The Scapegoat Part 21

Next morning Israel, leaving Naomi at home, set off for the Kasbah, that he might carry out his great resolve to give up the office he held under the Kaid. And as he pa.s.sed through the streets his head was held up, and he walked proudly. A great burden had fallen from him, and his spirit was light. The people bent their heads before him as he pa.s.sed, and scowled at him when he was gone by. The beggars lying at the gate of the Mosque spat over their fingers behind his back, and muttered "Bismillah!

In the name of G.o.d!" A negro farmer in the Feddan, who was bent double over a hoof as he was shoeing a bony and scabby mule, lifted his ugly face, bathed in sweat, and grinned at Israel as he went along. A group of Reefians, dirty and lean and hollow-eyed, feeding their gaunt donkeys, and glancing anxiously at the sky over the heads of the mountains, snarled like dogs as he strode through their midst. The sky was overcast, and the heads of the mountains were capped with mist.

"Balak!" sounded in Israel's ears from every side. "Arrah!" came constantly at his heels. A sweet-seller with his wooden tray swung in front of him, crying, "Sweets, all sweets, O my lord Edrees, sweets, all sweets," changed the name of the patron saint of candies, and cried, "Sweets, all sweets, O my lord Israel, sweets, all sweets!" The girl selling clay peered up impudently into Israel's eyes, and the oven-boy, answering the loud knocking of the bodiless female arms thrust out at doors standing ajar, made his wordless call articulate with a mocking echo of Israel's name.

What matter? Israel could not be wroth with the poor people.

Six-and-twenty years he had gone in and out among them as a slave. This morning he was a free man, and to-morrow he would be one of themselves.

When he reached the Kasbah, there was something in the air about it that brought back recollections of the day--now nearly four years past--of the children's gathering at Katrina's festival. The l.u.s.ty-lunged Arabs squatting at the gates among soldiers in white selhams and peaked shasheeahs the women in blankets standing in the outer court, the dark pa.s.sages smelling of damp, the gusts of heavy odour coming from the inner chambers, and the great patio with the fountain and fig-trees--the same voluptuous air was over everything. And as on that day so on this, in the alcove under the horseshoe arch sat Ben Aboo and his Spanish wife.

Time had dealt with them after their kind, and the swarthy face of the Kaid was grosser, the short curls under his turban were more grey and his hazel eyes were now streaked and bleared, but otherwise he was the same man as before, and Katrina also, save for the loss of some teeth of the upper row, was the same woman. 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. He was clad in a piece of untanned camel-skin, which reached to his knees and was belted about his waist. His head, which was bare to the sun and drooped by nature like a flower, was held proudly up, and his wild eyes were flas.h.i.+ng. He was not supplicating for the deliverance of the people, but demanding it, and taxing Ben Aboo as a tyrant to his throat.

"Give me them up, Ben Aboo," he was saying as Israel came to the threshold, "or, if they die in their prison, one thing I promise you."

"And pray what is that?" said Ben Aboo.

"That there will be a b.l.o.o.d.y inquiry after their murderer."

Ben Aboo's brows were knitted, but he only glanced at Katrina, and made pretence to laugh, and then said, "And pray, my lord, who shall the murderer be?"

Then Mohammed of Mequinez stretched out his hand and answered, "Yourself."

At that word there-was silence for a moment, while Ben Aboo s.h.i.+fted in his seat, and Katrina quivered beside him.

Ben Aboo glanced up at Mohammed. He was Kaid, he was Basha, he was master of all men within a circuit of thirty miles, but he was afraid of this man whom the people called a prophet. And partly out of this fear, and partly because he had more regard to Mohammed's courageous behaviour in thus bearding him in his Kasbah and by the walls of his dungeons than to the anger his hot word had caused him, Ben Aboo would have promised him at that moment that the prisoners at Shawan should be released.

But suddenly Katrina remembered that she also had cause of indignation against this man, for it had been rumoured of late that Mohammed had openly denounced her marriage.

"Wait, Sidi," she said. "Is not this the fellow that has gone up and down your bashalic, crying out on our marriage that it was against the law of Mohammed?"

At that Ben Aboo saw clearly that there was no escape for him, so he made pretence to laugh again, and said, "Allah! so it is! Mohammed the Third, eh? Son of Mequinez, G.o.d will repay you! Thanks! Thanks! You could never think how long I've waited that I might look face to face upon the prophet that has denounced a Kaid."

He uttered these big words between bursts of derisive laughter, but Mohammed struck the laughter from his lips in an instant. "Wait no longer, O Ben Aboo," he cried, "but look upon him now, and know that what you have done is an unclean thing, and you shall be childless and die!"

