Israel bought the bread and the meat, the raisins and the figs which the prisoners needed—­enough for the present and for many days to come.  Then he hired six mules with burdas to bear the food to Shawan, and a man two days to lead them.  Also he hired mules for himself and Ali, for he knew full well that, unless with his own eyes he saw the followers of Absalam receive what he had bought, no chance was there, in these days of famine, that it would ever reach them.  And, all being ready for his short journey, he set out in the middle of the day, when the sun was highest, hoping that the town would then be at rest, and thinking to escape observation.

His expectation was so far justified that the market-place, when he came to it again, with his little caravan going before him, was silent and deserted.  But, coming into the walled lane to the Bab Toot, the gate at which the Shawan road enters, he encountered a great throng and a strange procession.  It was a procession of penance and petition, asking God to wipe out the plague of locusts that was destroying the land and eating up the bread of its children.  A venerable Jew, with long white beard, walked side by side with a Moor of great stature, enshrouded in the folds of his snow-white haik.  These were the chief Rabbi of the Jews and the Imam of the Muslims, and behind them other Jews and Moors walked abreast in the burning sun.  All were barefooted, and such as were Berbers were bareheaded also.

“In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful!” the Imam cried, and the Muslims echoed him.

“By the God of Jacob!” the Rabbi prayed, and the Jews repeated the words after him.

“Spare us!  Spare the land!” they all cried together.  “Send rain to destroy the eggs of the locust!” cried the Rabbi.  “Else will they rise on the ground in the sunshine like rice on the granary floor; and neither fire nor river nor the army of the Sultan will stop them; and we ourselves will die, and our children with us!”

And the Jews cried, “God of Jacob, be our refuge.”

And the Muslims shouted, “Allah, save us!”

It was a strange sight to look upon in that land of intolerance—­the haughty Moor and the despised Jew, with all petty hatreds sunk out of sight and forgotten in the grip of the death that threatened both alike, walking and praying in the public streets together.

Israel drew close to the wall and passed by unobserved.  And being come into the open road outside the town, he began to take a view of the motives that had brought him away from his home again.  Then he saw that, if he was not a hypocrite like Reuben, no credit could he give himself for what he was doing, and if he was poor who had before been rich, no merit could he make of his poverty.