The Scapegoat. Sir Hall Caine
shall not return to her,” said Ruth, “but she shall come to me, and then, perhaps—who knows?—perhaps in the resurrection I shall hear it.”
Israel made no answer.
Ruth gazed down at the child again, and said, “My helpless darling! Who will care for you when I am gone?”
“Rest, rest, and sleep!” said Israel.
“Ah, yes, I know,” said Ruth. “How foolish of me! You are her father, and you love her also. Yet promise me—promise—”
“For love and tending she shall never lack,” said Israel. “And now lie you still, my dearest; lie still and sleep.”
She stretched out her hand to him. “Yes, that was what I meant,” she said, and smiled. Then a shadow crossed her face in the gloom. “But when I am gone,” she said, “will Naomi ever know that her mother who is dead had wronged her?”
“You have never wronged her,” said Israel. “Have done, oh, have done!”
“God punished us for our prayer, my husband,” said Ruth.
“Peace, peace!” said Israel.
“But God is good,” said Ruth, “and surely He will not afflict our child much longer.”
“Hush! Hush! You will awaken her,” said Israel, not thinking what he said. “Now lie still and sleep, dearest. You are tired also.”
She lay quiet for a time, gazing, while the light remained, into the face of the sleeping child, and listening, when the light failed, to her gentle breathing. Then she babbled and crooned over her with a childish joy. “Yes, yes, father is right, and mother must lie quiet—very quiet, and so her little Naomi will sleep long—very long, and wake happy and well in the morning. How bonny she will look! How fresh and rosy!”
She paused a moment. Her laboured breathing came quick and fast. “But shall I be here to see her? shall I?”
She paused again, and then, as though to banish thought, she began to sing in a low voice that was like a moan. Presently her singing ceased, and she spoke again, but this time in broken whispers.
“How soft and glossy her hair is! I wonder if Fatimah will remember to wash it every day. She should twist it around her fingers to keep it in pretty curls. … Oh, why did God make my child so beautiful? … Dear me, her morning frock wanted stitching at the sleeves, it's a chance if Habeebah has seen to it. Then there's her underclothing. … Will she be deaf and blind and dumb always? I wonder if I shall see her when I. … They say that angels are sent. … Yes, yes, that's it, when I am there—there—I will go to God and say, 'O Lord! my little girl whom I have left behind, she is. … You would never think, O Lord, how many things may happen to one like her. Let me go—only let me watch over her—O Lord, let me be her guar—'”
Her weakness had conquered her, and she was quiet at last. Israel sat in silence by the post of the bed. His heart was surging itself out of his choking breast. The black woman stood somewhere by the wall. After a time Ruth seemed to awake as from sleep. She was in great excitement.
“Israel, Israel!” she cried in a voice of joy, “I have seen a vision. It was Naomi. She was no longer deaf and blind and dumb. She was grown to be a woman, but I knew her instantly. Not a woman either, but a young maiden, and so beautiful, so beautiful! Yes, and she could see and hear and speak.”
Israel thought Ruth had become delirious, and he tried to soothe her, but her agitation was not to be overcome. “The Lord hath seen our tears at last,” she cried. “He has put our sin beneath His feet. We are forgiven. It will be well with the child yet.”
Israel did not try to gainsay her, and at sight and sound of her joy, seeing it so beautiful, yet thinking it so vain, he could not help at last but weep. Presently she became quiet again, and then again, after a little while, she woke as from a sleep.
“I am ready now,” she said in a whisper, “quite ready, sweet Heaven, quite, quite ready now.”
Then with her one free hand she felt in the darkness for Israel, where he sat beside her, and touching his forehead she smoothed it, and said very softly, “Farewell, my husband!”
And Israel answered her, “Farewell!”
“Good-night!” she whispered.
And Israel drew down her hand from his forehead to his lips and sobbed, and said, “Good-night, beloved!”
Then she put her white lips to the child's blind eyes, and at that moment the spirit of the Lord came to her, and the Lord took her, and she died.
When lamps had been brought into the room, and Fatimah saw that the end had come, she would have lifted Naomi from Ruth's bosom, but the child awoke as she was being moved, and clasped her little fingers about the dead mother's neck and covered the mouth with kisses. And when she felt that the lips did not answer to her lips, and that the arms which had held her did not hold her any longer, but fell away useless, she clung the closer, and tears started to her eyes.
CHAPTER V
RUTH'S BURIAL
The people of Tetuan were not melted towards Israel by the depth of his sorrow and the breadth of shadow that lay upon him. By noon of the day following the night of Ruth's death, Israel knew that he was to be left alone. It was a rule of the Mellah that on notice being given of a death in their quarter, the clerk of the synagogue should publish it at the first service thereafter, in order that a body of men, called the Hebra Kadisha of Kabranim, the Holy Society of Buriers, might straightway make arrangements for burial. Early prayers had been held in the synagogue at eight o'clock that morning, and no one had yet come near to Israel's house. The men of the Hebra were going about their ordinary occupations. They knew nothing of Ruth's death by official announcement. The clerk had not published it. Israel remembered with bitterness that notice of it had not been sent. Nevertheless, the fact was known throughout Tetuan. There was not a water-carrier in the market-place but had taken it to each house he called at, and passed it to every man he met. Little groups of idle Jewish women had been many hours congregated in the streets outside, talking of it in whispers and looking up at the darkened windows with awe. But the synagogue knew nothing of it. Israel had omitted the customary ceremony, and in that omission lay the advantage of his enemies. He must humble himself and send to them. Until he did so they would leave him alone.
Israel did not send. Never once since the birth of Naomi had he crossed the threshold of the synagogue. He would not cross it now, whether in body or in spirit. But he was still a Jew, with Jewish customs, if he had lost the Jewish faith, and it was one of the customs of the Jews that a body should be buried within twenty-four hours, at farthest, from the time of death. He must do something immediately. Some help must be summoned. What help could it be?
It was useless to think of the Muslimeen. No believer would lend a hand to dig a grave for an unbeliever, or to make apparel for his dead. It was just as idle to think of the Jews. If the synagogue knew nothing of this burial, no Jew in the Mellah would be found so poor that he would have need to know more. And of Christians of any sort or condition there were none in all Tetuan.
The gall of Israel's heart rose to his throat. Was he to be left alone with his dead wife? Did his enemies wish to see him howk out her grave with his own hands? Or did they expect him to come to them with bowed forehead and bended knee? Either way their reckoning was a mistake. They might leave him terribly and awfully alone—alone in his hour of mourning even as they had left him alone in his hour of rejoicing, when he had married the dear soul who was dead. But