Then a great hoarse groan came from Israel's throat.
"Poor child, it was not her fault.Listen," said Fatimah; "only listen."But Israel would hear no more.The torrent of his fury bore down everything before it.Fatimah's feeble protests were drowned.
"Silence!" he cried."What need is there for words? She is in the palace!--that's enough.The women's palace--the hareem--what more is there to say?"Putting the fact so to his own consciousness, and seeing it grossly in all its horror, his passion fell like a breaking in of waters.
"O God!" he cried, "my enemy casts me into prison.I lie there, rotting, starving.I think of my little daughter left behind alone.
I hasten home to her.But where is she? She is gone.
She is in the house of my enemy.Curse her!....Ah! no, no;not that, either! Pardon me, O God; not that, whatever happens!
But the palace--the women's palace.Naomi! My little daughter!
Her face was so sweet, so simple.I could have sworn that she was innocent.My love! my dove! I had only to look at her to see that she loved me! And now the hareem--that hell, and Ben Aboo--that libertine! I have lost her for ever!
Yet her soul was mine--I wrestled with God for it--"He stopped suddenly, his face became awfully discoloured, he dropped to his knees on the floor, lifted his eyes and his hands towards heaven, and cried in a voice at once stern and heartrending, "Kill her, O God! Kill her body, O my God, that her soul may be mine again!"At this awful cry Fatimah fled out of the hut.It was the last voice of tottering reason.After that he became quiet, and when Fatimah returned the following morning he was talking to himself in a childish way while sitting at the door, and gazing before him with a lifeless look.Sometimes he quoted Scriptures which were startlingly true to his own condition: "I am alone, I am a companion to owls....I have cleansed my heart in vain....