ammedan.

When the boy was eight years old his father married a second wife,
his first wife being still alive. This was lawful, though unusual in
Tangier. The new marriage, which was only another business transaction
to Oliel, was a shock and a terror to Sara. Nevertheless, she supported
its penalties through three weary years, sinking visibly under them day
after day. By that time a second family had begun to share her husband's
house, the rivalry of the mothers had threatened to extend to the
children, the domesticity of home was destroyed and its harmony was no
longer possible. Then she left Oliel, and fled back to England, taking
Israel with her.

Her father was dead, and the welcome she got of her half-brothers was
not warm. They had no sympathy with her rebellion against her husband's
second marriage. If she had married into a foreign country, she should
abide by the ways of it. Sara was heartbroken. Her health had long been
poor, and now it failed her utterly. In less than a month she died.
On her deathbed she committed her boy to the care of her brothers, and
implored them not to send him back to Morocco.

For years thereafter Israel's life in London was a stern one. If he had
no longer to submit to the open contempt of the Moors, the kicks and
insults of the streets, he had to learn how bitter is the bread that one
is forced to eat at another's table. When he should have been still at
school he was set to some menial occupation in the bank at Holborn Bars,
and when he ought to have risen at his desk he was required to teach the
sons of prosperous men the way to go above him. Life was playing an evil
game with him, and, though he won, it must be at a bitter price.

Thus twelve years went by, and Israel, now three-and-twenty, was a
tall, silent, very sedate young man, clear-headed on all subjects, and a
master of figures. Never once during that time had his father written
to him, or otherwise recognised his existence, though knowing of his
whereabouts from the first by the zealous importunities of his uncles.
Then one day a letter came written in distant tone and formal manner,
announcing that the writer had been some time confined to his bed, and
did not expect to leave it; that the children of his second wife had
died in infancy; that he was alone, and had no one of his own flesh
and blood to look to his business, which was therefore in the hands of
strangers, who robbed him; and finally, that if Israel felt