ISRAEL AT SHAWAN
AFTER Israel's return from his journey he had followed the precepts of
the young Mahdi of Mequinez. Taking a view of his situation, that by his
hardness of heart in the early days, and by base submission to the will
of Katrina, the Kaid's Christian wife, in the later ones, he had filled
the land with miseries, he now spared no cost to restore what he had
unjustly extorted. So to him that had paid double in the taxings he had
returned double--once for the tax and once for the excess; and if any
man, having been unjustly taxed for the Kaid's tribute, had given
bond on his lands for his debt and been cast into the Kasbah and
died, without ransoming them, then to his children he had returned
fourfold--double for the lands and double for the death. Israel had done
this continually, and said nothing to Ben Aboo, but paid all charges out
of his own purse, so that from being a rich man he had fallen within
a month to the condition of a poor one, for what was one man's wealth
among so many? Yet no goodwill had he won thereby, but only pity and
contempt, for the people that had taken his money had thanked the Kaid
for it, who, according to their supposals, had called on him to correct
what he had done amiss. And with Ben Aboo himself he had fared no
better, for the Basha was provoked to anger with him when he heard from
Katrina of the good money that he had been casting away in pity for the
poor.
“What have I told you a score of times?” said the woman. “That man has
mints of money.”
“My money, burn his grandfather,” said Ben Aboo.
Thus, on every side Israel had fallen in the world's reckoning. When he
lifted his hand from off that plough wherewith he had done the devil's
work, he had made many enemies, and such as he had before he had made
more powerful. People who had showed him lip-service when he was thought
to be rich did not conceal the joy they had that he was brought down
so near to be a beggar. Upstarts, who owed their promotion to his
intercession, found in his charities an easy handle given them to be
insolent, for, by carrying to Katrina their secret messages of his mercy
to the people, they brought things at length to such a pass between him
and the Kaid that Ben Aboo openly upbraided Israel for his weakness, not
once or twice but many times.
“And pray what is this I hear of your fine charities, master Israel?”
said Ben Aboo. “Ah, do not look surprised. There are little birds enough
to twitter of such follies. So you are throwing away silver like bones
to the dogs! Pity you've got too much of it, Israel ben Oliel; pity
you've got too much of it, I say.”
“The people are poor, Lord Basha,” said Israel; “they are famishing, and
they have no refuge save with God and with us.”
“Tut!” cried Ben Aboo. “A famine in my bashalic! Let no man dare to say
so. The whining dogs are preying upon your simpleness, mistress Israel.
You poor old grandmother! I always suspected,” he added, facing about
upon his attendants, “I always suspected that I was served by a woman.
Now I am sure of it.”
Israel felt the indignity. He had given good proof of his manhood in the
past by standing five-and-twenty years scapegoat for Ben Aboo between
him and his people, making him rich by his extortions, keeping him safe
in his seat, and thereby saving him from the wooden jellab which Abd
er-Rahman, the Sultan, kept for Kaids that could not pay. But Israel
mastered his anger and held his peace.
Word went through the town that Israel had fallen from the favour of
the Basha, and then some of the more bold and free laughed at him in
the streets when they saw him relieve the miseries of the poor, thinking
himself accountable to God for their sufferings. He could have crushed
the better part of his insulters to death in his brawny arms, but he was
slow to anger and long-suffering. All the heed he paid to their insults
was to do his good work with more secrecy.
Remembering his Moorish jellab, and how effectually it had disguised
him on the night of his return home, he had recourse to it in this
difficulty. When darkness fell he donned it again, drawing the hood well
down over his black Jewish skull-cap and as far as might be over his
face. In this innocent disguise he went out night after night for many
nights among the poorer Moors that lived in the dismal quarters of the
grain markets near the Bab Ramooz. How he bore himself being there,
with what harmless deceptions he unburdened his soul by stealth, what
guileless pretences he made that he might restore to the poor the money
that had been stolen from them, would be a long story to tell.
“Who are you?” he was asked a hundred times.
“A friend,” he answered
“Who told you of our trouble?”
“Allah has angels,” he would reply.
Often, on his nightly rambles, he heard himself reviled, and saw the
very children of the streets spit over their fingers at the mention
of his name. And sometimes as he passed he heard blind people whisper
together and say, “He is a saint. He comes from the Kabar at nightfall.
Allah sends him to help poor men who have been in the clutches of Israel
the Jew.”
Nevertheless, Israel kept his secret. What did the word of man avail for
good or evil? It would count for nothing at the last. Do justice and ask
nought; neither praise, for it was a wayward wind, nor gratitude, for it
was the breath of angels.
