ought her of her eggs, and, though it went to her heart to use for
herself what was meant for her father, she parted with twelve of them,
and some cakes of the bread besides, that she might be allowed to pass
the gate, telling herself repeatedly, with big throbs of remorse between
her protestations, that unless she did so her father might never get
anything at all.

The fondak was a miserable place, full of farming people who were to go
on to market at Tetuan in the morning, of many animals of burden, and
of countless dogs. It was the eve of the month of Rabya el-ooal, and
between the twilight and the coming of night certain of the men watched
for the new moon, and when its thin bow appeared in the sky they
signalled its advent after their usual manner by firing their flintlocks
into the air, while their women, who were squatting around, kept up a
cooing chorus. Then came eating and drinking, and laughing and singing,
and playing the ginbri, and feats of juggling, as well as snarling and
quarrelling and fighting, and also peacemaking by means of a cudgel
wielded by the keeper of the fondak. With such exercises the night
passed into morning.

Naomi was sick. Her head ached. The smell of rotten fish, the stench of
the manure heap, the braying of the donkeys, the barking of the dogs,
the grunt of the camels, and the tumult of human voices made her
light-headed. She could neither eat nor sleep. Almost as soon as it
was light she was up and out and on her way. "I must lose no time," she
thought, trying not to realise that the blue sky was spinning round her,
that noises were ringing in her head, and that her poor little heart,
which had been so stout only yesterday, was sinking very low.

"He must be starving," she told herself again, and that helped her to
forget her own troubles and to struggle on. But oh, if the world were
only not so cruel, oh, if there were anyone to give her a word of cheer,
nay, a glance of pity! But nobody had looked at her except the women who
stole her bread and the men who shamed her with their wicked eyes.

That one day's experience did more than all her life before it to fill
her with the bitter fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Her illusions fell away from her, and her sweet childish faith was
broken down. She saw herself as she was: a simple girl, a child ignorant
of the ways of the world, going alone on a long journey unknown to her,
thinking to succour her father in pri