Scapegoat; a romance and a parable , livre ebook

Pub One Info - Sir Caine Hall

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

162 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. Within sight of an English port, and within hail of English ships as they pass on to our empire in the East, there is a land where the ways of life are the same to-day as they were a thousand years ago; a land wherein government is oppression, wherein law is tyranny, wherein justice is bought and sold, wherein it is a terror to be rich and a danger to be poor, wherein man may still be the slave of man, and women is no more than a creature of lust- a reproach to Europe, a disgrace to the century, an outrage on humanity, a blight on religion! That land is Morocco!

Informations

Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819931034
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE SCAPEGOAT
By Hall Caine
PREFACE
Within sight of an English port, and within hailof English ships as they pass on to our empire in the East, thereis a land where the ways of life are the same to-day as they were athousand years ago; a land wherein government is oppression,wherein law is tyranny, wherein justice is bought and sold, whereinit is a terror to be rich and a danger to be poor, wherein man maystill be the slave of man, and women is no more than a creature oflust— a reproach to Europe, a disgrace to the century, an outrageon humanity, a blight on religion! That land is Morocco!
This is a story of Morocco in the last years ofthe Sultan Abd er-Rahman. The ashes of that tyrant are cold, andhis grandson sits in his place; but men who earned his displeasurelinger yet in his noisome dungeons, and women who won his embracesare starving at this hour in the prison-palaces in which he immuredthem. His reign is a story of yesterday; he is gone, he isforgotten; no man so meek and none so mean but he might spit uponhis tomb. Yet the evil work which he did in his evil time is doneto-day, if not by his grandson, then in his grandson's name— thedegradation of man's honour, the cruel wrong of woman's, the shameof base usury, and the iniquity of justice that may be bought! Ofsuch corruption this story will tell, for it is a tale of tyrannythat is every day repeated, a voice of suffering going up hourly tothe powers of the world, calling on them to forget the secret hopesand petty jealousies whereof Morocco is a cause, to think no moreof any scramble for territory when the fated day of that doomedland has come, and only to look to it and see that he who fills thethrone of Abd er-Rahman shall be the last to sit there.
Yet it is the grandeur of human nature that whenit is trodden down it waits for no decree of nations, but finds itsown solace amid the baffled struggle against inimical power in thehopes of an exalted faith. That cry of the soul to be lifted out ofthe bondage of the narrow circle of life, which carries up to Godthe protest and yearning of suffering man, never finds a moresublime expression than where humanity is oppressed and religion iscorrupt. On the one hand, the hard experience of daily existence;on the other hand, the soul crying out that the things of thisworld are not the true realities. Savage vices make savage virtues.God and man are brought face to face.
In the heart of Morocco there is one man wholives a life that is like a hymn, appealing to God against tyrannyand corruption and shame. This great soul is the leader of a vastfollowing which has come to him from every scoured and beatencorner of the land. His voice sounds throughout Barbary, andwheresoever men are broken they go to him, and wheresoever womenare fallen and wrecked they seek the mercy and the shelter of hisface. He is poor, and has nothing to give them save one thing only,but that is the best thing of all— it is hope. Not hope in life,but hope in death, the sublime hope whose radiance is always aroundhim. Man that veils his face before the mysteries of the hereafter,and science that reckons the laws of nature and ignores the powerof God, have no place with the Mahdi. The unseen is his certainty;the miracle is all in all to him; he throngs the air with marvels;God speaks to him in dreams when he sleeps, and warns and directshim by signs when he is awake.
With this man, so singular a mixture of thehaughty chief and the joyous child, there is another, a woman, hiswife. She is beautiful with a beauty rarely seen in other women,and her senses are subtle beyond the wonders of enchantment.Together these two, with their ragged fellowship of the poor behindthem, having no homes and no possessions, pass from place to place,unharmed and unhindered, through that land of intolerance andiniquity, being protected and reverenced by virtue of thesuperstition which accepts them for Saints. Who are they? What havethey been?
CHAPTER I
