Complete works of hall c.., p.204
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 204
No one had come with food for Israel, and seeing this ‘Larby the negro swaggered up to him, singing a snatch and offering a round cake of bread —
Rusks are good and kiks are sweet
And kesksoo is both meat and drink;
It’s this for now, and that for then,
But khalia still for married men.
“You’re like me, Sidi,” he said, “you want nothing,” and he made an upward movement of his forefinger to indicate his trust in Providence. That was the gay rascal’s way of saying that he stole from the bags of his comrades while they slept.
“No? Fasting yet?” he said, and went off singing as he came —
It will make your ladies love you;
It will make them coo and kiss —
“What?” he shouted to some one across the prison “eating khalia in the bird-cage? Bad, bad, bad!”
All this came to Israel’s mind through thick waves of half-consciousness, but with his heart he heard nothing, or the very air of the place must have poisoned him. He sat by the pillar at which he had first placed himself, and hardly ever rose from it. With great slow eyes he gazed at everything, but nothing did he see. Sometimes he had the look of one who listens, but never did he hear. Thus in silence and languor he passed from day to day, and from night to night, scarcely sleeping, rarely eating, and seeming always to be waiting, waiting, waiting.
Fresh prisoners came at short intervals, and then only was Israel’s interest awakened. One question he asked of all. “Where from?” If they answered from Fez, from Wazzan, from Mequinez, or from Marrakesh, Israel turned aside and left them without more words. Then to his fellows they might pour out their woes in loud wails and curses, but Israel would hear no more.
Strangers from Europe travelling through the country were allowed to look into the prison through the round peephole of the door kept by the Kaid el habs, who played the ginbri. The Jews who made baskets took this opportunity to offer their work for sale; and so that he might see the visitors and speak with them Israel would snatch up something and hang it out. Always his question was the same. “Where from last?” he would say in English, or Spanish, or French, or Moorish. Sometimes it chanced that the strangers knew him. But he showed no shame. Never did their answers satisfy him. He would turn back to his pillar with a sigh.
Thus weeks went on, and Israel’s face grew worn and tired. His fellow prisoners began to show him deference in their own rude way. When he came among them at the first they had grinned and laughed a little. To do that was always the impulse of the poor souls, so miserably imprisoned, when a new comrade joined him. But the majesty and the suffering in Israel’s face told on their hearts at last. He was a great man fallen, he had nothing left to him; not even bread to eat or water to drink. So they gathered about him and hit on a way to make him share their food. Bringing their sacks to his pillar, they stacked them about it, and asked him to serve out provisions to all, day by day, share and share alike. He was honest, he was a master, no one would steal from him, it was best, the stuff would last longest. It was a touching sight.
Still the old eagerness betrayed itself in Israel’s weary manner as often as the door opened and fresh prisoners arrived. Once it happened that before he uttered his usual question he saw that the newcomers were from Tetuan, and then his restlessness was feverish. “When — were you — have you been of late—” he stammered, and seemed unable to go farther.
But the Tetawanis knew and understood him. “No,” said one in answer to the unspoken question; “Nor I,” said another; “Nor I,” said a third, “Nor I neither,” said a fourth, as Israel’s rapid eyes passed down the line of them.
He turned away without a word more, sat down by the pillar and looked vacantly before him while the new prisoners told their story. Ben Aboo was a villain. The people of Tetuan had found him out. His wife was a harlot whose heart was a deep pit. Between them they were demoralising the entire bashalic. The town was worse than Sodom. Hardly a child in the streets was safe, and no woman, whether wife or daughter, whom God had made comely, dare show herself on the roofs. Their own women had been carried off to the palace at the Kasbah. That was why they themselves were there in prison.
This was about a month after the coming of Israel to Shawan. Then his reason began to unsettle. It was pitiful to see that he was conscious of the change that was befalling him. He wrestled with madness with all the strength of a strong man. If it should fall upon him, where then would be his hope and outlook? His day would be done, his night would be closed in, he would be no more than a helpless log, rolling in an ice-bound sea, and when the thaw came — if it ever came — he would be only a broken, rudderless, sailless wreck. Sometimes he would swear at nothing and fling out his arms wildly, and then with a look of shame hang down his head and mutter, “No, no, Israel; no, no, no!”
Other prisoners arrived from Tetuan, and all told the same story. Israel listened to them with a stupid look, seeming hardly to hear the tale they told him. But one morning, as life began again for the day in that slimy eddy of life’s ocean, every one became aware that an awful change had come to pass. Israel’s face had been worn and tired before, but now it looked very old and faded. His black hair had been sprinkled with grey, and now it was white; and white also was his dark beard, which had grown long and ragged. But his eye glistened, and his teeth were aglitter in his open mouth. He was laughing at everything, yet not wildly, not recklessly, not without meaning or intention, but with the cheer of a happy and contented man.
Israel was mad, and his madness was a moving thing to look upon. He thought he was back at home and a rich man still, as he had been in earlier days, but a generous man also, as he was in later ones. With liberal hand he was dispensing his charities.
“Take what you need; eat, drink, do not stint; there is more where this has come from; it is not mine; God has lent it me for the good of all.”
