第2章

ISRAEL BEN OLIEL

Israel was the son of a Jewish banker at Tangier.His mother was the daughter of a banker in London.The father's name was Oliel;the mother's was Sara.Oliel had held business connections with the house of Sara's father, and he came over to England that he might have a personal meeting with his correspondent.

The English banker lived over his office, near Holborn Bars, and Oliel met with his family.It consisted of one daughter by a first wife, long dead, and three sons by a second wife, still living.They were not altogether a happy household, and the chief apparent cause of discord was the child of the first wife in the home of the second.Oliel was a man of quick perception, and he saw the difficulty.That was how it came about that he was married to Sara.When he returned to Morocco he was some thousand pounds richer than when he left it, and he had a capable and personable wife into his bargain.

Oliel was a self-centred and silent man, absorbed in getting and spending, always taking care to have much of the one, and no more than he could help of the other.Sara was a nervous and sensitive little woman, hungering for communion and for sympathy.She got little of either from her husband, and grew to be as silent as he.With the people of the country of her adoption, whether Jews or Moors, she made no headway.She never even learnt their language.

Two years passed, and then a child was born to her.This was Israel, and for many a year thereafter he was all the world to the lonely woman.

His coming made no apparent difference to his father.He grew to be a tall and comely boy, quick and bright, and inclined to be of a sweet and cheerful disposition.But the school of his upbringing was a hard one.A Jewish child in Morocco might know from his cradle that he was not born a Moor and a Mohammedan.

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 any duty towards his father, or, failing that, if he had any wish to consult his own interest, he would lose no time in leaving England for Morocco.

Israel read the letter without a throb of filial affection;but, nevertheless, he concluded to obey its summons.A fortnight later he landed at Tangier.He had come too late.His father had died the day before.The weather was stormy, and the surf on the shore was heavy, and thus it chanced that, even while the crazy old packet on which he sailed lay all day beating about the bay, in fear of being dashed on to the ruins of the mole, his father's body was being buried in the little Jewish cemetery outside the eastern walls, and his cousins, and cousins' cousins, to the fifth degree, without loss of time or waste of sentiment, were busily dividing his inheritance among them.

Next day, as his father's heir, he claimed from the Moorish court the restitution of his father's substance.But his cousins made the Kadi, the judge, a present of a hundred dollars, and he was declared to be an impostor, who could not establish his identity.

Producing his father's letter which had summoned him from London, he appealed from the Kadi to the Aolama, men wise in the law, who acted as referees in disputed cases; but it was decided that as a Jew he had no right in Mohammedan law to offer evidence in a civil court.He laid his case before the British Consul, but was found to have no claim to English intervention, being a subject of the Sultan both by birth and parentage.

Meantime, his dispute with his cousins was set at rest for ever by the Governor of the town, who, concluding that his father had left neither will nor heirs, confiscated everything he had possessed to the public treasury--that is to say, to the Kaid's own uses.