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It was evening, and she was being put to bed by Habeebah, and had just risen from her innocent pantomime of prayer beside Ali, when Israel, coming from Ruth's chamber, entered the children's room.
Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of all the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by the gift of sight, and would now first look upon him.
Did other sounds come to Naomi's ears? Was her spiritual power, which was unclogged by any grosser sense than that of hearing, conscious of some terrible undertone of impending trouble? Or was her disquietude no more than recollection of her father's promise to be back at sunset, and mere anxiety for his return? Fatimah and Habeebah knew nothing and saw nothing.
Two black female slaves from Soos, named Fatimah and Habeebah, were bought in the name of the Governor and assigned to Israel's service.
She was now the slave of Ben Aboo, and was just then stealing away from the Kasbah in the early morning that she might go in search of Naomi, whose whereabouts and condition she had lately learned. The two might have passed unknown, for Habeebah was veiled, but that Naomi had forgotten her blanket and was uncovered.
When Fatimah and Habeebah saw what it was to which Naomi had led them, though they were sorely concerned at it, yet they were relieved as well, and put by the worst of the fears with which her strange behaviour had infected them.
"My good people," he said, "you have been true and faithful servants to me this many a year you, Fatimah, and you also, Habeebah, since before the days when my wife came to me and you too, Ali, my lad, since you grew to be big and helpful.
She should witness to the Prophet; her father, the Jew, would thereby lose his rights in her; and he himself, as her sole guardian, would present her as a peace-offering to the Sultan on crossing the boundary of his bashalic. Such was the new plan which Ben Aboo straightway conceived at hearing the news of Habeebah, and in another moment he had propounded it to Katrina.
Then he found himself inside the cell. The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah, and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her feet.
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