About the middle of that night Naomi became delirious.
Fatimah stood constantly by her bed, bathing her hot forehead with vinegar and water; Habeebah slept in a chair at her feet;and Ali crouched in a corner outside the door of her room.
The druggist came in the morning, according to his promise;but there was nothing to be done, so he looked wise, wagged his head very solemnly, and said, "I will come again after two days more, when the fever must be near to its height, and bring a famous leech out of Tangier along with me!"Meantime, Naomi's delirium continued.It was gentle as her own spirit tent there.was this that was strange and eerie about her unconsciousness--that whereas she had been dumb while her mind in its dark cell must have been mistress of itself and of her soul, she spoke without ceasing throughout the time of her reason's vanquishment.Not that her poor tongue in its trouble uttered speech such as those that heard could follow and understand, but only a restless babble of empty sounds, yet with tones of varying feeling, sometimes of gladness, sometimes of sorrow, sometimes of remonstrance, and sometimes of entreaty.
All that night, and the next night also, the two black women sat together by her bedside, holding each other's hands like little children in great fear.Also Ali crouched again like a dog in the darkness outside the door, listening in terror to the silvery young voice that had never echoed in that house before.This was the night when Israel, sleeping at the squalid inn of the Jews of Wazzan, was hearing Naomi's voice in his dreams.
At the first glint of daylight in the morning the lad was up and gone, and away through the town-gate to the heath beyond, as far as to the fondak, which stands on the hill above it, that he might strain his wet eyes in the pitiless sunlight for Israel's caravan that should soon come.On the first morning he saw nothing, but on the second morning he came upon Israel's men returning without him, and telling their lying story that he had been stripped of everything by the Sultan at Fez, and was coming behind them penniless.