One day, about a month after his return from his journey, when he
was near to the end of his substance, a message came to him that the
followers of Absalam were perishing of hunger in their prison at Shawan.
Their relatives in Tetuan had found them in food until now, but the
plague of the locust had fallen on the bread-winners, and they had no
more bread to send. Israel concluded that it was his duty to succour
them. From a just view of his responsibilities he had gone on to a
morbid one. If in the Judgment the blood of the people of Absalam cried
to God against him, he himself, and not Ben Aboo, would be cast out into
hell.
Israel juggled with his heart no further, but straightway began to take
a view of his condition. Then he saw, to his dismay, that little as he
had thought he possessed, even less remained to him out of the wreck of
his riches. Only one thing he had still, but that was a thing so dear to
his heart that he had never looked to part with it. It was the casket
of his dead wife's jewels. Nevertheless, in his extremity he resolved to
sell it now, and, taking the key, he went up to the room where he kept
it--a closet that was sacred to the relics of her who lay in his heart
for ever, but in his house no more.
Naomi went up with him, and when he had broken the seal from the
doorpost, and the little door creaked back on its hinge, the ashy odour
came out to them of a chamber long shut up. It was just as if the buried
air itself had fallen in death to dust, for the dust of the years lay
on everything. But under its dark mantle were soft silks and delicate
shawls and gauzy haiks, and veils and embroidered sashes and light red
slippers, and many dainty things such as women love. And to him that
came again after ten heavy years they were as a dream of her that had
worn them when she was young that now was dead when she was beautiful
that now was in the grave.
“Ah me, ah me! Ruth! My Ruth!” he murmured. “This was her shawl. I
brought it from Wazzan. . . . And these slippers--they came from Rabat.
Poor girl, poor girl! . . . . This sash, too, it used to be yellow and
white. How well I remember the first time she wore it! She had put it
over her head for a hood, pretending to be a Moorish woman. But her
brown curls fell out over her face, or she could not imprison them. And
then she laughed. My poor dear girl. How happy we were once in spite of
everything! It is all like yesterday. When I think Ah no, I must think
no more, I must think no more.”
Israel had little heart for such visions, so he turned to the casket of
the jewels where it stood by the wall. With trembling hands he took it
and opened it, and here within were necklaces and bracelets, and rings
and earrings, glistening of gold and rubies under their covering of
dust. He lifted them one by one over his wrinkled fingers, and looked at
them while his eyes grew wet.
“Not for myself,” he murmured, “not for myself would I have sold them,
not for bread to eat or water to drink; no, not for a wilderness of
worlds!”
All this time he had given little thought to Naomi, where she stood
by his side, but in her darkness and silence she touched the silks and
looked serious, and the slippers and looked perplexed, and now at the
jingling of the jewels she stretched out her hand and took one of
them from her father's fingers, and feeling it, and finding it to be a
necklace, she clasped it about her neck and laughed.
At the sound of her laughter Israel shook like a reed. It brought back
the memory of the day when she danced to her mother's death, decked in
that same necklace and those same ornaments. More on this head Israel
could not think and hold to his purpose, so he took the jewels from
Naomi's neck and returned them to the casket, and hastened away with it
to a man to whom he designed to sell it.
This was no other than Reuben Maliki, keeper of the poor box of the
Jews; for as well as a usurer he was a silversmith, and kept his shop
in the Sok el Foki. Israel was moved to go to this person by the
remembrance of two things, of which either seemed enough for his
preference--first, that he had bought the jewels of Reuben in the
beginning, and next, the Reuben had never since ceased to speak of
them in Tetuan as priceless beyond the gems of Ethiopia and the gold of
Ophir.
But when Israel came to him now with the casket that he might buy, he
eyed both with looks of indifference, though it was more dear to his
covetous and revengeful heart that Israel should humble himself in his
need, and bring these jewels, than almost any other satisfaction that
could come to it.
“And what is this that you bring me?” said Reuben languidly.
“A case of jewels,” said Israel, with a downward look.
“Jewels? umph! what jewels?”
“My poor wife's. You know them, Reuben See!”
Israel opened the casket.
“Ah, your wife's. Umph! yes, I suppose I must have seen them somewhere.”
“You have seen them here, Reuben.”
“Here?--do you say here?”
“Reuben, you sold them to me eighteen years ago.”
“Sold them to you? Never. I don't remember it. Surely you must be
mistaken. I can never have dealt in things like these.”
Reuben had taken the casket in his hands, and was pursing up his lips in
expressions of contempt.
Israel watched him closely. “Give them back to me,” he said; “I can go
elsewhere. I have no time for wrangling.”
