Naomi wept more than ever at the sound of these faltering words, and it was not without effort that the Mahdi answered him.
“Think no more of that,” he said, and then he stopped, as if the word that he had been about to speak had halted on his tongue.
“It is hard to leave her,” said Israel, “for she is alone; and who will protect her when I am gone?”
“God lives,” said the Mahdi, “and He is Father to the fatherless.”
“But what Jew,” said Israel, “would not repeat for her her father's troubles, and what Muslim could save her from her own?”
“Who that trusts in God,” said the Mahdi, “need fear the Kaid?”
“But what man can save her?” cried Israel again.
And then the Mahdi, touched by Naomi's tears as well as her father's importunities, answered out of a hot heart and said—
“Peace, peace! If there is no one else to take her, from this day forward she shall go with me.”
Naomi looked up at him then with such a light in her beautiful eyes as he has often since, but had never before seen there, and Israel ben Oliel who had been holding at his hand, clutched suddenly at his wrist.