God is mighty! Praise the merciful God for ever! El hamdu l'Illah!"And marvellous and passing belief as the old Taleb's story seemed to be, it appeared to be coming to pass, for even while he spoke, beginning in a slow whisper and going on with quicker and louder breath, Naomi turned her face full upon him; and when the black women in their ready faith, joined in his shouts of praise, she turned her face towards them also; and wherever a voice sounded in the room she inclined her head towards it as one who knew the direction of the sounds, and also as one who was in fear of them.
But, seeing nothing of her look of pain, and knowing nothing but one thing only, and that was the wondrous and mighty change that she who had been deaf could now hear, that she who had never before heard speech now heard their voices as they spoke around her, Ali, in his frantic delight laughing and crying together, his white teeth aglitter, and his round black face shining with tears, began to shout and to sing, and to dance around the bed in wild joy at the miracle which God had wrought in answer to his old Taleb's prayer.
No heed did he pay to the Taleb's cries of warning, but danced on and on, and neither did the bondwomen see the old man's uplifted arms or his big lips pursed out in hushes, so overpowered were they with their delight, so startled and so joy drunken.But over their tumult there came a wild outburst of piercing shrieks.They were the cries of Naomi in her blind and sudden terror at the first sounds that had reached her of human voices.Her face was blanched, her eyelids were trembling, her lips were restless, her nostrils quivered, her whole being seemed to be overcome by a vertigo of dread, and, in the horrible disarray of all her sensations her brain, on its wakening from its dolorous sleep of three delirious days, was tottering and reeling at its welcome in this world of noise.
Then Ali ended suddenly his frantic dance, the bondwomen held their peace in an instant, and blank silence in the chamber followed the clamour of tongues.