Then Ben Aboo's pa.s.sion mastered him. He rose to his feet in his anger, and cried, "Prophet, you have destroyed yourself. Listen to me! The turbulent dogs you plead for shall lie in their prison until they perish of hunger and rot of their sores. By the beard of my father, I swear it!"

Mohammed did not flinch. Throwing back his head, he answered, "If I am a prophet, O Ben Aboo hear me prophesy. Before that which you say shall come to pa.s.s, both you and your father's house will be destroyed. Never yet did a tyrant go happily out of the world, and you shall go out of it like a dog."

Then Katrina also rose to her feet, and, calling to a group of barefooted Arab soldiers that stood near, she cried, "Take him! He will escape!"

But the soldiers did not move, and Ben Aboo fell back on his seat, and Mohammed, fearing nothing, spoke again.

"In a vision of last night I saw you, O Ben Aboo and for the contempt you had cast upon our holy laws, and for the destruction you had wrought on our poor people, the sword of vengeance had fallen upon you. And within this very court, and on that very spot where your feet now rest, your whole body did lie; and that woman beside you lay over you wailing and your blood was on her face and on her hands, and only she was with you, for all else had forsaken you--all save one, and that was your enemy, and he had come to see you with his eyes, and to rejoice over you with his heart, because you were fallen and dead."

Then, in the creeping of his terror, Ben Aboo rose up again and reeled backward and his eyes were fixed steadfastly downward at his feet where the eyes of Mohammed had rested. It was almost as if he saw the awful thing of which Mohammed had spoken, so strong was the power of the vision upon him.

But recovering himself quickly, he cried, "Away! In the name of G.o.d, away!"

"I will go," said Mohammed; "and beware what you do while I am gone."

"Do you threaten me?" cried Ben Aboo. "Will you go to the Sultan? Will you appeal to Abd er-Rahman?"

"No, Ben Aboo; but to G.o.d."

So saying, Mohammed of Mequinez strode out of the place, for no man hindered him. Then Ben Aboo sank back on to his seat as one that was speechless, and nothing had the crimson on his body availed him, or the silver on his breast, against that simple man in camel-skin, who owned nothing and asked nothing, and feared neither Kaid nor King.

When Ben Aboo had regained himself, he saw Israel standing at the doorway, and he beckoned to him with the downward motion, which is the Moorish manner. And rising on his quaking limbs he took him aside and said, "I know this fellow. Ya Allah! Allah! For all his vaunts and visions he has gone to Abd er-Rahman. G.o.d will show! G.o.d will show! I dare not take him! Abd er-Rahman uses him to spy and pry on his Bashas!

Camel-skin coat? Allah! a fine disguise! Bismillah! Bismillah!"

Then, looking back at the place where Mohammed in the vision saw his body lie outstretched, he dropped his voice to a whisper, and said, "Listen! You have my seal?"

Israel without a word, put his hand into the pocket of his waistband, and drew out the seal of Ben Aboo.

"Right! Now hear me, in the name of the merciful G.o.d. Do not liberate these infidel dogs at Shawan and do not give them so much as bread to eat or water to drink, but let such as own them feed them. And if ever the thing of which that fellow has spoken should come to pa.s.s--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!

So shall there be mourning at my burial--Holy Saints! Holy Saints!--mourning, I say, among them that look for joy at my death."

Thus in a quaking voice, sometimes whispering, and again breaking into loud exclamations, Ben Aboo in his terror poured his broken words into Israel's ear.

Israel made no answer. His eyes had become dim--he scarcely saw the walls of the place wherein they stood. His ears had become dense--he scarcely heard the voice of Ben Aboo, though the Kaid's hot breath was beating upon his cheek. But through the haze he saw the shadow of one figure tramping furiously to and fro, and through the thick air the voice of another figure came m.u.f.fled and harsh. For Katrina, having chased away with smiles the evil looks of Ben Aboo, had turned to Israel and was saying--

"What is this I hear of your beautiful daughter--this Naomi of yours--that she has recovered her speech and hearing! When did that happen, pray? No answer? Ah, I see, you are tired of the deception. You kept it up well between you. But is she still blind? So? Dear me! Blind, poor child. Think of it!"

Israel neither answered nor looked up, but stood motionless on the same place, holding the seal in his hand. And Ben Aboo, in his restless tramping up and down, came to him again, and said, "Why are you a Jew, Israel ben Oliel? The dogs of your people hate you. Witness to the Prophet! Resign yourself! Turn Muslim, man--what's to hinder you?"

Still Israel made no reply. 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?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LIGHT-BORN MESSENGER

"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.

"Basha," he said again calmly and quietly, "if you were Sultan and could make me your Vizier, I would not do it."

"Why?" cried Ben Aboo; "why? why?"

"Because," said Israel, "I am here to deliver up your seal to you."

"You? Grace of G.o.d!" cried Ben Aboo.