He was laughing at everything, yet not wildly, not recklessly, not without meaning or intention, but with the cheer of a happy and contented man.
Israel was mad, and his madness was a moving thing to look upon.
He thought he was back at home and a rich man still, as he had been in earlier days, but a generous man also, as he was in later ones.
With liberal hand he was dispensing his charities.
"Take what you need; eat, drink, do not stint; there is more where this has come from; it is not mine; God has lent it me for the good of all."With such words, graciously spoken, he served out the provisions according to his habit, and only departed from his daily custom in piling the measures higher, and in saluting the people by titles--Sid, Sidi, Mulai, and the like--in degree as their clothes were poor and ragged.It was a mad heart that spoke so, but also it was a big one.
From that time forward he looked upon the prisoners as his guests, and when fresh prisoners came to the prison he always welcomed them as if he were host there and they were friends who visited him.
"Welcome!" he would say; "you are very welcome.The place is your own.
Take all.What you don't see, believe we have not got it.
A thousand thousand welcomes home!" It was grim and painful irony.
Israel's comrades began to lose sense of their own suffering in observing the depth of his, and they laid their heads together to discover the cause of his madness.The most part of them concluded that he was repining for the loss of his former state.
And when one day another prisoner came from Tetuan with further tales of the Basha's tyranny, and of the people's shame at thought of how they had dealt by Israel, the prisoners led the man back to where Israel was standing in the accustomed act of dispensing bounty, that he might tell his story into the rightful ears.