“Absalam!” he cried in a moving voice; “Absalam, wait, wait!”

But Absalam killed his son also, and cast him down after his father.  Then, looking around on his people with eyes of compassion, as seeming to pity them that they must fall again into the hands of Israel and his master, he stretched out his knife and sheathed it in his own breast, and fell towards the precipice.

Israel covered his face and groaned in his heart, and said, “It is the end, O Lord God, it is the end—­polluted wretch that I am, with the blood of these people upon me!”

The companions of Absalam delivered themselves to the soldiers, who committed them to the prison at Shawan, and Ben Aboo went home in content.

Rumour of what had come to pass was not long in reaching Tetuan, and Israel was charged with the guilt of it.  In passing through the streets the next day on his way to his house the people hissed him openly.  “Allah had not written it!” a Moor shouted as he passed.  “Take care!” cried an Arab, “Mohammed of Mequinez is coming!”

It chanced that night, after sundown, when Naomi, according to her wont, led her father to the upper room, and fetched the Book of the Law from the cupboard of the wall and laid it upon his knees, that he read the passage whereon the page opened of itself, scarce knowing what he read when he began to read it, for his spirit was heavy with the bad doings of those days.  And the passage whereon the book opened was this—­

“Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats:  one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. . . .  Then shall he kill the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail.  And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins. . . .  And when he hath, made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:  and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.  And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.”

That same night Israel dreamt a dream.  He had been asleep, and had awakened in a place which he did not know.  It was a great arid wilderness.  Ashen sand lay on every side; a scorching sun beat down on it, and nowhere was there a glint of water.  Israel gazed, and slowly through the blazing sunlight he discerned white roofless walls like the ruins of little sheepfolds.  “They are tombs,” he told himself, “and this is a Mukabar—­an Arab graveyard—­the most desolate place in the world of God.”  But, looking again, he saw that the roofless walls covered the ground