The Scapegoat Part 14

Now, it chanced that a mad dog from the Mukabar was being hunted to death on a day when Naomi, who had become accustomed to the tumult of the streets, had first ventured out in them alone, save for her goat, that went before her. The goat was grown old, but it was still her constant companion and also it was now her guide and guardian, for the little dumb creature seemed to know that she was frail and helpless. And so it was that she was crossing the Sok el Foki, a market of the town, and hearkening only to the patter of the feet of the goat going in front, when suddenly she heard a hundred footsteps hurrying towards her, with shouts and curses that were loud and deep. She stood in fear on the spot where she was, and no eyes had she to see what happened next, and she had none save the goat to tell her.

But out of one of the dark arcades on the left, leading downward from the hill, the mad dog came running, before a mult.i.tude of men and boys.

And flying in its despair, it bit out wildly at whatever lay in its way, and Naomi, in her blindness, stood straight in front of it. Then she must have fallen before it, but instantly the goat flung itself across the dog's open jaws, and b.u.t.ted at its foaming teeth, and sent up shrill cries of terror.

The dog stopped a moment, for such love was human, and it seemed as if the madness of the monster shrank before it. But the people came down with their wild shouts and curses, and the dog sprang upon the goat and felled it, and fled away. The people followed it, and then Naomi was alone in the market-place, and the goat lay at her feet.

Ali found her there, and brought her home to her father's house in the Mellah, and her dying champion with her. And out of this hard chance, and not out of Israel's teaching, Naomi was first to learn what life is and what is death. She felt the goat with her hands, and as she did so her fingers shook. Then she lifted it to its feet, and when they slipped from under it she raised her white face in wonder. Again she lifted it, and made strange noises at its ear; but when it did not answer with its bleat her lips began to tremble. Then she listened for its breathing, and felt for its breath; but when neither the one came to her ear, nor the other to her cheek, her own breath beat hot and fast. At length she fondled it in her arms, and kissed it with her lips; and when it gave back no sign of motion nor any sound of voice, a wild labouring rose at her heart. At last, when the power of life was low in it, the goat opened its heavy eyes upon her and put forth its tongue and licked her hand. With that last farewell the brave heart of the little creature broke, and it stretched itself and died.

Israel saw it all. His heart bled to see the parting in silence between those two, for not more dumb was the goat that now was dead than the human soul that was left alive. He tried to put the goat from Naomi's arms, saying, "It was only a goat, my child; think of it no more,"

though it smote him with pain to say it, for had not the creature given its life for her life? And where, O G.o.d, was the difference between them? But Naomi clung to the goat, and her throat swelled and her bosom fluttered, and her whole body panted, and it was almost as if her soul were struggling to burst through the bonds that bound it, that she might speak and ask and know.

"Oh, what does it mean? Why is it? Why? Why?"

Such were the questions that seemed ready to break from her tongue. And, thinking to answer her, Israel drew her to him and said, "It is dead, my child--the goat is dead."

But as he spoke that word he saw by her face, as by a flash of light in a dark place, that, often as he had told her of death, never until that hour had she known what it was. Then, if the words that he had spoken of death had carried no meaning, what could he hope of the words that he had spoken of life, and of the little things which concerned their household? And if Naomi had not heard the words he had said of these--if she had not pondered and interpreted them--if they had fallen on her ear only as voices in a dark cavern--only as dead birds on a dead sea--what of the other words, the greater words, the words of the Book of the Law and the Prophets, the words of heaven and of the resurrection and of G.o.d?

Had the hope of his heart been vanity? Did Naomi know nothing? Was her great gift a mockery?

Israel's feet were set in a slippery place. Why had he boasted himself of G.o.d's mercy? What were ears to hear to her that could not understand?

Only a torment, a terror, a plague, a perpetual desolation! When Naomi had heard nothing she had known nothing, and never had her spirit asked and cried in vain. Now she was dumb for the first time, being no longer deaf. Miserable man that he was, why had the Lord heard his supplication and why had He received his prayer?

But, repenting of such reproaches, in memory of the joy that Naomi's new gift had given her, he called on G.o.d to give her speech as well.

"Give her speech, O Lord!" he cried, "speech that shall lift her above the creatures of the field, speech whereby alone she may ask and know!

