ISRAEL'S RETURN FROM PRISON
Such was the method of Israel's release. But, knowing nothing of the
price which had been paid for it, he was filled with an immense joy.
Nay, his happiness was quite childish, so suddenly had the darkness
which hung over his life been lifted away. Any one who had seen him in
prison would have been puzzled by the change as he came away from it.
He laughed with the courier who walked with him to the town gate, and
jested with the gate porter as with an old acquaintance. His voice was
merry, his eye gleamed in the rays of the lantern, his face was flushed,
and his step was light. “Afraid to travel in the night? No, no, I'll
meet nothing worse than myself. Others _may_ who meet me? Ha, ha!
Perhaps so, perhaps so!” “No evil with you, brother?” “No evil, praise
be God.” “Well, peace be to you!” “On you be peace!” “May your morning
be blessed! Good-night!” “Good-night!” Then with a wave of the hand he
was gone into the darkness.
It was a wonderful night. The moon, which was in its first quarter,
was still low in the east, but the stars were thick overhead, making a
silvery dome that almost obliterated the blue. Rivers were rumbling on
the hillside, an owl was hooting in the distance, kine that could not be
seen were chewing audibly near at hand, and sheep like patches of white
in the gloom were scuttling through the grass before Israel's footsteps.
Israel walked quickly, tracing his course between the two arms of the
Jebel Sheshawan, whose summits were visible against the sky. The air was
cool and moist, and a gentle breeze was blowing from the sea. Oh! the
joy of it to him who had lain long months in prison! Israel drank in the
night air as a young colt drinks in the wind.
And if it was night in the world without, it was day in Israel's heart.
“I am going to be happy,” he told himself, “yes, very happy, very
happy.” He raised his eyes to heaven, and a star, bigger and brighter
than the rest, hung over the path before him. “It is leading me to
Naomi,” he thought. He knew that was folly, but he could not restrain
his mind from foolishness. And at least she had the same moon and stars
above her sleep, for she would be sleeping now. “I am coming,” he cried.
He fixed his eye on the bright star in front and pushed forward, never
resting, never pausing.
The morning dawned. Long rippling waves of morning air came down the
mountains, cool, chill, and moist. The grey light became tinged with
red. Then the sun rose somewhere. It had not yet appeared, but the peak
of the western hill was flushed and a raven flew out and perched on the
point of light. Israel's breast expanded, and he strode on with a firmer
step. “She will be waking soon,” he told himself.
The world awoke. From unseen places birds began to sing--the wheatear
in the crevices of the rocks, the sedge-warbler among the rushes of the
rivers. The sun strode up over the hill summit, and then all the earth
below was bright. Dewdrops sparkled on the late flowers, and lay like
vast spiders' webs over the grass; sheep began to bleat, dogs to bark,
kine to low, horses to cross each other's necks, and over the freshness
of the air came the smell of peat and of green boughs burning. Israel
did not stop, but pushed on with new eagerness. “She will have risen
now,” he told himself. He could almost fancy he saw her opening the door
and looking out for him in the sunlight.
“Poor little thing,” he thought, “how she misses me! But I am coming, I
am coming!”
The country looked very beautiful, and strangely changed since he saw
it last. Then it had been like a dead man's face; now it was like a face
that was always smiling. And though the year was so old it seemed to
be quite young. No tired look of autumn, no warning of winter; only the
freshness and vigour of spring. “I am going to see my child, and I shall
be happy yet,” thought Israel. The dust of life seemed to hang on him no
longer.
He came to a little village called Dar el Fakeer--“the house of the poor
one.” The place did not even justify its name, for it was a cinereous
wreck. Not a living creature was to be seen anywhere. The village had
been sacked by the Sultan's army, and its inhabitants had fled to the
mountains. Israel paused a moment, and looked into one of the ruined
houses. He knew it must have been the house of a Jew, for he could
recognise it by its smell. The floor was strewn over with rubbish--cans,
kettles, water-bottles, a woman's handkerchief, and a dainty red
slipper. On the ragged grass in the court within there were some little
stones built up into tiny squares, and bits of stick stuck into the
ground in lines. A young girl had lived in that house; children had
played there; the gaunt and silent place breathed of their spirits
still. “Poor souls!” thought Israel, but the troubles of others could
not really touch him. At that very moment his heart was joyful.
The day was warm, but not too hot for walking. Israel did not feel
weary, and so he went on without resting. He reckoned how far it was
from Shawan to his home near Semsa. It was nearly seventy miles. That
distance would take two days and two nights to cover on foot. He had
left the prison on Wednesday night, and it would be Friday at sunset
before he reached Naomi. It was now Thursday morning. He must lose
no time. “You see, the poor little thing will be waiting, waiting,
waiting,” he told himself. “These sweet creatures are all so impatient;
yes, yes, so foolishly impatient. God bless them!”
