第78章

He turned away without a word more, sat down by the pillar and looked vacantly before him while the new prisoners told their story.

Ben Aboo was a villain.The people of Tetuan had found him out.

His wife was a harlot whose heart was a deep pit.Between them they were demoralising the entire bashalic.The town was worse than Sodom.

Hardly a child in the streets was safe, and no woman, whether wife or daughter, whom God had made comely, dare show herself on the roofs.

Their own women had been carried off to the palace at the Kasbah.

That was why they themselves were there in prison.

This was about a month after the coming of Israel to Shawan.

Then his reason began to unsettle.It was pitiful to see that he was conscious of the change that was befalling him.

He wrestled with madness with all the strength of a strong man.

If it should fall upon him, where then would be his hope and outlook?

His day would be done, his night would be closed in, he would be no more than a helpless log, rolling in an ice-bound sea, and when the thaw came--if it ever came--he would be only a broken, rudderless, sailless wreck.Sometimes he would swear at nothing and fling out his arms wildly, and then with a look of shame hang down his head and mutter, "No, no, Israel; no, no, no!"Other prisoners arrived from Tetuan, and all told the same story.

Israel listened to them with a stupid look, seeming hardly to hear the tale they told him.But one morning, as life began again for the day in that slimy eddy of life's ocean, every one became aware that an awful change had come to pass.Israel's face had been worn and tired before, but now it looked very old and faded.

His black hair had been sprinkled with grey, and now it was white;and white also was his dark beard, which had grown long and ragged.

But his eye glistened, and his teeth were aglitter in his open mouth.

He was laughing at everything, yet not wildly, not recklessly, not without meaning or intention, but with the cheer of a happy and contented man.

Israel was mad, and his madness was a moving thing to look upon.

He thought he was back at home and a rich man still, as he had been in earlier days, but a generous man also, as he was in later ones.

With liberal hand he was dispensing his charities.

"Take what you need; eat, drink, do not stint; there is more where this has come from; it is not mine; God has lent it me for the good of all."With such words, graciously spoken, he served out the provisions according to his habit, and only departed from his daily custom in piling the measures higher, and in saluting the people by titles--Sid, Sidi, Mulai, and the like--in degree as their clothes were poor and ragged.It was a mad heart that spoke so, but also it was a big one.

From that time forward he looked upon the prisoners as his guests, and when fresh prisoners came to the prison he always welcomed them as if he were host there and they were friends who visited him.

"Welcome!" he would say; "you are very welcome.The place is your own.

Take all.What you don't see, believe we have not got it.

A thousand thousand welcomes home!" It was grim and painful irony.

Israel's comrades began to lose sense of their own suffering in observing the depth of his, and they laid their heads together to discover the cause of his madness.The most part of them concluded that he was repining for the loss of his former state.

And when one day another prisoner came from Tetuan with further tales of the Basha's tyranny, and of the people's shame at thought of how they had dealt by Israel, the prisoners led the man back to where Israel was standing in the accustomed act of dispensing bounty, that he might tell his story into the rightful ears.

"They're always crying for you," said the Tetawani; "'Israel ben Oliel!

Israel ben Oliel!' that's what you hear in the mosques and the streets everywhere.' Shame on us for casting him out, shame on us! He was our father!' Jews and Muslimeen, they're all saying so."It was useless.The glad tidings could not find their way.

That black page of Israel's life which told of the people's ingratitude was sealed in the book of memory.Israel laughed.What could his good friend mean? Behold! was he not rich? Had he not troops of comrades and guests about him?

The prisoners turned aside, baffled and done.At length one man--it was no other than 'Larby the wastrel--drew some of them apart and said, "You are all wrong.It's not his former state that he's thinking of._I_ know what it is--who knows so well as I?

Listen! you hear his laughter! Well, he must weep, or he will be mad for ever.He must be _made_ to weep.Yes, by Allah! and I must do it."That same night, when darkness fell over the dark place, and the prisoners tied up their cotton headkerchiefs and lay down to sleep, 'Larby sat beside Israel's place with sighs and moans and other symptoms of a dejected air.

"Sidi, master," he faltered, "I had a little brother once, and he was blind.Born blind, Sidi, my own mother's son.

But you wouldn't think how happy he was for all that? You see, Sidi he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world!

Women? Why--well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen, and he used to ride on my back! Black curls all over, Sidi, and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn't see.

Well a bleeder came from Soos--curse his great-grandfather!

Looked at little Hosain--'Scales!' said he--burn his father!