hame
of that awful moment when he stood with the key in hand at the door of
Naomi's prison. By the light of the lamps in the hands of the passers-by
Naomi was looking at him. Again and again, as the glare fell for an
instant, he felt the eyes of the girl upon his face. At such moments he
thought she must be drawing away from him, for the space between them
seemed wider. But he firmly held to the outstretched arm, kept his head
aside, and hastened on.

"What matter about me?" he whispered again. But the brave word brought
him no comfort. "Now she's looking at my hand," he told himself, but
he could not draw it away. "She is doubting if I am Ali after all," he
thought. "Naomi!" he tried to say with averted head, so that once again
the sound of his voice might reassure her; but his throat was thick, and
he could not speak. Still he pushed on.

The dark town just then was like a mountain chasm when a storm that has
been gathering is about to break. In the air a deep rumble, and then a
loud detonation. Blackness overhead, and things around that seemed to
move and pass.

Drawing near to the Bab Toot, the gate that witnessed the last scene of
Israel's humiliation and Naomi's shame, Ali, with the girl beside him,
came suddenly into a sheet of light and a concourse of people. It was
the Mahdi and his vast following with lamps in their hands, entering the
town on the west, while the Spaniards whom they had brought up to the
gates were coming in on the east. The Mahdi himself was locking the
synagogues and the sanctuaries.

"Lock them up," he was saying. "It is enough that the foreigner must
burn down the Sodom of our tyrant; let him not outrage the Zion of our
God."

Ali led Naomi up to the Mahdi, who saw her then for the first time.

"I have brought her," he said breathlessly; "Naomi, Israel's daughter,
this is she." And then there was a moment of surprise and joy, and pain
and shame and despair, all gathered up together into one look of the
eyes of the three.

The Mahdi looked at Naomi, and his face lightened. Naomi looked at Ali,
and her pale face grew paler, and she passed a tress of her fair hair
across her lips to smother a little nervous cry that began to break from
her mouth. Then she looked at the Mahdi, and her lips parted and her
eyes shone. Ali looked at both, and his face twitched and fell.

This was only the work of an instant, but it was enough. Enough for
the Mahdi, for it told him a secret that the wisd