At this moment a plague is upon us.

The country is bare; the town is overflowing; every man stumbles over his fellow our lives hang in doubt; in the morning we say 'Would it were evening'; in the evening we say, 'Would it were morning'; stretch out your hand and help us!" Again the crowd burst into shouts of assent, and the stridulous voice continued: "Let us say to him 'Lord Basha, there is no way of help but one.

Pluck down this man that is set over us.

He belongs to our own race and nation; but give us a master of any other race and nation; any Moor, any Arab, any Berber, any negro; only take back this man of our own people, and your servants will bless you.'" The old man's voice was drowned in great shouts of "Ben Aboo!" "To Ben Aboo!" "Why wait for the judges ?" "To the Kasbah!" "The Kasbah!" But a second voice came piercing through the boom and clash of those waves of sound, and it was thin and shrill as the cry of a pea-hen.
Naomi knew this voice also--it was the voice of Judah ben Lolo, the elder of the synagogue, who would have been sitting among the three-and-twenty-judges but that he was a usurer also.
"Why go to the Kaid ?" said the voice like a peahen.

"Does the Basha love this Israel ben Oliel?
Has he of late given many signs of such affection?
Bethink you, brothers, and act wisely! Would not Ben Aboo be glad to have done with this servant who has been so long his master?
Then why trouble him with your grievance?
Act for yourselves, and the Kaid will thank you! And well may this Israel ben Oliel praise the Lord and worship Him, that He has not put it into the hearts of His people to play the game of breaker of tyrants by the spilling of blood, as the races around them, the Arabs and the Berbers, who are of a temper more warm by nature, must long ago have done, and that not unjustly either, or altogether to the displeasure of a Kaid who is good and humane and merciful, and has never loved that his poor people should be oppressed." At this word, though it made pretence to commend the temperance of the crowd, the fury broke out more loudly than before.