At the first glint of daylight in the morning the lad was up and gone, and away through the town-gate to the heath beyond, as far as to the fondak, which stands on the hill above it, that he might strain his wet eyes in the pitiless sunlight for Israel’s caravan that should soon come.  On the first morning he saw nothing, but on the second morning he came upon Israel’s men returning without him, and telling their lying story that he had been stripped of everything by the Sultan at Fez, and was coming behind them penniless.

Now, Israel was to Ali the greatest, noblest, mightiest man among men.  That he should fall was incredible, and that any man should say he had fallen was an affront and an outrage.  So, stripling as he was, the lad faced the rascals with the courage of a lion.  “Liars and thieves!” he cried; “tell that story to another soul in Tetuan, and I will go straight to the Kaid at the Kasbah, and have every black dog of you all whipped through the streets for plundering my master.”

The men shouted in derision and passed on, firing their matchlocks as a mock salute.  But Ali had his will of them; they told their tale no more, and when they entered Tetuan, and their fellows questioned them concerning their journey, they took refuge in the reticence that sits by right of nature on the tongues of Moors—­they said and knew nothing.

While Ali was on the heath looking out for Israel, the doctor out of Tangier came to Naomi.  The girl was still unconscious, and the wise leech shook his head over her.  Her case was hopeless; she was sinking—­in plain words, she was dying—­and if her father did not come before the morrow he would come too late to find her alive.

Then the black women fell to weeping and wailing, and after that to spiritual conflict.  Both were born in Islam, but Fatimah had secretly become a Jewess by persuasion of her mistress who was dead.  She was, therefore, for sending for the Chacham.  But Habeebah had remained a Muslim, and she was for calling the Imam.  “The Imam is good, the Imam is holy; who so good and holy as the Imam?” “Nay, but our Sidi holds not with the Imam, for our lord is a Jew, and our lord is our master, our lord is our sultan, our lord is our king.”  “Shoof!  What is Sidi against paradise?  And paradise is for her who makes a follower of Moosa into a follower of Mohammed.  Let but the child die with the Kelmah on her lips, and we are all three blest for ever—­otherwise we will burn everlastingly in the fires of Jehinnum.”  “But, alack! how can the poor girl say the Kelmah, being as dumb as the grave?” “Then how can she say the Shemang either?”