My feet are almost gone, my steps have well-nigh slipped....
I am as one whom his mother comforteth."
Between these Scriptures there were low incoherent cries and simple foolish play-words.Again and again he called on Naomi, always softly and tenderly, as if her name were a sacred thing.
At times he appeared to think that he was back in prison, and made a little prayer--always the same--that some one should be kept from harm and evil.Once he seemed to hear a voice that cried, "Israel ben Oliel! Israel ben Oliel!" "Here! Israel is here!"he answered.He thought the Kaid was calling him.The Kaid was the King.
"Yes, I will go back to the King," he said.Then he looked down at his tattered kaftan, which was mired with dirt, and tried to brush it clean, to button it, and to tie up the ragged threads of it.
At last he cried, as if servants were about him and he were a master still, "Bring me robes--clean robes--white robes;I am going back to the King!"