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'sname was Oliel; the mother's was Sara. Oliel had held businessconnections with the house of Sara's father, and he came over toEngland that he might have a personal meeting with hiscorrespondent. The English banker lived over his office, nearHolborn Bars, and Oliel met with his family. It consisted of onedaughter by a first wife, long dead, and three sons by a secondwife, still living. They were not altogether a happy household, andthe chief apparent cause of discord was the child of the first wifein the home of the second. Oliel was a man of quick perception, andhe saw the difficulty. That was how it came about that he wasmarried to Sara. When he returned to Morocco he was some thousandpounds richer than when he left it, and he had a capable andpersonable wife into his bargain.
Oliel was a self-centred and silent man, absorbed ingetting 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 andsensitive little woman, hungering for communion and for sympathy.She got little of either from her husband, and grew to be as silentas he. With the people of the country of her adoption, whether Jewsor Moors, she made no headway. She never even learnt theirlanguage.
Two years passed, and then a child was born to her.This was Israel, and for many a year thereafter he was all theworld to the lonely woman. His coming made no apparent differenceto his father. He grew to be a tall and comely boy, quick andbright, and inclined to be of a sweet and cheerful disposition. Butthe school of his upbringing was a hard one. A Jewish child inMorocco might know from his cradle that he was not born a Moor anda Mohammedan.
When the boy was eight years old his father marrieda second wife, his first wife being still alive. This was lawful,though unusual in Tangier. The new marriage, which was only anotherbusiness transaction to Oliel, was a shock and a terror to Sara.Nevertheless, she supported its penalties through three wearyyears, sinking visibly under them day after day. By that time asecond family had begun to share her husband's house, the rivalryof the mothers had threatened to extend to the children, thedomesticity of home was destroyed and its harmony was no longerpossible. Then she left Oliel, and fled back to England, takingIsrael with her.
Her father was dead, and the welcome she got of herhalf-brothers was not warm. They had no sympathy with her rebellionagainst her husband's second marriage. If she had married into aforeign country, she should abide by the ways of it. Sara washeartbroken. Her health had long been poor, and now it failed herutterly. In less than a month she died. On her deathbed shecommitted her boy to the care of her brothers, and implored themnot to send him back to Morocco.
For years thereafter Israel's life in London was astern one. If he had no longer to submit to the open contempt ofthe Moors, the kicks and insults of the streets, he had to learnhow bitter is the bread that one is forced to eat at another'stable. When he should have been still at school he was set to somemenial occupation in the bank at Holborn Bars, and when he ought tohave risen at his desk he was required to teach the sons ofprosperous men the way to go above him. Life was playing an evilgame with him, and, though he won, it must be at a bitterprice.
Thus twelve years went by, and Israel, nowthree-and-twenty, was a tall, silent, very sedate young man,clear-headed on all subjects, and a master of figures. Never onceduring that time had his father written to him, or otherwiserecognised his existence, though knowing of his whereabouts fromthe first by the zealous importunities of his uncles. Then one daya letter came written in distant tone and formal manner, announcingthat the writer had been some time confined to his bed, and did notexpect to leave it; that the children of his second wife had diedin infancy; that he was alone, and had no one of his own flesh andblood to look to his business, which was therefore in the hands ofstrangers, who robbed him; and finally, that if Israel felt anyduty towards his father, or, failing that, if he had any wish toconsult his own interest, he would lose no time in leaving Englandfor Morocco.
Israel read the letter without a throb of filialaffection; but, nevertheless, he concluded to obey its summons. Afortnight later he landed at Tangier. He had come too late. Hisfather had died the day before. The weather was stormy, and thesurf on the shore was heavy, and thus it chanced that, even whilethe crazy old packet on which he sailed lay all day beating aboutthe bay, in fear of being dashed on to the ruins of the mole, hisfather's body was being buried in the little Jewish cemeteryoutside 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 theMoorish court the restitution of his father's substance. But hiscousins made the Kadi, the judge, a present of a hundred dollars,and he was declared to be an impostor, who could not establish hisidentity. Producing his father's letter which had summoned him fromLondon, he appealed from the Kadi to the Aolama, men wise in thelaw, who acted as referees in disputed cases; but it was decidedthat as a Jew he had no right in Mohammedan law to offer evidencein a civil court. He laid his case before the British Consul, butwas found to have no claim to English intervention, being a subjectof the Sultan both by birth and parentage. Meantime, his disputewith his cousins was set at rest for ever by the Governor of thetown, who, concluding that his father had left neither will norheirs, confiscated everything he had possessed to the publictreasury— that is to say, to the Kaid's own uses.
Thus he found