Complete works of hall c.., p.189
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 189
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 sacrifice, collected the three hundred dollars of his fine, bought him out of prison, and went in a body through the gate to meet him upon his return to Tetuan. 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 outside 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.
“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 neighbours outside the walls was not his own doctrine merely, but that of a great man lately risen among the people, called Mohammed of Mequinez, nicknamed by his enemies Mohammed the Third.
“This madness is spreading,” said Ben Aboo.
“Yes,” said Katrina; “and if all men follow where these men lead, who will 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 fellowship, 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 Reef 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, as occasion offered, to the sanctuaries of Shawan, trusting 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 precipice, with their backs to it, men and women and children, knee to knee in a line, and joined hands, and looked towards the soldiers, who were coming 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 precipice, “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.”
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 was golden-haired and his face was like the morning, and 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, O Lord God, it is the end — polluted wretch that 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 openly. “Allah had not written it!” a Moor shouted as he passed. “Take care!” cried an Arab, “Mohammed of Mequinez is coming!”
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 shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. . . . Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail. And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness 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 shall bring the live goat: and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.”
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 glint of water. Israel gazed, 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 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 hung down and its tongue lolled out. “Water!” it seemed to cry, though it made no voice, and its eyes traversed the plain as 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 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 Naomi 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 easily he could trick and deceive himself and think, She will awake presently, and speak to me! 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 was as the voice of the Lord came out of it, crying “Israel!”
And Israel was sorely afraid, and answered, “Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.”
Then the Lord said, “Thou has read of the goats whereon the high priest cast lots, one lot for 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, O Lord, that Thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest, for I alone am guilty before Thee.”
Then said the 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 scapegoat carries the iniquities of the people, so cost 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, O 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 off Naomi, my daughter?”
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 he 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.
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, that 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 concerning 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 remembered 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 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
ISRAEL’S JOURNEY
MOHAMMED of Mequinez, the man whom Israel went out to seek, had been 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 Tangier, and the other Grand Vizier 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.
He parted from his uncles, abandoned his judgeship, and went out into the plains. The poor and outcast and down-trodden 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 the Koran, but stricter conformers to it; not Nazarenes 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 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.”
