The Scapegoat Part 28

Naomi was sick. Her head ached. The smell of rotten fish, the stench of the manure heap, the braying of the donkeys, the barking of the dogs, the grunt of the camels, and the tumult of human voices made her light-headed. She could neither eat nor sleep. Almost as soon as it was light she was up and out and on her way. "I must lose no time," she thought, trying not to realise that the blue sky was spinning round her, that noises were ringing in her head, and that her poor little heart, which had been so stout only yesterday, was sinking very low.

"He must be starving," she told herself again, and that helped her to forget her own troubles and to struggle on. But oh, if the world were only not so cruel, oh, if there were anyone to give her a word of cheer, nay, a glance of pity! But n.o.body had looked at her except the women who stole her bread and the men who shamed her with their wicked eyes.

That one day's experience did more than all her life before it to fill her with the bitter fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Her illusions fell away from her, and her sweet childish faith was broken down. She saw herself as she was: a simple girl, a child ignorant of the ways of the world, going alone on a long journey unknown to her, thinking to succour her father in prison, and carrying a handful of eggs and a few poor cakes of bread. When at length the scales fell from the eyes of her mind, and as she trudged along on her bony mule, afraid to ask her way, she saw herself, with all her fine purposes shrivelled up, do what she would to be brave, she could not help but cry. It was all so vain, so foolish; she was such a weak little thing. Her father knew this, and that was why he told her to stay where he left her. What if he came home while she was absent! Should she go back?

She had almost resolved to return, struggle as she might to push forward, when going close under the town walls, near to the very gate, the Bab Toot whereat she had been cast out with her father remembering this scene of their abas.e.m.e.nt with a new sense of its cruelty and shame born of her own simple troubles, she lit upon a woman who was coming out.

It was Habeebah. She was now the slave of Ben Aboo, and was just then stealing away from the Kasbah in the early morning that she might go in search of Naomi, whose whereabouts and condition she had lately learned.

The two might have pa.s.sed unknown, for Habeebah was veiled, but that Naomi had forgotten her blanket and was uncovered. In another moment the poor frightened girl, with all her brave bearing gone, was weeping on the black woman's breast.

"Whither are you going?" said Habeebah.

"To my father," Naomi began. "He is in prison; they say he is starving; I was taking food to him, but I am lost, I don't know my way; and besides--"

"The very thing!" cried Habeebah.

Habeebah had her own little scheme. It was meant to win emanc.i.p.ation at the hands of her master, and paradise for her soul when she died. Naomi, who was a Jewess, was to turn Muslima. That was all. Then her troubles would end, and wondrous fortune would descend upon her, and her father who was in prison would be set free.

Now, religion was nothing to Naomi; she hardly understood what it meant.

The differences of faith were less than nothing, but her father was everything, and so she clutched at Habeebah's bold promises like a drowning soul at the froth of a breaker.

"My father will be let out of prison? You are sure--quite sure?" she asked.

"Quite sure," answered Habeebah stoutly.

Naomi's hopes of ever reaching her father were now faint, and her poor little stock of eggs and bread looked like folly to her new-born worldliness.

"Very well," she said. "I will turn Muslima."

A few minutes afterwards she was riding by Habeebah's side into the town, through the Bab Toot across the Feddan, and up to the courtyard of the Kasbah, which had witnessed the beginning of her own and her father's degradation. Then, tethering the beast in the open stables there, Habeebah took Naomi into her own little room and left her alone for some minutes, while she hastened to Ben Aboo in secret with her wondrous news.

"Lord Basha," she said, "the beautiful Jewess Naomi, the daughter of Israel ben Oliel, will turn Muslima."

"Where is she?" said Ben Aboo.

"Sidi," said Habeebah, "I have promised that you will liberate her father."

"Fetch her," said Ben Aboo, "and it shall be done."

But meanwhile Fatimah had gone to Habeebah's room and found Naomi there, and heard of the vain hope which had brought her.

"My sweet jewel of gold and silver," the black woman cried, "you don't know what you are doing. Turn Muslima, and you will be parted from your father for ever. He is a Jew, and will have no right to you any more.

You will never, never see him again. He will be lost to you--lost--I say--lost!"

Habeebah, with two of the guard, came back to take Naomi to Ben Aboo.

The poor girl was bewildered. She had seen nothing but her father in Fatimah's protest, just as she had seen nothing but her father in Habeebah's promises. She did not know what to do, she was such a poor weak little thing, and there was no strong hand to guide her.

They led her through dark pa.s.sages to an open place which she thought she had seen before. It was a great patio, paved and walled with tiles.

Men were standing together there in red peaked caps and flowing white kaftans. And before them all was one old man in garments that were of the colour of the afternoon sun, with sleeves like the mouths of bells, a silver knife at his waistband, and little leather bags, hung by yellow cords, about his neck. Beside this man there was a woman of a laughing cruel face, and she herself, Naomi, stood in the midst, with every eye upon her. Where had she seen all this before?

Ben Aboo had often bethought him of the beautiful girl since he committed her father to prison. He cherished schemes concerning her which he did not share with his wife Katrina. But he had hitherto been withheld by two considerations: the first being that he was beset with difficulties arising out of the demands of the Sultan for more money than he could find, and the next that he foresaw the necessity that might perchance arise of recalling Israel to his post. Out of these grave bedevilments he had extricated himself at length by imposing dues on certain tribes of Reefians, who had never yet acknowledged the Sultan's authority, and by calling on the Sultan's army to enforce them.

