As he sat there, he heard and saw nothing of his surroundings, for Margaret's eyes and beauty had given him a delicious new world of his own. They had told him that she had always trusted him. They had obliterated the war, and the fact that he was journeying towards it. They had made his pulses throb again with the wine of passion and gay romance. He was an individual once more, enjoying the sweetness of the woman whose love had been so devoutly his.
It seemed so odd that the fresh, clean, proud-looking girl, with the dark hair and the crimson cross on her breast, behind the food counter, was actually the woman who had trembled in his arms under the desert stars, for her very fear of her love for him. She had once been very, very near to him; she had seemed an indispensable part of his life. To-night, standing behind the buffet, although she was materially quite close, she was hopelessly far away. His only privilege had been to take a cup of tea from her hands. A world of fresh experience and emotion had separated them.
For a long time he sat motionless on his kit, dreaming only of Margaret. Now it was of the wonderful things which her eyes had told him; now it was of the distance and circumstances which separated them. Later on he roused himself out of his reverie, for the men in the carriage at whose open door he was sitting were singing, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary"—the song had not yet been depopularized by "Keep the home-fires burning"; it was still sung by soldiers and civilians and gramophones. The lusty, cheery voices brought Michael's mind back to the stern reality of war. He peeped out into the night, lifting up the blind from the window-pane and putting his head under it.
The cold, bleak day had given place to a starlit night, with a high-sailing moon. The snowcapped mountains and distant forests of solemn pine-trees looked serenely indifferent to the material affairs of mankind. Their purity and indifference wounded Michael. How could Nature remain so callously superior, so selfishly peaceful, while he was hurrying to France, to witness cruelties which it had taken the world all its great age to invent and put into action? These cold mountains, rushing streams and hidden glens would just go on smiling in the sunshine by day and sleeping peacefully under the moonlight, while golden youth was sacrificing itself on the altar of Liberty.
As the train rushed on through the darkness, emitting sparks which showed her pace, Michael's thoughts drifted to the old African in el-Azhar and all that he had visualized. As his eyes peered out from the jealously-covered windows and rested on the long line of mountains, high in their snowy whiteness, he repeated the old man's words:
"Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and the people imagine vain things in their hearts? I tell you, my son, it is because they have not the love of God in their hearts."
Yes, why, oh why, did they do it? The world he looked out upon was surely meant for grander and better things? It had nothing to do with bloodshed. And yet, even as he said it, words and voice answered back:
"Pray for fortitude, my son, that moral condition which enables us to meet danger and endure pain with calmness. I tell you to pray for fortitude, for without it you cannot face the future."
As his thoughts were lost in this prayer, he got back his assurance that this war of wars had to be fought in the cause of freedom. He knew that it had to be won by the Allies, to ensure the triumph of right over might. This was the war which was to terminate all wars; the victory of the Allies was to bring about the disarmament of all powerful nations. It was the forerunner of a higher civilization.
He put his head between his hands and rested it on his knees. He knew that his words were true. And yet, had not his old friend in el-Azhar been as sincerely convinced that this war which he had visualized was to be fought for the triumph of Islam? Was he not certain that Allah had ordained it to prove to all countries upon the earth that the Christian nations had shown that their religion was hideous in Allah's sight, that it was a failure, that it had not redeemed mankind?