Like a bolt out of the sky there came a great shout of “Yes!” And instantly afterwards, from another direction, there came a fourth voice, a peevish, tremulous voice, the voice of an old woman.  Naomi knew it—­it was the voice of Rebecca Bensabott, ninety-and-odd years of age, and still deaf as a stone.

“Tut!  What is all this talking about?” she snapped and grunted.  “Reuben Maliki, save your wind for your widows—­you don’t give them too much of it.  And, Abraham Pigman, go home to your money-bags.  I am an old fool, am I?  Well, I’ve the more right to speak plain.  What are we waiting here for?  The judges?  Pooh!  The sentence?  Fiddle-faddle!  It is Israel ben Oliel, isn’t it?  Then stone him!  What are you afraid of?  The Kaid?  He’ll laugh in your faces.  A blood-feud?  Who is to wage it?  A ransom?  Who is to ask for it?  Only this mute, this Naomi, and you’ll have to work her a miracle and find her a tongue first.  Out on you!  Men?  Pshaw!  You are children!”

The people laughed—­it was the hard, grating, hollow laugh that sets the teeth on edge behind the lips that utter it.  Instantly the voices of the crowd broke up into a discordant clangour, like to the counter-currents of an angry sea.  “She’s right,” said a shrill voice.  “He deserves it,” snuffled a nasal one.  “At least let us drive him out of the town,” said a third gruff voice.  “To his house!” cried a fourth voice, that pealed over all.  “To his house!” came then from countless hungry throats.

“Come, let us go,” whispered Fatimah to Naomi, and again she laid hold of her arm to force her away.  But Naomi shook off her hand, and muttered strange sounds to herself.

“To his house!  Sack it!  Drive the tyrant out!” the people howled in a hundred rasping voices; but, before any one had stirred, a man riding a mule had forced his way into the middle of the crowd.

It was the messenger from under the Mellah gate.  In their new frenzy the people had forgotten him.  He had come to make known the decision of the Synhedrin.  The flag had fallen; the sentence was death.

Hearing this doom, the people heard no more, and neither did they wait for the procession of the judges, that they might learn of the means whereby they, who were not masters in their own house, might carry the sentence into effect.  The procession was even then forming.  It was coming out of the synagogue; it was passing under the gate of the Mellah; it was approaching the Sok el Foki.  The Rabbis walked in front of it.  At its tail came four Moors with shamefaced looks.  They were the soldiers and muleteers whom Israel had hired when he set out on his pilgrimage to that enemy of all Kaids and Bashas, Mohammed of Mequinez.  By-and-by they were to betray him to Ben Aboo.

But no one saw either Rabbis or Moors.  The people were twisting and turning like worms on an upturned turf.  “Why sack his house?” cried some.  “Why drive him out?” cried others.  “A poor revenge!” “Kill him!” “Kill him!”