Its walls were of clay that was bulged and cracked, and its roof was of rushes, which lay over it like sea-wreck on a broken barrel.
Israel was in his right mind.He was sitting by the door of his house, with a dejected air, a hopeless look, but the slow sad eyes of reason.
His clothing was one worn and torn kaftan; his feet were shoeless, and his head was bare.But so grand a head the Mahdi thought he had never beheld before.Not until then had he truly seen him, for the poverty and misery that sat on him only made his face stand out the clearer.It was the face of a man who for good or ill, for struggle or submission, had walked and wrestled with God.
With salutations, barely returned to him, the Mahdi sat down beside Israel at a little distance.He began to speak to him in a tender way, telling him who he was, and where they had met before, and why he came, and whither he was going.And Israel listened to him at first with a brave show of composure as if the very heart of the man were a frozen clod, whereby his eyes and the muscles of his face and even the nerves of his fingers were also frozen.
Then the Mahdi spoke of Naomi, and Israel made a slow shake of the head.
He told him what had happened to her when her father was taken to prison, and Israel listened with a great outward calmness.After that he described the girl's journey in the hope of taking food to him, and how she fell into the hands of Habeebah; and then he saw by Israel's face that the affection of the father was tearing his old heart woefully.At last he recited the incidents of her cruel trial, and how she had yielded at length, knowing nothing of religion, being only a child, seeing her father in everything and thinking to save his life, though she herself must see him no more (for all this he had gathered from Fatimah), and then the great thaw came to Israel, and his fingers trembled, and his face twitched, and the hot tears rained down his cheeks.