第80章

HOW NAOMI TURNED MUSLIMA

What had happened to Naomi during the two months and a half while Israel lay at Shawan is this: After the first agony of their parting, in which she was driven back by the soldiers when she attempted to follow them, she sat down in a maze of pain, without any true perception of the evil which had befallen her, but with her father's warning voice and his last words in her ear:

"Stay here.Never leave this place.Whatever they say, stay here.

I will come back."

When she awoke in the morning, after a short night of broken sleep and fitful dreams, the voice and the words were with her still, and then she knew for the first time what the meaning was, and what the penalty, of this strange and dread asundering.

She was alone, and, being alone, she was helpless; she was no better than a child, without kindred to look to her and without power to look to herself, with food and drink beside her, but no skill to make and take them.

Thus her awakening sense was like that of a lamb whose mother has been swallowed up in the night by the sand-drifts of the simoom.

It was not so much love as loss.What to do, where to look, which way to turn first, she knew no longer, and could not think, for lack of the hand that had been wont to guide her.

The neighbouring Moors heard of what had happened to Naomi, and some of the women among them came to see her.They were poor farming people, oppressed by cruel taxmasters; and the first things they saw were the cattle and sheep, and the next thing was the simple girl with the child-face, who knew nothing yet of the ways wherein a lonely woman must fend for herself.

"You cannot live here alone, my daughter," they said; "you would perish.

Then think of the danger--a child like you, with a face like a flower!

No, no, you must come to us.We will look to you like one of our own, and protect you from evil men.And as for the creatures--""But he said I was never to leave this place," said Naomi."'Stay here,'

he said; 'whatever they say, stay here.I will come back.'"The women protested that she would starve, be stolen, ruined, and murdered.It was in vain.Naomi's answer was always the same:

"He told me to stay here, and surely I must do so."Then one after another the poor folks went away in anger.

"Tut!" they thought, "what should we want with the Jew child? Allah!

Was there ever such a simpleton? The good creatures going to waste, too!

And as for her father, he'll never come back--never.Trust the Basha for that!"But when the humanity of the true souls had conquered their selfishness, they came again one by one and vied with each other in many simple offices--milking and churning, and baking and delving--in pity of the sweet girl with the great eyes who had been left to live alone.

And Naomi, seeing her helplessness at last, put out all her powers to remedy it, so that in a little while she was able to do for herself nearly everything that her neighbours at first did for her.

Then they would say among themselves, "Allah! she's not such a baby after all; and if she wasn't quite so beautiful, poor child, or if the world wasn't so wicked--but then, God is great! God is great!"Not at first had Naomi understood them when they told her that her father had been cast into prison, and every night when she left her lamp alight by the little skin-covered window that was half-hidden under the dropping eaves, and every morning when she opened her door to the radiance of the sun she had whispered to herself and said, "He will come back, Naomi; only wait, only wait;maybe it will be tonight, maybe it will be to-day; you will see, you will see."But after the awful thought of what prison was had fully dawned upon her as last, by help of what she saw and heard of other men who had been there, her old content in her father's command that she should never leave that place was shaken and broken by a desire to go to him.

"Who's to feed him, poor soul? He will be famishing.

If the Kaid finds him in bread, it will only be so much more added to his ransom.That will come to the same thing in the end, or he'll die in prison."Thus she had heard the gossips talk among themselves when they thought she did not listen.And though it was little she understood of Kaids and ransoms, she was quick to see the nature of her father's peril, and at length she concluded that, in spite of his injunction, go to him she should and must.With that resolve, her mind, which had been the mind of a child seemed to spring up instantly and become the mind of a woman, and her heart, that had been timid, suddenly grew brave, for pity and love were born in it.

"He must be starving in prison," she thought, "and I will take him food."When her neighbours heard of her intention they lifted their hands in consternation and horror."God be gracious to my father!" they cried.

"Shawan? You? Alone? Child, you'll be lost, lost--worse, a thousand times worse! Shoof! you're only a baby still."But their protests availed as little to keep Naomi at her home now as their importunities had done before to induce her to leave it.

"He must be starving in prison," she said, "and I will take him food."Her neighbours left her to her stubborn purpose.

"Allah!" they said, "who would have believed it, that the little pink-and-white face had such a will of her own!"Without more ado Naomi set herself to prepare for her journey.

She saved up thirty eggs, and baked as many of the round flat cakes of the country; also she churned some butter in the simple way which the women had taught her, and put the milk that was left in a goat's-skin.In three days she was ready, and then she packed her provisions in the leaf panniers of a mule which one of the neighbours had lent to her, and got up before them on the front of the burda, after the manner of the wives whom she had seen going past to market.

When she was about to start her gossips came again, in pity of her wild errand, to bid her farewell and to see the last of her.