turning towards the woman, he said, "Madam, we are
in the hands of God. Look! See! He has sent His angel to protect His
servant."

Meantime, Ben Aboo was quaking with fear. He too, saw the finger of God
in the wondrous thing which had come to pass. And, falling back on his
maudlin mood, he muttered prayers beneath his breath, as he had done
before when the human majesty, the Sultan Abd er-Rahman, was the object
of his terror. "O Giver of good to all! What is this? Allah save us!
Bismillah! Is it Allah or the Jinoon? Merciful! Compassionate! Curses on
them both! Allah! Allah!"

The soldiers were affected by the fears of the Basha, and they huddled
together in a group. But Katrina fell to laughing.

"Brava!" she cried. "Brava! Oh! a brave imposture! What did I say long
ago? Blind? No more blind than you were! But a pretty pretence! Well
acted! Very well acted! Brava! Brava!"

Thus she laughed and mocked, and the Basha, hearing her, took shame of
his crawling fears, and made a poor show of joining her.

Israel heard them, and for a moment, seeing how they made sport of
Naomi, a fire was kindled in his anger that seemed to come up from the
lowest hell. But he fought back the passion that was mastering him, and
at the next instant the laughter had ceased, and Ben Aboo was saying--

"Guards, take both of them. Set the man on an ass, and let the girl walk
barefoot before him; and let a crier cry beside them, 'So shall it be
done to every man who is an enemy of the Kaid, and to every woman who
is a play-actor and a cheat!' Thus let them pass through the streets and
through the people until they are come to a gate of the town, and then
cast them forth from it like lepers and like dogs!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE RAINBOW SIGN

While this bad work had been going forward in the Kasbah a great
blessing had fallen on the town. The long-looked for, hoped for, prayed
for--the good and blessed rain--had come at last. In gentle drops like
dew it had at first been falling from the rack of dark cloud which had
gathered over the heads of the mountains, and now, after half an hour of
such moisture, the sky over the town was grey, and the rain was pouring
down like a flood.

Oh! the joy of it, the sweetness, the freshness, the beauty, the odour!
The air overhead, which had been dense with dust, was clearing and
whitening as if the water washed it. And the ground underfoot, which
had reeked of creeping and crawling things, was runn