although in comparison with the bondman, the deemster or the manxman, the scapegoat is not a masterpiece, yet it is in no sense a failure, or derogatory to the gifted hand that wrote it. written next in order after the bondman, the scapegoat seems to be an aftermath of that, one of the three greatest works, in our opinion, of hall caine. it is bitter without much sweetness, and it draws out its long note of human woe without one cheering ray. tenderness and hope are indeed present, and they are the avenues through which the writer approaches his story, and the means whereby he enchains the hearts of his readers, gladdening and strengthening their souls by his own fervency of belief. hall caine has a[150] wonderful power of creating atmosphere. in this novel of the scapegoat, we tread the tortuous streets of a morocco town, we think in the inflated metaphors of its inhabitants, we brush against the varied costumes that denote their myriad nationalities. we feel religious antagonism to be a race-element, oriental cunning and cruelty matters of course; and we read of the spaniards as though they were to us a strange people from a far-off continent, so thoroughly has the writer imbibed the spirit of his tale.
israel ben oliel is a man hardened by circumstance. he is a jew whose father married for gain and knew no paternal tenderness. brought up in england, israel returns to his native country, morocco, on the death of his father, and takes the post of assessor of tributes for the kaid of tetuan. his calling, though pursued at the first with justice, makes him to be hated by the over-taxed people, and on his marriage with the daughter of the grand rabbi, they gather before the house to curse[151] and prophesy evil. ben oliel and his wife, ruth, take up their worse than lonely life in israel’s house in the jewish quarter. for long they have no child and are held in derision by the jews their neighbours; but after the space of three years their prayers are answered, and on the birth-night of the child, israel prepares a feast and invites his enemies that he may triumph over them.
israel … leapt up from the table and faced full upon his guests, and cried, “now you know what it is; and now you know why you are bidden to this supper! you are here to rejoice with me over my enemies! drink! drink! confusion to all of them!” and he lifted a winecup and drank himself.
they were abashed before him, and tried to edge out of the patio into the street; but he put his back to the passage, and faced them again.
“you will not drink?” he said. “then listen to me.” he dashed the winecup out of his hand and it broke into fragments on the floor. his laughter was gone, his face was aflame, and his voice rose to a shrill cry. “you foretold the doom of god upon me, you brought me low, you made me ashamed: but behold how the lord has lifted me up! you set your women to prophesy that god would not suffer me to raise up children to be a reproach and a curse among my people; but god has this day given me a son like the best of[152] you. more than that—more than that—my son shall yet see—”
the slave woman was touching his arm. “it is a girl,” she said; “a girl!”
for a moment israel stammered and paused. then he cried, “no matter! she shall see your own children fatherless, and with none to show them mercy! she shall see the iniquity of their fathers remembered against them! she shall see them beg their bread, and seek it in desolate places! and now you can go! go! go!”
he had stepped aside as he spoke, and with a sweep of his arm he was driving them all out like sheep before him, dumfounded and with their eyes in the dust, when suddenly there was a low cry from the inner room.
it was ruth calling for her husband. israel wheeled about and went in to her hurriedly, and his enemies, by one impulse of evil instinct, followed him and listened from the threshold.
ruth’s face was a face of fear, and her lips moved, but no voice came from them.
and israel said, “how is it with you, my dearest, joy of my joy and pride of my pride?”
then ruth lifted the babe from her bosom and said, “the lord has counted my prayer to me as sin—look, see; the child is both dumb and blind!”
