olute disaster, ending with the bitter news of his grandfather's
death. It was the story of AEdipus overcome by events too strong for
soul to bear. In return, as the stars wheeled on, and the moon stole to
the zenith, majestic and slow, Ebn Ezra offered to his troubled friend
only the philosophy of the predestinarian, mingled with the calm of the
stoic. But something antagonistic to his own dejection, to the Muslim's
fatalism, emerged from David's own altruism, to nerve him to hope
and effort still. His unconquerable optimism rose determinedly to the
surface, even as he summed up and related the forces working against
him.

"They have all come at once," he said; "all the activities opposing me,
just as though they had all been started long ago at different points,
with a fixed course to run, and to meet and give me a fall in the hour
when I could least resist. You call it Fate. I call it what it proves
itself to be. But here it is a hub of danger and trouble, and the spokes
of disaster are flying to it from all over the compass, to make the
wheel that will grind me; and all the old troop of Palace intriguers and
despoilers are waiting to heat the tire and fasten it on the machine
of torture. Kaid has involved himself in loans which press, in foolish
experiments in industry without due care; and now from ill-health and
bad temper comes a reaction towards the old sinister rule, when the
Prince shuts his eyes and his agents ruin and destroy. Three nations
who have intrigued against my work see their chance, and are at Kaid's
elbow. The fate of the Soudan is in the balance. It is all as the shake
of a feather. I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills
burn down, my treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil
of years is swept away in a night. Thee sees it is terrible, friend?"

Ebn Ezra looked at him seriously and sadly for a moment, and then said:
"Is it given one man to do all? If many men had done these things, then
there had been one blow for each. Now all falls on thee, Saadat. Is it
the will of God that one man should fling the lance, fire the cannon,
dig the trenches, gather food for the army, drive the horses on to
battle, and bury the dead? Canst thou do all?"

David's eyes brightened to the challenge. "There was the work to do, and
there were not the many to do it. My hand was ready; the call came; I
answered. I plunged into the river of work alone."

"Thou didst not know the stren