The Sultan had come in answer to his summons, the Reefians had been routed, their villages burnt, and that morning at daybreak he had received a message saying that Abd er-Rahman intended to keep the feast of the Moolood at Tetuan. So this capture of Naomi was the luckiest chance that could have befallen him at such a moment. She should witness to the Prophet; her father, the Jew, would thereby lose his rights in her; and he himself, as her sole guardian, would present her as a peace-offering to the Sultan on crossing the boundary of his bashalic.

Such was the new plan which Ben Aboo straightway conceived at hearing the news of Habeebah, and in another moment he had propounded it to Katrina. But when Naomi came into the patio, looking so soft, so timid, so tired, yet so beautiful, so unlike his own painted beauties, with the light of the dawn on her open face, with her clear eyes and the sweet mouth of a child, his evil pa.s.sions had all they could do not to go back to his former scheme.

"So you wish to turn Muslima?" he said.

Naomi gave one dazed look around, and then cried in a voice of fear "No, no, no!"

Ben Aboo glanced at Habeebah, and Habeebah fell upon Naomi with protests and remonstrances. "She said so," Habeebah cried. "'I will turn Muslima,' she said. Yes, Sidi, she said so, I swear it!"

"Did you say so?" asked Ben Aboo.

"Yes," said Naomi faintly.

"Then, by Allah, there can be no going back now," said Ben Aboo; and he told her what was the penalty of apostasy. It was death. She must choose between them.

Naomi began to cry, and Ben Aboo to laugh at her and Habeebah to plead with her. Still she saw one thing only. "But what of my father?" she said.

"He shall be liberated," said Ben Aboo.

"But shall I see him again? Shall I go back to him?" said Naomi.

"The girl is a simpleton!" said Katrina.

"She is only a child," said Ben Aboo, and with one glance more at her flower-like face, he committed her for three days to the apartments of his women.

These apartments consisted of a garden overgrown by straggling weeds, with a fountain of muddy water in the middle, an oblong room that was stifling from many perfumes, and certain smaller chambers. The garden was inhabited by a gazelle, whose great startled eyes looked out through the long gra.s.s; and the oblong room by a number of women of varying ages, among whom were a matronly Mooress, called Tarha, in a scarlet head-dress, and with a string of great keys swung from shoulder to waist; a Circa.s.sian, called Hoolia, in a gorgeous rida of red silk and gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, with embroidered red slippers and black stockings; and a Jewess, called Sol, with a band of silk handkerchiefs tied round her forehead above her coal-black curls, with her fingers p.r.i.c.ked out with henna and her eyes darkened with kohl.

Such were Ben Aboo's wives and concubines and captives, whom he had not divorced according to his promise; and when Naomi came among them they did their duty by their master faithfully. Being trapped themselves, they tried to entrap Naomi also. They overwhelmed her with caresses, they went into ecstasies over her beauty, and caused the future which awaited her to s.h.i.+ne before her eyes. She would have a n.o.ble husband, magnificent dresses, a brilliant palace, and the world would be at her feet. "And what's the difference between Moosa and Mohammed?" said Sol; "look at me!" "Tut!" said Josephine, "there's nothing to choose between them." "For my part," said Tarha, "I don't see what it matters to us; they say Paradise is for the men!" "And think of the jewels, and the earrings as big as a bracelet," said Hoolia, "instead of this," and she drew away between her thumb and first finger the blanket which Naomi's neighbour had given her.

It was all to no purpose. "But what of my father?" Naomi asked again and again.

The women lost patience at her simplicity, gave up their solicitations, ignored her, and busied themselves with their own affairs. "Tut!" they said, "why should we want her to be made a wife of the Sultan? She would only walk over us like dirt whenever she came to Tetuan."

Then, sitting alone in their midst, listening to their talk, their tales, their jests, and their laughter, the unseen mantle fell upon Naomi at last, which made her a woman who had hitherto been a child.

In this hothouse of sickly odours these women lived together, having no occupation but that of eating and drinking and sleeping, no education but devising new means of pleasing the l.u.s.t of their husband's eye, no delight than that of supplanting one another in his love, no pa.s.sion but jealousy, no diversion but sporting on the roofs, no end but death and the Kabar.

Seeing the uselessness of the siege, Ben Aboo transferred Naomi to the prison, and set Habeebah to guard her. The black woman was in terror at the turn that events had taken. There was nothing to do now but to go on, so she importuned Naomi with prayers. How could she be so hard-hearted? Could she keep her father famis.h.i.+ng in prison when one word out of her lips would liberate him? Naomi had no answer but her tears. She remembered the hareem, and cried.

Then Ben Aboo thought of a daring plan. He called the Grand Rabbi, and commanded him to go to Naomi and convert her to Islam. The Rabbi obeyed with trembling. After all, it was the same G.o.d that both peoples wors.h.i.+pped, only the Moors called Him Allah and the Jews Jehovah. Naomi knew little of either. It was not of G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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. They told her in whispers that what she held as tragical was a very simple matter. "Turn Muslima," they pleaded, "and save yourself. You are too young to die. Resign yourself, for G.o.d's sake." But no answer came back to them where they were gathered in the darkness, save low sobs from inside the wall.

At last Ben Aboo made two announcements. The first, a public one, was that Abd er-Rahman would reach Tetuan within two days, on the opening of the feast of the Moolood, and the other, a private one, that if Naomi had not said the Kelmah by first prayers the following morning she should die and her father be cut off as the penalty of her apostasy.

That night the place under the narrow window in the dark lane was occupied by a group of Jews. "Sister," they whispered, "sister of our people, listen. The Basha is a hard man. This day he has robbed us of all we had that he may pay for the Sultan's visit. Listen! We have heard something. We want Israel ben Oliel back among us. He was our father, he was our brother. Save his life for the sake of our children, for the Basha has taken their bread. Save him, sister, we beg, we entreat, we pray."