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Updated: June 12, 2025
Travelling through the night, Naomi laughing and singing snatches in her new-found joy, and the Mahdi looking back at intervals at the huge outline of Tetuan against the blackness of the sky, they came to the hut by Semsa before dawn of the following day. But they had come too late. Israel ben Oliel was not, after all, to set out for England. He was going on a longer journey.
Then, gathering courage and voice together, Ali told her hurriedly why he was there. When he said that her father was no longer in prison, but at their home near Semsa and waiting to receive her, she seemed almost overcome by her joy. Half laughing, half weeping, clutching at her breast as if to ease the wild heaving of her bosom she was transformed by his story.
"Poor souls!" thought Israel, but the troubles of others could not really touch him. At that very moment his heart was joyful. The day was warm, but not too hot for walking. Israel did not feel weary, and so he went on without resting. He reckoned how far it was from Shawan to his home near Semsa. It was nearly seventy miles. That distance would take two days and two nights to cover on foot.
How sweet to see through Naomi's eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe. All the world was new to her, and strange and beautiful. It would be a second and far sweeter youth. Naomi Naomi always Naomi! He had thought of her hitherto as she had appeared to him during the few days of their happy lives at Semsa. But now he began to wonder if time had not changed her since then.
He was on the borders of the country of the Beni-Hassan, and, after wading the river, which he had heard in the night, he began again on his journey. It was now Friday morning, and by sunset of that day he would be back at his home near Semsa. Already he could see Tetuan far away, girt by its white walls, and perched on the hillside.
All were laughing together, and Israel laughed along with them. "On a long journey, brother?" said the man. "No, oh no, no," said Israel. "Only to Semsa, no farther." "Well, you must sleep here to-night," said the Arab. "Ah, I cannot do that," said Israel. "No?" "You see, I am going back to my little daughter. She is alone, poor child, and has not seen her old father for months.
When Israel came to himself again he was walking on a barren heath that was dotted over with clumps of the long aloe, and he was holding Naomi by the hand. Two days after they had been cast out of Tetuan, Israel and Naomi were settled in a little house that stood a day's walk to the north of the town, about midway between the village of Semsa and the fondak which lies on the road to Tangier.
And thus it happened that some fifty or more men and boys from near and far were already living in the dungeon from which Israel and Ali together had set the other prisoners free. This was the prison to which Israel was taken when he was torn from Naomi and the simple home that he had made for himself near Semsa. "Ya Allah!
These false notions, which were at once the seed and the fruit of Israel's madness, should at least be dispelled. Let come what would, the man should neither live nor die in such bitterness of cruel error. The Mahdi resolved to set out for Semsa with the first grey of morning, and meantime he went up to the house-top to sleep.
Even their camels were still sleeping, nose to nose, in the circles where they had last fed. Only their mules and asses, all hobbled and still saddled, were up and feeding. The Mahdi found Israel ben Oliel in the hut at Semsa. So poor a place he had not seen in all his wanderings through that abject land.
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