“Why me more than another, sister?” said Israel.
“Because it is plain to see that you are a poor man,” said the old woman. “And that is the sort he is hardest upon.”
Israel faltered and said, “He? Who, mother? Ah, you mean—”
“Who else but Israel the Jew?” said she, and then added, as by a sudden afterthought, “But they say he is gone at last, and the Sultan has stripped him. Well, Allah send us some one else soon to set right this poor Gharb of ours! And what a man for poor men he might have been—so wise and powerful!”
Israel listened with his head bent down, and, like a moth at the flame, he could not help but play with the fire that scorched him. “They tell me,” he said, “that Allah has cursed him with a daughter that has devils.”
“Blind and dumb, poor soul,” said the old woman; “but Allah has pity for the afflicted—he is taking her away.”
Israel rose. “Away?”
“She is ill since her father went to Fez.”
“Ill?”
“Yes, I heard so yesterday—dying.”