with bitter reproaches. 
 "Allah blot out your name, you thief!" she cried. 
 "You've killed the creature, and may you starve and 
 die yourself, you dog of a N^azarene ! " 
 
 This was more than Israel could listen to, and he
 
 214 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 commauded the girl to hold her peace. " Silence, 
 you young wanton ! " he cried, in a voice of indigna- 
 tion. " Who are you that you dare trample on the 
 man in liis trouble ? '' 
 
 It turned out that the girl was the man's daughter, 
 and he was a renegade from Ceuta. And when she 
 had gone off, cursing Israel and his father and his 
 grandfather, the poor fellow lifted his eyes to Israel's 
 face, and said, "You are very kind, my father. God 
 bless you ! I may not be a good man, sir, and I've 
 not lived a right life, but it's hard when your own 
 children are taught to despise you. Better to lose 
 them in their cradles, before they can speak to you 
 to curse you." 
 
 Israel's hair seemed to rise from his scalp at that 
 word, and he turned about and hurried away. Oh 
 no, no, no ! He was not, of all men, the most sorely 
 tried. Worse to be a slave, torn from the arms he 
 loves ! Worse to be a father whose children join with 
 his enemies to curse him ! 
 
 He had been wrono*. AVhat was wealth that it was
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MA HDL 215 
 
 SO noble a sacrifice to part with it ? Money was to 
 give and to take, to buy and to sell, and that was all. 
 But love was for no market, and he who lost it lost 
 everything. And love was his, and would be his 
 always, for he loved Naomi, and she clung to him as 
 the hyssop clings to the wall. Let him walk humbly 
 before God, for God was great. 
 
 Now these sights, though they reduced Israel's 
 pride, increased his cheerfulness, and he was going 
 out at the gate with a humbler yet lighter spirit, 
 when he came upon a saint's house under the shadow 
 of the town walls. It was a small whitewashed en- 
 closure, surmounted by a white flag ; and, as Israel 
 passed it, the figure of a man came out to the 
 entrance. He was a poor, miserable creature — • 
 ragged, dirty, and with dishevelled hair — and, seeing 
 Israel's eyes upon him, he began to talk in some wild 
 way and unknown tongue that was only a fierce 
 jabber of sounds that had no words in them, and of 
 words that had no meaning. The poor soul was mad, 
 and because he was distraught he was counted a holy
 
 ti6 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 man among his people, and put to live in this place, 
 which was the tomb of a dead saint: though not 
 more dead to the ways of life was he who lay under 
 the floor than he who lived above it. The man 
 continued his wild jabber as long as Israel's eyes 
 were on him, and Israel dropped two crowns into his 
 hand and passed on. 
 
 Oh no, no, no ; Naomi was not the most afflicted 
 of all God's creatures. And yet, and yet, and yet, 
 her bodily infirmities were but the type and sign of 
 how her soul was smitten. 
 
 On the hill outside the town the young Mahdi, 
 with a great company of his people, was waiting for 
 him to bid him godspeed on his journey. And then, 
 while they walked some paces together before part- 
 ing, and the prophet talked of the poor followers of 
 Absalam lying in the prison at Shiiwan (for he had 
 heard of them from Israel), Israel himself mentioned 
 Naomi. 
 
 " My father," he said, " there is something that I 
 have not told you."
 
 OF THE WATCHWORD OF THE MA HDL 217 
 
 *' Tell it now, my son," said the Malidi. 
 
 " I have a little daughter at home, and she is very 
 sweet and beautiful. You would never think how 
 like sunshine she is to me in my lonely house, for 
 her mother is gone, and but for her I should be 
 alone, and so she is very near and dear to me. But 
 she is in the land of silence and in the land of night. 
 Nothing can she see, and nothing hear, and never 
 has her voice opened the curtains of the air, for she 
 is blind and dumb and deaf."' 
 
 " Merciful Allah ! " cried the Mahdi. 
 
 ''Ah! is her state so terrible? I thought you 
 would think it so. Yes, for all she is so beautiful, she 
 is only as a creature of the fields that knows not God." 
 
 *' Allah preserve her ! " cried the Mahdi. 
 
 "And she is smitten for my sin, for the Lord 
 revealed it to me in the vision, and my soul trembles 
 for her soul. But if God has washed me with water 
 should not she also be clean ? " 
 
 "God knows," said the Mahdi. ''He gives no 
 rewards for repentance."
 
 ri8 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 " But listen !" said Israel. "In a vision of death 
 her mother saw her and she was afflicted no more. 
 No, for she could see, and hear, and speak. Man of 
 God, will it come to pass ? " 
 
 " God is good," said the Mahdi. " He needs that no 
 man should teach Him pity." 
 
 " Bat I love her," cried Israel, " and I vowed to 
 her mother to guard her. She is joy of my joy and 
 life of my life. Without her the morning has no 
 freshness and the night no rest. Surely the Lord 
 sees this, and will have mercy ? " 
 
 The Mahdi held back his tears, and answered, 
 " The Lord sees all. Go your way in trust. Fare- 
 well!" 
 
 " Farewell ! "
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OF Israel's home-comixg. 
 
 Israel's return home was an experience at all points 
 the reverse of his going abroad. He had seven dollars 
 in the pocket of his waistband on setting away from 
 Fez, out of the three hundred and more with which 
 he had started from Tetuan. His men had gone on 
 before him and told their story. So the people whom 
 he came upon by the way either ignored him or 
 jeered at him, and not one that on his coming had 
 run to do him honour now stepped aside that he 
 might pass. 
 
 Two days after leaving Fez he came again to 
 Wazzan. Women were going home from market by 
 the side of their camels, and charcoal-burners were 
 riding back to the country on the empty burdas of 
 their mules. It was nigh upon sunset when Israel
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 entered the town, and so exactly was everything the 
 same that he could almost have tricked himself and 
 believed that scarce two minutes had passed since he 
 had left it. There at the fountains were the water- 
 carriers waiting: with their water-skins, and there in 
 the market-place sat the women and children with 
 their dishes of soup ; there were the men by the 
 booths with their pipes ready charged with keef, and 
 there was the mooddin in the minaret, looking out 
 over the plain. Everything was the same save one 
 thing, and that concerned Israel himself. No Grand 
 Shereef stood waiting to exchange horses with him, 
 and no black guard led him through the town. Foot- 
 sore and dirty, covered with dust, and tired, he 
 walked through the streets alone. And when pre- 
 sently the voice rang out overhead, and the breath- 
 less town broke instantly into bubbles of sounds — the 
 tinkling of the bells of the water-carriers, the shouts 
 of the children, and the calls of the men — only one 
 man seemed to see him and know him. This was an 
 Arab, wearing scarcely enough rags to cover his
 
 OF ISRAELS HOME-COMIXG. 
 
 nakedness, who was bathing his hot cheeks in water 
 which a water-carrier was pouring into his hands, 
 and he lifted his glistening face as Israel passed, and 
 called him " Dog ! " and "' Jew ! " and coniDianded 
 him to uncover his feet. 
 
