The Scapegoat Part 6

Katrina was not yet done. She was a creature of resource, and having heard of Naomi with strange stories concerning her, she devised a children's feast for the last day of the marriage festival, and caused Ben Aboo to write to Israel a formal letter, beginning "To our well-beloved the excellent Israel ben Oliel, Praise to the one G.o.d,"

and setting forth that on the morrow, when the "Sun of the world" should "place his foot in the stirrup of speed," and gallop "from the kingdom of shades," the Governor would "hold a gathering of delight" for all the children of Tetuan and he, Israel, was besought to "lighten it with the rays of his face, rivalled only by the sun," and to bring with him his little daughter Naomi, whose arrival "similar to a spring breeze,"

should "dissipate the dark night of solitude and isolation." This despatch written in the common cant of the people, concluded with quotations from the Prophet on brotherly love and a significant and more sincere a.s.surance that the Basha would not admit of excuses "of the thickness of a hair."

When Israel received the missive, his anger was hot and furious. He leapt to the conclusion that, in demanding the presence of Naomi, the Spanish woman, who must know of the child's condition desired only to make a show of it. But, after a fume, he put that thought from him as uncharitable and unwarranted, and resolved to obey the summons.

And, indeed, if he had felt any further diffidence, the sight of Naomi's own eagerness must have driven it away. The little maid seemed to know that something unusual was going on. Troops of poor villagers from every miserable quarter of the bashalic came into the town each day, beating drums, firing long guns, driving their presents before them--bullocks, cows, and sheep--and trying to make believe that they rejoiced and were glad. Naomi appeared to be conscious of many tents pitched in the marketplace, of denser crowds in the streets, and of much bustle everywhere.

Also she seemed to catch the contagion of little Ali's excitement. The children of all the schools of the town, both Jewish and Moorish, had been summoned through their Talebs to the festival; there was to be dancing and singing and playing on musical instruments and Ali himself, who had lately practised the kanoon--the lute, the harp--under his teacher, was to show his skill before the Governor. Therefore, great was the little black man's excitement, and, in the fever of it, he would talk to every one of the event forthcoming--to Fatima, to Habeebah, and often to Naomi also, until the memory of her infirmity would come to him, or perhaps the derisive laugh of his schoolfellows would stop him, and then, thinking they were laughing at the girl, he would fall on them like a fury, and they would scamper away.

When the great day came, Ali went off to the Kasbah with his school and Taleb, in the long procession of many schools and many Talebs. Every child carried a present for the rich Basha; now a boy with a goat, then a girl with a lamb, again a poor tattered mite with a hen, all cuddling them close like pets they must part with, yet all looking radiantly happy in their sweet innocency, which had no alloy of pain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Israel took Naomi by the hand, but no present with either of them, and followed the children, going past the booths, the blind beggars, the lepers, and the shrieking Arabs that lay thick about the gate, through the iron-clamped door, and into the quadrangle, where groups of women stood together closely covered in their blankets--the mothers and sisters of the children, permitted to see their little ones pa.s.s into the Kasbah, but allowed to go no farther--then down the crooked pa.s.sage, past the tiny mosque, like a closet, and the bath, like a dungeon, and finally into the pillared patio, paved and walled with tiles.

This was the place of the festival, and it was filled already with a great company of children, their fathers and their teachers. Moors, Arabs, Berbers, and Jews, clad in their various costumes of white and blue and black and red--they were a gorgeous, a voluptuous, and, perhaps, a beautiful spectacle in the morning sunlight.

As Israel entered, with Naomi by the hand, he was conscious that every eye was on them, and as they pa.s.sed through the way that was made for them, he heard the whispered exclamations of the people. "Shoof!"

muttered a Moor. "See!" "It's himself," said a Jew. "And the child,"

said another Jew. "Allah has smitten her," said an Arab "Blind and dumb and deaf," said another Moor "G.o.d be gracious to my father!" said another Arab.

Musicians were playing in the gallery that ran round the court, and from the flat roof above it the women of the Governor's hareem, not yet dispersed, his four lawful Mohammedan wives, and many concubines, were gazing furtively down from behind their haiks. There was a fountain in the middle of the patio, and at the farther end of it, within an alcove that opened out of a horseshoe arch, beneath ceilings hung with stalact.i.tes, against walls covered with silken haities, and on Rabat rugs of many colours, sat Ben Aboo and his Christian bride.

It was there that Israel saw the Spaniard for the first time, and at the instant of recognition he s.h.i.+vered as with cold. She was a handsome woman, but plainly a heartless one--selfish, vain, and vulgar.