israel sinks yet deeper in the contempt of his countrymen because of what seems to them a manifest judgment of god. and he, knowing his condemnation to be unjust, is soured by the knowledge, and, in rebellion[153] against god and man, changes his hitherto upright dealings, becoming in very deed a persecutor of the people. meanwhile he has taken into his household a little negro waif as a companion for his stricken child naomi. he grows up to be the devoted follower of israel in his adversities. when naomi has reached her seventh year, her mother dies, and is buried in the jewish cemetery by six state prisoners from the jail, for none other in his isolation can israel find to help him. he returns to his orphaned child and wraps around her all his thought, all his tenderness. nightly he reads to her from the koran, doing his best to dispel the terrible fear that she, knowing nothing of god, may stand condemned in the next life; for in a vision of the night, he has seen naomi going out into the wilderness as the scapegoat for his sins. so seven more years pass and israel’s heart softens towards the people under him, and he begins to hate the tyrannies that are exercised over them. and in the disturbance of his heart he takes a journey out to where the prophet[154] mohammed of mequinez, a man who has given up all to the cause of the poor and afflicted, holds his camp of refugees. the prophet tells him: “exact no more than is just; do violence to no man; accuse none falsely; part with your riches and give to the poor:” and with the hope in his heart that such sacrifice will turn god’s face towards naomi, israel returns home on foot, giving away all that he carries with him except that which his necessities require. he reaches home in tattered moorish clothing which at first prevents his recognition.
then ali knew him and cried, “god save us! what has happened?”
“what has happened here?” said israel. “naomi,” he faltered, “what of her?”
“then you have heard?” said ali. “thank god, she is now well.” israel laughed—his laugh was like a scream.
“more than that—a strange thing has befallen her since you went away,” said ali.
“what?”
“she can hear.”
“it’s a lie!” cried israel, and he raised his hand and struck ali to the floor. but at the next minute he was lifting him up and sobbing and saying, “forgive me, my[155] brave boy. i was mad, my son; i did not know what i was doing. but do not torture me. if what you tell me is true, there is no man so happy under heaven; but if it is false, there is no fiend in hell need envy me.”
and ali answered through his tears, “it is true, my father—come and see.”
naomi has gained her hearing in an illness, and it is with suffering that she learns to bear sound. it is long before she can speak. israel has sorrowed at her suffering and almost reproached god with her dumbness. a plague of locusts is eating up everything off the face of the land. the jews in vain beseech the almighty to send his floods, and then turn their thoughts to the sinner among them whom they believe to be drawing down god’s wrath on their nation. they select israel and assemble with the purpose of putting him to death. walking in the town he stumbles across the people who are crowded together expecting him.
with a loud shout, as if it had been a shout out of one great throat, the crowd encompassed israel, crying, “kill him!” israel stopped, and lifted his heavy face[156] upon the people; but neither did he cry out nor make any struggle for his life. he stood erect and silent in their midst, and massive and square. his brave bearing did not break their fury. they fell upon him, a hundred hands together. one struck at his face, another tore at his long grey hair, and a third thrust him down on to his knees.
no one had yet observed on the outer rim of the crowd the pale slight girl that stood there—blind, dumb, powerless, frail, and so softly beautiful—a waif on the margin of a tempestuous sea. through the thick barriers of naomi’s senses everything was coming to her ugly and terrible. her father was there! they were tearing him to pieces!
suddenly she was gone from the side of the two black women. like a flash of light she had passed through the bellowing throng. she had thrust herself between the people and her father, who was on the ground: she was standing over him with both arms upraised, and at that instant god loosed her tongue, for she was crying, “mercy! mercy!”
then the crowd fell back in great fear. the dumb had spoken. no man dared to touch israel any more. the hands that had been lifted against him dropped back useless, and a wide circle formed around him. in the midst of it stood naomi. her blind face quivered; see seemed to glow like a spirit. and like a spirit she had driven back the people from their deed of blood as with the voice of god—she, the blind, the frail, the helpless.
israel rose to his feet, for no man touched him again, and the procession of judges, which had now come up, was silent. and, seeing how it was that in the hour of[157] his great need the gift of speech had come upon naomi, his heart rose big within him, and he tried to triumph over his enemies, and say, “you thought god’s arm was against me, but behold how god has saved me out of your hands.”
but he could not speak. the dumbness that had fallen from his daughter seemed to have dropped upon him.
at that moment naomi turned to him and said, “father!”
