The Scapegoat | Page 5

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.
Thus he found himself without standing ground in Morocco, whether as
a Jew, a Moor, or an Englishman, a stranger in his father's country, and
openly branded as a cheat. That he did not return to England promptly
was because he was already a man of indomitable spirit. Besides that,
the treatment he was having now was but of a piece with what he had

received at all times. Nothing had availed to crush him, even as nothing
ever does avail to crush a man of character. But the obstacles and
torments which make no impression on the mind of a strong man often
make a very sensible impression on his heart; the mind triumphs, it is
the heart that suffers; the mind strengthens and expands after every
besetting plague of life, but the heart withers and wears away.
So far from flying from Morocco when things conspired together to
beat him down, Israel looked about with an equal mind for the means
of settling there.
His opportunity came early. The Governor, either by qualm of
conscience or further freak of selfishness, got him the place of head of
the Oomana, the three Administrators of Customs at Tangier. He held
the post six months only, to the complete satisfaction of the Kaid, but
amid the muttered discontent of the merchants and tradesmen. Then the
Governor of Tetuan, a bigger town lying