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When he returned to Morocco he was some thousand pounds richer than when he left it, and he had a capable and personable wife into his bargain. Oliel was a self-centred and silent man, absorbed in getting and spending, always taking care to have much of the one, and no more than he could help of the other. Sara was a nervous and sensitive little woman, hungering for communion and for sympathy.
By that time a second family had begun to share her husband's house, the rivalry of the mothers had threatened to extend to the children, the domesticity of home was destroyed and its harmony was no longer possible. Then she left Oliel, and fled back to England, taking Israel with her. Her father was dead, and the welcome she got of her half-brothers was not warm.
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!"
And, Abraham Pigman, go home to your money-bags. I am an old fool, am I? Well, I've the more right to speak plain. What are we waiting here for? The judges? Pooh! The sentence? Fiddle-faddle! It is Israel ben Oliel, isn't it? Then stone him! What are you afraid of? The Kaid? He'll laugh in your faces. A blood-feud? Who is to wage it? A ransom? Who is to ask for it?
She was a creature of resource, and having heard of Naomi with strange stories concerning her, she devised a children's feast for the last day of the marriage festival, and caused Ben Aboo to write to Israel a formal letter, beginning "To our well-beloved the excellent Israel ben Oliel, Praise to the one God," and setting forth that on the morrow, when the "Sun of the world" should "place his foot in the stirrup of speed," and gallop "from the kingdom of shades," the Governor would "hold a gathering of delight" for all the children of Tetuan and he, Israel, was besought to "lighten it with the rays of his face, rivalled only by the sun," and to bring with him his little daughter Naomi, whose arrival "similar to a spring breeze," should "dissipate the dark night of solitude and isolation."
Then, parting the Arabs with a sweep of his arms, he picked up the unconscious maiden, and faced about on the new wife of Ben Aboo. "Madam," he cried, "I, Israel ben Oliel, may belong to the Governor, but my child belongs to me."
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.
And, going out at the gate, they had told the crowds that waited there that judgment had fallen upon Israel ben Oliel, but that his doom could not be made known until sunset on the following day. That time was now come. In eagerness and impatience, in hot blood and anger, the people had gathered in the Sok three hours after midday. The Judges had reassembled in the synagogue in the early morning.
His mother was the daughter of a banker in London. The father's name was Oliel; the mother's was Sara. Oliel had held business connections with the house of Sara's father, and he came over to England that he might have a personal meeting with his correspondent. The English banker lived over his office, near Holborn Bars, and Oliel met with his family.
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.
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