It was six-and-twenty days since the night of the meeting on the Sok, and no rain had yet fallen. The eggs of the locust might be hatched at any time. Then the wingless creatures would rise on the face of the earth like snow, and the poor lean stalks of wheat and barley that were coming green out of the ground would wither before them. The country people were in despair. They were all but stripped of their cattle; they had no milk; and they came afoot to the market. Death seemed to look them in the face. Neither in the mosques nor in the synagogues did they offer petitions to God for rain. They had long ceased their prayers. Only in the Feddan at the mouths of their tents did they lift up their heavy eyes to the hot haze of the pitiless sky and mutter, “It is written!”

Israel was busy with other matters. During these six-and-twenty days he had been asking himself what it was right and needful that he should do. He had concluded at length that it was his duty to give up the office he held under the Kaid. No longer could he serve two masters. Too long had he held to the one, thinking that by recompense and restitution, by fair dealing and even-handed justice, he might atone to the other. Recompense was a mockery of the sufferings which had led to death; restitution was no longer possible—his own purse being empty—without robbery of the treasury of his master; fair dealing and even justice were a vain hope in Barbary, where every man who held office, from the heartless Sultan in his hareem to the pert Mut'hasseb in the market, must be only as a human torture-jellab, made and designed to squeeze the life-blood out of the man beneath him.

To endure any longer the taunts and laughter of Ben Aboo was impossible, and to resist the covetous importunities of his Spanish woman, Katrina, was a waste of shame and spirit. Besides, and above all, Israel remembered that God had given him grace in the sacrifices which he had made already. Twice had God rewarded him, in the mercy He had shown to Naomi, for putting by the pomp and circumstance of the world. Would His great hand be idle now—now when he most needed its mighty and miraculous power when Naomi, being conscious of her blindness, was mourning and crying for sweet sight of the world and he himself was about to put under his feet the last of his possessions that separated him from other men—his office that he wrought for in the early days with sweat of brow and blood, and held on to in the later days through evil report and hatred, that he might conquer the fate that had first beaten him down!

Israel was in the way of bribing God again, forgetting, in the heat of his desire, the shame of his journey to Shawan. He made his preparations, and they were few. His money was gone already, and so were his dead wife's jewels. He had determined that he would keep his house, if only as a shelter to Naomi (for he owed something to her material comfort as well as her spiritual welfare), but that its furniture and belongings were more luxurious than their necessity would require or altered state allow.

So he sold to a Jewish merchant in the Mellah the couches and great chairs which he had bought out of England, as well as the carpets from Rabat, the silken hangings from Fez, and the purple canopies from Morocco city. When these were gone, and nothing remained but the simple rugs and mattresses which are all that the house of a poor man needs in that land where the skies are kind, he called his servants to him as he sat in the patio—Ali as well as the two bondwomen—for he had decided that he must part with them also, and they must go their ways.

“My good people,” he said, “you have been true and faithful servants to me this many a year—you, Fatimah, and you also, Habeebah, since before the days when my wife came to me—and you too, Ali, my lad, since you grew to be big and helpful. Little I thought to part with you until my good time should come; but my life in our poor Barbary is over already, and to-morrow I shall be less than the least of all men in Tetuan. So this is what I have concluded to do. You, Fatimah, and you, Habeebah, being given to me as bondwomen by the Kaid in the old days when my power, which now is little and of no moment, was great and necessary—you belong to me. Well, I give you your liberty. Your papers are in the name of Ben Aboo, and I have sealed them with his seal—that is the last use but one that I shall put it to. Here they are, both of them. Take them to the Kadi after prayers in the morning, and he will ratify your title. Then you will be free women for ever after.”

The black women had more than once broken in upon Israel's words with exclamations of surprise and consternation. “Allah!” “Bismillah!” “Holy Saints!” “By the beard of the Prophet!” And when at length he put the deeds of emancipation into their hands they fell into loud fits of hysterical weeping.

“As for you, Ali, my son,” Israel continued, “I cannot give you your freedom, for you are a freeman born. You have been a son to me these fourteen years. I have another task for you—a perilous task, a solemn duty—and when it is done I shall see you no more. My brave boy, you will go far, but I do not fear for you. When you are gone I shall think of you; and if you should sometimes think of your old master who could not keep you, we may not always be apart.”

The lad had listened to these words in blank bewilderment. That strange disasters had of late befallen their household was an idea that had forced itself upon his unwilling mind. But that Israel, the greatest, noblest, mightiest man in the world—let the dogs of rasping Jews and the scurvy hounds of Moors yelp and bark as they would—should fall to be less than the least in Tetuan, and, having fallen that he should send him away—him, Ali, his boy whom he had brought up, Naomi's old playfellow—Allah! Allah! in the name of the merciful God, what did his master mean?

