oors. 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!"

At the sound of that word, never before spoken, though every ear had
waited for it, the shouts of the crowd rose to madness. But suddenly
in the midst of the wild vociferations there was a shrill cry of "He is
there!" and then there was a great silence.

It was Israel himself. He was coming afoot down the lane under the town
walls from the gate called the Bab Toot, where the road comes in from
Shawan. At fifty paces behind him Ali, the black boy, was riding one
mule and leading another.

He was returning from the prison, and thinking how the poor followers
of Absalam, after he had fed them of his poverty, had blest him out
of their dry throats, saying, "May the God of Jacob bless you also,
brother!" and "May the child of your wife be blessed!" Ah! those
blessings, he could hear them still! They followed him as he walked.
He did not fly from them any longer, for they sang in his ears and were
like music in his melted soul. Once before he had heard such music.
It was in England. The organ swelled and the voices rose, and he was a
lonely boy, for his mother lay in her grave at his feet. His mother! How
strangely his heart was softened towards himself and-all the world And
Ruth! He could think of nothing without tenderness. And Naomi! Ah! the
sun was nigh two hours down, and Naomi would be waiting for him at home,
for she was as one that had no life without his presence. What would
befall if he were taken from her? That thought was like the sweeping of
a dead hand across his face. So his body stooped as he walked with his
staff, and his head was held down, and his step was heavy.

Thus the old lion came on to the market-place, where the people were
gathered together as wolves to devour him. On he came, seeing nothing
and hearing nothing and fearing nothing, and in the silence of the first
surprise at sight of him his footsteps were heard on the stones.

Naomi heard them.

Then it seemed to Naomi's ears that a voice fell, as it were, out of the
air, crying, "God has given him into our hands!" After that all sounds
seemed to Naomi to fade far-away, and to come to her muffled and stifled
by the distance.

But with a loud shout, as if it had been a shout out of one great
throat, the crowd encompassed Israel crying, "Kill him!" Israel st