o swift had this change been that the bondwomen had not seen it, and
they were shouting "Hallelujah!" with one voice, thinking only that
she who had been dead to them was alive again. But the old Taleb cried
eagerly, "Hush! my children, hush! What is coming is a marvellous thing!
I know what it is--who knows so well as I? Once I was deaf, my children,
but now I hear. Listen! The maiden has had fever--fever of the brain.
Listen! A watery humour had gathered in her head. It has gone, it has
flowed away. Now she will hear. Listen, for it is I that know it--who
knows it so well as I? Yes; she will be no longer deaf. Her ears will be
opened. She will hear. Once she was living in a land of silence; now
she is coming into the land of sound. Blessed be God, for He has wrought
this wondrous work. God is great! God is mighty! Praise the merciful God
for ever! El hamdu l'Illah!"

And marvellous and passing belief as the old Taleb's story seemed to be,
it appeared to be coming to pass, for even while he spoke, beginning in
a slow whisper and going on with quicker and louder breath, Naomi turned
her face full upon him; and when the black women in their ready faith,
joined in his shouts of praise, she turned her face towards them also;
and wherever a voice sounded in the room she inclined her head towards
it as one who knew the direction of the sounds, and also as one who was
in fear of them.

But, seeing nothing of her look of pain, and knowing nothing but one
thing only, and that was the wondrous and mighty change that she who had
been deaf could now hear, that she who had never before heard speech now
heard their voices as they spoke around her, Ali, in his frantic delight
laughing and crying together, his white teeth aglitter, and his round
black face shining with tears, began to shout and to sing, and to dance
around the bed in wild joy at the miracle which God had wrought in
answer to his old Taleb's prayer. No heed did he pay to the Taleb's
cries of warning, but danced on and on, and neither did the bondwomen
see the old man's uplifted arms or his big lips pursed out in hushes,
so overpowered were they with their delight, so startled and so joy
drunken. But over their tumult there came a wild outburst of piercing
shrieks. They were the cries of Naomi in her blind and sudden terror
at the first sounds that had reached her of human voices. Her face
was blanched, her eyelids were trembling, her lips were restless, her
nostrils q