Ali's big eyes began to fill, and great beads rolled down his black cheeks. Then, recovering his speech he blurted out that he would not go. He would follow his father and serve him until the end of his life. What did he want with wages? Who asked for any? No going his ways for him! A pretty thing, wasn't it, that he should go off, and never see his father again, no, nor Naomi—Naomi—that-that—but God would show! God would show!

And, following Ali's lead, Fatimah stepped up to Israel and offered her paper back. “Take it,” she said; “I don't want any liberty. I've got liberty enough as I am. And here—here,” fumbling in her waistband and bringing out a knitted purse; “I would have offered it before, only I thought shame. My wages? Yes. You've paid us wages these nine years, haven't you; and what right had we to any, being slaves? You will not take it, my lord? Well, then, my dear master, if I must go, if I must leave you, take my papers and sell me to some one. I shall not care, and you have a right to do it. Perhaps I'll get another good master—who knows?”

Her brows had been knitted, and she had tried to look stern and angry, but suddenly her cheeks were a flood of tears.

“I'm a fool!” she cried. “I'll never get a good master again; but if I get a bad one, and he beats me, I'll not mind, for I'll think of you, and my precious jewel of gold and silver, my pretty gazelle, Naomi—Allah preserve her!—that you took my money, and I'm bearing it for both of you, as we might say—working for you—night and day—night and day—”

Israel could endure no more. He rose up and fled out of the patio into his own room, to bury his swimming face. But his soul was big and triumphant. Let the world call him by what names it would—tyrant, traitor, outcast pariah—there were simple hearts that loved and honoured him—ay, honoured him—and they were the hearts that knew him best.

The perilous task reserved for Ali was to go to Shawan and to liberate the followers of Absalam, who, less happy than their leader, whose strong soul was at rest, were still in prison without abatement of the miseries they lay under. He was to do this by power of a warrant addressed to the Kaid of Shawan and drawn under the seal of the Kaid of Tetuan. Israel had drawn it, and sealed it also, without the knowledge or sanction of Ben Aboo; for, knowing what manner of man Ben Aboo was, and knowing Katrina also, and the sway she held over him, and thinking it useless to attempt to move either to mercy, he had determined to make this last use of his office, at all risks and hazards.

Ben Aboo might never hear that the people were at large, for Ali was to forbid them to return to Tetuan, and Shawan was sixty weary miles away. And if he ever did hear, Israel himself would be there to bear the brunt of his displeasure, but Ali the instrument of his design, must be far away. For when the gates of the prison had been opened, and the prisoners had gone free, Ali was neither to come back to Tetuan nor to remain in Morocco, but with the money that Israel gave him out of the last wreck of his fortune he was to make haste to Gibraltar by way of Ceuta, and not to consider his life safe until he had set foot in England.

“England!” cried Ali. “But they are all white men there.”

“White-hearted men, my lad,” said Israel; “and a Jewish man may find rest for the sole of his foot among them.”

That same day the black boy bade farewell to Israel and to Naomi. He was leaving them for ever, and he was broken-hearted. Israel was his father, Naomi was his sister, and never again should he set his eyes on either. But in the pride of his perilous mission he bore himself bravely.

“Well, good-night,” he said, taking Naomi's hand, but not looking into her blind face.

“Good-night,” she answered, and then, after a moment, she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. He laughed lightly, and turned to Israel.

“Good-night, father,” he said in a shrill voice.

“A safe journey to you, my son,” said Israel; “and may you do all my errands.”

“God burn my great-grandfather if I do not!” said Ali stoutly.

But with that word of his country his brave bearing at length broke down, and drawing Israel aside, that Naomi might not hear, he whispered, sobbing and stammering, “When—when I am gone, don't, don't tell her that I was black.”

Then in an instant he fled away.

“In peace!” cried Israel after him. “In peace! my brave boy, simple, noble, loyal heart!”

