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Updated: May 9, 2025
But in the pride of his perilous mission he bore himself bravely. "Well, good-night," he said, taking Naomi's hand, but not looking into her blind face. "Good-night," she answered, and then, after a moment, she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. He laughed lightly, and turned to Israel. "Good-night, father," he said in a shrill voice.
"But what Jew," said Israel, "would not repeat for her her father's troubles, and what Muslim could save her from her own?" "Who that trusts in God," said the Mahdi, "need fear the Kaid?" "But what man can save her?" cried Israel again. And then the Mahdi, touched by Naomi's tears as well as her father's importunities, answered out of a hot heart and said "Peace, peace!
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.
This had been a favourite song of Naomi's mother, and it was from Ruth that Fatimah had learned it in those anxious watches of the early uncertain days when she sang it over the cradle to her babe that was deaf after all and did not hear. Naomi knew nothing of this, but she heard her mother's song at last, though silent were the lips that first sang it, and it was her chief and dear delight.
It may be that Naomi's dreams that night were of this pleasant task that awaited her; it may be that in her sleep, as in her waking hours, her thoughts were filled with visions of the Christ Child even as her heart was full of love for Him. Her smile deepened, and she did not stir as the night wore on.
And at that moment the wife of the Governor cheered again, and again the people echoed her, and even the women on the housetops made bold to take up her cry with their cooing ululation. The playing had ceased, the spell had dissolved, Naomi's fingers had fallen from the harp, her head had dropped into her breast, and with a sigh she had sunk forward on to her face.
It was not of God that she was thinking: it was only of her father. She was too innocent to see the trick, but the Rabbi failed. He kissed her, and went away wiping his eyes. Rumour of Naomi's plight had passed through the town, and one night a number of Moors came secretly to a lane at the back of the Kasbah, where a narrow window opened into her cell.
Remember this girl Naomi, this offspring of sin, this accursed and afflicted one, still blind and speechless!" Then the voices of the crowd came to Naomi's ears like the neigh of a breathless horse. Fatimah had laid hold of her gown and was whispering. "Come! Let us away!" But Naomi only clutched her hand and trembled. The harsh voice of Reuben Maliki rose in the air again.
The jailer on duty at the outer gate was one of Naomi's many admirers. He solved the mystery cautiously in a whisper. The sheriff and the governor of the prison were then speaking privately with Ambrose Meadowcroft in his cell; they had expressly directed that no persons should be admitted to see the prisoner that day but themselves. What did it mean? We returned, wondering, to the farm.
"If I cannot, God can," said Mr. Leonard gently. He felt himself very helpless and inefficient before this awful terror and frenzy. He had seen sad death-beds troubled death-beds ay, and despairing death-beds, but never anything like this. "God!" Naomi's voice shrilled terribly as she uttered the name. "I can't go to God for help. Oh, I'm skeered of hell, but I'm skeereder still of God.
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