 Israel slept that night in one of the three squalid 
 fondaks of Wazzaa inhabited by the Jews, llis room 
 was a sort of narrow box, in a square court of many 
 such boxes, with a handful of straw shaken over the 
 earth floor for a bed. On the doorpost the figure of 
 a hand was painted in red, and over the lintel there 
 was a rude drawing of a scorpion, with an impreca- 
 tion written under it that pur^^orted to be from the 
 mouth of the Prophet Joshua, son of Xun. If the 
 charm kept evil spirits from the place of Israel's rest, 
 it did not banish good ones. Israel slept in that poor 
 bed as he had never slept under the purple canopy 
 of his own chamber, and all night long one angel 
 form seemed to hover over him. It was Naomi. He 
 could see her clearly. They were together in a little 
 cottage somewhere. The house was a mean one, but
 
 'J HE SCAPEGOAT, 
 
 jasmine and marjoram and pinks and roses grew 
 outside of it, and love grew inside. And Naomi ! 
 How bright were her eyes, for they could see ! Yes, 
 and her ears could hear, and her tongue could speak ! 
 
 Two days after Israel left Wazzan he was back in 
 the Bashalic of Tetnan. ]*]ach night he had dreamt 
 the same dream, and though he knew each morning 
 when he awoke with a sigh that his dream was only 
 a reflection of his dead wife's vision, yet he could not 
 help but think of it the long day through. He tried 
 to remember if he had ever seen the cottage with his 
 waking eyes, and where he had seen it, and to recall 
 the voice of Naomi as he had heard it in his dream, 
 that he might know if it was the same as he used to 
 think he heard when he sat by her in his stolen 
 watches of the night while she lay asleep. Sometimes 
 when he reflected he thought he must be growing 
 childish, so foolish was his joy in looking forward to 
 the night — for he had almost grown in love with it — 
 that he might dream his dream again. 
 
 But it was a dear, delicious folly, for it helped him
 
 OF ISRAEL'S HOME-COMING. 223 
 
 to bear tlie troubles of liis journey, and they were 
 neither light nor few. After passing through El 
 Kasar he had been robbed and stripped both of his 
 small remaining moneys and the better part of his 
 clothes by a gang of ruffians who had followed him 
 out of the town. Then a good woman — the old wife 
 turned into the servant of a Moor who had married a 
 young one — had taken pity on his condition and 
 given him a disused Moorish jellab. His misfortune 
 had not been without its advantage. Being forced to 
 travel the rest of his way home in the disguise of a 
 Moor, he had heard himself discussed by his own 
 people when they knew nothing of his presence. 
 Eveiy evil that had befallen them had been attributed 
 to him. Ben xlboo, their Bash a, was a good humane 
 man, who was often driven to do that which his soul 
 abhorred. It was Israel ben Oliel who was their 
 cruel taxmaster. 
 
 When Israel was within a day's journey of Tetuan 
 a terrible scourge fell upon the country. A plague 
 of locusts came up like a dense cloud from the
 
 224 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 direction of the desert and ate up every leaf and blade 
 of grass that the scorching sun had left green, so that 
 the plain over which it had passed was as black and 
 barren as a lava stream. The farmers were im- 
 poverished, and the poorer people made beggars. 
 Even this last disaster they charged in their despair 
 to Israel, for Allah was now cursing them for Israel's 
 sake. They were the same people that had thrust 
 their presents upon him when he was setting out. 
 
 At the lonesome hut of the old woman who had 
 offered him a bowl of buttermilk, Israel rested and 
 asked for a drink of water. She gave him a dish of 
 zummeeta — barley roasted like coffee — and inquired 
 if he was going on to Tetuan. He told her yes, 
 and she asked if his home was there. And when he 
 answered that it was, she looked at him again, and 
 said in a moving way, '' Then Allah help you, 
 brother." 
 
 " Why me more than another, sister ? " said 
 Israel. 
 
 " Because it is plain to see that you are a poor
 
 OF ISRAEL'S HOME-COMING. 225 
 
 man,"' said the old womau. ^' And that is the sort 
 he is hardest upon." 
 
 Israel faltered and said, "He? Who, mother? 
 Ah, you mean " 
 
 "Who else but Israel, the Jew?" said she; and 
 then added, as by a sudden afterthought, " But they 
 say he is gone at last, and the Sultan has strij)ped 
 him. Well, Allah send us some one else soon to set 
 right this poor Gliarb of ours ! And what a man 
 for poor men he might have been— so wise and 
 powerful ! " 
 
 Israel listened with his head bent down, and, like 
 a moth at the flame, he could not help but play with 
 the fire that scorched him. " They tell me," he said, 
 " that Allah has cursed him with a daughter that 
 has devils." 
 
 " Blind and dumb, poor soul," said the old woman ; 
 " but Allah has pity for the afflicted — he is taking 
 her away." 
 
 Israel rose. " Away ? " 
 
 " She is ill since her father went to Fez." 
 VOL. I, p
 
 226 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 u III V " 
 
 " Yes, I heard so, yesterday — dying." 
 
 Israel made one loud cry like the cry of a beast 
 that is slaughtered, and fled out of the hut. Oh, fool 
 of fools, why had lie been dallying with dreams — 
 billing and cooing with his own fancies — fondling 
 and nuzzling and coddling them ? Let all dreams 
 henceforth be dead and damned for ever ; for only 
 devils out of hell had made them that poor men's 
 souls might be staked and lost ! Oh, why had he 
 not remembered the pale face of Naomi when he left 
 her, and the silence of her tongue that had used to 
 laugh? Fool, fool! Why had he ever left her at 
 all? 
 
 With such thoughts Israel hurried along, some- 
 times running at his utmost velocity, and then 
 stopping dead short ; sometimes shouting his impre- 
 cations at the pitch of his voice and beating his fist 
 against the sharp aloes until it bled, and then 
 whispering to himself in awe. 
 
