The Scapegoat [93]
the hills, the desert where no man was wronged--God Himself, and not these people, had that day been leading them!
What happened next Israel never rightly knew. His proper sense of life seemed lost. Through thick waves of hot air he heard many voices.
First the voice of the crier, "So shall it be done to every man who is an enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and a cheat."
Then the voice of the soldier, "Balak! Balak!"
After that a multitudinous din that seemed to break off sharply and then to come muffled and dense as from the other side of the closed gate.
When Israel came to himself again he was walking on a barren heath that was dotted over with clumps of the long aloe, and he was holding Naomi by the hand.
CHAPTER XX
LIFE'S NEW LANGUAGE
Two days after they had been cast out of Tetuan, Israel and Naomi were settled in a little house that stood a day's walk to the north of the town, about midway between the village of Semsa and the fondak which lies on the road to Tangier. From the hour wherein the gates had closed behind them, everything had gone well with both. The country people who lay encamped on the heath outside had gathered around and shown them kindness. One old Arab woman, seeing Naomi's shame, had come behind without a word and cast a blanket over her head and shoulders. Then a girl of the Berber folk had brought slippers and drawn them on to Naomi's feet. The woman wore no blanket herself, and the feet of the girl were bare. Their own people were haggard and hollow-eyed and hungry, but the hearts of all were melted towards the great man in his dark hour. "Allah had written it," they muttered, but they were more merciful than they thought their God.
Thus, amid silent pity and audible peace-blessings, with cheer of kind words and comfort of food and drink, Israel and Naomi had wandered on through the country from village to village, until in the evening, an hour after sundown, they came upon the hut wherein they made their home. It was a poor, mean place--neither a round tent, such as the mountain Berbers build, nor a square cube of white stone, with its garden in a court within, such as a Moorish farmer rears for his homestead, but an oblong shed, roofed with rushes and palmetto leaves in the manner of an Irish cabin. And, indeed, the cabin of an Irish renegade it had been, who, escaping at Gibraltar from the ship that was taking him to Sidney, had sailed in a Genoese trader to Ceuta, and made his way across the land until he came to this lonesome spot near to Semsa. Unlike the better part of his countrymen, he had been a man of solitary habit and gloomy temper, and while he lived he had been shunned by his neighbours, and when he died his house had been left alone. That was the chance whereby Israel and Naomi had come to possess it, being both poor and unclaimed.
Nevertheless, though bare enough of most things that man makes and values, yet the little place was rich in some of the wealth that comes only from the hand of God. Thus marjoram and jasmine and pinks and roses grew at the foot of its walls, and it was these sweet flowers which had first caught the eyes of Israel. For suddenly through the mazes of his mind, where every perception was indistinct at that time, there seemed to come back to him a vague and confused recollection of the abandoned house, as if the thing that his eyes then saw they had surely seen before. How this should be Israel could not tell, seeing that never before to his knowledge had he passed on his way to Tangier so near to Semsa. But when he questioned himself again, it came to him, like light beaming into a dark room, that not in any waking hour at all had he seen the little place before, but in a dream of the night when he slept on the ground in the poor fondak of the Jews at Wazzan.
This, then, was the cottage where he had dreamed that he lived with Naomi; this was where she had seemed to have eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue to speak; this was the vision of his dead wife, which when he awoke
What happened next Israel never rightly knew. His proper sense of life seemed lost. Through thick waves of hot air he heard many voices.
First the voice of the crier, "So shall it be done to every man who is an enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and a cheat."
Then the voice of the soldier, "Balak! Balak!"
After that a multitudinous din that seemed to break off sharply and then to come muffled and dense as from the other side of the closed gate.
When Israel came to himself again he was walking on a barren heath that was dotted over with clumps of the long aloe, and he was holding Naomi by the hand.
CHAPTER XX
LIFE'S NEW LANGUAGE
Two days after they had been cast out of Tetuan, Israel and Naomi were settled in a little house that stood a day's walk to the north of the town, about midway between the village of Semsa and the fondak which lies on the road to Tangier. From the hour wherein the gates had closed behind them, everything had gone well with both. The country people who lay encamped on the heath outside had gathered around and shown them kindness. One old Arab woman, seeing Naomi's shame, had come behind without a word and cast a blanket over her head and shoulders. Then a girl of the Berber folk had brought slippers and drawn them on to Naomi's feet. The woman wore no blanket herself, and the feet of the girl were bare. Their own people were haggard and hollow-eyed and hungry, but the hearts of all were melted towards the great man in his dark hour. "Allah had written it," they muttered, but they were more merciful than they thought their God.
Thus, amid silent pity and audible peace-blessings, with cheer of kind words and comfort of food and drink, Israel and Naomi had wandered on through the country from village to village, until in the evening, an hour after sundown, they came upon the hut wherein they made their home. It was a poor, mean place--neither a round tent, such as the mountain Berbers build, nor a square cube of white stone, with its garden in a court within, such as a Moorish farmer rears for his homestead, but an oblong shed, roofed with rushes and palmetto leaves in the manner of an Irish cabin. And, indeed, the cabin of an Irish renegade it had been, who, escaping at Gibraltar from the ship that was taking him to Sidney, had sailed in a Genoese trader to Ceuta, and made his way across the land until he came to this lonesome spot near to Semsa. Unlike the better part of his countrymen, he had been a man of solitary habit and gloomy temper, and while he lived he had been shunned by his neighbours, and when he died his house had been left alone. That was the chance whereby Israel and Naomi had come to possess it, being both poor and unclaimed.
Nevertheless, though bare enough of most things that man makes and values, yet the little place was rich in some of the wealth that comes only from the hand of God. Thus marjoram and jasmine and pinks and roses grew at the foot of its walls, and it was these sweet flowers which had first caught the eyes of Israel. For suddenly through the mazes of his mind, where every perception was indistinct at that time, there seemed to come back to him a vague and confused recollection of the abandoned house, as if the thing that his eyes then saw they had surely seen before. How this should be Israel could not tell, seeing that never before to his knowledge had he passed on his way to Tangier so near to Semsa. But when he questioned himself again, it came to him, like light beaming into a dark room, that not in any waking hour at all had he seen the little place before, but in a dream of the night when he slept on the ground in the poor fondak of the Jews at Wazzan.
This, then, was the cottage where he had dreamed that he lived with Naomi; this was where she had seemed to have eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue to speak; this was the vision of his dead wife, which when he awoke