Next morning Israel, leaving Naomi at home, set off for the Kasbah, that he might carry out his great resolve to give up the office he held under the Kaid. And as he passed through the streets his head was held up, and he walked proudly. A great burden had fallen from him, and his spirit was light. The people bent their heads before him as he passed, and scowled at him when he was gone by. The beggars lying at the gate of the Mosque spat over their fingers behind his back, and muttered “Bismillah! In the name of God!” A negro farmer in the Feddan, who was bent double over a hoof as he was shoeing a bony and scabby mule, lifted his ugly face, bathed in sweat, and grinned at Israel as he went along. A group of Reefians, dirty and lean and hollow-eyed, feeding their gaunt donkeys, and glancing anxiously at the sky over the heads of the mountains, snarled like dogs as he strode through their midst. The sky was overcast, and the heads of the mountains were capped with mist. “Balak!” sounded in Israel's ears from every side. “Arrah!” came constantly at his heels. A sweet-seller with his wooden tray swung in front of him, crying, “Sweets, all sweets, O my lord Edrees, sweets, all sweets,” changed the name of the patron saint of candies, and cried, “Sweets, all sweets, O my lord Israel, sweets, all sweets!” The girl selling clay peered up impudently into Israel's eyes, and the oven-boy, answering the loud knocking of the bodiless female arms thrust out at doors standing ajar, made his wordless call articulate with a mocking echo of Israel's name.

What matter? Israel could not be wroth with the poor people. Six-and-twenty years he had gone in and out among them as a slave. This morning he was a free man, and to-morrow he would be one of themselves.

When he reached the Kasbah, there was something in the air about it that brought back recollections of the day—now nearly four years past—of the children's gathering at Katrina's festival. The lusty-lunged Arabs squatting at the gates among soldiers in white selhams and peaked shasheeahs the women in blankets standing in the outer court, the dark passages smelling of damp, the gusts of heavy odour coming from the inner chambers, and the great patio with the fountain and fig-trees—the same voluptuous air was over everything. And as on that day so on this, in the alcove under the horseshoe arch sat Ben Aboo and his Spanish wife.

Time had dealt with them after their kind, and the swarthy face of the Kaid was grosser, the short curls under his turban were more grey and his hazel eyes were now streaked and bleared, but otherwise he was the same man as before, and Katrina also, save for the loss of some teeth of the upper row, was the same woman. And if the children had risen up before Israel's eyes as he stood on the threshold of the patio, he could not have drawn his breath with more surprise than at the sight of the man who stood that morning in their place.

It was Mohammed of Mequinez. He had come to ask for the release of the followers of Absalam from their prison at Shawan. In defiance of courtesy his slippers were on his feet. He was clad in a piece of untanned camel-skin, which reached to his knees and was belted about his waist. His head, which was bare to the sun and drooped by nature like a flower, was held proudly up, and his wild eyes were flashing. He was not supplicating for the deliverance of the people, but demanding it, and taxing Ben Aboo as a tyrant to his throat.

“Give me them up, Ben Aboo,” he was saying as Israel came to the threshold, “or, if they die in their prison, one thing I promise you.”

“And pray what is that?” said Ben Aboo.

“That there will be a bloody inquiry after their murderer.”

Ben Aboo's brows were knitted, but he only glanced at Katrina, and made pretence to laugh, and then said, “And pray, my lord, who shall the murderer be?”

Then Mohammed of Mequinez stretched out his hand and answered, “Yourself.”

At that word there-was silence for a moment, while Ben Aboo shifted in his seat, and Katrina quivered beside him.

Ben Aboo glanced up at Mohammed. He was Kaid, he was Basha, he was master of all men within a circuit of thirty miles, but he was afraid of this man whom the people called a prophet. And partly out of this fear, and partly because he had more regard to Mohammed's courageous behaviour in thus bearding him in his Kasbah and by the walls of his dungeons than to the anger his hot word had caused him, Ben Aboo would have promised him at that moment that the prisoners at Shawan should be released.

But suddenly Katrina remembered that she also had cause of indignation against this man, for it had been rumoured of late that Mohammed had openly denounced her marriage.

“Wait, Sidi,” she said. “Is not this the fellow that has gone up and down your bashalic, crying out on our marriage that it was against the law of Mohammed?”

At that Ben Aboo saw clearly that there was no escape for him, so he made pretence to laugh again, and said, “Allah! so it is! Mohammed the Third, eh? Son of Mequinez, God will repay you! Thanks! Thanks! You could never think how long I've waited that I might look face to face upon the prophet that has denounced a Kaid.”

He uttered these big words between bursts of derisive laughter, but Mohammed struck the laughter from his lips in an instant. “Wait no longer, O Ben Aboo,” he cried, “but look upon him now, and know that what you have done is an unclean thing, and you shall be childless and die!”

Then Ben Aboo's passion mastered him. He rose to his feet in his anger, and cried, “Prophet, you have destroyed yourself. Listen to me! The turbulent dogs you plead for shall lie in their prison until they perish of hunger and rot of their sores. By the beard of my father, I swear it!”

Mohammed did not flinch. Throwing back his head, he answered, “If I am a prophet, O Ben Aboo hear me prophesy. Before that which you say shall come to pass, both you and your father's house will be destroyed. Never yet did a tyrant go happily out of the world, and you shall go out of it like a dog.”