Ben Aboo hailed Israel with welcomes and peace-blessings, and Katrina drew Naomi to her side.

"So this is the little maid of whom wonderful rumours are so rife?" said Katrina.

Israel bent his head and shuddered at seeing the child at the woman's feet.

"The darling is as fair as an angel," said Katrina, and she kissed Naomi.

The kiss seemed to Israel to smite his own cheeks like a blow.

Then the performances of the children began, and truly they made a pretty and affecting sight; the white walls, the deep blue sky, the black shadows of the gallery, the bright sunlight, the grown people ma.s.sed around the patio, and these sweet little faces coming and going in the middle of it. First, a line of Moorish girls in their embroidered hazzams dancing after their native fas.h.i.+on, bending and rising, twisting and turning, but keeping their feet in the same place constantly. Then, a line of Jewish girls in their kilted skirts dancing after the Jewish manner tripping on their slippered toes, whirling and turning around with rapid motions, and playing timbrels and tambourines held high above their heads by their shapely arms and hands. Then pa.s.sages of the Koran chanted by a group of Moorish boys in their jellabs, purple and chocolate and white, peaked above their red tarbooshes. Then a psalm by a company of Jewish boys in their black skull-caps--a brave old song of Zion sung by silvery young voices in an alien land. Finally, little black Ali, led out by his teacher, with his diminutive Moorish harp in his hands, showing no fear at all, but only a negro boy's shy looks of pleasure--his head aside, his eyes gleaming, his white teeth glinting, and his face aglow.

Now down to this moment Naomi, at the feet of the woman, had been agitated and restless, sometimes rising, then sinking back, sometimes playing with her nervous fingers, and then pus.h.i.+ng off her slippers.

It was as though she was conscious of the fine show which was going forward, and knew that they were children who were making it. Perhaps the breath of the little ones beat her on the level of her cheeks, or perhaps the light air made by the sweep of their garments was wafted to her sensitive body. Whatsoever the sense whereby the knowledge came to her, clearly it was there in her flushed and twitching face, which was full of that old hunger for child-company which Israel knew too well.

But when little Ali was brought out and he began to play on his kanoon, his harp, it was impossible to repress Naomi's excitement. The girl leaped up from her place at the woman's feet, and with the utmost rapidity of motion she pa.s.sed like a gleam of light across the patio to the boy's side. And, being there, she touched the harp as he played it, and then a low cry came from her lips. Again she touched it, and her eyes, though blind, seemed for an instant to flame like fire. Then, with both her hands she clung to it, and with her lips and her tongue she kissed it, while her whole body quivered like a reed in the wind.

Israel saw what she did, and his very soul trembled at the sight with wild thoughts that did not dare to take the name of hope. As well as he could in the confusion of his own senses he stepped forward to draw the little maiden back but the wife of the Governor called on him to leave her.

"Leave her!" she cried. "Let us see what the child will do!"

At that moment Ali's playing came to as end, and the boy let the harp pa.s.s to Naomi's clinging fingers, and then, half sitting, half kneeling on the ground beside it, the girl took it to herself. She caressed it, she patted it with her hand, she touched its strings, and then a faint smile crossed her rosy lips. She laid her cheek against it and touched its strings again, and then she laughed aloud. She flung off her slippers and the garment that covered her beautiful arms, and laid her pure flesh against the harp wheresoever her flesh might cling, and touched its strings once more, and then her very heart seemed to laugh with delight.

Now, what is to follow will seem to be no better than a superst.i.tious saying, but true it is, nevertheless, and simple sooth for all it sounds so strange, that though Naomi was deaf as the grave, and had never yet heard music, and though she was untaught and knew nothing of the notes of a harp to strike them yet she swept the strings to strange sounds such as no man had ever listened to before and none could follow.

It was not music that the little maiden made to her ear, but only motion to her body, and just as the deaf who are deaf alone are sometimes found to take pleasure in all forms of percussion, and to derive from them some of the sensations of sound--the trembling of the air after thunder, the quivering of the earth after cannon, and the quaking of vast walls after the ringing of mighty bells--so Naomi, who was blind as well and had no sense save touch, found in her fingers, which had gathered up the force of all the other senses, the power to reproduce on this instrument of music the movement of things that moved about her--the patter of the leaves of the fig-tree in the patio of her home, the swirl of the great winds on the hill-top, the plash of rain on her face, and the rippling of the levanter in her hair.

This was all the witchery of Naomi's playing, yet, because every emotion in Nature had its harmony, so there was harmony of some wild sort in the music that was struck by the girl's fingers out of the strings of the harp. But, more than her music, which was perhaps, only a rhapsody of sound, was the frenzy of the girl herself as she made it. She lifted her head like a bird, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, and as she played, she laughed again and again.

