Abd Allah had made no savings, and, being too old for work, he had lived on the earnings of his son.  The son’s name was Absalam (Abd es-Salem), and he had a wife whom he loved very tenderly, and one child, a boy of six years of age.  Absalam followed his father to Fez, and visited him in prison.  The old man had been ordered a hundred lashes, and the flesh was hanging from his limbs.  Absalam was great of heart, and, in pity of his father’s miserable condition he went to the Governor and begged that the old man might be liberated, and that he might be imprisoned instead.  His petition was heard.  Abd Allah was set free, Absalam was cast into prison, and the penalty was raised from two hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred.

Israel heard of what had happened, and he hastened to Ben Aboo, in great agitation, intending to say “Pay back this man’s ransom, in God’s name, and his children and his children’s children will live to bless you.”  But when he got to the Kasbah, Katrina was sitting with her husband, and at sight of the woman’s face Israel’s tongue was frozen.

Absalam had been the favourite of his neighbours among all the gunsmiths of the market-place, and after he had been three months at Fez they made common cause of his calamities, sold their goods at a sacrifice, collected the three hundred dollars of his fine, bought him out of prison, and went in a body through the gate to meet him upon his return to Tetuan.  But his wife had died in the meantime of fear and privation, and only his aged father and his little son were there to welcome him.

“Friends,” he said to his neighbours standing outside the walls, “what is the use of sowing if you know not who will reap?”

“No use, no use!” answered several voices.

“If God gives you anything, this man Israel takes it away,” said Absalam.

“True, true!  Curse him!  Curse his relations!” cried the others.

“Then why go back into Tetuan?” said Absalam.

“Tangier is no better,” said one.  “Fez is worse,” said another.  “Where is there to go?” said a third.

“Into the plains,” said Absalam—­“into the plains and into the mountains, for they belong to God alone.”

That word was like the flint to the tinder.

“They who have least are richest, and they that have nothing are best off of all,” said Absalam, and his neighbours shouted that it was so.

“God will clothe us as He clothes the fields,” said Absalam, “and feed our children as He feeds the birds.”

In three days’ time ten shops in the market-place, on the side of the Mosque, were sold up and closed, and the men who had kept them were gone away with their wives and children to live in tents with Absalam on the barren plains beyond the town.

When Israel heard of what had been done he secretly rejoiced; but Ben Aboo was in a commotion of fear, and Katrina was fierce with anger, for the doctrine which Absalam had preached to his neighbours outside the walls was not his own doctrine merely, but that of a great man lately risen among the people, called Mohammed of Mequinez, nicknamed by his enemies Mohammed the Third.