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But Ben Aboo continued: "Listen! The people about me are in the pay of the Sultan, and after all you are the best servant I have ever had. Say the Kelmah, and I'll make you my Khaleefa. Do you hear? my Khaleefa, with power equal to my own. Man, why don't you speak? Are you grown stupid of late as well as weak and womanish?"
The message of the Khaleefa which Israel had not answered in his trouble was a request from the Shereef of Wazzan that he should come without delay to that town to count his rent-charges and assess his dues. This request the Governor had transformed into a command, for the Shereef was a prince of Islam in his own country, and in many provinces the believers paid him tribute.
"Basha," said Israel he spoke slowly and quietly; but with forced calmness "Basha, you must seek another hand for work like that this hand of mine shall never seal that warrant." "Tut, man!" whispered Ben Aboo. "Do your new measles break out everywhere? Am I not Kaid? Can I not make you my Khaleefa?" Israel's face was worn and pale, but his eye burned with the fire of his great resolve.
Meantime, Ruth, in her solitude, remembered that it was now three years since she had been married to Israel, and that by the laws, both of their race and their country, a woman who had been long barren might straightway be divorced by her husband. Next morning a message of business came from the Khaleefa, but Israel would not answer it.
In this dilemma his natural colleague would have been his Khaleefa, his deputy, Ali bin Jillool, but because this man had been the deputy of his predecessor also, he could not trust him. He had two other immediate subordinates, his Commander of Artillery and his Commander of Infantry, but neither of them could spell the letters of his name.
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