“Why did he kill so many men, then?” sez Al Faizi.
“To make the other men behave themselves,” sez Martin.
“Kill them to make them act better?”
“The Catholics and the Protestants both fought in the name of their religion, and tortured and killed and slaughtered thousands and thousands of men and women.”
“For the sake of religion?” sez Al Faizi. And he took out his book and wrote rapidly for awhile, but he didn’t say nothin’.
“It was a case of killing or being killed,” sez Martin. “It was a religious war.”
“A religious war?” sez Al Faizi dreamily. “Where was His teaching, the divine Christ, ‘Love your enemies, do good to them that persecute you’?”
“That won’t work,” sez Martin; “those words are good in peace, but in danger they don’t work worth a cent.”
Al Faizi looked up slowly to Martin’s face; in his eyes wuz a shinin’ light, a softness, a tenderness sech as made his face shine, and underneath it all wuz a sort of a innocent, wonderin’ look, which I spoze would be called primitive and oncivilized.
Martin’s face looked commercial and successful, sharp and shrewd, and what he called civilized.