with God for it--"

He stopped suddenly, his face became awfully discoloured, he dropped to
his knees on the floor, lifted his eyes and his hands towards heaven,
and cried in a voice at once stern and heartrending, "Kill her, O God!
Kill her body, O my God, that her soul may be mine again!"

At this awful cry Fatimah fled out of the hut. It was the last voice of
tottering reason. After that he became quiet, and when Fatimah returned
the following morning he was talking to himself in a childish way
while sitting at the door, and gazing before him with a lifeless look.
Sometimes he quoted Scriptures which were startlingly true to his own
condition: "I am alone, I am a companion to owls. . . . I have cleansed
my heart in vain. . . . My feet are almost gone, my steps have well-nigh
slipped. . . . I am as one whom his mother comforteth."

Between these Scriptures there were low incoherent cries and simple
foolish play-words. Again and again he called on Naomi, always softly
and tenderly, as if her name were a sacred thing. At times he appeared
to think that he was back in prison, and made a little prayer--always
the same--that some one should be kept from harm and evil. Once he
seemed to hear a voice that cried, "Israel ben Oliel! Israel ben Oliel!"
"Here! Israel is here!" he answered. He thought the Kaid was calling
him. The Kaid was the King. "Yes, I will go back to the King," he said.
Then he looked down at his tattered kaftan, which was mired with dirt,
and tried to brush it clean, to button it, and to tie up the ragged
threads of it. At last he cried, as if servants were about him and he
were a master still, "Bring me robes--clean robes--white robes; I am
going back to the King!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ENTRY OF THE SULTAN

Meantime Tetuan was looking for the visit of His Shereefian Majesty,
the Sultan Abd er-Rahman. He had been heard of about four hours away,
encamped with his Ministers, a portion of his hareem, and a detachment
of his army, somewhere by the foot of Beni Hosmar. His entry was fixed
for eight o'clock next morning, and preparations for his coming were
everywhere afoot. All other occupations were at a standstill, and
nothing was to be heard but the noise and clamour of the cleansing of
the streets, and the hanging of flags and of carpets.

Early on the following morning a street-crier came, beating a drum,
and crying in a hoarse voice, "Awake! Awake! Come and greet your Lord!
Awake! Awake!"

In