The Scapegoat

f contempt. God had declared against him, God had brought him low, God H

m, the shifts of the rabble to give vent to their contempt were often ludicrous enough. Thus, they would call their dogs

of pack-mules to pass he would hear a voice from behind him crying huskily, "Accursed old Israel! Get on home to your mother!" Then, tu

ps the bleached and eyeless lepers who sat under the white walls crying "Allah! Allah!

e grinning faces with gleaming white teeth turned in his direction, and he would know t

displeasure. The veriest muck-worm in the market-place spat out a

t out every fibre of his being, every muscle of his soul. He had quarrelled with God by re

in either form of warfare. The more wicked the one and t

de a Kaid, a chief, in the Sultan's army, and eventually a commander-in-chief of his cavalry. In that capacity he had led a raid for arrears of tribute on the Beni Hasan, the Beni Idar, and the Wad Ras These rebellious tribes inhabit the country near to Tetuan, and hence Ben Aboo's attention had been first directed to that town. When he had returned from his expedition he offered the Sultan f

res. In this dilemma his natural colleague would have been his Khaleefa, his deputy, Ali bin Jillool, but because this man had been the deputy of his predecessor also, he could not trust him. He had two other immediate subordinates, his Commander of Artillery and his Commander of Infantry, but neither of them could spell the letters of his name. Then there was his Taleb the Adel, his scribe the notary, Hosain ben Hashem, styled Haj,

dollars, so that the Basha had twenty thousand to the good. Then Ben Aboo's ambition began to override itself. He started an oil-mill, and wanted Israel to select a hundred houses owned by ric

Governor had pretended that he had received an order from the Sultan to impose a gross and wicked tax, but Israel's answer had bee

a damp dungeon at night, and chained in the hot sun by day. Israel was still necessary

ght of it. Thus he persuaded the Governor to send his small currency to the Jewish shops to be changed into silver dollars at the rate of nine ducats to the dollar, when a dollar was worth ten in currency. And after certain of the shopkeepers, having changed fifty thousand dollars at that rate, fled

ets held the fate of every man of them in his hand. Their dogs and their a

ren without a qualm. Neither did he delight in the sufferings of them that had derided him. His evil impulse was a higher matter-his faith in justice had been broken up. He had been wrong. There was no suc

wards the world was a man of great tenderness. That place was his own home. What he saw there was enough t

the enemies whom he had expected to confound, Israel had thought of him

of life there was no place left for it. So Ruth turned he

ke it! Make haste, O God

yed concerning it. So, little by little, her spirit returned to her, and day by day her soul deceived her, and hour by hour an angel out of heaven seemed to come to her side and w

lower-cup of its eye, an the eye was blue and beautiful, and there was nothing to say that the little cup was broken, and the little chamber dark. And sometimes she would look at th

She will look upon my face and see it, and listen to my voice and hear it, and her own little tongue will yet s

ze about in a peaceful perplexity at everything, still the eyes of Ruth's child did not open in seeing, but lay idle and empty. And when the time was ripe that a child's ears should he

en seemed to come to her, and find her a thousand excuse

hat trembled from her own tongue, and never once across her baby's face passed the light of her tearful smile. It was a pitiful thing to see her wasted pains, and most pitiful of all for the pains she was at to conceal them. Thus, every day at mi

e would answe

atch up her child and carry it close, and watch if its ears should hear; but if Israel s

heart," he would say, and

very soul had sickened, and he cried, "Have done, Ruth!-for mercy's sake, have done! The child is a soul in chains, and a spirit in prison. Her eyes are darkness, like the tomb's, and her ears are silence,

had cherished was dead. Israel could comfort her no longer. The fountain of his ow

withstanding her Jewish parentage, she was fair as the day and fresh as the dawn. And if her eyes were darkness, there was light within her soul; and if her ears were silence, there was music within her heart. She was brighter than the sun which s

r. With this she lay down to sleep at night, and rose again in the morning. She laughed

fingers, and her father by the brushing of his beard. She knew the flowers that grew in the fields outside the gate of the town, and she would gather them in her lap, as other children did, and bring them home with her in her hands. She seemed almost to

no delight like to that of playing with other children. But her father's house was under a ban; no child of any neighbour in Tetuan was allowed t

d her husband for companion and comrade, but her little Naomi was doubly and trebly alone-first, alone as a child that is the only child of her parents;

ht have been the eyes of an angel. The boy's name was Ali, and he was four years old. His father had killed his mother for infidelity and neglect of their ch

fter no difference did she make between him and her own child that other eyes could see. They ate together, they walked abroad together, t

ow that Naomi was not as he was, that Nature had not given her eyes to see as he saw, and ears to hear as he heard, and a tongue to speak as he spoke, Nature herself had overstepped the barriers that divided her from him. He found that Naomi had come to understand him, whatever in his little way he did, and almost whatever in his little way he said. So he played with her as he would have played with any other playmate, laughing with her, calling to her, and going through his foolish little boyish antics before her. Nevertheless, by

into the fields, she would ride on Ali's back, and snatch at the ears of barley and leap in her seat and laugh, yet nothing would she see of the yellow corn, and nothing would she hear of the song of the reapers, and nothing would she know of the cries of Ali, who shouted to her while he ran, forgetting in his playing that she heard him not. And at night

er, and Naomi, and everybod

pass her fingers over his face from his eyelids to his lips

ains, nevertheless it could not die, but was immortal and unmaimed and waited only for the hour when it should be linked to other souls, soul to soul in the chains of speech. But th