He met people on the road, and hailed them with good cheer. They
answered his greetings sadly, and a few of them told him of their
trouble. Something they said of Ben Aboo, that he demanded a hundred
dollars which they could not pay, and something of the Sultan, that he
had ransacked their houses and then gone on with his great army, his
twenty wives, and fifteen tents to keep the feast at Tetuan. But Israel
hardly knew what they told him, though he tried to lend an ear to their
story. He was thinking out a wonderful scheme for the future. With Naomi
he was to leave Morocco. They were to sail for England. Free, mighty,
noble, beautiful England! Ah, how it shone in his memory, the little
white island of the sea! His mother's home! England! Yes, he would go
back to it. True, he had no friends there now; but what matter of that?
Ah, yes, he was old, and the roll-call of his kindred showed him pitiful
gaps. His mother! Ruth! But he had Naomi still. Naomi! He spoke her name
aloud, softly, tenderly, caressingly, as if his wrinkled hand were on
her hair. Then recovering himself, he laughed to think that he could be
so childish.
Near to sunset he came upon a dooar, a tent village, in a waste place.
It was pitched in a wide circle, and opened inwards. The animals were
picketed in the centre, where children and dogs were playing, and the
voices of men and women came from inside the tents. Fires were burning
under kettles swung from triangles, and sight of this reminded Israel
that he had not eaten since the previous day. “I must have food,” he
thought, “though I do not feel hungry.” So he stopped, and the wandering
Arabs hailed him. “Markababikum!” they cried from where they sat within.
“You are very welcome! Welcome to our lofty land!” Their land was the
world.
Israel went into one of the tents, and sat down to a dish of boiled
beans and black bread. It was very sweet. A man was eating beside him; a
woman, half dressed, and with face uncovered, was suckling a child while
she worked a loom which was fastened to the tent's two upright poles.
Some fowls were nestling for the night under the tent wing, and a young
girl was by turns churning milk by tossing it in a goat's-skin and
baking cakes on a fire of dried thistles crackling in a hole over three
stones. All were laughing together, and Israel laughed along with them.
“On a long journey, brother?” said the man.
“No, oh no, no,” said Israel. “Only to Semsa, no farther.”
“Well, you must sleep here to-night,” said the Arab.
“Ah, I cannot do that,” said Israel.
“No?”
“You see, I am going back to my little daughter. She is alone, poor
child, and has not seen her old father for months. Really it is wrong of
a man to stay away such a time. These tender creatures are so impatient,
you know. And then they imagine such things, do they not? Well, I
suppose we must humour them--that's what I always say.”
“But look, the night is coming, and a dark one, too!” said the woman.
“Oh, nothing, that's nothing, sister,” said Israel. “Well, peace!
Farewell all, farewell!”
Waving his hand he went away laughing, but before he had gone far the
darkness overtook him. It came down from the mountains like a dense
black cloud. Not a star in the sky, not a gleam on the land, darkness
ahead of him, darkness behind, one thick pall hanging in the air on
every side. Still for a while he toiled along. Every step was an effort.
The ground seemed to sink under him. It was like walking on mattresses.
He began to feel tired and nervous and spiritless. A cold sweat broke
out on his brow, and at length, when the sound of a river came from
somewhere near, though on which side of him he could not tell, he had no
choice but to stop. “After all, it is better,” he thought. “Strange, how
things happen for the best! I must sleep to-night, for to-morrow night I
will get no sleep at all. No, for I shall have so many things to say and
to ask and to hear.”
Consoling him thus, he tried to sleep where he was, and as slumber crept
upon him in the darkness, with five-and-twenty heavy miles of dense
night between him and his home, he crooned and talked to himself in
a childish way that he might comfort his aching heart. “Yes, I must
sleep--sleep--to-morrow _she_ must sleep and I must watch by her--watch
by her as I used to do--used to do--how soft and beautiful--how
beautiful--sleeping--sleep--Ah!”
When he awoke the sun had risen. The sea lay before him in the distance,
the blue Mediterranean stretching out to the blue sky. He was on the
borders of the country of the Beni-Hassan, and, after wading the river,
which he had heard in the night, he began again on his journey. It was
now Friday morning, and by sunset of that day he would be back at his
home near Semsa. Already he could see Tetuan far away, girt by its white
walls, and perched on the hillside. Yonder it lay in the sunlight, with
the snow-tipped heights above it, a white blaze surrounded by orange
orchards.
But how dizzy he was! How the world went round! How the earth trembled!
