The Scapegoat | Page 6

a long day's journey to the
east, hearing of Israel that as Ameen of Tangier he had doubled the
custom revenues in half a year, invited him to fill an informal,
unofficial, and irregular position as assessor of tributes.
Now, it would be a long task to tell of the work which Israel did in his
new calling: how he regulated the market dues, and appointed a
Mut'hasseb, a clerk of the market, to collect them-- so many
moozoonahs for every camel sold, so many for every horse, mule, and
ass, so many floos for every fowl, and so many metkals for the
purchase and sale of every slave; how he numbered the houses and
made lists of the trades, assessing their tribute by the value of their
businesses--so much for gun-making, so much for weaving, so much
for tanning, and so on through the line of them, great and small, good
and bad, even from the trades of the Jewish silversmiths and the
Moorish packsaddle-makers down to the callings of the Arab
water-carriers and the ninety public women.
All this he did by the strict law and letter of the Koran, which entitled
the Sultan to a tithe of all earnings whatsoever; but it would not wrong
the truth to say that he did it also by the impulse of a sour and saddened
heart. The world had shown no mercy to him, and he need show no

mercy to the world. Why talk of pity? It was only a name, an idea a
mocking thought. In the actual reckoning of life there was no such
name as pity. Thus did Israel justify himself in all his dealings,
whatever their severity and the rigour wherewith they wrought.
And the people felt the strong hand that was on them, and they cursed
it.
"Ya Allah! Allah!" the Moors would cry. "Who is this Jew--this son of
the English--that he should be made our master?"
They muttered at him in the streets, they scowled upon him, and at
length they insulted him openly. Since his return from England he had
resumed the dress of his race in his country-- the long dark gabardine or
kaftan, with a scarf for girdle, the black slippers, and the black
skull-cap. And, going one day by the Grand Mosque, a group of the
beggars; who lay always by the gate, called on him to uncover his feet.
"Jew! Dog!" they cried, "there is no god but God! Curses on your
relations! Off with your slippers!"
He paid no heed to their commands, but made straight onward. Then
one blear-eyed and scab-faced cripple scrambled up and struck off his
cap with a crutch. He picked it up again without a look or a word, and
strode away. But next morning, at early prayers, there was a place
empty at the door of the mosque. Its accustomed occupant lay in the
prison at the Kasbah.
And if the Muslimeen hated Israel for what he was doing for their
Governor, the Jews hated him yet more because it was being done for a
Moor.
"He has sold himself to our enemy," they said, "against the welfare of
his own nation."
At the synagogue they ignored him, and in taking the votes of their
people they counted others and passed him by. He showed no malice.
Only his strong face twitched at each fresh insult and his head was held

higher. Only this, and one other sign of suffering in that secret place of
his withering heart, which God's eye alone could see.
Thus far he had done no more to Moor and Jew than exact that tenth
part of their substance which the faiths of both required that they
should pay. But now his work went further. A little group of old Jews,
all held in honour among their people--Abraham Ohana, nicknamed
Pigman, son of a former rabbi; Judah ben Lolo, an elder of his
synagogue; and Reuben Maliki, keeper of the poor-box--were seized
and cast into the Kasbah for gross and base usury.
At this the Jewish quarter was thrown into wild hubbub. The hand that
was on their people was a daring and terrible one. None doubted whose
hand it was--it was the hand of young Israel the Jew.
When the three old usurers had bought themselves out of the Kasbah,
they put their heads together and said, "Let us drive this fellow out of
the Mellah, and so shall he be driven out of the town." Then the owner
of the house which Israel rented for his lodging evicted him by a poor
excuse, and all other Jewish owners refused him as tenant. But the
conspiracy failed.By command of the Governor, or by his influence,
Israel was lodged by the Nadir, the administrator of mosque property,
in