with what those in Purple and those who make this written language
their capital, can bring within our reach of the treasures of the
good, the true, and the beautiful. I would fain find a land where the
soul of man, and the heart of man, and the mind of man, are as the
glass of my ancestors' tear-bottles in their enduring quality and
beauty. My ancestors' tear-bottles, and though buried in the earth ten
thousand years, lose not a grain of their original purity and
transparency, of their soft and iridescent colouring. But where is the
natural colour and beauty of these human souls, buried in bunks under
hatches? Or of those moving in high-lacquered salons above?...

"O my Brothers of the clean and unclean species, of the scented and
smelling kind, of the have and have-not classes, there is but one
star in this vague dusky sky above us, for you as for myself. And that
star is either the last in the eternal darkness, or the first in the
rising dawn. It is either the first or the last star of night. And who
shall say which it is? Not the Church, surely, nor the State; not
Science, nor Sociology, nor Philosophy, nor Religion. But the human
will shall influence that star and make it yield its secret and its
fire. Each of you, O my Brothers, can make it light his own hut, warm
his own heart, guide his own soul. Never before in the history of man
did it seem as necessary as it does now that each individual should
think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the
realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible
and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one
star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger
of Jannat or Juhannam."

CHAPTER V

PRIESTO-PARENTAL

If we remember that the name of Khalid's cousin is Najma (Star), the
significance to himself of the sign spoken of in the last Chapter, is
quite evident. But what it means to others remains to be seen. His one
star, however, judging from his month's experience in Baalbek, is not
promising of Jannat. For many things, including parental tyranny and
priestcraft and Jesuitism, will here conspire against the single
blessedness of him, which is now seeking to double itself.

"Where one has so many Fathers," he writes, "and all are pretending to
be the guardians of his spiritual and material well-being, one ought
to renounce them all at once. It was not with a purpose to rejoin my
folk