opped,
and lifted his heavy face upon the people; but neither did he cry out
nor make any struggle for his life. He stood erect and silent in their
midst, and massive and square. His brave bearing did not break their
fury. They fell upon him, a hundred hands together. One struck at his
face, another tore at his long grey hair, and a third thrust him down on
to his knees.

No one had yet observed on the outer rim of the crowd the pale slight
girl that stood there--blind, dumb, powerless, frail, and so softly
beautiful--a waif on the margin of a tempestuous sea. Through the
thick barriers of Naomi's senses everything was coming to her ugly and
terrible. Her father was there! They were tearing him to pieces!

Suddenly she was gone from the side of the two black women. Like a flash
of light she had passed through the bellowing throng. She had thrust
herself between the people and her father, who was on the ground: she
was standing over him with both arms upraised, and at that instant God
loosed her tongue, for she was crying, "Mercy! Mercy!"

Then the crowd fell back in great fear. The dumb had spoken. No man
dared to touch Israel any more. The hands that had been lifted against
him dropped back useless, and a wide circle formed around him. In the
midst of it stood Naomi. Her blind face quivered; she seemed to glow
like a spirit. And like a spirit she had driven back the people from
their deed of blood as with the voice of God--she, the blind, the frail,
the helpless.

Israel rose to his feet, for no man touched him again, and the
procession of judges, which had now come up, was silent. And, seeing how
it was that in the hour of his great need the gift of speech had come
upon Naomi, his heart rose big within him, and he tried to triumph over
his enemies and say, "You thought God's arm was against me, but behold
how God has saved me out of your hands."

But he could not speak. The dumbness that had fallen from his daughter
seemed to have dropped upon him.

At that moment Naomi turned to him and said, "Father!"

Then the cup of Israel's heart was full. His throat choked him. So he
took her by the hand in silence and down a long alley of the people they
passed through the Mellah gate and went home to their house. Her eyes
were to the earth, and she wept as she walked; but his face was lifted
up, and his tears and his blood ran down his cheeks together.

CHAPTER XVI

NAOMI'S BLINDNESS

Although Naomi, in her