igns when he is awake._

_With this man, so singular a mixture of the haughty chief and the joyous
child, there is another, a woman, his wife. She is beautiful with a
beauty rarely seen in other women, and her senses are subtle beyond the
wonders of enchantment. Together these two, with their ragged fellowship
of the poor behind them, having no homes and no possessions, pass
from place to place, unharmed and unhindered, through that land of
intolerance and iniquity, being protected and reverenced by virtue of
the superstition which accepts them for Saints. Who are they? What have
they been?_

CHAPTER I

ISRAEL BEN OLIEL

Israel was the son of a Jewish banker at Tangier. His mother was
the daughter of a banker in London. The father's name was Oliel; the
mother's was Sara. Oliel had held business connections with the house of
Sara's father, and he came over to England that he might have a personal
meeting with his correspondent. The English banker lived over his
office, near Holborn Bars, and Oliel met with his family. It consisted
of one daughter by a first wife, long dead, and three sons by a second
wife, still living. They were not altogether a happy household, and the
chief apparent cause of discord was the child of the first wife in the
home of the second. Oliel was a man of quick perception, and he saw the
difficulty. That was how it came about that he was married to Sara. When
he returned to Morocco he was some thousand pounds richer than when he
left it, and he had a capable and personable wife into his bargain.

Oliel was a self-centred and silent man, absorbed in getting and
spending, always taking care to have much of the one, and no more than
he could help of the other. Sara was a nervous and sensitive little
woman, hungering for communion and for sympathy. She got little of
either from her husband, and grew to be as silent as he. With the people
of the country of her adoption, whether Jews or Moors, she made no
headway. She never even learnt their language.

Two years passed, and then a child was born to her. This was Israel, and
for many a year thereafter he was all the world to the lonely woman. His
coming made no apparent difference to his father. He grew to be a tall
and comely boy, quick and bright, and inclined to be of a sweet and
cheerful disposition. But the school of his upbringing was a hard one. A
Jewish child in Morocco might know from his cradle that he was not born
a Moor and a Moh