With such words, graciously spoken, he served out the provisions according to his habit, and only departed from his daily custom in piling the measures higher, and in saluting the people by titles — Sid, Sidi, Mulai, and the like — in degree as their clothes were poor and ragged. It was a mad heart that spoke so, but also it was a big one.
From that time forward he looked upon the prisoners as his guests, and when fresh prisoners came to the prison he always welcomed them as if he were host there and they were friends who visited him. “Welcome!” he would say; “you are very welcome. The place is your own. Take all. What you don’t see, believe we have not got it. A thousand thousand welcomes home!” It was grim and painful irony.
Israel’s comrades began to lose sense of their own suffering in observing the depth of his, and they laid their heads together to discover the cause of his madness. The most part of them concluded that he was repining for the loss of his former state. And when one day another prisoner came from Tetuan with further tales of the Basha’s tyranny, and of the people’s shame at thought of how they had dealt by Israel, the prisoners led the man back to where Israel was standing in the accustomed act of dispensing bounty, that he might tell his story into the rightful ears.
“They’re always crying for you,” said the Tetawani; “‘Israel ben Oliel! Israel ben Oliel!’ that’s what you hear in the mosques and the streets everywhere.’ Shame on us for casting him out, shame on us! He was our father!’ Jews and Muslimeen, they’re all saying so.”
It was useless. The glad tidings could not find their way. That black page of Israel’s life which told of the people’s ingratitude was sealed in the book of memory. Israel laughed. What could his good friend mean? Behold! was he not rich? Had he not troops of comrades and guests about him?
The prisoners turned aside, baffled and done. At length one man — it was no other than ‘Larby the wastrel — drew some of them apart and said, “You are all wrong. It’s not his former state that he’s thinking of. I know what it is — who knows so well as I? Listen! you hear his laughter! Well, he must weep, or he will be mad for ever. He must be made to weep. Yes, by Allah! and I must do it.”
That same night, when darkness fell over the dark place, and the prisoners tied up their cotton headkerchiefs and lay down to sleep, ‘Larby sat beside Israel’s place with sighs and moans and other symptoms of a dejected air.
“Sidi, master,” he faltered, “I had a little brother once, and he was blind. Born blind, Sidi, my own mother’s son. But you wouldn’t think how happy he was for all that? You see, Sidi he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world! Women? Why — well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen, and he used to ride on my back! Black curls all over, Sidi, and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn’t see. Well a bleeder came from Soos — curse his great-grandfather! Looked at little Hosain— ‘Scales!’ said he — burn his father! Bleed him and he’ll see! So they bled him, and he did see. By Allah! yes, for a minute — half a minute! ‘Oh, ‘Larby,’ he cried — I was holding him; then he — he—’ ‘Larby,’ he cried faint, like a lamb that’s lost in the mountains — and then — and then— ‘Oh, oh, ‘Larby,’ he moaned Sidi, Sidi, I paid that bleeder — there and then — this way! That’s why I’m here!”
It was a lie, but ‘Larby acted it so well that his voice broke in his throat, and great drops fell from his eyes on to Israel’s hand.
The effect on Israel himself was strange and even startling. While ‘Larby was speaking, he was beating his forehead and mumbling: “Where? When? Naomi!” as if grappling for lost treasures in an ebbing sea. And when ‘Larby finished, he fell on him with reproaches. “And you are weeping for that?” he cried. “You think it much that the sweet child is dead — God rest him! So it is to the like of you, but look at me!”
His voice betrayed a grim pride in his miseries. “Look at me! Am I weeping? No; I would scorn to weep. But I have more cause a thousandfold. Listen! Once I was rich; but what were riches without children? Hard bread with no water for sop. I asked God for a child. He gave me a daughter; but she was born blind and dumb and deaf. I asked God to take my riches and give her hearing. He gave her hearing; but what was hearing without speech? I asked God to take all I had and give her speech. He gave her speech, but what was speech without sight? I asked God to take my place from me and give her sight. He gave her sight, and I was cast out of the town like a beggar. What matter? She had all, and I was forgiven. But when I was happy, when I was content, when she filled my heart with sunshine, God snatched me away from her. And where is she now? Yonder, alone, friendless, a child new-born into the world at the mercy of liars and libertines. And where am I? Here, like a beast in a trap, uttering abortive groans, toothless, stupid, powerless, mad. No, no, not mad, either! Tell me, boy, I am not mad!”
In the breaking waters of his madness he was struggling like a drowning man. “Yet I do not weep,” he cried in a thick voice. “God has a right to do as He will. He gave her to me for seventeen years. If she dies she’ll be mine again soon. Only if she lives — only if she falls into evil hands — Tell me, have I been mad?”
He gave no time for an answer. “Naomi!” he cried, and the name broke in his throat. “Where are you now? What has — who have — your father is thinking of you — he is — No, I will not weep. You see I have a good cause, but I tell you I will never weep. God has a right — Naomi! — Na—”
The name thickened to a sob as he repeated it, and then suddenly he rose and cried in an awful voice, “Oh, I’m a fool! God has done nothing for me. Why should I do anything for God? He has taken all I had. He has taken my child. I have nothing more to give Him but my life. Let Him take that too. Take it, I beseech Thee!” he cried — the vault of the prison rang— “Take it, and set me free!”