 Would God not hear his prayer ? God knew the
 
 OF ISRAEL'S HOME-COMING. 227 
 
 child was very near and dear to him, and also that he 
 was a lonely man. ''Have pity on a lonely man, 
 God ! " he whispered. '• Let me keep my child ; 
 take all else that I have, everything, no matter 
 what ! Only let me keep her — yes, just as she is, let 
 me have her still ! Time was when I asked more of 
 Thee, but now I am humble, and ask that alone." 
 
 On his knees in a lonesome place, with the fierce 
 sun beating down on his uncovered head, amid the 
 blackened leaves left by the locust, he prayed this 
 prayer, and then rose to his feet and ran. 
 
 When he got to Tetuan the white city was 
 glistening under the setting sun. Then he thought 
 of his Moorish jellab, and looked at himself, and saw 
 that he was returning home like a beggar ; and he 
 remembered with what splendour he had started out. 
 Should he wait for the darkness, and creep into his 
 house under the cover of it ? If the thought had 
 occurred an hour before he must have scouted it. 
 Better to brave the looks of every face in Tetuan than 
 be kept back one minute from Naomi. But now that
 
 228 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 he was so near he was afraid to go in ; and now that 
 he was so soon to learn the truth he dreaded to hear 
 it. So he walked to and fro on the heath outside the 
 town, paltering with himself, struggling with himself^ 
 eating out his heart with eagerness, trying to believe 
 that he was waiting for the night. 
 
 The night came at length, and, under a deep-blue 
 sky fast whitening with thick stars, Israel passed 
 unknown through the Moorish gate, which was still 
 open, and down the narrow lane to the market square. 
 At the gate of the Mellah, which was closed, he 
 knocked, and demanded entrance in the name of the 
 Kaid. The Moorish guards who kept it fell back 
 at sight of him with looks of consternation. 
 
 '' Israel ! " cried one, and dropped his lantern. 
 
 Israel whispered, " Keep your tongue between 
 your teeth ! " and hurried on. 
 
 At the door of his own house, which was also 
 closed, he knocked again, but more fearfully. The 
 black woman Habeebah opened it cautiously, and, 
 seeing his jellab, she clashed it back in his face.
 
 OF ISRAEL'S HOME-COMING. 2219 
 
 " Habeebali ! " lie cried, and he knocked once 
 more. 
 
 Then All came to the door. '' What Moorish man 
 are you ? " cried Ali, pushing him back as he pressed 
 forward. 
 
 "Ali! Hush! It is I— Israel." 
 
 Then Ali knew him and cried, " God save us ! 
 What has happened ? " 
 
 " What has happened here?" said Israel. "Naomi," 
 he faltered, " what of her ? " 
 
 " Then you have heard ? " said Ali. '' Thank God 
 she is now well." 
 
 Israel laughed — his laugh was like a scream. 
 
 " More than that — a strange thing has befallen 
 her since you went away," said Ali. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " She can hear." 
 
 " It's a lie ! " cried Israel, and he raised his hand 
 and struck Ali to the floor. But at the next minute 
 he was lifting him up and sobbing and saying, 
 " Forgive me, my brave boy. I was mad, my son ; I
 
 230 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 did not know what I was doing. But do not torture 
 me. If what you tell me is true, there is no man so 
 happy under heaven ; but if it is false, there is no 
 fiend in hell need envy me.'' 
 
 And AH answered through his tears, " It is true, 
 my father — come and see."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 
 
 What had happened at Israel's house during Israel's 
 absence is a story that may be quickly told. On the 
 day of his departure Naomi wandered from room to 
 room, seeming to seek for what she could not find, 
 and in the evening the black women came upon her 
 in the upper chamber wherein her father had read to 
 her at sunset, and she was kneeling by his chair and 
 the book was in her hands. 
 
 On the day following she stole out of the house 
 into the towu and made her way to the Kasbah, and 
 Ali found her in the apartments of the wife of the 
 Basha, who had lit upon her as she seemed to ramble 
 aimlessly through the courtyard from the Treasury 
 to the Hall of Justice, and from there to the gate 
 of the prison.
 
 232 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 The next day after that she did not attempt to go 
 abroad, and neither did she wander through the 
 house, but sat in the same seat constantly, and 
 seemed to be waiting patientl3\ She was pale and 
 quiet and silent ; she did not laugh according to her 
 wont, and she had a look of submission that was 
 very touching to see. 
 
 On the morning of the day following that, her 
 quiet had given place to restlessness, and her pallor 
 to a burning flush of the face. Her hands were hot, 
 her head was feverish, and her blind eyes were 
 bloodshot. 
 
 It was now plain that the girl was ill, and that 
 Israel's fears on setting out from home had been 
 right after all. And making his own reckoning with 
 Naomi's condition, Ali went off for the only doctor 
 living in Tetuan — a Spanish druggist living in the 
 'valled lane leading to the western gate. This good 
 man came to look at Naomi, felt her pulse, touched 
 her throbbing forehead, with difficulty examined her 
 tongue, and pronounced her illness to be fever. He
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOTXD. 
 
 gave some homely directions as to lier treatment — 
 for he despaired of administering drugs to such a 
 one as she was — and promised to return the next 
 day. 
 
 About the middle of that night Naomi became 
 delirious. Fatimah stood constantly by her bed, 
 bathing her hot forehead with vinegar and water ; 
 Habeebah slept in a chair at her feet ; and Ali 
 crouched in a corner outside the door of her room. 
 
 The druggist came in the morning, according to 
 his promise ; but there was nothing to be done, so he 
 looked wise, wagged his head very solemnly, and said 
 he would come again after two days more, when the 
 fever must be near to its height, and bring a famous 
 leech out of Tangier along with him. 
 
 Meantime, Naomi's delirium continued. It was 
 gentle as her own spirit, but there was this that was 
 strange and eerie about her unconsciousness — that 
 whereas she had been dumb while her mind in its 
 dark cell must have been mistress of itself and of her 
 soul, she spoke without ceasing throughout the time
 
 234 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 of lier reason's vanquishment. Not that her poor 
 tongue in its trouble uttered speech such as those 
 that heard could follow and understand, but only a 
 restless babble of empty sounds, yet with tones of 
 varying feeling, sometimes of gladness, sometimes of 
 sorrow, sometimes of remonstrance, and sometimes of 
 entreaty. 
 
 All that night and the next night also the two black 
 women sat together by her bedside, holding each 
 other's hands like little children in great fear. Also 
 Ali crouched again like a dog in the darkness outside 
 the door, listening in terror to the silvery young voice 
 that had never echoed in that house before. This 
 was the night when Israel, sleeping at the squalid inn 
 of the Jews of Wazzan, was hearing Naomi's voice in 
 liis dreams. 
 