Give her speech, O G.o.d my G.o.d, and Thy servant will be satisfied!"

CHAPTER XIV

ISRAEL AT SHAWAN

AFTER Israel's return from his journey he had followed the precepts of the young Mahdi of Mequinez. Taking a view of his situation, that by his hardness of heart in the early days, and by base submission to the will of Katrina, the Kaid's Christian wife, in the later ones, he had filled the land with miseries, he now spared no cost to restore what he had unjustly extorted. So to him that had paid double in the taxings he had returned double--once for the tax and once for the excess; and if any man, having been unjustly taxed for the Kaid's tribute, had given bond on his lands for his debt and been cast into the Kasbah and died, without ransoming them, then to his children he had returned fourfold--double for the lands and double for the death. Israel had done this continually, and said nothing to Ben Aboo, but paid all charges out of his own purse, so that from being a rich man he had fallen within a month to the condition of a poor one, for what was one man's wealth among so many? Yet no goodwill had he won thereby, but only pity and contempt, for the people that had taken his money had thanked the Kaid for it, who, according to their supposals, had called on him to correct what he had done amiss. And with Ben Aboo himself he had fared no better, for the Basha was provoked to anger with him when he heard from Katrina of the good money that he had been casting away in pity for the poor.

"What have I told you a score of times?" said the woman. "That man has mints of money."

"My money, burn his grandfather," said Ben Aboo.

Thus, on every side Israel had fallen in the world's reckoning. When he lifted his hand from off that plough wherewith he had done the devil's work, he had made many enemies, and such as he had before he had made more powerful. People who had showed him lip-service when he was thought to be rich did not conceal the joy they had that he was brought down so near to be a beggar. Upstarts, who owed their promotion to his intercession, found in his charities an easy handle given them to be insolent, for, by carrying to Katrina their secret messages of his mercy to the people, they brought things at length to such a pa.s.s between him and the Kaid that Ben Aboo openly upbraided Israel for his weakness, not once or twice but many times.

"And pray what is this I hear of your fine charities, master Israel?"

said Ben Aboo. "Ah, do not look surprised. There are little birds enough to twitter of such follies. So you are throwing away silver like bones to the dogs! Pity you've got too much of it, Israel ben Oliel; pity you've got too much of it, I say."

"The people are poor, Lord Basha," said Israel; "they are famis.h.i.+ng, and they have no refuge save with G.o.d and with us."

"Tut!" cried Ben Aboo. "A famine in my bashalic! Let no man dare to say so. The whining dogs are preying upon your simpleness, mistress Israel.

You poor old grandmother! I always suspected," he added, facing about upon his attendants, "I always suspected that I was served by a woman.

Now I am sure of it."

Israel felt the indignity. He had given good proof of his manhood in the past by standing five-and-twenty years scapegoat for Ben Aboo between him and his people, making him rich by his extortions, keeping him safe in his seat, and thereby saving him from the wooden jellab which Abd er-Rahman, the Sultan, kept for Kaids that could not pay. But Israel mastered his anger and held his peace.

Word went through the town that Israel had fallen from the favour of the Basha, and then some of the more bold and free laughed at him in the streets when they saw him relieve the miseries of the poor, thinking himself accountable to G.o.d for their sufferings. He could have crushed the better part of his insulters to death in his brawny arms, but he was slow to anger and long-suffering. All the heed he paid to their insults was to do his good work with more secrecy.

Remembering his Moorish jellab, and how effectually it had disguised him on the night of his return home, he had recourse to it in this difficulty. When darkness fell he donned it again, drawing the hood well down over his black Jewish skull-cap and as far as might be over his face. In this innocent disguise he went out night after night for many nights among the poorer Moors that lived in the dismal quarters of the grain markets near the Bab Ramooz. How he bore himself being there, with what harmless deceptions he unburdened his soul by stealth, what guileless pretences he made that he might restore to the poor the money that had been stolen from them, would be a long story to tell.

"Who are you?" he was asked a hundred times.

"A friend," he answered

"Who told you of our trouble?"

"Allah has angels," he would reply.

Often, on his nightly rambles, he heard himself reviled, and saw the very children of the streets spit over their fingers at the mention of his name. And sometimes as he pa.s.sed he heard blind people whisper together and say, "He is a saint. He comes from the Kabar at nightfall.

