“Anything the matter with you?”
“No; but I can not sleep.”
“That is amusing. And do you take me for a 302 soporific? If you think you can sleep here, stretch yourself on the couch and try.” Saying which, she laughed and hurried back to her bed.
“I did not come to sleep.”
“What then? How lovely of you to wake me up so early.––No, no; don’t apologise. For truly, I too, could not sleep. You see, I was still reading. Sit on the couch there and talk to me.––Of course, you may smoke.––No, I prefer to sit in bed.”
Khalid lights another cigarette and sits down. On the table before him are some antique colour prints which Mrs. Gotfry had bought in the Bazaar. These one can only get in Damascus. And––strange coincidence!––they represented some of the heroes of Arabia––Antar, Ali, Saladin, Harûn ar-Rashid––done in gorgeous colouring, and in that deliciously ludicrous angular style which is neither Arabic nor Egyptian, but a combination perhaps of both. Khalid reads the poetry under each of them and translates it into English. Mrs. Gotfry is charmed. Khalid is lost in thought. He lays the picture of Saladin on the table, lights another cigarette, looks intently upon his friend, his face beaming with his dream.
“Jamilah.” It was the first time he called her by her first name––an Arabic name which, as a Bahaist she had adopted. And she was neither surprised nor displeased.
“We need another Saladin to-day,––a Saladin of the Idea, who will wage a crusade, not against Christianity or Mohammedanism, but against those Tataric usurpers who are now toadying to both.” 303
“Whom do you mean?”
“I mean the Turks. They were given a last chance to rise; they tried and failed. They can not rise. They are demoralised; they have no stamina, no character; no inborn love for truth and art; no instinctive or acquired sense of right and justice. Whiskey and debauch and high-sounding inanities about fraternity and equality can not regenerate an Empire. The Turk must go: he will go. But out in those deserts is a race which is always young, a race that never withers; a strong, healthy, keen-eyed, quick-witted race; a fighting, fanatical race; a race that gave Europe a civilisation, that gave the world a religion; a race with a past as glorious as Rome’s; and with a future, too, if we had an Ali or a Saladin. But He who made those heroes will make others like them, better, too. He may have made one already, and that one may be wandering now in the desert. Now think what can be done in Arabia, think what the Arabs can accomplish, if American arms and an up-to-date Korân are spread broadcast among them. With my words and your love and influence, with our powers united, we can build an Arab Empire, we can resuscitate the Arab Empire of the past. Abd’ul-Wahhab, you know, is the Luther of Arabia; and Wahhabism is not dead. It is only slumbering in Nejd. We will wake it; arm it; infuse into it the living spirit of the Idea. We will begin by building a plant for the manufacture of arms on the shore of the Euphrates, and a University in Yaman. The Turk must go––at least out of Arabia. And the 304 Turk in Europe, Europe will look after. No; the Arab will never be virtually conquered. Nominally, maybe. And I doubt if any of the European Powers can do it. Why? Chiefly because Arabia has a Prophet. She produced one and she will produce more. Cannons can destroy Empires; but only the living voice, the inspired voice can build them.”