 At the first glint of daylight in the morning the 
 lad was up and gone, and away through the town- 
 gate to the heath beyond, as far as to the fondak, 
 which stands on the hill above it, that he might strain 
 his wet eyes in the pitiless sunlight for Israel's caravan
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 235 
 
 that should soon come. On the first morning he saw- 
 nothing, but on the second morning he came upon 
 Israel's men returning without him, and telling their 
 lying story that he had been stripped of everything 
 by the Sultan at Fez, and was coming behind them 
 penniless. 
 
 Now, Israel was to Ali the greatest, noblest, 
 mightiest man among men. That he should fall was 
 incredible, and that any man should say he had fallen 
 was an affront and an outrage. So, stripling as he 
 was, the lad faced the rascals with the courage of a 
 lion. They were liars and thieves, they were villains ; 
 let them tell that story to another soul in Tetuan, and 
 he would go straight to the Kaid at the Kasbah, and 
 have every black dog of them all whipped through 
 the streets for plundering his master ! 
 
 The men shouted in derision and passed on, firing 
 their matchlocks as a mock salute. But Ali had his 
 will of them ; they told their tale no more, and when 
 they entered Tetuan, and their fellows questioned 
 them concerning their journey, they took refuge
 
 2^6 77/^ SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 in the reticence that sits by right of nature on the 
 tongues of Moors, and they said and knew nothing. 
 
 While Ali was on the heath looking out for Israel, 
 the doctor out of Tangier came to Naomi. The girl 
 was still unconscious, and the wise loech shook his 
 head over her. Her case was hopeless ; she was 
 sinking — in plain words, she was dying, and if her 
 father did not come before the morrow he would 
 come too late to find her alive. 
 
 Then the black women fell to weeping and wailing, 
 and after that to spiritual conflict. Both were born in 
 Islam, but Fatimah had secretly become a Jewess by 
 persuasion of her mistress, who w^as dead. She was, 
 therefore, for sending for the Ohacham. But 
 Habeebah had remained a Muslim, and she was for 
 calling the Imam. The Imam was good, the Imam 
 was holy ; w^ho so good and holy as the Imam ? 
 Nay, but their Sidi held not with the Imam, for their 
 lord was a Jew, and their lord was their master, 
 their lord was their sultan, their lord was their king. 
 Shoof! What was Sidi against paradise, and
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 237 
 
 paradise was to her wlio made a follower of Moosa 
 into a follower of Mohammed? Let but the child 
 die with the Kelmah on her lips, and they were all 
 three blest for ever — otherwise, they would burn 
 everlastingly in the fires of Jehinnum ! But, 
 alack ! how could the poor girl say the Kelmah, being 
 as dumb as the grave ? Then how could she say 
 the Shemang either ? 
 
 Having heard the verdict of the doctor, Ali 
 returned in hot haste, and silenced both the bond- 
 women. The Imam was a villain, and the Chacham 
 was a thief ; there was only one good man left in 
 Tetuan, and that was his own Taleb, his school- 
 master, the same that had taught him the harp in 
 the days of the Governor's marriage. This person 
 was an old negro, bewrinkled. by years, becrippled by 
 ague, once stone deaf, and. still partially so, half 
 blind, and reputed to be only half wise, a liberated 
 slave from the Sahara, just able to read the Koran 
 and the Torah, and willing to teach either impartially, 
 according to his knowledge, for he was neither a Jew
 
 238 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 nor a Muslim, but a little of both, as he used to say, 
 and not too much of either. For such a hybrid in a 
 land of intolerance there must have been no place 
 save the dungeons of the Kasbah, but that this good 
 nondescript was a privileged pet of everybody. In 
 his dark cellar, down an alley by the side of the 
 Grand Mosque in the Metamar, he had sat from 
 early morning until sunset year in, year out, through 
 thirty years, on his rush-covered floor, among 
 successive generations of his boys, and as often as 
 night fell he had gone hither and thither among the 
 sick and dying, carrying comfort of kind words, and 
 often meat and drink of his meagre substance. 
 
 Such was Ali's hero after Israel, and now in 
 Israel's absence and his own great trouble, he hied 
 away for him. 
 
 ^' Father," cried the lad, " does it not say in the 
 good book that the prayer of a righteous man 
 availeth much ? " 
 
 " It does, my son," said the Taleb. " You have 
 truth. What then ? "
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND, 239 
 
 "Then if you will pray for Naomi she will 
 recover," said Ali. 
 
 It was a sweet instance of simple faith. The 
 old black Taleb dismissed his scholars, closed down 
 his shutter, locked it with a padlock, hobbled to 
 Naomi's bedside in his tattered white selham, looked 
 down at her through the big spectacles that sprawled 
 over his broad black nose, and then, while a dim 
 mist floated between the spectacles and his; eyes, 
 and a great lamp rose at his throat to choke him, 
 he fell to the floor and prayed, and Ali and the black 
 women knelt beside him. 
 
 The negro's prayer was simple to childishness. It 
 told God everything; it recited the facts to the 
 heavenly Father as to one who was far away and 
 might not know. The maiden was sick unto death. 
 She had been three days and nights knowing no 
 one, and eating and drinking nothing. She was 
 blind and dumb and deaf. Her father loved her 
 and was wrapped up in her. She was his only 
 child, and his wife was dead, and he was a lonely
 
 240 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 mau. He was away from his home now^, and if, 
 when he returned, the girl w^ere gone and lost — if she 
 were dead and buried— his strong heart would be 
 broken and his very soul in peril. 
 
 It was a touching spectacle — the dumb angel of 
 white and crimson turning and tossing on the bed in 
 an aureole of her streaming yellow hair, and the four 
 black faces about her, eager and hot and aflame, with 
 closed eyelids and open lips, calling down mercy out 
 of heaven from the God that might be seen by the 
 soul alone. 
 
 And so it was, but whether by chance or Provi- 
 dence let no man dare to tell, that even while tlie 
 four black people were yet on their knees by the bed, 
 the turning and tossing of the white face stopped 
 suddenly, and Naomi lay still on her pillow. The 
 hot tlush faded from her cheeks ; her features, which 
 had twitched, were quiet ; and her hands, which had 
 been restless, lay at peace on the counterpane. 
 
