ff.
Here was a love divine, the promised bliss of which was snatched away
from him.

And now in Damascus, he feels, for the first time, the exquisite
pain and joy of a love which he can not yet fathom; a love, which like
the storm, is carrying him over terrible abysses to unknown heights.
The bitter sting of a Nay he never felt so keenly before. The
sleep-stifling torture and joy of suspense he did not fully
experience until now. But if he can not sleep, he will work. He has
but a few days to prepare his address. He can not be too careful of
what he says, and how he says it. To speak at the great Mosque of
Omaiyah is a great privilege. A word uttered there will reach the
furthermost parts of the Mohammedan world. Moreover, all the ulema
and all the heavy-turbaned fanatics will be there.

But he can not even work. On the table before him is a pile of
newspapers from all parts of Syria and Egypt--even from India--and
all simmering, as it were, with Khalid's name, and Khalidism, and
Khalid scandals. He is hailed by some, assailed by others; glorified
and vilified in tawdry rhyme and ponderous prose by Christians and
Mohammedans alike. "Our new Muhdi," wrote an Egyptian wit (one of
those pallid prosers we once met in the hasheesh dens, no doubt), "our
new Muhdi has added to his hareem an American beauty with an Oriental
leg."

What he meant by this only the hasheesh smokers know. "An instrument in
the hands of some American speculators, who would build sky-scrapers
on the ruins of our mosques," wrote another. "A lever with which
England is undermining Al-Islam," cried a voice in India. "A base one
in the service of some European coalition, who, under the pretext of
preaching the spiritualities, is undoing the work of the Revolution.
The gibbet is for ordinary traitors; for him the stake," etc., etc.

On the other hand, he is hailed as the expected one,--the true leader,
the real emancipator,--"who has in him the soul of the East and the
mind of the West, the builder of a great Asiatic Empire." Of course,
the foolish Damascene editor who wrote this had to flee the country
the following day. But Khalid's eyes lingered on that line. He read it
and reread it over and over again--forward and backward, too. He
juggled, so to speak, with its words.

How often people put us, though unwittingly, on the path we are
seeking, he thought. How often does a chance word uttered by a
stranger reveal to us our deepest aims and purpose