But without a shout or a cry they knelt, as with one accord, at the mouth of the precipice, with their backs to it, men and women and children, knee to knee in a line, and joined hands, and looked towards the soldiers, who were coming steadily down on them.

On and on the soldiers came, eye to eye with the people, and their swords were drawn.
Israel gasped for his breath, and waited to see the people cut in pieces at the next instant, when suddenly they began to sing where they knelt at the edge of the precipice, "God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble." In another moment the soldiers had drawn up as if swords from heaven had fallen on them, and Israel was crying out of his dry throat, "Fear nothing! Only deliver your bodies to the Governor, and none shall harm you." Absalam rose up from his knees and called to his father and his son.
And standing between them to be seen by all, and first looking upon both with eyes of pity, he drew from the folds of his selham a long knife such as the Reefians wear, and taking his father by his white hair he slew him and cast his body down the rocks.

After that he turned towards his son, and the boy was golden-haired and his face was like the morning, and Israel's heart bled to see him.
"Absalam!" he cried in a moving voice; "Absalam, wait, wait!" But Absalam killed his son also, and cast him down after his father.
Then, looking around on his people with eyes of compassion, as seeming to pity them that they must fall again into the hands of Israel and his master, he stretched out his knife and sheathed it in his own breast, and fell towards the precipice.
Israel covered his face and groaned in his heart, and said, "It is the end, O Lord God, it is the end--polluted wretch that I am, with the blood of these people upon me!" The companions of Absalam delivered themselves to the soldiers, who committed them to the prison at Shawan, and Ben Aboo went home in content.
Rumour of what had come to pass was not long in reaching Tetuan, and Israel was charged with the guilt of it.

In passing through the streets the next day on his way to his house the people hissed him openly.
"Allah had not written it!" a Moor shouted as he passed.

"Take care!" cried an Arab, "Mohammed of Mequinez is coming!" It chanced that night, after sundown, when Naomi, according to her wont, led her father to the upper room, and fetched the Book of the Law from the cupboard of the wall and laid it upon his knees, that he read the passage whereon the page opened of itself, scarce knowing what he read when he began to read it, for his spirit was heavy with the bad doings of those days.