ed enclosure, surmounted by a
white flag; and, as Israel passed it, the figure of a man came out to
the entrance. He was a poor, miserable creature--ragged, dirty, and with
dishevelled hair--and, seeing Israel's eyes upon him, he began to talk
in some wild way and in some unknown tongue that was only a fierce
jabber of sounds that had no words in them, and of words that had no
meaning. The poor soul was mad, and because he was distraught he was
counted a holy man among his people, and put to live in this place,
which was the tomb of a dead saint--though not more dead to the ways of
life was he who lay under the floor than he who lived above it. The
man continued his wild jabber as long as Israel's eyes were on him, and
Israel dropped two coins into his hand and passed on.

Oh no, no, no; Naomi was not the most afflicted of all God's creatures.
And yet, and yet, and yet, her bodily infirmities were but the type and
sign of how her soul was smitten.

On the hill outside the town the young Mahdi, with a great company of
his people, was waiting for him to bid him godspeed on his journey.
And then, while they walked some paces together before parting, and the
prophet talked of the poor followers of Absalam lying in the prison at
Shawan (for he had heard of them from Israel), Israel himself mentioned
Naomi.

"My father," he said, "there is something that I have not told you."

"Tell it now, my son," said the Mahdi.

"I have a little daughter at home, and she is very sweet and beautiful.
You would never think how like sunshine she is to me in my lonely house,
for her mother is gone, and but for her I should be alone, and so she is
very near and dear to me. But she is in the land of silence and in the
land of night. Nothing can she see, and nothing hear, and never has
her voice opened the curtains of the air, for she is blind and dumb and
deaf."

"Merciful Allah!" cried the Mahdi.

"Ah! is her state so terrible? I thought you would think it so. Yes, for
all she is so beautiful, she is only as a creature of the fields that
knows not God."

"Allah preserve her!" cried the Mahdi.

"And she is smitten for my sin, for the Lord revealed it to me in the
vision, and my soul trembles for her soul. But if God has washed me with
water should not she also be clean?"

"God knows," said the Mahdi. "He gives no rewards for repentance."

"But listen!" said Israel. "In a vision of death her mother saw her, and
she was afflicted no