Was the glare of the sun too fierce that morning, or had his eyes grown
dim? Going blind? Well, even so, he would not repine, for Naomi could
see now. She would see for him also. How sweet to see through Naomi's
eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe. All the world
was new to her, and strange and beautiful. It would be a second and far
sweeter youth.
Naomi--Naomi--always Naomi! He had thought of her hitherto as she had
appeared to him during the few days of their happy lives at Semsa.
But now he began to wonder if time had not changed her since then. Two
months and a half--it seemed so long! He had visions of Naomi grown from
a sweet girl to a lovely woman. A great soul beamed out of her big,
slow eyes. He himself approached her meekly, humbly, reverently.
Nevertheless, he was her father still--her old, tired, dim-eyed father;
and she led him here and there, and described things to him. He could
see and hear it all. First Naomi's voice: “A bow in the sky--red, blue,
crimson--oh!” Then his own deeper one, out of its lightsome darkness: “A
rainbow, child!” Ah! the dreams were beautiful!
He tried to recall the very tones of Naomi's voice--the voice of his
poor dead Ruth--and to remember the song that she used to sing--the song
she sang in the patio on that great night of the moonlight, when he
was returning home from the Bab Ramooz, and heard her singing from the
street--
Within my heart a voice
Bids earth and heaven rejoice.
He sang the song to himself as he toiled along. With a little lisp he
sang it, so that he might cheat himself and think that the voice he was
making was Naomi's voice and not his own.
Towards midday Israel came under the walls of Tetuan, between the
Sultan's gardens and the flour-mills that are turned by the escaping
sewers, and there he lit upon a company of Jews. They were a deputation
that had come out from the town to meet him, and at first sight of his
face they were shocked. He had left Tetuan a stricken man, it was true,
but strong and firm, fifty years of age and resolute. Six months had
passed, and he was coming back as a weak, broken, shattered, doddering,
infirm old man of eighty. Their hearts fell low before they spoke, but
after a pause one of them--Israel knew him: a grey-bearded man, his name
was Solomon Laredo--stepped up and said, “Israel ben Oliel, our poor
Tetuan is in trouble. It needs you. Alas! we dealt ill with you, but God
has punished us, and we are brothers now. Come back to us, we pray of
you; for we have heard of a great thing that is coming to pass. Listen!”
Something they told him then of Mohammed of Mequinez, follower of
Seedna Aissa (Jesus of Nazareth), but a good man nevertheless, and also
something they said of the Spaniards and of one Marshal O'Donnel,
who was to bombard Marteel. But Israel heard very little. “I think my
hearing must be failing me,” he said; and then he laughed lightly, as if
that did not greatly matter. “And to tell you the truth, though I pity
my poor brethren, I can no longer help them. God will raise up a better
minister.”
“Never!” cried the Jews in many voices.
“Anyhow,” said Israel, “my life among you is ended. I set no store by
place and power. What does the English poet say, 'In the great hand of
God I stand.' Shakespeare--oh, a mighty creature--one who knew where
the soul of a man lay. But I forget, you've not lived in England. Do
you know I am to go there again, and to take my little daughter? You
remember her--Naomi--a charming girl. She can see now, and hear, and
speak also! Yes for God has lifted His hand away from her, and I am
going to be very happy. Well, I must leave you, brothers. The little one
will be waiting. I must not keep her too long, must I? Peace, peace!”
Seeing his profound faith, no one dared to tell him the truth that was
on every tongue. A wave of compassion swept over all. The deputation
stood and watched him until he had sunk under the hill.
And now, being come thus near to home, Israel's impatience robbed him
of some of his happy confidence and filled him with fears. He began
to think of all the evil chances that might have befallen Naomi. His
absence had been so long, and so many things might have happened since
he went away. In this mood he tried to run. It was a poor uncertain
shamble. At nearly every step the body lurched for poise and balance.
At last he came to a point of the path from which, as he knew, the
little rush-covered house ought to be seen. “It's yonder,” he cried, and
pointed it out to himself with uplifted finger. The sun was sinking, and
its strong rays were in his face. “She's there, I see her!” he shouted.
A few minutes later he was near the door. “No, my eyes deceived me,”
he said in a damp voice. “Or perhaps she has gone in--perhaps she's
hiding--the sweet rogue!”
The door was half open; he pushed it and entered the house. “Naomi!” he
called in a voice like a caress. “Naomi!” His voice trembled now. “Come
to me, come, dearest; come quickly, quickly, I cannot see!” He listened.
There was not a sound, not a movement. “Naomi!” The name was like a
gurgle in his throat. There was a pause, and then he said very feebly
and simply, “She's not here.”
