Thus for some minutes he stood motionless, blessing the God of Jacob, yet uttering no words, for his heart was too full for speech, only holding Naomi closely to him, while his tears fell on her blind face.  And the black people in the chamber wept to see it, that not more dumb in that great hour of gladness was she who was born so than he to whose house had come the wonderful work that God had wrought.

No heed had Israel given yet to the bodeful signs in Naomi’s face, in joy over such as were joyful.  When he had taken her in his arms she had known him, and she had clung to him in her glad surprise.  But when she continued to lie on his bosom it was not only because he was her father and she loved him, and because he had been lost to her and was found, it was also because he alone was silent of all that were about her.

When he saw this his heart was humbled; but he understood her fears, that, coming out of a land of great silence, where the voice of man was never heard, where the air was songless as the air of dreams and darkling as the air of a tomb, her soul misgave her, and her spirit trembled in a new world of strange sounds.  For what was the ear but a little dark chamber, a vault, a dungeon in a castle, wherein the soul was ever passing to and fro, asking for news of the world without?  Through seventeen dark and silent years the soul of Naomi had been passing and repassing within its beautiful tabernacle of flesh, crying daily and hourly, “Watchman, what of the world?” At length it had found an answer, and it was terrified.  The world had spoken to her soul and its voice was like the reverberations of a subterranean cavern, strange and deep and awful.

In that first moment of Israel’s consciousness after he entered the room, all four black folks seemed to be speaking together.

Ali was saying, “Father, those dogs and thieves of tentmen and muleteers returned yesterday, and said—­”

And the bondwomen were crying, “Sidi, you were right when you went away!” “Yes, the dear child was ill!” “Oh, how she missed you when you were gone.”  “She has been delirious, and the doctor, the son of Tetuan—­”

And the old Taleb was muttering, “Master, it is all by God’s mercy.  We prayed for the life of the maiden, and lo!  He has given us this gateway to her spirit as well.”

Then Israel saw that as their voices entered the dark vault of Naomi’s ears they startled and distressed her.  So, to pacify her, he motioned them out of the chamber.  They went away without a word.  The reason of Naomi’s fears began to dawn upon them.  An awe seemed to be cast over her by the solemnity of that great moment.  It was like to the birth-moment of a soul.

And when the black people were gone from the room, Israel closed the door of it that he might shut out the noises of the streets, for women were calling to their children without, and the children were still shouting in their play.  This being done, he returned to Naomi and rested her head against his bosom and soothed her with his hand, and she put her arms about his neck and clung to him.  And while he did so his heart yearned to speak to her, and to see by her face that she could hear.  Let it be but one word, only one, that she might know her father’s voice—­for she had never once heard it—­and answer it with a smile.