d prepared to
return to his own country on foot and alone. The men had first gaped in
amazement, and then laughed in derision; and finally they had gone their
ways by themselves, telling all who encountered them that the Sultan
at Fez had stripped their master of everything, and that he was coming
behind them penniless.

But, knowing nothing of this graceless service. Israel began his
homeward journey with a happy heart. He had less than thirty dollars in
his waistband of the more than three hundred with which he had set out
from Tetuan; he was a hundred and fifty miles from that town, or five
long days' travel; the sun was still hot, and he must walk in the
daytime. Surely the Lord would see it that never before had any man done
so much to wipe out God's displeasure as he was now doing and yet would
do. He had said nothing of Naomi to the Mahdi even when he told him of
his vision; but all his hopes had centred in the child. The lot of the
sin-offering must be gone from her now, and in the resurrection he would
meet her without shame. If he had brought fruits meet to repentance,
then must her debt also be wiped away. Surely never before had any child
been so smitten of God, and never had any father of an afflicted child
bought God's mercy at so dear a price!

Such were the thoughts that Israel cherished secretly, though he dared
not to utter them, lest he should seem to be bribing God out of his love
of the child. And thus if his heart was glad as he turned towards home,
it was proud also, and if it was grateful it was also vain; but vanity
and pride were both smitten out of it in an hour, before he went through
the gates of Fez (wherein he had slept the night preceding), by three
sights which, though stern and pitiful, were of no uncommon occurrence
in that town and province.

First, it chanced that as he was passing from the south-east of the new
town of Fez to the gate that is at the north-west corner, going by the
high walls of the Sultan's hareem, where there is room for a thousand
women, and near to the Karueein mosque that is the greatest in Morocco
and rests on eight hundred pillars, he came upon two slaveholders
selling twelve or fourteen slaves. The slaves were all girls, and all
black, and of varying ages, ranging from ten years to about thirty. They
had lately arrived in caravans from the Soudan, by way of Tafilet and
the Wargha, and some of them looked worn from the desert passage. Others
were fresh and