ISRAEL IN PRISON

Short as the time was--some three months and odd days--since the prison at Shawan had been emptied by order of the warrant which Israel had sealed without authority in the name of Ben Aboo, it was now occupied by other prisoners. The remoteness of the town in the territory of the Akhmas, and the wild fanaticism of the Shawanis, had made the old fortress a favourite place of banishment to such Kaids of other provinces as looked for heavier ransoms from the relatives of victims, because the locality of their imprisonment was unknown or the danger of approaching it was terrible. And thus it happened that some fifty or more men and boys from near and far were already living in the dungeon from which Israel and Ali together had set the other prisoners free.

This was the prison to which Israel was taken when he was torn from Naomi and the simple home that he had made for himself near Semsa.

"Ya Allah! Let the dog eat the crust which he thought too hard for his pups!" said Ben Aboo, as he sealed the warrant which consigned Israel to the Kaid of Shawan.

Israel was taken to the prison afoot, and reached it on the morning of the second day after his arrest. The sun was shining as he approached the rude old block of masonry and entered the pa.s.sage that led down to the dungeon. In a little court at the door of the place the Kaid el habs, the jailer, was sitting on a mattress, which served him for chair by day and bed by night. He was amusing himself with a ginbri, playing loud and low according as the tumult was great or little which came from the other side of a barred and knotted doorway behind him, some four feet high, and having a round peephole in the upper part of it. On the wall above hung leather thongs, and a long Reefian flintlock stood in the corner.

At Israel's approach there were some facetious comments between the jailer and the guard. Why the ginbri? Was he practising for the fires of Jehinnum? Was he to fiddle for the Jinoon? Well, what was a man to do while the dogs inside were snarling? Were the thongs for the correction of persons lacking understanding? Why, yes; everybody knew their old saying, "A hint to the wise, a blow to the fool."

A bunch of great keys rattled, the low doorway was thrown open, Israel stooped and went in, the door closed behind him, the footsteps of the guard died away, and the tw.a.n.g of the ginbri began again.

The prison was dark and noisome, some sixty feet long by half as many broad, supported by arches resting on rotten pillars, lighted only by narrow clefts at either hand, exuding damp from its walls, dropping moisture from its roof, its air full of vermin, and its floor reeking of filth. And only less horrible than the prison itself was the condition of the prisoners. Nearly all wore iron fetters on their legs, and some were shackled to the pillars. At one side a little group of them--they were Shereefs from Wazzan--were conversing eagerly and gesticulating wildly; and at the other side a larger company--they were Jews from Fez--were languidly twisting palmetto leaves into the shape of baskets.

Four Berbers at the farther end were playing cards, and two Arabs that were chained to a column near the door squatted on the ground with a battered old draughtboard between them. From both groups of players came loud shouts and laughter and a running fire of expostulation and of indignant and sarcastic comment. Down went the cards with triumphant bangs, and the moves of the "dogs" were like lightning. First a mocking voice: "_You_ call yourself a player! There!--there!--there!" Then a meek, piping tone: "So--so--verily, you are my master. Well, let us praise Allah for your wisdom." But soon a wild burst of irony: "You are like him who killed the dog and fell into the river. See! thus I teach you to boast over your betters! I shave your beard! There!--there!--and there!"

In the middle of the reeking floor, so placed that the thin shaft of light from the clefts at the ends might fall on them--a barber-doctor was bleeding a youth from a vein in the arm. "We're all having it done,"

he was saying. "It's good for the internals. I did it to a shipload of pilgrims once." A wild-looking creature sat in a corner--he was a saint, a madman, of the sect of the Darkaoa--rocking himself to and fro, and crying "Allah! All-lah! All-l-lah! All-l-l-lah!" Near to this person a haggard old man of the Grega sect was shaking and dancing at his prayers. And not far from either a Mukaddam, a high-priest of the Aissa, brotherhood--a juggler who had travelled through the country with a lion by a halter--was singing a frantic mockery of a Christian hymn to a tune that he had heard on the coast.

