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Updated: June 17, 2025
The plan which the Mahdi thought of had first been Ali's, for the black lad was back in Tetuan. After he had fulfilled his errand of mercy at Shawan; he had gone on to Ceuta; and there, with a spirit afire for the wrongs of his master, from whom he was so cruelly parted, he had set himself with shrewdness and daring to incite the Spanish powers to vengeance upon his master's enemies.
This place they selected for its safety, intending to push forward, as occasion offered, to the sanctuaries of Shawan, trusting rather to the humanity of the wild people, called the Shawanis, than to the mercy of their late cruel masters. But the valley wherein they had hidden is thick with trees, and Ben Aboo tracked them and came up with them before they were aware.
And if ever the thing of which that fellow has spoken should come to pass do you hear? in the hour wherein it befalls Allah preserve me! in that hour draw a warrant on the Kaid of Shawan and seal it with my seal are you listening? a warrant to put every man, woman, and child to the sword. Ya Allah! Allah! We will deal with these spies of Abd er-Rahman!
"Too much," said the buyer; "I'll give three." Israel bought the bread and the meat, the raisins and the figs which the prisoners needed enough for the present and for many days to come. Then he hired six mules with burdas to bear the food to Shawan, and a man two days to lead them.
But suddenly in the midst of the wild vociferations there was a shrill cry of "He is there!" and then there was a great silence. It was Israel himself. He was coming afoot down the lane under the town walls from the gate called the Bab Toot, where the road comes in from Shawan. At fifty paces behind him Ali, the black boy, was riding one mule and leading another.
"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.
And if the children had risen up before Israel's eyes as he stood on the threshold of the patio, he could not have drawn his breath with more surprise than at the sight of the man who stood that morning in their place. It was Mohammed of Mequinez. He had come to ask for the release of the followers of Absalam from their prison at Shawan. In defiance of courtesy his slippers were on his feet.
When Israel made ready to go to Shawan, Naomi clung to him to hinder him, as if remembering his long absence when he went to Fez, and connecting it with the illness that came to her in his absence; or as seeming to see, with those eyes that were blind to the ways of the world, what was to befall him before he returned.
The release of the poor followers of Absalam out of the prison at Shawan had become known by the blind gratitude of one of them, who, hastening to Israel's house in the Mellah, had flung himself down on his face before it.
That he would be the same as a stranger to her, and would have to tell her who he was; that she would have to recognise him by whatsoever means remained to belie the evidence of the newborn sense this was the least of Ali's trouble. By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand to Shawan.
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