 The good old Taleb took this for an answer to his 
 prayer, and he shouted " El hamdu I'lllah ! " (Praise
 
 OF THj^ baptism of SO VXD. i^\ 
 
 be to God), while the big drops coursed down the 
 deep farrows of his steamiag face. And then, as if 
 to complete the miraclej and to establish the old 
 man's faith in it, a stranofe and wondrous thinof befell. 
 First, a thin watery humour flowed from one of 
 Naomi's ears, and after that she raised herself on her 
 elbow. Her eyes were open as if they saw ; her lips 
 were parted as though they were breaking into a 
 smile ; she made a long sigh like one who has slept 
 softly through the night and has just awakened in 
 the moruing. 
 
 . Then, while the black people held their breath in 
 their first moment of surprise and gladness, her 
 parted lips gave forth a sound. It was a laugh — a 
 faint, broken, bankrupt echo of her old happy 
 laughter. And then instantly, almost before the 
 others had heard the sound, and while the notes of 
 it were yet coming from her tongue, she lifted her 
 idle hand and covered her ear, and over her face there 
 passed a look of dread. 
 
 So swift had this change been that the bondwomen 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 had not seen it, and they were shouting " Hallelujah " 
 with one voice, thinking only that she who had been 
 dead to them was alive again. But the old Taleb 
 cried eagerly, ''Hush! my children, hush! AVhat 
 is coming is a marvellous thing ! I know what it is 
 — who knows so well as I ? Once I was deaf, my 
 children, but now I hear. Listen ! The maiden has 
 had fever — fever of the brain. Listen ! A watery 
 humour had gathered in her head. It has gone ; it 
 has flowed away. Kow she will hear. Listen, for it 
 is 1 that know it — who knows it so well as I ? Yes ; 
 she will be no longer deaf. Her ears will be opened. 
 She will hear. Once she was living in a land of 
 silence ; now she is coming into the land of sound. 
 Blessed be God, for He has wrought this wondrous 
 work. God is great! God is mighty ! Praise the 
 merciful God for ever ! El hamdu I'lllah ! " 
 
 And strange and marvellous and passing belief as 
 the old Taleb's story seemed to be, it appeared to be 
 coming to pass, for even while he spoke, beginning 
 in a slow whisper and going on with quicker and
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 243 
 
 louder breath, Xaomi turned lier face full upon him ; 
 and when the black women, in their ready faith, 
 joined in his shouts of praise, she turned her face 
 towards them also ; and wheresoever a voice was 
 made in the room she inclined her head towards it 
 anxiously as one who heard, and also as one who was 
 in fear of the sounds that assailed her. 
 
 But, seeing nothing of her look of pain, and know- 
 ing nothing but one thing only, and that was the 
 wondrous and mighty change that she who had been 
 deaf could now hear, that she who had never before 
 heard speech now heard their voices as they sj^oke 
 around her, Ali, in his frantic delight, laughing and 
 crying together, his white teeth aglitter, and his 
 round black face shining with tears, began to shout 
 and to slug, and to dance around the bed in wild joy 
 at the miracle which God had wrought in answer to 
 his old Taleb's prayer. No heed did he pay to the 
 Taleb's cries of warning, but danced on and on, and 
 neither did the bondwomen see the old man's uplifted 
 arms or his big lips pursed out in hushes, so over-
 
 244 THE SCAPEGOAi. 
 
 powered were they with their delight, so startled and 
 so joy-drunken. But over their tumult there came 
 a wild outburst of piercing shrieks. They were the 
 cries of Naomi in her blind and sudden terror at the 
 first sound that had reached her of human voices. 
 Her face was blanched, her eyelids were trembling, 
 her lips were restless, her nostrils quivered, her whole 
 being seemed to be overcome by a vertigo of dread, 
 and, in the horrible disarray of all her sensations, her 
 brain, on its awakening from its dolorous sleep of 
 t'lree delirious days, was tottering and reeling at its 
 welcome in this world of noise. 
 
 Then Ali ended suddenly his frantic dance, the 
 bondwomen held their peace in an instant, and blank 
 silence in the chamber followed the clamour of tongues. 
 It was at this great moment that Israel, returning 
 from his journey in the jellab of a Moor, knocked like 
 a stranger at his outer door. When he entered the 
 chamber, still clad as a torn and ragged man, too 
 eager to remove the sorry garments which had been 
 given to him on the way, Naomi was resting against
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 245 
 
 the pillar of the bed. He saw that her coimtenance 
 was changed, aud that every feature of her face 
 seemed to listen. No longer was it as the face of a 
 lamb that is simple and content, neither was it as the 
 face of a child that is peaceful and happy ; but it was 
 hot, and perplexed. Fear sat on her face, and wonder 
 and questioning ; and as Fatimah stood by her side, 
 speaking tender words to comfort her, no cheer did 
 she seem to get from them, but only dread, for she 
 drew away from her when she spoke, as though the 
 sound of the voice smote her ears with terror of 
 trouble. All this Israel saw on the instant, and 
 then his sight grew dim, his heart beat as if it 
 would kill him, a thick mist seemed to cover every- 
 thing, and through the dense waves of semi-conscious- 
 ness he heard the dull hum of Fatimah's muffled voice 
 coming to him as from far away. 
 
 " My pretty Naomi ! My little heart ! My sweet 
 jewel of gold and silver ! It is nothing ! Nothing ! 
 Look ! See ! Her father has come back ! Her dear 
 father has come back to her ! "
 
 246 THE SCAPEdOAT. 
 
 Presently the room ceased to go round and lound, 
 and Israel knew that Naomi's arms surromided him, 
 that his own arms enlaced her, and that her head was 
 pressed hard against his bosom. Yes, it was she ! 
 It was Naomi ! Ali had told him truth. She lived ! 
 She was well ! She had ears to hear ! The old hope 
 that had chirped in his soul was justified, and the 
 dear delicious dream was come true. Oh ! God was 
 great, God was good, God had given him more than 
 he had asked or deserved ! 
 
 Thus for some minutes he stood motionless, blessing 
 the God of Jacob, yet uttering no words, for his heart 
 was too full for speech, only holding Naomi closely to 
 him, while his tears fell on her blind face. And the 
 black people in the chamber wept to see it, that not 
 more dumb in that great hour of gladness was she 
 who was born so than he to whose house had come 
 the wonderful work that God had wrought. 
 
 No heed had Israel given yet to the bodeful signs 
 in Naomi's face, in joy over such as were joyful. 
 When he had taken her in his arms she had known
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUXD. 247 
 
 him, and she had clung to him in her glad surprise. 
 But when she continued to lie on his bosom it was 
 not only because he was her father and she loved him, 
 and because he had been lost to her and was found. 
 It was also because he alone was silent of all them 
 that were about her. 
 