Such was the scene of Israel's imprisonment, and such were the companions that were to share it. There had been a moment's pause in the clamour of their babel as the door opened and Israel entered. The prisoners knew him, and they were aghast. Every eye looked up and every mouth was agape. Israel stood for a time with the closed door behind him. He looked around, made a step forward, hesitated, seemed to peer vainly through the darkness for bed or mattress, and then sat down helplessly by a pillar on the ground.

A young negro in a coa.r.s.e jellab went up to him and offered a bit of bread. "Hungry, brother? No?" said the youth. "Cheer up, Sidi! No good letting the donkey ride on your head!"

This person was the Irishman of the company--a happy, reckless, facetious dog, who had lost little save his liberty and cared nothing for his life, but laughed and cheated and joked and made doggerel songs on every disaster that befell them. He made one song on himself--

El Arby was a black man They called him "'Larby Kosk:"

He loved the wives of the Kasbah, And stole slippers in the Mosque.

Israel was stunned. Since his arrest he had scarcely spoken. "Stay here," he had said to Naomi when the first outburst of her grief was quelled; "never leave this place. Whatever they say, stay here. I will come back." After that he had been like a man who was dumb. Neither insult nor tyranny had availed to force a word or a cry out of him.

He had walked on in silence doggedly, hardly once glancing up into the faces of his guard, and never breaking his fast save with a draught of water by the way.

At Shawan, as elsewhere in Barbary, the prisoners were supported by their own relatives and friends, and on the day after Israel's arrival a number of women and children came to the prison with provisions. It was a wild and gruesome scene that followed. First, the frantic search of the prisoners for their wives and sons and daughters, and their wild shouts as each one found his own. "Blessed be G.o.d! She's here! here!"

Then the maddening cries of the prisoners whose relatives had not come.

"My Ayesha! Where is she? Curses on her mother! Why isn't she here?"

After that the shrieks of despair from such as learned that their breadwinners were dying off one by one. "Dead, you say?" "Dead!" "No, no!" "Yes, yes!" "No, no, I say!" "I say yes! G.o.d forgive me! died last week. But don't you die too. Here take this bag of zummetta." Then inquiries after absent children. "Little Selam, where is he?" "Begging in Tetuan." "Poor boy! poor boy! And pretty M'barka, what of her?"

"Alas! M'barka's a public woman now in Hoolia's house at Marrakesh. No, don't curse her, Jellali; the poor child was driven to it. What were we to do with the children crying for bread? And then there was nothing to fetch you this journey, Jellali." "I'll not eat it now it's brought. My boy a beggar and my girl a harlot? By Allah! May the Kaid that keeps me here roast alive in the fires of h.e.l.l!" Then, apart in one quiet corner, a young Moor of Tangier eating rice out of the lap of his beautiful young wife. "You'll not be long coming again, dearest?" he whispers. She wipes her eyes and stammers, "No--that is--well--" "What's amiss?" "Ali, I must tell you--" "Well?" "Old Aaron Zaggoory says I must marry him, or he'll see that both of us starve." "Allah! And you--_you_?" "Don't look at me like that, Ali; the hunger is on me, and whatever happens I--I can love n.o.body else." "Curses on Aaron Zaggoory! Curses on you! Curses on everybody!"

No one had come with food for Israel, and seeing this 'Larby the negro swaggered up to him, singing a s.n.a.t.c.h and offering a round cake of bread--

Rusks are good and kiks are sweet And kesksoo is both meat and drink; It's this for now, and that for then, But khalia still for married men.

"You're like me, Sidi," he said, "you want nothing," and he made an upward movement of his forefinger to indicate his trust in Providence.

That was the gay rascal's way of saying that he stole from the bags of his comrades while they slept.