then the cup of israel’s heart was full. his throat choked him. so he took her by the hand in silence, and down a long alley of the people they passed through the mellah gate and went home to their house. her eyes were to the earth, and she wept as she walked; but his face was lifted up, and his tears and his blood ran down his cheeks together.
naomi can now speak, and israel’s world is a happier one. issuing from his house in the night time, he goes into the poorest quarters of the town on errands of mercy, and soon in his liberality becomes a poor man. the people, seeing his poverty, account for it by the supposition that he must be falling from the kaid’s favour, and curse and jeer at him all the more openly. from secret charity, israel determines to renounce his position as servant of the[158] wicked kaid, and waits upon him to deliver up the seal of office. the kaid receives him at first with suspicion, then with contempt, finally with insult. the wife of the kaid strikes israel with her fan.
in the blank stupor of the moment, every eye being on the two that stood in the midst, no one had observed until then that another had entered the patio. it was naomi. how long she had been there no one knew, and how she had come unnoticed through the corridors out of the streets scarce anyone—even when time sufficed to arrange the scattered thoughts of the makhazni, the guard at the gate—could clearly tell. she stood under the arch, with one hand at her breast, which heaved visibly with emotion, and the other hand stretched out to touch the open iron-clamped door, as if for help and guidance. her head was held up, her lips were apart, and her motionless blind eyes seemed to stare wildly. she had heard the hot words. she had heard the sound of the blow that followed them. her father was smitten! her father! her father! it was then that she uttered the cry. all eyes turned to her. quaking, reeling, almost falling, she came tottering down the patio. soul and sense seemed to be struggling together in her blind face. what did it all mean? what was happening? her fixed eyes stared as if they must burst the bonds that bound them, and look, and see, and know!
at that moment god wrought a mighty work, a wondrous change, such as he had brought to pass but[159] twice or thrice since men were born blind into his world of light. in an instant, at a thought, by one spontaneous flash, as if the spirit of the girl tore down the dark curtains which had hung for seventeen years over the windows of her eyes, naomi saw!
katrina, the kaid’s wife, pretends to see in this nothing but imposture. telling her husband that naomi’s defects have been assumed, she imparts her own rage to him, and he sentences both israel and his daughter to be put out of the town.
“guards, take both of them. set the man on an ass, and let the girl walk barefoot before him; and let a crier cry beside them: ‘so shall it be done to every man who is an enemy of the kaid, and to every woman who is a play-actor and a cheat!’ thus let them pass through the streets and through the people until they are come to a gate of the town, and then cast them forth from it like lepers and like dogs!”
in the now driving rain naomi and israel are thus paraded in the streets, and all the townsfolk mass themselves to follow in a huge, howling, jeering procession. naomi walks with closed eyes, not being able to bear the light, and for several days she seeks shade and darkness, almost in terror.[160] once out of the town, they find people who are kind to them, giving them food and garments; and they settle in a hut among their new-found friends. israel’s little remaining money is expended on a few sheep and oxen, and a living is found from the sale of wool, butter and milk, which they send into the town with the neighbours’ market produce. they live in happiness for some months until a crushing blow falls. one of israel’s last acts of mercy while in office was to liberate a number of prisoners. the knowledge of this has now come to the kaid’s ears, and he orders the arrest of ben oliel. israel is hurried away to a distant prison, and naomi is left alone, a child in knowledge both of the world and of the dangerous people around her. the thought of the evil that may come to her preys upon israel’s mind in his helplessness, and gradually reduces him to insanity. his comrades, in their sympathy, do all they can to arouse him, and fresh prisoners as they arrive tell of the kaid’s tyrannies, and of how the people of tetuan regret their treatment of[161] israel, wishing him back among them. the kindly efforts are useless, until the wit of the prison tells a harrowing tale in the hope of bringing israel to tears.
that same night, when darkness fell over the dark place, and the prisoners tied up their cotton handkerchiefs and lay down to sleep, tarby sat beside israel’s place with sighs and moans and other symptoms of a dejected air.