He looked around, and picked up something from the floor. It was a
slipper covered with mould. As he gazed upon it a change came over his
face. Dead? Was Naomi dead? He had thought of death before--for himself,
for others, never for Naomi. At a stride the awful thing was on him.
Death! Oh, oh!
With a helpless, broken, blind look he was standing in the middle of the
floor with the slipper in his hand, when a footstep came to the door. He
flung the slipper away and threw open his arms. Naomi--it must be she!
It was Fatimah. She had come in secret, that the evil news of what had
been done at the Kasbah and the Mosque might not be broken to Israel too
suddenly. He met her with a terrible question. “Where is she laid?” he
said in a voice of awe.
Fatimah saw his error instantly. “Naomi is alive,” she said, and, seeing
how the clouds lifted off his face, she added quickly, “and well, very
well.”
That is not telling a falsehood, she thought; but when Israel, with a
cry of joy which was partly pain, flung his arms about her, she saw what
she had done.
“Where is she?” he cried. “Bring her, you dear, good soul. Why is she
not here? Lead me to her, lead me!”
Then Fatimah began to wring her hands. “Alas!” she said, weeping, “that
cannot be.”
Israel steadied himself and waited. “She cannot come to you, and neither
can you go to her.” said Fatimah. “But she is well, oh! very well.
Poor child, she is at the Kasbah--no, no, not the prison--oh no, she
is happy--I mean she is well, yes, and cared for--indeed, she is at the
palace--the women's palace--but set your mind easy--she--”
With such broken, blundering words the good woman blurted out the truth,
and tried to deaden the blow of it. But the soul lives fast, and Israel
lived a lifetime in that moment.
“The palace!” he said in a bewildered way. “The women's palace--the
women's--” and then broke off shortly. “Fatimah, I want to go to Naomi,”
he said.
And Fatimah stammered, “Alas! alas! you cannot, you never can--”
“Fatimah,” said Israel, with an awful calm. “Can't you see, woman,
I have come home? I and Naomi have been long parted. Do you not
understand?--I want to go to my daughter.”
“Yes, yes,” said Fatimah; “but you can never go to her any more. She is
in the women's apartments--”
Then a great hoarse groan came from Israel's throat.
“Poor child, it was not her fault. Listen,” said Fatimah; “only listen.”
But Israel would hear no more. The torrent of his fury bore down
everything before it. Fatimah's feeble protests were drowned. “Silence!”
he cried. “What need is there for words? She is in the palace!--that's
enough. The women's palace--the hareem--what more is there to say?”
Putting the fact so to his own consciousness, and seeing it grossly in
all its horror, his passion fell like a breaking in of waters. “O
God!” he cried, “my enemy casts me into prison. I lie there, rotting,
starving. I think of my little daughter left behind alone. I hasten home
to her. But where is she? She is gone. She is in the house of my enemy.
Curse her! . . . . Ah! no, no; not that, either! Pardon me, O God; not
that, whatever happens! But the palace--the women's palace. Naomi! My
little daughter! Her face was so sweet, so simple. I could have sworn
that she was innocent. My love! my dove! I had only to look at her to
see that she loved me! And now the hareem--that hell, and Ben Aboo--that
libertine! I have lost her for ever! Yet her soul was mine--I wrestled
with God for it--”
He stopped suddenly, his face became awfully discoloured, he dropped to
his knees on the floor, lifted his eyes and his hands towards heaven,
and cried in a voice at once stern and heartrending, “Kill her, O God!
Kill her body, O my God, that her soul may be mine again!”
At this awful cry Fatimah fled out of the hut. It was the last voice of
tottering reason. After that he became quiet, and when Fatimah returned
the following morning he was talking to himself in a childish way
while sitting at the door, and gazing before him with a lifeless look.
Sometimes he quoted Scriptures which were startlingly true to his own
condition: “I am alone, I am a companion to owls. . . . I have cleansed
my heart in vain. . . . My feet are almost gone, my steps have well-nigh
slipped. . . . I am as one whom his mother comforteth.”
Between these Scriptures there were low incoherent cries and simple
foolish play-words. Again and again he called on Naomi, always softly
and tenderly, as if her name were a sacred thing. At times he appeared
to think that he was back in prison, and made a little prayer--always
the same--that some one should be kept from harm and evil. Once he
seemed to hear a voice that cried, “Israel ben Oliel! Israel ben Oliel!”
“Here! Israel is here!” he answered. He thought the Kaid was calling
him. The Kaid was the King. “Yes, I will go back to the King,” he said.
Then he looked down at his tattered kaftan, which was mired with dirt,
and tried to brush it clean, to button it, and to tie up the ragged
threads of it. At last he cried, as if servants were about him and he
were a master still, “Bring me robes--clean robes--white robes; I am
going back to the King!”