Oh, it's a brave imposture! Brava, brave!"Still the little maiden played, but now her brow was clouded, her head dropped, her eyelashes were downcast, and she hung over the harp and sighed audibly.
"Good again!" cried the woman."Very good!" and she clapped her hands, whereupon the Arabs and the Moors, forgetting their dread, felt constrained to follow her example, and they cheered in their wilder way, but the Jews continued to mutter, "Beelzebub, Beelzebub!"Israel saw it all, and at first, amid the commotion of his mind and the confusion of his senses, his heart melted at sight of what Naomi did.Had God opened a gateway to her soul?
Were the poor wings of her spirit to spread themselves out at last?
Was this, then, the way of speech that Heaven had given her?
But hardly had Israel overflowed with the tenderness of such thoughts when the bleating and barking of the faces about him awakened his anger.
Then, like blows on his brain, came the cries of the wife of the Governor, who cheered this awakening of the girl's soul as it were no better than a vulgar show; and at that Israel's wrath rose to his throat.
"Brava, brava!" cried the woman again; and, turning to Israel, she said, "You shall leave the child with me.I must have her with me always."Israel's throat seemed to choke him at that word.He looked at Katrina, and saw that she was a woman lustful of breath and vain of heart, who had married Ben Aboo because he was rich.
Then he looked at Naomi, and remembered that her heart was clear as the water, and sweet as the morning, and pure as the snow.
And at that moment the wife of the Governor cheered again, and again the people echoed her, and even the women on the housetops made bold to take up her cry with their cooing ululation.The playing had ceased, the spell had dissolved, Naomi's fingers had fallen from the harp, her head had dropped into her breast, and with a sigh she had sunk forward on to her face.
"Take her in!" said the wife of Ben Aboo, and two Arab soldiers stepped up to where the little maiden lay.But before they had touched her Israel strode out with swollen lips and distended nostrils.
"Stop!" he cried.
The Arabs hesitated, and looked towards their master.
"Do as you are bidden--take her in!" said Ben Aboo.
"Stop!" cried Israel again, in a loud voice that rang through the court.
Then, parting the Arabs with a sweep of his arms, he picked up the unconscious maiden, and faced about on the new wife of Ben Aboo.
"Madam," he cried, "I, Israel ben Oliel, may belong to the Governor, but my child belongs to me."So saying, he passed out of the court, carrying the girl in his arms, and in the dead silence and blank stupor of that moment none seemed to know what he had done until he was gone.
Israel went home in his anger; but nevertheless, out of this event he found courage in his heart to begin his task again.Let his enemies bleat and bark "Beelzebub," yet the child was an angel, though suffering for his sin, and her soul was with God.She was a spirit, and the songs she had played were the airs of paradise.But, comforting himself so, Israel remembered the vision of Ruth, wherein Naomi had recovered her powers.He had put it from him hitherto as the delirium of death, but would the Lord yet bring it to pass? Would God in His mercy some day take the angel out of his house, though so strangely gifted, so radiant and beautiful and joyful, and give him instead for the hunger of his heart as a man this sweet human child, his little, fair-haired Naomi, though helpless and simple and weak?
