Free, mighty, noble, beautiful England! Ah, how it shone in his memory, the little white island of the sea! His mother's home! England!
Yes, he would go back to it.True, he had no friends there now;but what matter of that? Ah, yes, he was old, and the roll-call of his kindred showed him pitiful gaps.His mother! Ruth!
But he had Naomi still.Naomi! He spoke her name aloud, softly, tenderly, caressingly, as if his wrinkled hand were on her hair.
Then recovering himself, he laughed to think that he could be so childish.
Near to sunset he came upon a dooar, a tent village, in a waste place.
It was pitched in a wide circle, and opened inwards.The animals were picketed in the centre, where children and dogs were playing, and the voices of men and women came from inside the tents.
Fires were burning under kettles swung from triangles, and sight of this reminded Israel that he had not eaten since the previous day.
"I must have food," he thought, "though I do not feel hungry."So he stopped, and the wandering Arabs hailed him."Markababikum!"they cried from where they sat within.
"You are very welcome! Welcome to our lofty land!" Their land was the world.
Israel went into one of the tents, and sat down to a dish of boiled beans and black bread.It was very sweet.A man was eating beside him;a woman, half dressed, and with face uncovered, was suckling a child while she worked a loom which was fastened to the tent's two upright poles.
Some fowls were nestling for the night under the tent wing, and a young girl was by turns churning milk by tossing it in a goat's-skin and baking cakes on a fire of dried thistles crackling in a hole over three stones.All were laughing together, and Israel laughed along with them.
"On a long journey, brother?" said the man,"No, oh no, no," said Israel."Only to Semsa, no farther.""Well, you must sleep here to-night," said the Arab.
"Ah, I cannot do that," said Israel.
"No?"
"You see, I am going back to my little daughter.She is alone, poor child, and has not seen her old father for months.