第26章

"Take care!" cried an Arab, "Mohammed of Mequinez is coming!"It chanced that night, after sundown, when Naomi, according to her wont, led her father to the upper room, and fetched the Book of the Law from the cupboard of the wall and laid it upon his knees, that he read the passage whereon the page opened of itself, scarce knowing what he read when he began to read it, for his spirit was heavy with the bad doings of those days.And the passage whereon the book opened was this--"_Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat....Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail.And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins....And when he hath, made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:

and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited._"That same night Israel dreamt a dream.He had been asleep, and had awakened in a place which he did not know.

It was a great arid wilderness.Ashen sand lay on every side;a scorching sun beat down on it, and nowhere was there a glint of water.

Israel gazed, and slowly through the blazing sunlight he discerned white roofless walls like the ruins of little sheepfolds.

"They are tombs," he told himself, "and this is a Mukabar--an Arab graveyard--the most desolate place in the world of God."But, looking again, he saw that the roofless walls covered the ground as far as the eye could see, and the thought came to him that this ashen desert was the earth itself, and that all the world of life and man was dead.Then, suddenly, in the motionless wilderness, a solitary creature moved.It was a goat, and it toiled over the hot sand with its head hung down and its tongue lolled out.

"Water!" it seemed to cry, though it made no voice, and its eyes traversed the plain as if they would pierce the ground for a spring.

Fever and delirium fell upon Israel.The goat came near to him and lifted up its eyes, and he saw its face.Then he shrieked and awoke.

The face of the goat had been the face of Naomi.

Now Israel knew that this was no more than a dream, coming of the passage which he had read out of the book at sundown, but so vivid was the sense of it that he could not rest in his bed until he had first seen Naomi with his waking eyes, that he might laugh in his heart to think how the eye of his sleep had fooled him.So he lit his lamp, and walked through the silent house to where Naomi's room was on the lower floor of it.

There she lay, sleeping so peacefully, with her sunny hair flowing over the pillow on either side of her beautiful face, and rippling in little curls about her neck.How sweet she looked! How like a dear bud of womanhood just opening to the eye!

Israel sat down beside her for a moment.Many a time before, at such hours, he had sat in that same place, and then gone his ways, and she had known nothing of it.She was like any other maiden now.

Her eyes were closed, and who should see that they were blind?

Her breath came gently, and who should say that it gave forth no speech?

Her face was quiet, and who should think that it was not the face of a homely-hearted girl? Israel loved these moments when he was alone with Naomi while she slept, for then only did she seem to be entirely his own, and he was not so lonely while he was sitting there.

Though men thought he was strong, yet he was very weak.He had no one in the world to talk to save Naomi, and she was dumb in the daytime, but in the night he could hold little conversations with her.

His love! his dove! his darling! How easily he could trick and deceive himself and think, She will awake presently, and speak to me!

Yes; her eyes will open and see me here again, and I shall hear her voice, for I love it! "Father!" she will say."Father--father--"Only the moment of undeceiving was so cruel!

Naomi stirred, and Israel rose and left her.As he went back to his bed, through the corridor of the patio, he heard a night-cry behind him that made his hair to rise.It was Naomi laughing in her sleep.

Israel dreamt again that night, and he believed his second dream to be a vision.It was only a dream, like the first; but what his dream would be to us is nought, and what it was to him is everything.