But at the next moment he had fallen back to his place, and was sobbing like a little child. The other prisoners had risen in their amazement, and ‘Larby, who was shedding hot tears over his cold ones, was capering down the floor, and singing, “El Arby was a black man.”
Then there was a rattling of keys, and suddenly a flood of light shot into the dark place. The Kaid el habs was bringing a courier, who carried an order for Israel’s release. Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan, was to keep the feast of the Moolood at Tetuan, and Ben Aboo, to celebrate the visit, had pardoned Israel.
It was coals of fire on Israel’s head. “God is good,” he muttered. “I shall see her again. Yes, God has a right to do as He will. I shall see her soon. God is wise beyond all wisdom. I must lose no time. Jailer can I leave the town to-night? I wish to start on my journey. To-night? — yes, to-night! Are the gates open? No? You will open them? You are very good. Everybody is very good. God is good. God is mighty.”
Then half in shame, and partly as apology for his late intemperate outburst, with a simpleness that was almost childish, he said, “A man’s a fool when he loses his only child. I don’t mean by death. Time heals that. But the living child — oh, it’s an unending pain! You would never think how happy we were. Her pretty ways were all my joy. Yes, for her voice was music, and her breath was like the dawn. Do you know, I was very fond of the little one — I was quite miserable if I lost sight of her for an hour. And then to be wrenched away! . . . . But I must hasten back. The little one will be waiting. Yes, I know quite well she’ll be looking out from the door in the sunshine when she awakes in the morning. It’s always the way of these tender creatures, is it not? So we must humour them. Yes, yes, that’s so that’s so.”
His fellow-prisoners stood around him each in his night-headkerchief knotted under his chin — gaunt, hooded figures, in the shifting light of the jailer’s lantern.
“Farewell, brothers!” he cried; and one by one they touched his hand and brought it to their breasts.
“Farewell, master!” “Peace, Sidi!” “Farewell!” “Peace!” “Farewell!”
The light shot out; the door clasped back; there were footsteps dying away outside; two loud bangs as of a closing gate, and then silence — empty and ghostly.
In the darkness the hooded figures stood a moment listening, and then a croaking, breaking, husky, merry voice began to sing —
El Arby was a black man,
They called him “‘Larby Kosk;”
He loved the wives of the Kasbah,
And stole slippers in the Mosque.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW NAOMI TURNED MUSLIMA
What had happened to Naomi during the two months and a half while Israel lay at Shawan is this: After the first agony of their parting, in which she was driven back by the soldiers when she attempted to follow them, she sat down in a maze of pain, without any true perception of the evil which had befallen her, but with her father’s warning voice and his last words in her ear: “Stay here. Never leave this place. Whatever they say, stay here. I will come back.”
When she awoke in the morning, after a short night of broken sleep and fitful dreams, the voice and the words were with her still, and then she knew for the first time what the meaning was, and what the penalty, of this strange and dread asundering. She was alone, and, being alone, she was helpless; she was no better than a child, without kindred to look to her and without power to look to herself, with food and drink beside her, but no skill to make and take them.
Thus her awakening sense was like that of a lamb whose mother has been swallowed up in the night by the sand-drifts of the simoom. It was not so much love as loss. What to do, where to look, which way to turn first, she knew no longer, and could not think, for lack of the hand that had been wont to guide her.
The neighbouring Moors heard of what had happened to Naomi, and some of the women among them came to see her. They were poor farming people, oppressed by cruel taxmasters; and the first things they saw were the cattle and sheep, and the next thing was the simple girl with the child-face, who knew nothing yet of the ways wherein a lonely woman must fend for herself.
“You cannot live here alone, my daughter,” they said; “you would perish. Then think of the danger — a child like you, with a face like a flower! No, no, you must come to us. We will look to you like one of our own, and protect you from evil men. And as for the creatures—”
“But he said I was never to leave this place,” said Naomi. “‘Stay here,’ he said; ‘whatever they say, stay here. I will come back.’”
The women protested that she would starve, be stolen, ruined, and murdered. It was in vain. Naomi’s answer was always the same: “He told me to stay here, and surely I must do so.”
Then one after another the poor folks went away in anger. “Tut!” they thought, “what should we want with the Jew child? Allah! Was there ever such a simpleton? The good creatures going to waste, too! And as for her father, he’ll never come back — never. Trust the Basha for that!”
But when the humanity of the true souls had conquered their selfishness, they came again one by one and vied with each other in many simple offices — milking and churning, and baking and delving — in pity of the sweet girl with the great eyes who had been left to live alone. And Naomi, seeing her helplessness at last, put out all her powers to remedy it, so that in a little while she was able to do for herself nearly everything that her neighbours at first did for her. Then they would say among themselves, “Allah! she’s not such a baby after all; and if she wasn’t quite so beautiful, poor child, or if the world wasn’t so wicked — but then, God is great! God is great!”
