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Updated: June 16, 2025
"God's face shine on us," said Habeebah. "What is all this crowd?" An immense throng covered the upper half of the market-square, and overflowed into the streets and arched alleys leading to the Kasbah.
In another moment the poor frightened girl, with all her brave bearing gone, was weeping on the black woman's breast. "Whither are you going?" said Habeebah. "To my father," Naomi began. "He is in prison; they say he is starving; I was taking food to him, but I am lost, I don't know my way; and besides " "The very thing!" cried Habeebah. Habeebah had her own little scheme.
Not Fatimah, and not Habeebah, but some one who was nearer to you than either, and loved you better than both; some one who had soft hands, and smooth cheeks, and long, silken, wavy hair do you remember, little one?" "Y-es, I think I think I remember," said Naomi. "That was your mother, my darling." "My mother?" "Ah, you don't know what a mother is, sweetheart. How should you?
"Where?" said Habeebah. "The way we are going," said Fatimah. On and on Naomi passed from street to street. They were the same streets whereby she had returned to her father's house on the day that her goat was slain.
Long they stood together so, while he told her of the chances which had befallen him during his absence from her, and she told him of her solitude of six long months, unbroken save for the poor company of Fatimah and Habeebah, wherein she had been blind and deaf and dumb to all the world. During the months thereafter until Ruth's time was full Israel sat with her constantly.
"Alas! little dumb soul, what is to happen now?" cried Fatimah. "Alack! girl," said Habeebah, "the maid is sickening again." And this was all that the good souls could make of her restless agitation. She slept that night from sheer exhaustion, a deep lethargic slumber, apparently broken once or twice by troubled dreams.
He gave some homely directions as to her treatment for he despaired of administering drugs to such a one as she was and promised to return the next day. About the middle of that night Naomi became delirious. Fatimah stood constantly by her bed, bathing her hot forehead with vinegar and water; Habeebah slept in a chair at her feet; and Ali crouched in a corner outside the door of her room.
"Nay, how should I know?" said Fatimah. "We are fools," said Habeebah. It was now an hour after sunset, the light was fading, and the traffic was sinking down. Only at the gate of the Mellah, which, contrary to custom, had not yet been closed, was the throng still dense. A group of Jews stood under it in earnest and passionate talk. There was a strange and bodeful silence on every side.
Never since then had she trodden them, but she neither altered not turned aside to the right or the left, but made straight forward, until she came to the Sok el Foki, and to the place where the goat had fallen before the foaming jaws of the dog from the Mukabar. Then she could go no farther. "Holy saints, what is this?" cried Habeebah. "Didn't I tell you the girl heard something?" said Fatimah.
Nay; but she knew also who it would be as well as if her eyes or ears had taught her; for always, if it was her father, she reached out her hands to take his left hand in both of hers, and then she pressed it against her cheek; and always, if it was little Ali, she curved her arms to encircle his neck; and always, if it was Fatimah, she leapt up to her bosom; and always, if it was Habeebah, she passed her by.
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