“Come along, then,” said Habeebah, and she laid hold of Naomi’s hand.

“Naomi, Naomi,” whispered Fatimah in the girl’s ear, “we are going home.  Come, dearest, come.”

But Naomi was not to be moved.  No gentle voice availed to stir her.  She stood where she had placed herself on the outskirts of the crowd, motionless save for her heaving bosom and trembling limbs, and silent save for her loud breathing and the low muttering of her pale lips, yet listening eagerly with her neck outstretched.

And if, as she listened, any human eye could have looked in on her dumb and imprisoned soul, the tumult it would have seen must have been terrible.  For, though no one knew it as a certainty, yet in her darkness and muteness since the coming of her gift of hearing she had been learning speech and the different voices of men.  All that was spoken in that crowd she understood, and never a word escaped her, and what others saw she felt, only nearer and more terrible, because wrapped in the darkness outside her eyes that were blind.

First there came a lull in the general clamour, and then a coarse, jarring, stridulous voice rose in the air.  Naomi knew whose voice it was—­it was the voice of old Abraham Pigman, the usurer.

“Brothers of Tetuan,” the old man cried, “what are we waiting for?  For the verdict of the judges?  Who wants their verdict?  There is only one thing to do.  Let us ask the Kaid to remove this man.  The Kaid is a humane master.  If he has sometimes worked wrong by us, he has been driven to do that which in his soul he abhors.  Let us go to him and say:  ’Lord Basha, through five-and-twenty years this man of our people has stood over us to oppress us, and your servants have suffered and been silent.  In that time we have seen the seed of Israel hunted from the houses of their fathers where they have lived since their birth.  We have seen them buffeted and smitten, without a resting-place for the soles of their feet, and perishing in hunger and thirst and nakedness and the want of all things.  Is this to your honour, or your glory, or your profit?’”

The people broke into loud cries of approval, and when they were once more silent, the thick voice went on:  “And not the seed of Israel only, but the sons of Islam also, has this man plunged in the depths of misery.  Under a Sultan who desires liberty and a Kaid who loves justice, in a land that breathes freedom and a city that is favoured of God, our brethren the Muslimeen sink with us in deep mire where there is no standing.  Every day brings to both its burden of fresh sorrow.  At this moment a plague is upon us.  The country is bare; the town is overflowing; every man stumbles over his fellow our lives hang in doubt; in the morning we say ‘Would it were evening’; in the evening we say, ‘Would it were morning’; stretch out your hand and help us!”

Again the crowd burst into shouts of assent, and the stridulous voice continued:  “Let us say to him ’Lord Basha, there is no way of help but one.  Pluck down this man that is set over us.  He belongs to our own race and nation; but give us a master of any other race and nation; any Moor, any Arab, any Berber, any negro; only take back this man of our own people, and your servants will bless you.’”