 When he saw this his heart was humbled, but he 
 understood her fears, that coming out of a land of 
 great silence, where the voice of man was never heard, 
 where the air was songless as the air of dreams and 
 darkling as the air of a tomb, her soul misgave her, 
 and her spirit trembled in a new world of strange 
 sounds. For what was the ear but a little dark 
 chamber, a vault, a dungeon in a castle, wherein the 
 soul was ever passing to and fro, asking for news of 
 the world without ? Through seventeen dark and 
 silent years the soul of Naomi had been passing and 
 repassing within its beautiful tabernacle of flesh, 
 crying daily and hourly, " Watchman, what of the 
 world ? " At length it had found an answer, and it 
 was terrified. The world had spoken to her soul, and
 
 248 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 its voice was like tlie reverberations of a subterranean 
 cavern, strange and deep and awful. 
 
 In that first moment of Israel's consciousness after 
 be entered tlie room, all four black folks seemed to 
 be speaking together. 
 
 Ali was saying, '* Father, those dogs and thieves 
 of tentmen and muleteers returned yesterday, and 
 said " 
 
 And the bondwomen were crying, " Sidi, you 
 were right when you went away ! " '' Yes, the dear 
 child was ill ! " " Oh, how she missed 3'ou wlien 
 you were gone ! " " She has been delirious, and 
 the doctor, the son of Tetuan " 
 
 xVnd the old Taleb was muttering, '-Master, it is 
 all by God's mercy. We prayed for the life of the 
 maiden, and lo ! lie has given us this gateway to 
 her spirit as well." 
 
 Then Israel saw that as their voices entered the 
 dark vault of Naomi's ears they startled and dis- 
 tressed her. 80, to pacify her, he motioned them out 
 of the chamber. They went away without a word.
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 249 
 
 The reason of Naomi's fears began to dawn npon 
 them. An awe seemed to be cast over her by the 
 solemnity of that great moment. It was like to the 
 birth-moment of a soul. 
 
 And when the black people were gone from the 
 room, Israel closed the door of it that he might shut 
 out the noises of the streets, for women w^ere calling 
 to their children without, and the children were still 
 shouting in their play. This being done, he returned 
 to Naomi and rested her head against his bosom and 
 soothed her w^th his hand, and she put her arms 
 about his neck and clung to him. And while he 
 did so his heart yearned to speak to her, and to see 
 by her face that she could hear. Let it be but one 
 word, only one, that she might know her father's 
 voice — for she had never once heard it — and answer 
 it with a smile. 
 
 " Daughter ! My dearest ! My darling ! " 
 Only this, nothing more ! Only one sweet word 
 of all the unspoken tenderness which, like a river 
 without any outlet, had been seventeen years dammed
 
 250 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 up in his breast. Bat no, it could not be. He must 
 not speak lest her face should frown and her arms be 
 drawn away. To see that would break his heart. 
 Nevertheless, he wrestled with the temptation. It 
 was terrible. He dared not risk it. So he sat on 
 the bed in silence, hardly moving, scarcely breathing 
 — a dust-laden man in a ragged jellab, holding 
 Naomi in his arms. 
 
 It was still the month of Ramadhiin, and the sun 
 \vas but three hours set. In the fondak called El Nsaa, 
 a group of the town Moors, who had fasted through 
 the day, were feasting and carousing. Over the walls 
 of the Mellah, from the direction of the Spanish inn 
 at the entrance to the little tortuous quarter of the 
 shoemakers, there came at intervals a hubbub of 
 voices, and occasionally wild shouts and cries. The 
 day was Wednesday, the market-day of Tetuan, and 
 on the open space called the Feddan many tires were 
 lighted at the mouths of tents, and men and women and 
 children — country Arabs and Beibers — were squat- 
 ting around the charcoal embers, eating and drinking
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 
 
 and talking and laughing, while the ruddy glow lit 
 np their swarthy faces in the darkness. But pre- 
 sently the wing of night fell over both Moorish town 
 and Mellah ; the traffic of the streets came to an end ; 
 the '• Biilak *' of the ass-driver was no more heard, the 
 slipper of the Jew sounded but rarely on the pave- 
 ment, the fires on the Feddan died out, the hubbab 
 of the fondak and the wild shouts of the shoemakers' 
 quarter were hushed, and quieter and more quiet 
 grew the air until all was still. 
 
 At the coming of peace Xaomi's fears seemed to 
 abate. Her clinging arms released their hold of her 
 father's neck, and with a trembling sigh she dropped 
 back on to the pillow. And in this hour of stillness 
 she would have slept ; but even while Israel was 
 lifting up his heart in thankfulness to God that He 
 was making the way of her great journey easy out of 
 the land of silence into the land of speech a storm 
 broke over the town. Through many hot days pre- 
 ceding it had been gathering in the air, which had 
 the echoing hollowness of a vault. It was loud and
 
 252 7 HE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 long and terrible. First, from the direction of 
 
 Marteo], over tlie four miles whicli divide Tetuan 
 
 from the coast, came the warning which the sea sends 
 
 before trouble comes to the land — a deep moan as of 
 
 waters falling from the sky. Next came the moan 
 
 of tlie wind down the valley that opens on the gate 
 
 called the Bab el Marsa, and along the river that 
 
 flows to the port. TJien came the roll of thunder, 
 
 like a million cannon, down the gorges of the Reef 
 
 mountains and across the plain that stretches far 
 
 away to Kittin. Last of all, the black clouds of the 
 
 sky emptied themselves over the town, and the rain 
 
 fell in floods on the roof of the house and on the 
 
 pavement of the patio, and leapt up again in great 
 
 loud drops, making a noise to the ear like to the 
 
 tramp, tramp, tramp of a hidden multitude. Thus 
 
 sound after sound broke over the darkness of the 
 
 night in a thousand a^vful voices, nov; near, now far, 
 
 now loud, now low, now long, now short, now rising, 
 
 now falling, now rushing, now running— a mighty 
 
 tumult and a fearsome anarchy.
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 253 
 
 At this Naomi's terror was redoubled. Every sound 
 seemed to smite lier body as a blow. Hitherto she 
 had known one sense only, the sense of touch, and 
 though now she knew the sense of hearing also, she 
 continued to refer all sensations to feeling. At the 
 sound of the sea she put out her arms before her ; 
 at the sound of the wind she buried her face in her 
 palms ; and at the sound of the thunder she lifted 
 her hands as if Lo protect her head. 
 
