tians are followers of Allah too," Edgar said, "and yet, as
you say, they are but poor fighters. No, no, sheik; I admit the
extraordinary bravery of the tribesmen. I fought against them at Suakim
and saw them charge down upon our square at Abu Klea. They had no fear
of death, and no men ever fought more bravely. But it was a matter of
race rather than religion. Your people have always been free, for the
rule of Egypt was after all a nominal one. The Egyptians have been
slaves for centuries and have lost their fighting power. In the old, old
days, thousands of years ago, of which we have records in our sacred
book, and which we have learned from other sources, the Egyptians were
among the most war-like of people and carried their arms far and wide,
but for many hundreds of years now they have been ruled by strangers. It
was not very long ago that our people fought a great tribe in the south
of Africa--a tribe who knew nothing of Allah, who had in fact no
religion at all, and yet they fought as stoutly and as well as your
people have done here. It is a matter of race. They were just as ready
to die as were your tribesmen, and that not because they believed, as
you do, that death in battle would open the gates of paradise to them,
but simply because it was the will of their king."

"Mashallah!" the sheik said, stroking his beard, "they must have been
brave indeed to throw away their lives if they knew nothing of paradise,
merely at the will of one man. That was folly indeed. A man has but one
life, it is his all; why should he part with it? Did they love this king
of theirs?"

"I do not know that they loved him," Edgar said, "but they feared him.
Their laws were very cruel ones, and it was death to turn back in
battle."

"They had better have cut his throat and have gone about their own
business," the sheik said. "Why should one man be master of the lives of
all his people. Is this so among the whites?"

"It is so in some countries, but not in others," Edgar said. "Some
countries are ruled over by men chosen by the people themselves, and the
power of peace and war and of making laws of all kinds is in the hands
of these men, and the king has very little power. In other countries the
king is absolute; if he says it is war, it is war."

The sheik was silent.

"But why should people fight and die because one man tells them?" he
said after a pause; "it is astonishing."

"But it is just the same thing with the people he