The Scapegoat [89]
Israel had spoken warmly, and at the tender fibres of feeling that had been forced out of him at last the woman was laughing derisively. "Trust me," she cried, "I know what daughters are. Girls like better things. No, I'll give her what will be more to her taste. She shall stay here with me."
Israel drew himself up to his full height and answered, "Madam, I would rather see her dead at my feet."
Then Ben Aboo broke in and said, "Don't wag your tongue at your mistress, sir."
"_Your_ mistress, Basha," said Israel; "not mine."
At that word Katrina, with all her evil face aflame came sweeping down upon Israel, and struck him with her fan on the forehead. He did not flinch or speak. The blow had burst the skin, and a drop of blood trickled over the temple on to the cheek. There was a short deep pause.
Then the hard tension of silence was broken by a faint cry. It came from behind, from the doorway; it was the voice of a girl.
In the blank stupor of the moment, every eye being on the two that stood in the midst, no one had observed until then that another had entered the patio. It was Naomi. How long she had been there no one knew, and how she had come unnoticed through the corridors out of the streets scarce any one--even when time sufficed to arrange the scattered thoughts of the Makhazni, the guard at the gate--could clearly tell. She stood under the arch, with one hand at her breast, which heaved visibly with emotion, and the other hand stretched out to touch the open iron-clamped door, as if for help and guidance. Her head was held up, her lips were apart, and her motionless blind eyes seemed to stare wildly. She had heard the hot words. She had heard the sound of the blow that followed them. Her father was smitten! Her father! Her father! It was then that she uttered the cry. All eyes turned to her. Quaking, reeling, almost falling, she came tottering down the patio. Soul and sense seemed to be struggling together in her blind face. What did it all mean? What was happening? Her fixed eyes stared as if they must burst the bonds that bound them, and look and see, and know!
At that moment God wrought a mighty work, a wondrous change, such as He has brought to pass but twice or thrice since men were born blind into His world of light. In an instant, at a thought, by one spontaneous flash, as if the spirit of the girl tore down the dark curtains which had hung for seventeen years over the windows of her eyes, Naomi saw!
They all knew it at once. It seemed to them as if every feature of the girl's face had leapt into her eyes; as if the expression of her lips, her brow, her nostrils, had sprung to them: as if her face, so fair before, so full of quivering feeling, must have been nothing until then but a blank. Nay, but they seemed to see her now for the first time. This, only this, was she!
And to Naomi also, at that moment, it was almost as if she had been newly born into life. She was meeting the world at last face to face, eye to eye. Into her darkened chamber, that had never known the light, everything had entered at a blow--the white glare of the sun, the blue sky, the tiled patio, the faces of the Kaid and his wife and his soldiers, and of the old man also, with the unshed tears hanging on the fringe of his eyelid. She could not realise the marvel. She did not know what vision was. She had not learned to see. Her trembling soul had gone out from its dark chamber and met the mighty light in his mansion. "Oh! oh!" she cried, and stood bewildered and helpless in the midst. The picture of the world seemed to be falling upon her, and she covered her eyes with her hands, that she might abolish it altogether.
Israel saw everything. "Naomi!" he cried in a choking voice, and stretched out his hands to her. Then she uncovered her eyes, and looked, and paused and hesitated.
"Naomi!" he cried again, and made a step towards her. She covered her eyes once more that she might shut out the stranger they showed her, and only listen to the voice that she knew so well. Then she