Reuben's lip straightened instantly. “Wrangling? Who is wrangling,
brother? You are too impatient, Sidi.”
“I am in haste,” said Israel.
“Ah!”
There was an ominous silence, and then in a cold voice Reuben said,
“The things are well enough in their way. What do you wish me to do with
them?”
“To buy them,” said Israel.
“_Buy_ them?”
“Yes.”
“But I don't want them.”
“Are they worth your money?--you don't want that either.”
“Umph!”
A gleam of mockery passed over Reuben's face, and he proceeded to
examine the casket. One by one he trifled with the gems--the rich onyx,
the sapphire, the crystal, the coral, the pearl, the ruby, and the
topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back
again. And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the
precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white
neck, Israel could scarcely hold back his hand from snatching them away.
But how can he that is poor answer him that is rich? So Israel put his
twitching hands behind him, remembering Naomi and the poor people of
Absalam, and when at length Reuben tendered him for the casket one half
what he had paid for it, he took the money in silence and went his way.
“Five hundred dollars--I can give no more,” Reuben had said.
“Do you say five hundred--five?”
“Five--take it or leave it.”
It was market morning, and the market-square as Israel passed through
was a busy and noisy place. The grocers squatted within their narrow
wooden boxes turned on their sides, one half of the lid propped up as a
shelter from the sun, the other half hung down as a counter, whereon lay
raisins and figs, and melons and dates. On the unpaved ground the bakers
crouched in irregular lines. They were women enveloped in monstrous
straw hats, with big round cakes of bread exposed for sale on rush mats
at their feet. Under arcades of dried leaves--made, like desert graves,
of upright poles and dry branches thrown across--the butchers lay at
their ease, flicking the flies from their discoloured meat. “Buy! buy!
buy!” they all shouted together. A dense throng of the poor passed
between them in torn jellabs and soiled turbans, and haggled and bought.
Asses and mules crushed through amid shouts of “Arrah!” “Arrah!” and
“Balak!” “Ba-lak!” It was a lively scene, with more than enough of
bustle and swearing and vociferation.
There was more than enough of lying and cheating also, both practised
with subtle and half-conscious humour. Inside a booth for the sale of
sugar in loaf and sack a man sat fingering a rosary and mumbling prayers
for penance. “God forgive me,” he muttered, “_God forgive me, God
forgive me,_” and at every repetition he passed a bead. A customer
approached, touched a sugar loaf and asked, “How much?” The merchant
continued his prayers and did his business at a breath. “(_God forgive
me_) How much? (_God forgive me_) Four pesetas (_God forgive me_),” and
round went the restless rosary. “Too much,” said the buyer; “I'll give
three.” The merchant went on with his prayers, and answered, “(_God
forgive me_) Couldn't take it for as much as you might put in your tooth
(_God forgive me_); gave four myself (_God forgive me_).” “Then I'll
leave it, old sweet-tooth,” said the buyer, as he moved away. “Here!
take it for nothing (_God forgive me_),” cried the merchant after the
retreating figure. “(_God forgive me_) I'm giving it away (_God forgive
me_); I'll starve, but no matter (_God forgive me_), you are my brother
(_God forgive me, God forgive me, God forgive me_).”
Israel bought the bread and the meat, the raisins and the figs which the
prisoners needed--enough for the present and for many days to come. Then
he hired six mules with burdas to bear the food to Shawan, and a man two
days to lead them. Also he hired mules for himself and Ali, for he knew
full well that, unless with his own eyes he saw the followers of Absalam
receive what he had bought, no chance was there, in these days of
famine, that it would ever reach them. And, all being ready for his
short journey, he set out in the middle of the day, when the sun was
highest, hoping that the town would then be at rest, and thinking to
escape observation.
His expectation was so far justified that the market-place, when he came
to it again, with his little caravan going before him, was silent and
deserted. But, coming into the walled lane to the Bab Toot, the gate
at which the Shawan road enters, he encountered a great throng and a
strange procession. It was a procession of penance and petition, asking
God to wipe out the plague of locusts that was destroying the land and
eating up the bread of its children. A venerable Jew, with long white
beard, walked side by side with a Moor of great stature, enshrouded in
the folds of his snow-white haik. These were the chief Rabbi of the Jews
and the Imam of the Muslims, and behind them other Jews and Moors
walked abreast in the burning sun. All were barefooted, and such as were
Berbers were bareheaded also.
“In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful!” the Imam cried,
and the Muslims echoed him.
“By the God of Jacob!” the Rabbi prayed, and the Jews repeated the words
after him.