"No? Fasting yet?" he said, and went off singing as he came--

It will make your ladies love you; It will make them coo and kiss--

"What?" he shouted to some one across the prison "eating khalia in the bird-cage? Bad, bad, bad!"

All this came to Israel's mind through thick waves of half-consciousness, but with his heart he heard nothing, or the very air of the place must have poisoned him. He sat by the pillar at which he had first placed himself, and hardly ever rose from it. With great slow eyes he gazed at everything, but nothing did he see. Sometimes he had the look of one who listens, but never did he hear. Thus in silence and languor he pa.s.sed from day to day, and from night to night, scarcely sleeping, rarely eating, and seeming always to be waiting, waiting, waiting.

Fresh prisoners came at short intervals, and then only was Israel's interest awakened. One question he asked of all. "Where from?" If they answered from Fez, from Wazzan, from Mequinez, or from Marrakesh, Israel turned aside and left them without more words. Then to his fellows they might pour out their woes in loud wails and curses, but Israel would hear no more.

Strangers from Europe travelling through the country were allowed to look into the prison through the round peephole of the door kept by the Kaid el habs, who played the ginbri. The Jews who made baskets took this opportunity to offer their work for sale; and so that he might see the visitors and speak with them Israel would s.n.a.t.c.h up something and hang it out. Always his question was the same. "Where from last?" he would say in English, or Spanish, or French, or Moorish. Sometimes it chanced that the strangers knew him. But he showed no shame. Never did their answers satisfy him. He would turn back to his pillar with a sigh.

Thus weeks went on, and Israel's face grew worn and tired. His fellow prisoners began to show him deference in their own rude way. When he came among them at the first they had grinned and laughed a little.

To do that was always the impulse of the poor souls, so miserably imprisoned, when a new comrade joined him. But the majesty and the suffering in Israel's face told on their hearts at last. He was a great man fallen, he had nothing left to him; not even bread to eat or water to drink. So they gathered about him and hit on a way to make him share their food. Bringing their sacks to his pillar, they stacked them about it, and asked him to serve out provisions to all, day by day, share and share alike. He was honest, he was a master, no one would steal from him, it was best, the stuff would last longest. It was a touching sight.

Still the old eagerness betrayed itself in Israel's weary manner as often as the door opened and fresh prisoners arrived. Once it happened that before he uttered his usual question he saw that the newcomers were from Tetuan, and then his restlessness was feverish. "When--were you--have you been of late--" he stammered, and seemed unable to go farther.

But the Tetawanis knew and understood him. "No," said one in answer to the unspoken question; "Nor I," said another; "Nor I," said a third, "Nor I neither," said a fourth, as Israel's rapid eyes pa.s.sed down the line of them.

He turned away without a word more, sat down by the pillar and looked vacantly before him while the new prisoners told their story. Ben Aboo was a villain. The people of Tetuan had found him out. His wife was a harlot whose heart was a deep pit. Between them they were demoralising the entire bashalic. The town was worse than Sodom. Hardly a child in the streets was safe, and no woman, whether wife or daughter, whom G.o.d had made comely, dare show herself on the roofs. Their own women had been carried off to the palace at the Kasbah. That was why they themselves were there in prison.

This was about a month after the coming of Israel to Shawan. Then his reason began to unsettle. It was pitiful to see that he was conscious of the change that was befalling him. He wrestled with madness with all the strength of a strong man. If it should fall upon him, where then would be his hope and outlook? His day would be done, his night would be closed in, he would be no more than a helpless log, rolling in an ice-bound sea, and when the thaw came--if it ever came--he would be only a broken, rudderless, sailless wreck. Sometimes he would swear at nothing and fling out his arms wildly, and then with a look of shame hang down his head and mutter, "No, no, Israel; no, no, no!"