 Meanwhile, Israel sat beside her and cherished her 
 close at his bosom. He yearned to speak words of 
 comfort to her, soft words of cheer, tender words of 
 love, gentle words of hope. 
 
 " Be not afraid, my daughter ! It is only the wind, 
 it is only the rain ; it is only the thunder. Once you 
 loved to run and race in them. They shall not harm 
 you, for God is good and He will keep you safe, 
 There, there, my little heart! See, your father is 
 with you. He will guard you. Fear not, my child 
 fear not ! " 
 
 Such were the words which. Israel yearned to speak
 
 254 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 in Naomi's ears, but, alas ! what words could slie 
 understand any more than the wind which moaned 
 about the liouse and the thunder which rolled over- 
 head ? And again and again, alas ! as surely as he 
 spoke to her she must shrink from the solace of his 
 voice even as she shrank from the tumult of the 
 voices of the storm. 
 
 Israel fell back helpless and heartbroken. He 
 began to see in its fulness the change which had 
 befallen Naomi, yet not at once to realise it, so sudden 
 and so numbing was the stroke. He began to know 
 that with the mighty blessing for which he had hoped 
 and prayed — the blessing of a pathway to his 
 daughter's soul — a misfortune had come as well. What 
 was it to him now that Naomi had ears to hear if she 
 could not understand ? And what was this tempest to 
 the maiden new-born out of the land of silence into 
 the world of sound, yet still both blind and dumb, but 
 a circle of darkness alive with creatures that groaned 
 and cried and shrieked and moved around her ? 
 
 Thus nothing could Israel do but watch the creep-
 
 OF 7 HE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 255 
 
 ing of Naomi's terror, and smootli her forehead and 
 chafe her hands. And this he did, until at leno-th, 
 in a fresh outbreak of the storm, when the vault of 
 the heavens seemed rent asunder, a stronsf delirium 
 took hold of her, and she fell to a long unconscious- 
 ness. Then Israel held back his heart no longer, but 
 wept above her, and called to her, and cried aloud 
 upon her name : 
 
 " Naomi ! Naomi ! My poor child ! My dearest ! 
 Hear me ! It is nothing ! nothing ! Listen ! It is 
 gone ! Gone ! " 
 
 With such passionate cries of love and sorrow 
 Israel gave vent to his soul in its trouble. And 
 while Naomi lay in her unconsciousness, he knew 
 not what feelings possessed him, for his heart was in 
 a great turmoil. Desolate ! desolate ! All was 
 desolate ! His high-built hopes were in ashes ! 
 
 Sometimes he remembered the days when the 
 child knew not sorrow, and grief came not near her, 
 when she was brighter than the sun which she could 
 not see and sweeter than the sono^s which she could
 
 256 The SCAPEGOAT: 
 
 not hear, when she was joyous as a bird in its narrow 
 cage and fretted not at the bars which bound her, 
 when she laughed as she braided her hair and came 
 dancing out of her cliamber at dawn. And, re- 
 membering this, he looked down at her knitted face, 
 and his heart grew bitter, and he lifted up his voice 
 through the tumult of the storm, and cried again on 
 the God of Jacob, and rebuked Him for the marvel- 
 lous work which He had wrought. 
 
 If God were an almighty God, surely He looked 
 before and after, and foresaw what must come to 
 pass. And, foreseeing and knowing all, why had 
 God answered his prayer ? He himself had been ^ 
 fool. Why had he craved God's pity ? Once his 
 poor child was blither than the panther of the 
 wilderness and happier than tlie young lamb that 
 sports in springtime. If she was blind, she knew not 
 w^hat it was to see ; and if she was deaf, she knew 
 not what it was to hear ; and if she was dumb, she 
 knew not what it was to speak. Nothing did she 
 miss of sight or sound or speech any more than of
 
 OF THE BAPTISM OF SOUND. 257 
 
 the wings of the eagle or the dove. Yet he would 
 not be content ; he would not be appeased. Oh ! 
 subtlety of the devil which had brought this evil 
 upon him ! 
 
 But the God whom Israel in his agony and his 
 madness rebuked in this manner sent His angel to 
 make a great silence, and the storm lapsed to a 
 breathless quiet. 
 
 And when the tempest was gone Naomi's delirium 
 passed away. She seemed to look, and nothing 
 could she see ; and then to listen, and nothing 
 could she hear ; and then she clasped the hand of 
 her father that lay over her hand, and sighed and 
 sank down again. 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 It was even as if peace had come to her with the 
 thought that she was back in the land of great 
 silence once again, and that the voices which had 
 startled her, and the storm which had terrified her, 
 had been nothing but an evil dream. 
 
 In that sweet respite she fell asleep, and Israel 
 VOL. I. R
 
 258 THE SCAPEGOAT. 
 
 forgot the reproaches witli which he had reproached 
 his God, and looked tenderly down at her, and said 
 within himself : "It was her baptism. Now she will 
 walk the world with confidence, and never again will 
 she be afraid. Truly the Lord our (lod is king over 
 all kingdoms and wise beyond all wisdom ! " 
 
 Then, with one look backward at Naomi where 
 she slept, lie crept out of the room on tiptoe. 
 
 END OF VOL. 
 
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 prominent jilace among the novels of the season." 
 
 Illustrated London News.— "The moral tone of this story, rightly 
 considered, is pure and noble, though it deals with the problem of 
 an unhap[>y marriage." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — "Contains one of the best written stories of a 
 mesalliance that is to be found in modein fiction." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.O.
 
 Mr. William Heinemann's List. 
 
 IRew Morl^s ot jfictioiu 
 THE MOMENT AFTER: A Tale of the Un- 
 
 seen, By Robert Buchanax. Popular Edition, crown 
 8vo, IS. 
 
 Athenaeum.—" Should be read — in daylight." 
 
 Observer. — "A clever tour de force." 
 
 Guardian. — " Particularly impressive, graphic, and powerful." 
 
 Bristol Mercury. — "Written with the same poetic feeling and 
 power which have given a rare charm to Mr. Buchanan's previous 
 prose writings." 
 
 COME FORTH ! By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 and Herbert D. Ward. In One Volume, imperial 
 i6mo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Scotsman. — "'Come Forth ! ' is the story of the raising of Lazarus, 
 amplified into a dramatic love-story. ... It has a simple, forthright 
 dramatic interest such as is seldom attained except in purely imagina- 
 tive fiction. " 
 
 THE MASTER OF THE MAGICIANS. By 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. 
 In One Volume, imperial i6mo, 7s. 6d. 
 The Athenaeum.— "A success in Biblical fiction." 
 
