any of soldiers returning to
the Kasbah after sacking and wrecking Israel's house; the other was a
company of old Jews, among whom were Reuben Maliki, Abraham Pigman, and
Judah ben Lolo. At the advent of the three usurers a new impulse seized
the people. They pretended to take the procession for a triumphal
progress--the departure of a Kaid, a Shereef, a Sultan. The soldier
and police fell into the humour of the multitude. Salaams were made
to Israel; selhams were flung on the ground before the feet of Naomi.
Reuben Maliki pushed through the crowd, and walked backward, and cried,
in his harsh, nasal croak--

"Brothers of Tetuan, behold your benefactor! Make way for him! Make way!
make way!"

Then there were loud guffaws, and oaths, and cries like the cry of the
hyena. Last of all, old Abraham Pigman handed over the people's heads a
huge green Spanish umbrella to a negro farrier that walked within; and
the black fellow, showing his white teeth in a wide grim, held it over
Israel's head.

Then from fifty rasping throats came mocking cries.

"God bless our Lord!"

"Saviour of his people!"

"Benefactor! King of men!"

And over and between these cries came shrieks and yells of laughter.

All this time Israel had sat motionless on his ass, neither showing
humiliation nor fear. His face was worn and ashy, but his eyes burned
with a piteous fire. He looked up and saw everything; saw himself mocked
by the soldier and the crier, insulted by the Muslimeen, derided by the
Jews, spat upon and smitten by the people whose hungry mouths he had fed
with bread. Above all, he saw Naomi going before him in her shame, and
at that sight his heart bled and his spirit burred. And, thinking that
it was he who had brought her to this ignominy, he sometimes yearned to
reach her side and whisper in her ear, and say, "Forgive me, my child,
forgive me." But again he conquered the desire, for he remembered
what God had that day done for her; and taking it for a sign of God's
pleasure, and a warranty that he had done well, he raised his eyes on
her with tears of bitter joy, and thought, in the wild fever of his
soul, "She is sharing the triumph of my humiliation. She is walking
through the mocking and jeering crowd, but see! God Himself is walking
beside her!"

The procession had now come to the walled lane to the Bab Toot, the gate
going out to Tangier and to Shawan. There the way was so narrow and the
concourse so great that for a moment