The Scapegoat Part 35

"I am leaving her to you," said Israel; "and you alone can protect her of all men living in this land accursed of G.o.d, for G.o.d's right arm is round you. Yes, G.o.d is good. As long as you live you will cherish her.

Never was she so dear to me as now, so sweet, so lovable, so gentle. But you will be good to her. G.o.d is very good to me. Guard her as the apple of your eye. It will reward you. And let her think of me sometimes--only sometimes. Ah! how nearly I shipwrecked all this! Remember! Remember!"

"Hush, hush! Do not increase your pains," said the Mahdi. "Are you feeling better now?"

"I am feeling well," said Israel, "and happy--so happy."

The sun had set, and the swift twilight was pa.s.sing into night, when another messenger arrived from Tetuan. It was Ali's old Taleb, shedding tears for his boy, but boasting loudly of his brave death. He had heard of it from the black guards themselves. After Ali fell he lived a moment, though only in unconsciousness. The boy must have thought himself back at Israel's side, "I've done it, father," he said; "he'll never hurt you again. You won't drive me away from you any more; will you, father?"

They could see that Israel had heard the story. The eyes of the dying are dry, but well they knew that the heart of the man was weeping.

The Taleb came with the idea that Israel also was gone, for a rumour to that effect had pa.s.sed through the town. "El hamdu l'Illah!" he cried, when he saw that Israel was still alive. But then he remembered something, and whispered in the Mahdi's farther ear that a vast concourse of Moors and Jews including his own vast fellowship was even then coming out to bury Israel, thinking he was dead.

Israel overheard him and smiled. It seemed as if he laughed a little also. "It will soon be true," he muttered under his breath, that came so quick. And hardly had he spoken when a low deep sound came from the distance. It was the funeral wail of Israel ben Oliel.

Nearer and nearer it came, and clearer and more clear. First a mighty ba.s.s voice: "Allah Akbar!" Again another and another voice: "Allah Akbar!" and then the long roar of a vast mult.i.tude: "Al--l--lah-u-kabar!" Finally a slow melancholy wail, rising and falling on the darkening air: "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Mohammed is the Prophet of G.o.d."

It was a solemn sound--nay, an awful one, with the man himself alive to hear it.

O grat.i.tude that is only a death-song! O fame that is only a funeral!

Israel listened and smiled again. "Ah, G.o.d is great!" he whispered; "G.o.d is great!"

To ease his labouring chest a moment the Mahdi rose and stepped to the door, and then in the distance he could descry the procession approaching--a moving black shadow against the sky. Also over their billowy heads he could see a red glow far away in the clouds. It was the last smouldering of the fire of the modern Sodom.

While he stood there he was startled by the sound of a thick voice behind him. It was Israel's voice. He was speaking to Naomi. "Yes," he was saying, "it is hard to part. We were going to be very happy. . . .

But you must not cry. Listen! When I am there--eh? you know, _there_--I will want to say, 'Father, you did well to hear my prayer. My little daughter--she is happy, she is merry, and her soul is all sunshine.'

So you must not weep. Never, never, never! Remember! . . . . Ah! that's right, that's right. My simple-hearted darling! My sunny, merry, happy girl!"

Naomi was trying to laugh in obedience to her father's will. She was combing his white beard with her fingers--it was knotted and tangled--and he was labouring hard to speak again.

"Naomi, do you remember?" he said; and then he tried to sing, and even to lisp the words as he sang them, just as a child might have done. "Do you remember--

Within my heart a voice Bids earth and heaven rejoice, Sings 'Love'--"

But his strength was spent, and he had to stop.

"Sing it," he whispered, with a poor broken smile at his own failure.

And then the brave girl--all courage and strength, a quivering bow of steel--took up the song where he had left it, though her voice trembled and the tears started to her eyes.

As Naomi sang Israel made some poor shift to beat the time to her, though once and again his feeble hand fell back into his breast. When she had done singing Israel looked at the Mahdi and then at her, and smiled, as if he and she and the song were one to him.

But indeed Naomi had hardly finished when the wail came again, now nearer than before, and louder. Israel heard it. "Hark! They are coming.

Keep close," he muttered.

He fumbled and tugged with one hand at the breast of his kaftan. The Mahdi thought his throat wanted air, but Naomi, with the instinct of help that a woman has in scenes like these, understood him better. In the disarray of his senses this was his way of trying to raise himself that he might listen the easier to the song outside. The girl slid her arm under his neck, and then his shrunken hand was at rest. "Ah! closer.

'G.o.d is great'!" he murmured again. "'G.o.d--is--great'!" With that word on his lips he smiled and sighed, and sank back. It was now quite dark.

When the Mahdi returned to his place at Israel's feet the dying man seemed to have been feeling for his hand. Taking it now, he brought it to his breast, where Naomi's hand lay under his own trembling one. With that last effort, and a look into the girl's face that must have pursued him home, his grand eyes closed for ever.

In the silence that followed after the departing spirit the deep swell of the funeral wail came rolling heavily on the night air: "Allah Akbar!

Al-lah-u-kabar!"

In a few minutes more the procession of the people of Tetuan who had come out to bury Israel ben Oliel had arrived at the house.

"He has gone," said the Mahdi, pointing down; and then lifting his eyes towards heaven, he added, "TO THE KING!"

Notes: 1. Italic text starts and ends with an underscore. 2. Where spelling inconsistencies in the printed text appear to be unintentional, they have been made consistent in this Etext version, either by adopting the dictionary spelling or the spelling most frequently used in the printed text. 3. In the printed text, many representations of Arabic words use accented characters; in this Etext version, the accents have been removed to allow transmission by email using the 7-bit character set.