Other prisoners arrived from Tetuan, and all told the same story. Israel listened to them with a stupid look, seeming hardly to hear the tale they told him. But one morning, as life began again for the day in that slimy eddy of life's ocean, every one became aware that an awful change had come to pa.s.s. Israel's face had been worn and tired before, but now it looked very old and faded. His black hair had been sprinkled with grey, and now it was white; and white also was his dark beard, which had grown long and ragged. But his eye glistened, and his teeth were aglitter in his open mouth. He was laughing at everything, yet not wildly, not recklessly, not without meaning or intention, but with the cheer of a happy and contented man.

Israel was mad, and his madness was a moving thing to look upon. He thought he was back at home and a rich man still, as he had been in earlier days, but a generous man also, as he was in later ones. With liberal hand he was dispensing his charities.

"Take what you need; eat, drink, do not stint; there is more where this has come from; it is not mine; G.o.d has lent it me for the good of all."

With such words, graciously spoken, he served out the provisions according to his habit, and only departed from his daily custom in piling the measures higher, and in saluting the people by t.i.tles--Sid, Sidi, Mulai, and the like--in degree as their clothes were poor and ragged. It was a mad heart that spoke so, but also it was a big one.

From that time forward he looked upon the prisoners as his guests, and when fresh prisoners came to the prison he always welcomed them as if he were host there and they were friends who visited him. "Welcome!" he would say; "you are very welcome. The place is your own. Take all. What you don't see, believe we have not got it. A thousand thousand welcomes home!" It was grim and painful irony.

Israel's comrades began to lose sense of their own suffering in observing the depth of his, and they laid their heads together to discover the cause of his madness. The most part of them concluded that he was repining for the loss of his former state. And when one day another prisoner came from Tetuan with further tales of the Basha's tyranny, and of the people's shame at thought of how they had dealt by Israel, the prisoners led the man back to where Israel was standing in the accustomed act of dispensing bounty, that he might tell his story into the rightful ears.

"They're always crying for you," said the Tetawani; "'Israel ben Oliel!

Israel ben Oliel!' that's what you hear in the mosques and the streets everywhere.' Shame on us for casting him out, shame on us! He was our father!' Jews and Muslimeen, they're all saying so."

It was useless. The glad tidings could not find their way. That black page of Israel's life which told of the people's ingrat.i.tude was sealed in the book of memory. Israel laughed. What could his good friend mean?

Behold! was he not rich? Had he not troops of comrades and guests about him?

The prisoners turned aside, baffled and done. At length one man--it was no other than 'Larby the wastrel--drew some of them apart and said, "You are all wrong. It's not his former state that he's thinking of. _I_ know what it is--who knows so well as I? Listen! you hear his laughter! Well, he must weep, or he will be mad for ever. He must be _made_ to weep.

Yes, by Allah! and I must do it."

That same night, when darkness fell over the dark place, and the prisoners tied up their cotton headkerchiefs and lay down to sleep, 'Larby sat beside Israel's place with sighs and moans and other symptoms of a dejected air.

"Sidi, master," he faltered, "I had a little brother once, and he was blind. Born blind, Sidi, my own mother's son. But you wouldn't think how happy he was for all that? You see, Sidi he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world! Women? Why--well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen, and he used to ride on my back! Black curls all over, Sidi, and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn't see.

Well a bleeder came from Soos--curse his great-grandfather! Looked at little Hosain--'Scales!' said he--burn his father! Bleed him and he'll see! So they bled him, and he did see. By Allah! yes, for a minute--half a minute! 'Oh, 'Larby,' he cried--I was holding him; then he--he--'

'Larby,' he cried faint, like a lamb that's lost in the mountains--and then--and then--'Oh, oh, 'Larby,' he moaned Sidi, Sidi, I _paid_ that bleeder--there and then--_this_ way! That's why I'm here!"

It was a lie, but 'Larby acted it so well that his voice broke in his throat, and great drops fell from his eyes on to Israel's hand.

The effect on Israel himself was strange and even startling. While 'Larby was speaking, he was beating his forehead and mumbling: "Where?

When? Naomi!" as if grappling for lost treasures in an ebbing sea.