 THE DOMINANT SEVENTH: A Musical Story. 
 
 By Kate Elizabeth Clark, In One Volume, crown 
 8vo, ss. 
 Speaker. — " A very romantic story." 
 
 A VERY STRANGE FAMILY; A Nouel. By 
 
 F. W. Robinson, Author of "Grandmother's Money," 
 " Lazarus in London," &c. &c. In One Volume, crown 
 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Glasgow Herald. — "An ingeniously-devised plot, of which the 
 interest is kept up to the very last page. A judicious blending of 
 humour and pathos further helps to make the book delightful reading 
 from start to finish." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.O. 13
 
 Mr. William Heinemann's List. 
 
 IRew Morlis ot fftctioiu 
 HAUNTINGS: Fantastic Stones. By Vernon 
 
 Lee, Author of " Baldwin," " Miss Brown," &c. «S:c. In 
 
 One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Pall MaJl Gazette. — ""Well imagined, cleverly constructed, power- 
 fully executed. 'Dionea* is a fine and impressive idea, and *Oke of 
 Okehurst' a masterly story." 
 
 PASSION THE PLAYTHING. A Novel. By 
 
 E. Murray Gilchrist. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 63. 
 
 Athenseum. — "This well- written story must be read to be appre- 
 ciated." 
 YorkBlllre Post.— "A book to lay hold of the reader." 
 
 IRecent publlcattona 
 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, 
 
 By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., Associate in Political 
 Economy, Johns Hopkins University. In One Volume, 
 crown 8vo, 58. 
 Weekly Despatcli.— "There is much to interest and instruct." 
 Saturday Review.— "Both interesting and valuable." 
 England. — "Full of information and thought." 
 National Reformer.— "Chapter iii. deals with the growth and 
 present condition of labour organisations in America . . . this forms 
 a most valuable page of history." 
 
 ARABIC AUTHORS: A Manual of Arabian 
 History and Literature. ByF.F. Arbuthnot,M.E.A.S., 
 
 Author of "Early Ideas," "Persian Portraits," &c. In 
 
 One Volume, Svo, los. 
 
 Manchester Exaininer.— " The whole work has been carefully 
 indexed, and will prove a handbook of the highest value to the 
 student who wishes to gain a better acquaintance with Arabian 
 letters." 
 
 14 21 BEDFORD STREET, LOJfDON, W.C.
 
 Mr. William Heinemann' 
 
 IRecent ipulJlications. \ 
 THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING Ely 
 
 As pleasingly exemplified in many instances, _xj. 
 
 the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have 
 been prettily spurred on to indiscretions and unseemli- 
 ness, while overcome by an undue sense of right. By J. 
 M'Neil Whistler. In One Volume, pott 4to, los. 6d. 
 
 Puncli, June 21. — "The book in itself, in its binding, print, and 
 arrangement, is a work of art." 
 
 Puncli, June 28. — " A work of rare humour, a thing of beauty and 
 a joy for now and ever." 
 
 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU, 
 
 1890. By F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon and 
 Canon of Westminster, &c. &c. In One Volume, small 
 4to, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Spectator. — "Among the many accounts that have been written 
 this year of * The Passion Play,' one of the most picturesque, the most 
 interesting, and the most reasonable, is this sketch of Archdeacon 
 Farrar 's. . . . This little book will be read with delight by those who 
 have, and by those who have not, visited Oberammergau." 
 
 THE GARDEN'S STORY; on Pleasures and 
 
 Trials of an Amateur Gardener. By G. H. Ell- 
 
 WANGER. With an Introduction by the Eev. C. Wolley 
 DoD. In One Volume, i2mo, with Illustrations, 5s. 
 
 Scotsman. — "Deserves every recommendation that a pleasant- 
 looking page can give it ; for it deals with a charming subject in a 
 charming manner. Mr. Ellwanger talks delightfully, with instruc- 
 tion but without pedantry, of the flowers, the insects, and the birds. 
 ... It will give pleasure to everj' reader who takes the smallest 
 interest in flowers, and ought to find many readers." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.O. \s
 
 Mr. William Heinemann's List. 
 
 IRecent ipubltcations. 
 THE LIFE OF HENRIK IBSEN. By Heneik 
 
 JiEGER. Translated by Clara Bell. With the Verse 
 done into English from the Norwegian Original by 
 Edmund Gosse. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 St. James's Gazette. — "Admirably translated. Deserves a cordial 
 and empbatic welcome." 
 
 Guardian. — " Ibsen's dramas at present enjoy a considerable vogne, 
 and tbeir admirers will rejoice to find full descriptions and criticisms 
 in Mr. Jaeger's book." 
 
 Academy. — "We welcome it heartily. An unqualified boon to 
 the many English students of Ibsen." 
 
 COMMUNICATIONS ON A REMEDY FOR 
 
 TUBERCULOSIS. By Professor Egbert Koch, Berlin. 
 Authorised Tran.slatioii. 8vo, "Wrapper, is. ; or Limp 
 Cloth, IS. 6d. 
 
 From The Times, leading article, November 17, 1890:— "It has 
 been acknowledged, at any time during the last year or two, that the 
 discovery of a cure for tuberculosis was not only possible but even 
 likely ; and that wliich is now announced comes with the bighest 
 recommendations and from the most trustworthy source." 
 
 IDLE MUSINGS: Essays in Social Mosaic. 
 
 By E. Conder Gray, Author of "Wise Words and 
 Loving Deeds," &c. &c. In One Volume, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 Saturday Review. — "Light, brief, .and bright are tbe 'essays in 
 social mosaic' Mr. Gray ranges like a butterfly from liigh themes to 
 txivial with a good deal of dexterity and a profusion of illustrations." 
 
 Graphic. — "Pleasantly written, will serve admirably to wile away 
 an idle half-hour or two. " 
 
 Il/y AND PASSION FLOWER: Poems. By 
 
 Gerard Bendall, Author of "Estelle," &c. &c. i2mo, 
 3B. 6d. 
 
 Scotsman.—" "Will be read with pleasure." 
 
 Woman. — "There is a delicacy of touch and simplicity about the 
 poems which is very attractive." 
 
 Musical World. — "The poems are delicate specimens of art, grace- 
 ful and polished." 
 
 VERSES. By Gertrude Hall. i2mo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Musical World. — "Interesting volume of verse." 
 Woman. — "Very sweet and musical." 
 
 Manchester Guardian.—" Will be welcome to every lover of poetry 
 who takes it up. " 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON. W.O. 
 
 10,000/29/5/91.