Ben Aboo laughed lustily, and exchanged looks of obvious meaning with Katrina.

“And pray, again,” he said, with a curl of the lip, “without office and without riches how may you hope to live?”

“As a poor man among poor men,” said Israel, “serving God and trusting to His mercy.”

Again Ben Aboo laughed hoarsely, and Katrina joined him, but Israel stood quiet and silent, and gave no sign.

“Serving God is hard bread,” said Ben Aboo.

“Serving the devil is crust!” said Israel.

At that answer, though neither by look nor gesture had Israel pointed it, the face of Ben Aboo became suddenly discoloured and stern.

“Allah!  What do you mean?” he cried.  “Who are you that you dare wag your insolent tongue at me?”

“I am your scapegoat, Basha,” said Israel, with an awful calm—­“your scapegoat, who bears your iniquities before the eyes of your people.  Your scapegoat, who sins against them and oppresses them and brings them by bitter tortures to the dust and death.  That’s what I am, Basha, and have long been, shame upon me!  And while I am down yonder in the streets among your people—­hated, reviled, despised, spat upon, cut off—­you are up here in the Kasbah above them, in honour and comfort and wealth, and the mistaken love of all men.”

While Israel said this, Ben Aboo in his fury came down upon him from the opposite side of the patio with a look of a beast of prey.  His swarthy cheeks were drawn hard, his little bleared eyes flashed, his heavy nose and thick lips and massive jaw quivered visibly, and from under his turban two locks of iron-grey fell like a shaggy mane over his ears.

But Israel did not flinch.  With a look of quiet majesty, standing face to face with the tyrant, not a foot’s length between them, he spoke again and said, “Basha, I do not envy you, but neither will I share your business nor your rewards.  I mean to be your scapegoat no more.  Here is your seal.  It is red with the blood of your unhappy people through these five-and-twenty bad years past.  I can carry it no longer.  Take it.”

In a tempest of wrath Ben Aboo struck the seal out of Israel’s hand as he offered it, and the silver rolled and rang on the tiled pavement of the patio.

“Fool!” he cried.  “So this is what it is!  Allah!  In the name of the most merciful God, who would have believed it?  Israel ben Oliel a prophet!  A prophet of the poor!  O Merciful!  O Compassionate!”

Thus, in his frenzy, pretending to imitate with airs of manifest mockery his outbreak of fear a few minutes before, Ben Aboo raved and raged and lifted his clenched fist to the sky in sham imprecation of God.

“Who said it was the Sultan?” he cried again.  “He was a fool.  Abd er-Rahman?  No; but Mohammed of Mequinez!  Mohammed the Third!  That’s it!  That’s it!”

So saying, and forgetting in his fury what he had said before of Mohammed himself, he laughed wildly, and beat about the patio from side to side like a caged and angry beast.