“sidi, master,” he faltered, “i had a little brother once, and he was blind. born blind, sidi, my own mother’s son. but you wouldn’t think how happy he was for all that? you see, sidi, he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! by allah! i loved that boy better than all the world! women? why—well, never mind! he was six and i was eighteen, and he used to ride on my back! black curls all over, sidi, and big white eyes that looked at you for all they couldn’t see. well, a bleeder came from soos—curse his great-grandfather! looked at little hosain—‘scales!’ said he—burn his father! ‘bleed him and he’ll see!’ so they bled him, and he did see. by allah! yes, for a minute—half a minute! ‘oh, tarby,’ he cried—i was holding him; then he—he—‘tarby,’ he cried faint, like a lamb that’s lost in the mountains—and then—and then—‘oh, oh, tarby,’ he moaned. sidi, sidi, i paid that bleeder—there and then—this way! that’s why i’m here!”
it was a lie, but tarby acted it so well that his voice broke in his throat, and great drops fell from his eyes on to israel’s hand.
[162]
tarby is successful, and with his tears the old man’s madness leaves him. hardly has he regained his sanity when the order comes for his release, and israel in joy and thankfulness hurries away to rejoin his child.
in the meanwhile, much has befallen naomi. at first she clings to her lonely hut, refusing the neighbours’ hospitality; but little by little she gathers from their talk some idea of what her father’s life in prison must be, and finally determines to follow the custom expected from prisoners’ friends and relatives, in carrying food to him. she sets out with a pannier of loaves and another of eggs on either side of her borrowed mule, paying no heed to the expostulations of the good people around her. but as her journey progresses her heart begins to sink. knowing nothing of evil, and expecting friendliness from all men, she is disheartened by the knowledge that now forces itself upon her, and as, by theft, and in payment for her lodging, her stock of food diminishes, she almost resolves to turn back. by this time she has reached tetuan, and close to the town gates she is[163] met and recognised by a former servant of israel.
the two might have passed unknown, for habeebah was veiled, but that naomi had forgotten her blanket and was uncovered. in another moment the poor frightened girl, with all her brave bearing gone, was weeping on the black woman’s breast.
“whither are you going?” said habeebah.
“to my father,” naomi began. “he is in prison; they say he is starving; i was taking food to him, but i am lost, i don’t know my way, and besides—”
“the very thing!” cried habeebah.
habeebah had her own little scheme. it was meant to win emancipation at the hands of her master, and paradise for her soul when she died. naomi, who was a jewess, was to turn muslima. that was all. then her troubles would end, and wondrous fortune would descend upon her, and her father who was in prison would be set free.
now, religion was nothing to naomi; she hardly understood what it meant. the differences of faith were less than nothing, but her father was everything, and so she clutched at habeebah’s bold promises like a drowning soul at the froth of a breaker.
“my father will be let out of prison? you are sure—quite sure?” she asked.
“quite sure,” answered habeebah stoutly.
naomi’s hopes of ever reaching her father were now faint, and her poor little stock of eggs and bread looked like folly to her new-born worldliness.
“very well,” she said. “i will turn muslima.”
[164]
the two go together to the kaid, who, seeing naomi’s beauty, resolves to ward off the threatened displeasure of the sultan by making a gift of her at the coming royal feast but in the interim, naomi’s former nurse has found her and told her, that to embrace mahometanism would mean separation from her father. the girl halts long in her distress. she is sent to the harem, and from the harem to the prison. she is given her choice of mahometanism or death, and is finally overborne by the jews of tetuan, who, coming to her prison bars, entreat her to renounce her religion.
that night the place under the narrow window in the dark lane was occupied by a group of jews. “sister,” they whispered, “sister of our people, listen. the basha is a hard man. this day he has robbed us of all we had that he may pay for the sultan’s visit. listen! we have heard something. we want israel ben oliel back among us. he was our father, he was our brother. save his life for the sake of our children, for the basha has taken their bread. save him, sister, we beg, we entreat, we pray.”
