"My poor darling!" he muttered in a trembling undertone, and then he asked in a faltering voice where she was at that time.
The Mahdi told him that she was back in prison, for rebelling against the fortune intended for her--that of becoming a concubine of the Sultan.
"My brave girl!" he muttered, and then his face shone with a new light that was both pride and pain.
He lifted his eyes as if he could see her, and his voice as if she could hear: "Forgive me, Naomi! Forgive me, my poor child!
Your weak old father; forgive him, my brave, brave daughter!"This was as much as the Mahdi could bear; and when Israel turned to him, and said in almost a childish tone, "I suppose there is no help for it now, sir.I meant to take her to England--to my poor mother's home, but--"
"And so you shall, as sure as the Lord lives," said the Mahdi, rising to his feet, with the resolve that a plan for Naomi's rescue which he had thought of again and again, and more than once rejected, which had clamoured at the door of his heart, and been turned away as a barbarous impulse, should at length be carried into effect.