"Peace be with you!" said the Kaid."So my lord is going again to the Shereef at Wazzan; may the mercy of the Merciful protect him!"Israel neither answered yea nor nay, but threaded the maze of crooked lanes to the lodging which had been provided for him near the market-place, and the same night he left the town (laden with the presents of the Kaid) through a line of famished and half-naked beggars who looked on with feverish eyes.
Next day, at dawn, he came to the heights of Wazzan (a holy city of Morocco), by the olives and junipers and evergreen oaks that grow at the foot of the lofty, double-peaked Boo-Hallal, and there the young grand Shereef himself, at the gate of his odorous orange-gardens, stood waiting to give audience with yet another conjecture as to the intention of his journey.
"Welcome! welcome!" said the Shereef; "all you see is yours until Allah shall decree that you leave me too soon on your happy mission to our lord the Sultan at Fez--may God prolong his life and bless him!""God make you happy!" said Israel, but he offered no answer to the question that was implied.
"It is twenty and odd years, my lord," the Shereef continued, "since my father sent for you out of Tetuan, and many are the ups and downs that time has wrought since then, under Allah's will;but none in the past have been so grateful as the elevation of Israel ben Oliel, and none in the future can be so joyful as the favours which the Sultan (God keep our lord Abd er-Rahman!)has still in store for him."
"God will show," said Israel.
No Jew had ever yet ridden in this Moroccan Mecca; but the Shereef alighted from his horse and offered it to Israel, and took Israel's horse instead and together they rode through the market-place, and past the old Mosque that is a ruin inhabited by hawks and the other mosque of the Aissawa, and the three squalid fondaks wherein the Jews live like cattle.A swarm of Arabs followed at their heels in tattered greasy rags, a group of Jews went by them barefoot and a knot of bedraggled renegades leaning against the walls of the prison doffed the caps from their dishevelled heads and bowed.
That day, while the poor people of the town fasted according to the ordinance of the Ramadhan, Israel's little company of Muslimeen--guests in the house of the descendants of the Prophet--were, by special Shereefian dispensation, permitted as travellers to eat and drink at their pleasure.And before sunset, but at the verge of it, Israel and his men started on their journey afresh, going out of the town, with the Shereef's black bodyguard riding before them for guide and badge of honour, through the dense and noisome market-place, where (like a clock that is warning to strike)a multitude of hungry and thirsty people with fierce and dirty faces, under a heavy wave of palpitating heat, and amid clouds of hot dust, were waiting for the sound of the cannon that should proclaim the end of that day's fast.Water-carriers at the fountains stood ready to fill their empty goats' skins, women and children sat on the ground with dishes of greasy soup on their knees and balls of grain rolled in their fingers, men lay about holding pipes charged with keef, and flint and tinder to light them, and the mooddin himself in the minaret stood looking abroad (unless he were blind)to where the red sun was lazily sinking under the plain.
Israel's soul sickened within him, for well he knew that, lavish as were the honours that were shown him, they were offered by the rich out of their selfishness and by the poor out of their fear.
While they thought the Sultan had sent for him, they kissed his foot who desired no homage, and loaded him with presents who needed no gifts.
But one word out of his mouth, only one little word, one other name, and what then of this lip-service, and what of this mock-honour!
Two days later Israel and his company reached before dawn the snake-like ramparts of Mequinez the city of walls.And toiling in the darkness over the barren plain and the belt of carrion that lies in front of the town, through the heat and fumes of the fetid place, and amid the furious barks of the scavenger dogs which prowl in the night around it, they came in the grey of morning to the city gate over the stream called the Father of Tortoises.
The gate was closed, and the night police that kept it were snoring in their rags under the arch of the wall within.
"Selam! M'barak! Abd el Kader! Abd el Kareem!" shouted the Shereef's black guard to the sleepy gate-keepers.They had come thus far in Israel's honour, and would not return to Wazzan until they had seen him housed within.
From the other side of the gate, through the mist and the gloom, came yawns and broken snores and then snarls and curses.
"Burn your father! Pretty hubbub in the middle of the night!""Selam!" shouted one of the black guard."You dog of dogs!
Your father was bewitched by a hyena! I'll teach you to curse your betters.Quick! get up,--or I'll shave your beard.Open!
or I'll ride the donkey on your head! There!--and there!--and there again!" and at every word the butt of his long gun rang on the old oaken gate.
"Hamed el Wazzani!" muttered several voices within.
"Yes," shouted the Shereef's man."And my Lord Israel of Tetuan on his way to the Sultan, God grant him victory.Do you hear, you dogs? Sidi Israel el Tetawani sitting here in the dark, while you are sleeping and snoring in your dirt."There was a whispered conference on the inside, then a rattle of keys, and then the gate groaned back on its hinges.At the next moment two of the four gatemen were on their knees at the feet of Israel's horse, asking forgiveness by grace of Allah and his Prophet.In the meantime, the other two had sped away to the Kasbah, and before Israel had ridden far into the town, the Kaid--against all usage of his class and country--ran and met him--afoot, slipperless, wearing nothing but selham and tarboosh, out of breath, yet with a mouth full of excuses.
