“It would have gone on well enough, if William the Wilful had not put his finger into the pie,” said the boy resentfully. His sympathies were evidently with France.
“We were in Fez when the German Emperor made that famous visit to the Sultan,” said the old man. “I have never seen the people so moved. They were in a frenzy of joy; they thought they were saved!”
“That bubble was soon pricked,” said the boy.
“Perhaps, but the Conference sitting over in Algeciras would never have come off, if it had not been for his visit.”
“What will the Conference accomplish?” I asked.
“It will insure what the diplomats call ‘the integrity of Morocco’ for a little longer, that is all.”
“How will it end?”
The old man stroked his long gray beard with a truly Oriental movement of the hand. “Keep your ear to the ground,” he said; “the end of Islam is not yet. There are more Mohammedans than Christians in the world; they still make converts. I myself knew an English Lord who became a musselman.”
“Instead of quarreling among themselves, let the Christians unite!” said the young man.
“Strife there must be. The young tigers wrestle together, or they would not be strong to wrestle with the enemy when it is time to go out into the jungle and kill!”