Ben Aboo was in no mood to stand on the rights of a strict Mohammedan,
and he accepted both of her conditions. The first he never meant to
abide by, but the second she took care he should observe, and, as a
prelude to that public life which she intended to live by his side, she
insisted on a public marriage.

They were married according to the rites of the Catholic Church by a
Franciscan friar settled at Tangier, and the marriage festival lasted
six days. Great was the display, and lavish the outlay. Every morning
the cannon of the fort fired a round of shot from the hill, every
evening the tribesmen from the mountains went through their feats of
powder-play in the market-place, and every night a body of Aissawa from
Mequinez yelled and shrieked in the enclosure called the M'salla, near
the Bab er-Remoosh. Feasts were spread in the Kasbah, and relays of
guests from among the chief men of the town were invited daily to
partake of them.

No man dared to refuse his invitation, or to neglect the tribute of a
present, though the Moors well knew that they were lending the light
of their countenance to a brazen outrage on their faith, and though
it galled the hearts of the Jews to make merry at the marriage of a
Christian and a Muslim--no man except Israel, and he excused himself
with what grace he could, being in no mood for rejoicing, but sick with
sorrow of the heart.

The Spanish woman was not to be gainsaid. She had taken her measure of
the man, and had resolved that a servant so powerful as Israel should
pay her court and tribute before all. Therefore she caused him to be
invited again; but Israel had taken his measure of the woman, and with
some lack of courtesy he excused himself afresh.

Katrina was not yet done. She was a creature of resource, and having
heard of Naomi with strange stories concerning her, she devised a
children's feast for the last day of the marriage festival, and
caused Ben Aboo to write to Israel a formal letter, beginning "To our
well-beloved the excellent Israel ben Oliel, Praise to the one God,"
and setting forth that on the morrow, when the "Sun of the world" should
"place his foot in the stirrup of speed," and gallop "from the kingdom
of shades," the Governor would "hold a gathering of delight" for all the
children of Tetuan and he, Israel, was besought to "lighten it with the
rays of his face, rivalled only by the sun," and to bring with him
his little daughter Naomi, whose arrival "sim