“God be gracious to my father, look at that,” whispered Fatimah.

“My child, my poor child,” said Israel, “is there but one thing in life that speaks to you?  And is that death?  Oh, little one, little one!”

It was a strange procession which then passed out of the patio.  Four of the prisoners carried the coffin on their shoulders, walking in pairs according to their fetters.  They were gaunt and bony creatures.  Hunger had wasted their sallow cheeks, and the air of noisome dungeons had sunken their rheumy eyes.  Their clothes were soiled rags, and over them, and concealing them down to their waists and yet lower, hung the deep, rich, velvet pall, with its long silk fringes.  In front walked the two remaining prisoners, each bearing a great plume in his left hand—­the right arm, as well as the right leg, being chained.  On either side was a soldier, carrying a lighted lantern, which burnt small and feeble in the twilight, and last of all came Israel himself, unsupported and alone.  Thus they passed through the little crowd of idlers that had congregated at the door, through the streets of the Mellah and out into the marketplace, and up the narrow lane that leads to the chief town gate.

There is something in the very nature of power that demands homage, and the people of Tetuan could not deny it to Israel.  As the procession went through the town they cleared a way for it, and they were silent until it had gone.  Within the gate of the Mellah, a shocket was killing fowls and taking his tribute of copper coins, but he stopped his work and fell back as the procession approached.  A blind beggar crouching at the other side of the gate was reciting passages of the Koran, and two Arabs close at his elbow were wrangling over a game at draughts which they were playing by the light of a flare, but both curses and Koran ceased as the procession passed under the arch.  In the market-place a Soosi juggler was performing before a throng of laughing people, and a story-teller was shrieking to the twang of his ginbri; but the audience of the juggler broke up as the procession appeared, and the ginbri of the storyteller was no more heard.  The hammering in the shops of the gunsmiths was stopped, and the tinkling of the bells of the water-carriers was silenced.  Mules bringing wood from the country were dragged out of the path, and the town asses, with their panniers full of street-filth, were drawn up by the wall.  From the market-place and out of the shops, out of the houses and out of the mosque itself, the people came trooping in crowds, and they made a long close line on either side of the course which the procession must take.  And through this avenue of onlookers the strange company made its way—­the two prisoners bearing the plumes, the four others bearing the coffin, the two soldiers carrying the lanterns, and Israel last of all, unsupported and alone.  Nothing was heard in the silence of the people but the tramp of the feet of the six men, and the clank of their chains.