But struggle as he would to find pleasure in these phantoms, he could not help but feel pain from them also.They had a perilous fascination for him, but he grudged them to Naomi.He thought he could have given his immortal soul to her, but these shadows he could not give.That was his poor tribute to human selfishness;his last tender, jealous frailty as a father.He dreaded the coming of that time when another--some other yet unseen--should come before him, and he should lose the daughter that was now his own.
Sometimes the memory of their old troubles in Tetuan seemed to cross like a thundercloud the azure of Naomi's sky, but at the next hour it was gone.The world was too full of marvels for any enduring sense but wonder.Once she awoke from sleep in terror, and told Israel of something which she believed to have happened to her in the night.
She had been carried away from him--she could not say when--and she knew no more until she found herself in a great patio, paved and wailed with tiles.Men were standing together there in red peaked caps and flowing white kaftans.And before them all was one old man in garments that were of the colour of the afternoon sun, with sleeves like the mouths of bells, a curling silver knife at his waistband, and little leather bags hung by yellow cords about his neck.