“Spare us! Spare the land!” they all cried together. “Send rain to
destroy the eggs of the locust!” cried the Rabbi. “Else will they
rise on the ground in the sunshine like rice on the granary floor; and
neither fire nor river nor the army of the Sultan will stop them; and we
ourselves will die, and our children with us!”
And the Jews cried, “God of Jacob, be our refuge.”
And the Muslims shouted, “Allah, save us!”
It was a strange sight to look upon in that land of intolerance--the
haughty Moor and the despised Jew, with all petty hatreds sunk out of
sight and forgotten in the grip of the death that threatened both alike,
walking and praying in the public streets together.
Israel drew close to the wall and passed by unobserved. And being come
into the open road outside the town, he began to take a view of the
motives that had brought him away from his home again. Then he saw that,
if he was not a hypocrite like Reuben, no credit could he give himself
for what he was doing, and if he was poor who had before been rich, no
merit could he make of his poverty.
“Naomi, Naomi, all for her, all for her,” he thought. Naomi was his hope
and his salvation. His faith in God was his love of the child. He
was only bribing God to give her grace. And well he knew it, while he
journeyed towards the prison behind his six mules laden with bread for
them that lay there, that, much as he owed them, being a cause of their
miseries, the mercy he was about to show them was but as mercy shown to
himself. So the nearer he came to it the lower his head sank into his
breast, as if the sun itself that beat down so fiercely upon his head
had eyes to peer into his deceiving soul.
The town of Shawan lies sixty miles south of Tetuan in the northern half
of the territory of the tribe of Akhmas, and the sun was two hours set
when Israel entered its beautiful valley between the two arms of
the mountain called Jebel Sheshawan. Going through the orchards and
vineyards that were round it, he was recognised by certain Jews; tanners
and pannier-makers, who in the days of his harder rule had fled from
Tetuan and his heavy taxings.
“It's Israel ben Oliel,” whispered one.
“God of Jacob, save us!” whispered another.
“He has followed us for the arrears of taxes.”
“We must fly.”
“Let us go home first.”
“No time for that.”
“There is Rachel--”
“She's a woman.”
“But I must warn my son--he has children.”
“Then you are lost. Come on.”
Before he reached the rude old masonry that had once been the fortress
and was now the prison, the poor followers of Absalam, who lay within,
had heard that he was coming, and, in their despair and the wild
disorder of all their senses, they looked for nothing but death from his
visit, as if they were to be cut to pieces instantly. Men and women
and young children, gaunt with hunger and begrimed with dirt, some
with faces that were hard and stony, some with faces that were weak and
simple, some with eyes that were red as blood, all weary with waiting
and wasted with long pain, ran hither and thither in the gloom of the
foul place where they were immured together. Shedding tears, beating
their flesh, and crying out with woeful clamour, these unhappy creatures
of God, who had been great of soul when they sang their death-song with
the precipice behind them and the soldiers in front, now quaked for
the miserable lives which they preserved in hunger and cherished in
bitterness.
By help of the seal of his master, which he always carried, Israel found
his way into the courtyard of the prison. The prisoners, who had been
gathered there for his inspection, heard his footsteps, and by one
impulse, as if an angel from heaven had summoned them, they fell to
their knees about the door whereby he must enter, men behind and women
in front, and mothers holding out their babes before their breasts so
that he might see them first, and have mercy upon them if he had a heart
made for pity.
Then the door of the place was thrown open, and Israel entered. His head
was bowed down, and his feet were bare. The people drew their breath in
wonder.
“Arise,” he said; “I mean you no harm! See! Here is bread! Take it, and
God bless you!”
So saying, he motioned with his trembling hand to where Ali and the
muleteer brought in the burden of food behind him.
And when the poor souls could believe it at last, that he whom they had
looked for as their judge had come as their saviour, their hearts surged
within them. Their hunger left them, and only the children could eat.
For a moment they stood in silence about Israel, and their tears stained
their wasted faces. And Israel, in their midst, tasted a new joy in his
new poverty such as his riches had never brought him--no, not once in
all the days of his old prosperity.
At length an old man--he was a Muslim--looked steadily into Israel's
face and said, “May the God of Jacob bless thee also, brother!”
After that they all recovered their voices and began to thank him out of
their blind gratitude, falling to their knees at his feet as before, yet
with hearts so different.
“May the Father of the fatherless requite thee!”
“May the child of thy wife be blessed!”
“Stop,” he cried; “stop! you don't know what you are saying.”
He turned away from them with a look of pain, as if their words had
stung him. They followed him and touched his kaftan with their lips;
they pushed their children under his hands for his blessing.
“No, no,” he cried; “no, no, no!”
Then he passed out of the place with rapid steps and fled from the town
like one who was ashamed.