lways,
and that when the two black bondwomen in their helpless fear were
following the blind maiden through the darkening streets she in her turn
was following God?

When Fatimah and Habeebah saw what it was to which Naomi had led them,
though they were sorely concerned at it, yet they were relieved as well,
and put by the worst of the fears with which her strange behaviour had
infected them. And remembering that she was the daughter of Israel, and
they were his servants, and neither thinking themselves safe from
danger if they stayed any longer where his name was bandied about as a
reproach, nor fully knowing how many of the curses that were heaped upon
him found a way to Naomi's mind, they were for turning again and going
back to the house.

"Come," said Habeebah; "let us go--we are not safe."

"Yes," said Fatimah; "let us take the poor child back."

"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, thro