Israel’s hair seemed to rise from his scalp at that word, and he turned about and hurried away.  Oh no, no, no!  He was not, of all men, the most sorely tried.  Worse to be a slave, torn from the arms he loves!  Worse to be a father whose children join with his enemies to curse him!

He had been wrong.  What was wealth, that it was so noble a sacrifice to part with it?  Money was to give and to take, to buy and to sell, and that was all.  But love was for no market, and he who lost it lost everything.  And love was his, and would be his always, for he loved Naomi, and she clung to him as the hyssop clings to the wall.  Let him walk humbly before God, for God was great.

Now these sights, though they reduced Israel’s pride, increased his cheerfulness, and he was going out at the gate with a humbler yet lighter spirit, when he came upon a saint’s house under the shadow of the town walls.  It was a small whitewashed enclosure, surmounted by a white flag; and, as Israel passed it, the figure of a man came out to the entrance.  He was a poor, miserable creature—­ragged, dirty, and with dishevelled hair—­and, seeing Israel’s eyes upon him, he began to talk in some wild way and in some unknown tongue that was only a fierce jabber of sounds that had no words in them, and of words that had no meaning.  The poor soul was mad, and because he was distraught he was counted a holy man among his people, and put to live in this place, which was the tomb of a dead saint—­though not more dead to the ways of life was he who lay under the floor than he who lived above it.  The man continued his wild jabber as long as Israel’s eyes were on him, and Israel dropped two coins into his hand and passed on.

Oh no, no, no; Naomi was not the most afflicted of all God’s creatures.  And yet, and yet, and yet, her bodily infirmities were but the type and sign of how her soul was smitten.

On the hill outside the town the young Mahdi, with a great company of his people, was waiting for him to bid him godspeed on his journey.  And then, while they walked some paces together before parting, and the prophet talked of the poor followers of Absalam lying in the prison at Shawan (for he had heard of them from Israel), Israel himself mentioned Naomi.

“My father,” he said, “there is something that I have not told you.”

“Tell it now, my son,” said the Mahdi.

“I have a little daughter at home, and she is very sweet and beautiful.  You would never think how like sunshine she is to me in my lonely house, for her mother is gone, and but for her I should be alone, and so she is very near and dear to me.  But she is in the land of silence and in the land of night.  Nothing can she see, and nothing hear, and never has her voice opened the curtains of the air, for she is blind and dumb and deaf.”

“Merciful Allah!” cried the Mahdi.

“Ah! is her state so terrible?  I thought you would think it so.  Yes, for all she is so beautiful, she is only as a creature of the fields that knows not God.”