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. . . . 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