There was something immensely, tremendously incongruous in his position. It was without precedent. He had come, in the first place, as a sort of private inquiry agent. He was a detective charged by a group of three or four people, a clergyman or two, a wealthy Member of Parliament, to find out the year-old movements—if, indeed, movements there had been!—of a distinguished European professor. He was to pry, to question, to deceive. This much in itself was utterly astonishing, strangely difficult of realisation.
But how much more there was to stir and confuse his brain!
He was coming back alone to Jerusalem. But a short time ago he had seen the great savants of Europe—only thirty miles beyond this Eastern town—reluctantly pronounce the words which meant the downfall of the Christian Faith.
The gunboat which had brought them all was anchored in this very spot. A Turkish guard had been waiting yonder on the quay, they had gone along the new road to Jerusalem in open carriages,—through the orange groves,—riding to make history.
And now he was here once more.
While he sat on this dingy steamer in this remote corner of the Mediterranean, it was no exaggeration to say that the whole world was in a state of cataclysm such as it had hardly, at least not often, known before.
It was his business to watch events, to forecast whither they would lead. He was a Simon Magus of the modern world, with an electric wire and stylographic pen to prophesy with. He of all men could see and realise what was happening all over the globe. He was more alarmed than even the man in the street. This much was certain.
And a day's easy ride away lay the little town which held the acre of rocky ground from which all these horrors, this imminent upheaval, had come.
Again it seemed beyond the power of his brain to seize it all, to contain the vastness of his thoughts.
These facts, which all the world knew, were almost too stupendous for belief. But when he dwelt upon the personal aspect of them he was as a traveller whose way is irrevocably barred by sheer precipice.