Then, while the black people held their breath in their first moment of surprise and gladness, her parted lips gave forth a sound.
It was a laugh--a faint, broken, bankrupt echo of her old happy laughter.
And then instantly, almost before the others had heard the sound, and while the notes of it were yet coming from her tongue, she lifted her idle hand and covered her ear, and over her face there passed a look of dread.
So swift had this change been that the bondwomen had not seen it, and they were shouting "Hallelujah!" with one voice, thinking only that she who had been dead to them was alive again.But the old Taleb cried eagerly, "Hush! my children, hush! What is coming is a marvellous thing! I know what it is--who knows so well as I?
Once I was deaf, my children, but now I hear.Listen!
The maiden has had fever--fever of the brain.Listen!
A watery humour had gathered in her head.It has gone, it has flowed away.Now she will hear.Listen, for it is Ithat know it--who knows it so well as I? Yes; she will be no longer deaf.
Her ears will be opened.She will hear.Once she was living in a land of silence; now she is coming into the land of sound.
Blessed be God, for He has wrought this wondrous work.God is great!