Allah sends him to help poor men who have been in the clutches of Israel the Jew."

Nevertheless, Israel kept his secret. What did the word of man avail for good or evil? It would count for nothing at the last. Do justice and ask nought; neither praise, for it was a wayward wind, nor grat.i.tude, for it was the breath of angels.

One day, about a month after his return from his journey, when he was near to the end of his substance, a message came to him that the followers of Absalam were peris.h.i.+ng of hunger in their prison at Shawan.

Their relatives in Tetuan had found them in food until now, but the plague of the locust had fallen on the bread-winners, and they had no more bread to send. Israel concluded that it was his duty to succour them. From a just view of his responsibilities he had gone on to a morbid one. If in the Judgment the blood of the people of Absalam cried to G.o.d against him, he himself, and not Ben Aboo, would be cast out into h.e.l.l.

Israel juggled with his heart no further, but straightway began to take a view of his condition. Then he saw, to his dismay, that little as he had thought he possessed, even less remained to him out of the wreck of his riches. Only one thing he had still, but that was a thing so dear to his heart that he had never looked to part with it. It was the casket of his dead wife's jewels. Nevertheless, in his extremity he resolved to sell it now, and, taking the key, he went up to the room where he kept it--a closet that was sacred to the relics of her who lay in his heart for ever, but in his house no more.

Naomi went up with him, and when he had broken the seal from the doorpost, and the little door creaked back on its hinge, the ashy odour came out to them of a chamber long shut up. It was just as if the buried air itself had fallen in death to dust, for the dust of the years lay on everything. But under its dark mantle were soft silks and delicate shawls and gauzy haiks, and veils and embroidered sashes and light red slippers, and many dainty things such as women love. And to him that came again after ten heavy years they were as a dream of her that had worn them when she was young that now was dead when she was beautiful that now was in the grave.

"Ah me, ah me! Ruth! My Ruth!" he murmured. "This was her shawl. I brought it from Wazzan. . . . And these slippers--they came from Rabat.

Poor girl, poor girl! . . . . This sash, too, it used to be yellow and white. How well I remember the first time she wore it! She had put it over her head for a hood, pretending to be a Moorish woman. But her brown curls fell out over her face, or she could not imprison them. And then she laughed. My poor dear girl. How happy we were once in spite of everything! It is all like yesterday. When I think Ah no, I must think no more, I must think no more."

Israel had little heart for such visions, so he turned to the casket of the jewels where it stood by the wall. With trembling hands he took it and opened it, and here within were necklaces and bracelets, and rings and earrings, glistening of gold and rubies under their covering of dust. He lifted them one by one over his wrinkled fingers, and looked at them while his eyes grew wet.

"Not for myself," he murmured, "not for myself would I have sold them, not for bread to eat or water to drink; no, not for a wilderness of worlds!"

All this time he had given little thought to Naomi, where she stood by his side, but in her darkness and silence she touched the silks and looked serious, and the slippers and looked perplexed, and now at the jingling of the jewels she stretched out her hand and took one of them from her father's fingers, and feeling it, and finding it to be a necklace, she clasped it about her neck and laughed.

At the sound of her laughter Israel shook like a reed. It brought back the memory of the day when she danced to her mother's death, decked in that same necklace and those same ornaments. More on this head Israel could not think and hold to his purpose, so he took the jewels from Naomi's neck and returned them to the casket, and hastened away with it to a man to whom he designed to sell it.

This was no other than Reuben Maliki, keeper of the poor box of the Jews; for as well as a usurer he was a silversmith, and kept his shop in the Sok el Foki. Israel was moved to go to this person by the remembrance of two things, of which either seemed enough for his preference--first, that he had bought the jewels of Reuben in the beginning, and next, the Reuben had never since ceased to speak of them in Tetuan as priceless beyond the gems of Ethiopia and the gold of Ophir.

But when Israel came to him now with the casket that he might buy, he eyed both with looks of indifference, though it was more dear to his covetous and revengeful heart that Israel should humble himself in his need, and bring these jewels, than almost any other satisfaction that could come to it.

"And what is this that you bring me?" said Reuben languidly.

"A case of jewels," said Israel, with a downward look.

"Jewels? umph! what jewels?"