HOW NAOMI TURNED MUSLIMA
What had happened to Naomi during the two months and a half while Israel lay at Shawan is this: After the first agony of their parting, in which she was driven back by the soldiers when she attempted to follow them, she sat down in a maze of pain, without any true perception of the evil which had befallen her, but with her father's warning voice and his last words in her ear:
"Stay here.Never leave this place.Whatever they say, stay here.
I will come back."
When she awoke in the morning, after a short night of broken sleep and fitful dreams, the voice and the words were with her still, and then she knew for the first time what the meaning was, and what the penalty, of this strange and dread asundering.
She was alone, and, being alone, she was helpless; she was no better than a child, without kindred to look to her and without power to look to herself, with food and drink beside her, but no skill to make and take them.
Thus her awakening sense was like that of a lamb whose mother has been swallowed up in the night by the sand-drifts of the simoom.
It was not so much love as loss.What to do, where to look, which way to turn first, she knew no longer, and could not think, for lack of the hand that had been wont to guide her.
The neighbouring Moors heard of what had happened to Naomi, and some of the women among them came to see her.They were poor farming people, oppressed by cruel taxmasters; and the first things they saw were the cattle and sheep, and the next thing was the simple girl with the child-face, who knew nothing yet of the ways wherein a lonely woman must fend for herself.
"You cannot live here alone, my daughter," they said; "you would perish.
Then think of the danger--a child like you, with a face like a flower!
No, no, you must come to us.We will look to you like one of our own, and protect you from evil men.And as for the creatures--""But he said I was never to leave this place," said Naomi."'Stay here,'