thus it comes to pass that israel is released from prison, and hastens in his[165] ignorance to the place where he had left naomi, only to find it empty. he is told that she is in the women’s apartments at the kaid’s palace, and the news breaks down his reason; he stays, in the childishness of insanity, in the home of his former happiness.
the sultan enters tetuan amid much outward pomp, but there is an undercurrent of treachery. a rumour of the coming of the mahdi, mohammed of mequinez, is in the air, and beneath that, a feeling of something more—of the revolt which shall abet the spaniards in their expected siege of the town. the mahdi comes, and demands the freedom of naomi, but without success. leaving the palace, he decides to follow the plan at which he had before hesitated, the plan of co-operation with the spaniards. this plot has been contrived by ali, the boy whom israel had trained from childhood; and he has gained the promise of support from all the principal townspeople.
[166]
ali’s stout heart stuck at nothing. he was for having the spaniards brought up to the gates of the town on the very night when the whole majesty and iniquity of barbary would be gathered in one room; then, locking the entire kennel of dogs in the banqueting hall, firing the kasbah and burning it to the ground, with all the moorish tyrants inside of it like rats in a trap.
one danger attended this bold adventure, for naomi’s person was within the kasbah walls. to meet this peril ali was himself to find his way into the dungeon, deliver naomi, lock the kasbah gate, and deliver up to another the key that should serve as a signal for the beginning of the great night’s work.
also one difficulty attended it, for while ali would be at the kasbah there would be no one to bring up the spaniards at the proper moment for the siege—no one in tetuan on whom the strangers could rely not to lead them blindfold into a trap. to meet this difficulty ali had gone in search of the mahdi, revealed to him his plan, and asked him to help in the downfall of his master’s enemies by leading the spaniards at the right moment to the gates that should be thrown open to receive them.
evening falls, and ali proceeds to carry out his plans. he passes into the palace, finds naomi, and leads her to the mahdi. then he joins the spaniards, but forgets to lock the doors of the banqueting hall; and when the town gates open to the enemy,[167] news is carried to the palace and the guests scatter, most of them escaping. ali, in his hatred, hunts the deserted palace for the kaid, and in so doing meets with his death. the kaid, having stayed behind to secure his money-bags, finds himself entrapped, and is stoned to death by the enraged townspeople.
meanwhile the mahdi has taken naomi to her dying father; and over the deathbed of israel they are betrothed. so ends the scapegoat.
it will be seen that to carry out such a plot as this, with its almost miraculous crises, needs a high standard of literary skill. that the writer has succeeded there can be no doubt, for naomi stands out, a creature of living flesh and blood, in whom nature and circumstance work to perfection through suffering. israel’s character is followed in its development, with convincing truth: the sudden rush of joy that elates the man, the reaction that depresses him, the acts of mercy that soften him—all lead irrevocably to the final scene of a soul reconciled to its[168] god. in this novel, as in all the best work of mr caine, the keynote is suffering, but suffering that of itself ennobles and purifies.
whilst writing the scapegoat, mr caine suffered severely from neurasthenia; his illness, of course, had effect upon his work, making it more sombre and gloomy than it might otherwise have been. when the work was published he received an urgent request from the chief rabbi asking him to visit russia and write about the persecutions of the jews in that country. he went in 1892, armed with signed documents from lord salisbury and the chief rabbi which were calculated to gain his admittance wherever he sought to go. the novelist was most warmly received wherever he went; but he was never able to make use of his experiences in the form of a novel. the subject, he felt, was altogether too vast for his experience: it would require years of study which he could not give. on his return to london, he lectured before the jewish workmen’s club in the[169] east end, “in a hall crammed to suffocation. i shall never forget that audience, the tears, the laughter, the applause, the wild embraces to which i was subjected by some of those poor exiles of humanity.”