Then Katrina also rose to her feet, and, calling to a group of barefooted Arab soldiers that stood near, she cried, “Take him! He will escape!”

But the soldiers did not move, and Ben Aboo fell back on his seat, and Mohammed, fearing nothing, spoke again.

“In a vision of last night I saw you, O Ben Aboo and for the contempt you had cast upon our holy laws, and for the destruction you had wrought on our poor people, the sword of vengeance had fallen upon you. And within this very court, and on that very spot where your feet now rest, your whole body did lie; and that woman beside you lay over you wailing and your blood was on her face and on her hands, and only she was with you, for all else had forsaken you—all save one, and that was your enemy, and he had come to see you with his eyes, and to rejoice over you with his heart, because you were fallen and dead.”

Then, in the creeping of his terror, Ben Aboo rose up again and reeled backward and his eyes were fixed steadfastly downward at his feet where the eyes of Mohammed had rested. It was almost as if he saw the awful thing of which Mohammed had spoken, so strong was the power of the vision upon him.

But recovering himself quickly, he cried, “Away! In the name of God, away!”

“I will go,” said Mohammed; “and beware what you do while I am gone.”

“Do you threaten me?” cried Ben Aboo. “Will you go to the Sultan? Will you appeal to Abd er-Rahman?”

“No, Ben Aboo; but to God.”

So saying, Mohammed of Mequinez strode out of the place, for no man hindered him. Then Ben Aboo sank back on to his seat as one that was speechless, and nothing had the crimson on his body availed him, or the silver on his breast, against that simple man in camel-skin, who owned nothing and asked nothing, and feared neither Kaid nor King.

When Ben Aboo had regained himself, he saw Israel standing at the doorway, and he beckoned to him with the downward motion, which is the Moorish manner. And rising on his quaking limbs he took him aside and said, “I know this fellow. Ya Allah! Allah! For all his vaunts and visions he has gone to Abd er-Rahman. God will show! God will show! I dare not take him! Abd er-Rahman uses him to spy and pry on his Bashas! Camel-skin coat? Allah! a fine disguise! Bismillah! Bismillah!”

Then, looking back at the place where Mohammed in the vision saw his body lie outstretched, he dropped his voice to a whisper, and said, “Listen! You have my seal?”

Israel without a word, put his hand into the pocket of his waistband, and drew out the seal of Ben Aboo.

“Right! Now hear me, in the name of the merciful God. Do not liberate these infidel dogs at Shawan and do not give them so much as bread to eat or water to drink, but let such as own them feed them. And if ever the thing of which that fellow has spoken should come to pass—do you hear?—in the hour wherein it befalls—Allah preserve me!—in that hour draw a warrant on the Kaid of Shawan and seal it with my seal—are you listening?—a warrant to put every man, woman, and child to the sword. Ya Allah! Allah! We will deal with these spies of Abd er-Rahman! So shall there be mourning at my burial—Holy Saints! Holy Saints!—mourning, I say, among them that look for joy at my death.”

Thus in a quaking voice, sometimes whispering, and again breaking into loud exclamations, Ben Aboo in his terror poured his broken words into Israel's ear.

Israel made no answer. His eyes had become dim—he scarcely saw the walls of the place wherein they stood. His ears had become dense—he scarcely heard the voice of Ben Aboo, though the Kaid's hot breath was beating upon his cheek. But through the haze he saw the shadow of one figure tramping furiously to and fro, and through the thick air the voice of another figure came muffled and harsh. For Katrina, having chased away with smiles the evil looks of Ben Aboo, had turned to Israel and was saying—

“What is this I hear of your beautiful daughter—this Naomi of yours—that she has recovered her speech and hearing! When did that happen, pray? No answer? Ah, I see, you are tired of the deception. You kept it up well between you. But is she still blind? So? Dear me! Blind, poor child. Think of it!”

Israel neither answered nor looked up, but stood motionless on the same place, holding the seal in his hand. And Ben Aboo, in his restless tramping up and down, came to him again, and said, “Why are you a Jew, Israel ben Oliel? The dogs of your people hate you. Witness to the Prophet! Resign yourself! Turn Muslim, man—what's to hinder you?”

Still Israel made no reply. But Ben Aboo continued: “Listen! The people about me are in the pay of the Sultan, and after all you are the best servant I have ever had. Say the Kelmah, and I'll make you my Khaleefa. Do you hear?—my Khaleefa, with power equal to my own. Man, why don't you speak? Are you grown stupid of late as well as weak and womanish?”