as
no more than a little child, swayed by her impulses alone, but in more
danger from herself than any child before her, because deprived of two
of her senses until she had grown to be a maid, and no control could be
imposed upon her.

At length Israel nerved himself to his bitter task; and one evening
while Naomi sat with him on the roof while the sun was setting, and
there were noises in the streets below of the Jewish people shuffling
back into the Mellah, he told her that she was blind. The word made no
impression upon her mind at first. She had heard it before, and it had
passed her by like a sound that she did not know. She had been born
blind, and therefore could not realise what it was to see. To open a way
for the awful truth was difficult, and Israel's heart smote him while
he persisted. Naomi laughed as he put his fingers over her eyes that
he might show her. She laughed again when he asked if she could see the
people whom she could only hear. And once more she laughed when the sun
had gone down, and the mooddin had come out on the Grand Mosque in the
Metamar, and he asked if she could see the old blind man in the minaret,
where he was crying, "God is great! God is great!"

"Can you see him, little one?" said Israel.

"See him?" said Naomi; "why yes, you dear old father, of course I can
see him. Listen," she cried, ceasing her laughter, lifting one finger,
and holding her head aslant, "listen: God is great! God is great!
There--I saw him then."

"That is only hearing him, Naomi--hearing him with your ears--with this
ear and with this. But can you see him, sweetheart?"

Did her father mean to ask her if she could _feel_ the mooddin in his
minaret far above them? Once more she laid her head aslant. There was a
pause, and then she cried impulsively--

"Oh, _I_ know. But, you foolish old father, how _can_ I? He is too far
away."

Then she flung her arms about Israel's neck and kissed him.

"There," she cried, in a tone of one who settles differences, "I have
seen my _father_ anyway."

It was hard to check her merriment, but Israel had to do it. He told
her, with many throbs in his throat, that she was not like other
maidens--not like her father, or Ali, or Fatimah, or Habeebah; that she
was a being afflicted of God; that there was something she had not got,
something she could not do, a world she did not know, and had never yet
so much as dreamt of. Darkness was more than cold and quiet, and light
was