There was something fascinating and magical in the spectacle of the beautiful fair face aglow with joy, the rounded limbs (visible through the robes) clinging to the sides of the harp, and the delicate white fingers flying across the strings. There was something gruesome and awful, as well, for the face of the girl was blind, and her ears heard nothing of the sounds that her fingers were making.

Every eye was on her, and in the wide circle around every mouth was agape. And when those who looked on and listened had recovered from their first surprise, very strange and various were the whispered words they pa.s.sed between them. "Where has she learnt it?" asked a Moor.

"From her master himself," muttered a Jew. "Who is it?" asked the Moor.

"Beelzebub," growled the Jew. "G.o.d pity me, the evil eye is on her,"

said an Arab. "G.o.d will show," said a Shereef from Wazzan. "They say her mother was a childless woman, and offered pet.i.tions for Hannah's blessing at the tomb of Rabbi Amran." "No," said the Arab; "she sent her girdle." "Anyhow, the child is a saint," whispered the Shereef. "No, but a devil," snorted the Jew.

"Brava, brava, brava!" cried the new wife of Ben Aboo, and she cheered and laughed as the girl played. "What did I tell you?" she said, looking toward her husband. "The child is not deaf, no, nor blind either. Oh, it's a brave imposture! Brava, brave!"

Still the little maiden played, but now her brow was clouded, her head dropped, her eyelashes were downcast, and she hung over the harp and sighed audibly.

"Good again!" cried the woman. "Very good!" and she clapped her hands, whereupon the Arabs and the Moors, forgetting their dread, felt constrained to follow her example, and they cheered in their wilder way, but the Jews continued to mutter, "Beelzebub, Beelzebub!"

Israel saw it all, and at first, amid the commotion of his mind and the confusion of his senses, his heart melted at sight of what Naomi did.

Had G.o.d opened a gateway to her soul? Were the poor wings of her spirit to spread themselves out at last? Was this, then, the way of speech that Heaven had given her? But hardly had Israel overflowed with the tenderness of such thoughts when the bleating and barking of the faces about him awakened his anger. Then, like blows on his brain, came the cries of the wife of the Governor, who cheered this awakening of the girl's soul as it were no better than a vulgar show; and at that Israel's wrath rose to his throat.

"Brava, brava!" cried the woman again; and, turning to Israel, she said, "You shall leave the child with me. I must have her with me always."

Israel's throat seemed to choke him at that word. He looked at Katrina, and saw that she was a woman l.u.s.tful of breath and vain of heart, who had married Ben Aboo because he was rich. Then he looked at Naomi, and remembered that her heart was clear as the water, and sweet as the morning, and pure as the snow.

And at that moment the wife of the Governor cheered again, and again the people echoed her, and even the women on the housetops made bold to take up her cry with their cooing ululation. The playing had ceased, the spell had dissolved, Naomi's fingers had fallen from the harp, her head had dropped into her breast, and with a sigh she had sunk forward on to her face.

"Take her in!" said the wife of Ben Aboo, and two Arab soldiers stepped up to where the little maiden lay. But before they had touched her Israel strode out with swollen lips and distended nostrils.

"Stop!" he cried.

The Arabs hesitated, and looked towards their master.

"Do as you are bidden--take her in!" said Ben Aboo.

"Stop!" cried Israel again, in a loud voice that rang through the court.

Then, parting the Arabs with a sweep of his arms, he picked up the unconscious maiden, and faced about on the new wife of Ben Aboo.

"Madam," he cried, "I, Israel ben Oliel, may belong to the Governor, but my child belongs to me."

So saying, he pa.s.sed out of the court, carrying the girl in his arms, and in the dead silence and blank stupor of that moment none seemed to know what he had done until he was gone.

Israel went home in his anger; but nevertheless, out of this event he found courage in his heart to begin his task again. Let his enemies bleat and bark "Beelzebub," yet the child was an angel, though suffering for his sin, and her soul was with G.o.d. She was a spirit, and the songs she had played were the airs of paradise. But, comforting himself so, Israel remembered the vision of Ruth, wherein Naomi had recovered her powers. He had put it from him hitherto as the delirium of death, but would the Lord yet bring it to pa.s.s? Would G.o.d in His mercy some day take the angel out of his house, though so strangely gifted, so radiant and beautiful and joyful, and give him instead for the hunger of his heart as a man this sweet human child, his little, fair-haired Naomi, though helpless and simple and weak?

CHAPTER VIII

THE VISION OF THE SCAPEGOAT