upon
his friend, his face beaming with his dream.

"Jamilah." It was the first time he called her by her first name--an
Arabic name which, as a Bahaist she had adopted. And she was neither
surprised nor displeased.

"We need another Saladin to-day,--a Saladin of the Idea, who will wage
a crusade, not against Christianity or Mohammedanism, but against
those Tataric usurpers who are now toadying to both."

"Whom do you mean?"

"I mean the Turks. They were given a last chance to rise; they tried
and failed. They can not rise. They are demoralised; they have no
stamina, no character; no inborn love for truth and art; no
instinctive or acquired sense of right and justice. Whiskey and
debauch and high-sounding inanities about fraternity and equality can
not regenerate an Empire. The Turk must go: he will go. But out in
those deserts is a race which is always young, a race that never
withers; a strong, healthy, keen-eyed, quick-witted race; a fighting,
fanatical race; a race that gave Europe a civilisation, that gave the
world a religion; a race with a past as glorious as Rome's; and with a
future, too, if we had an Ali or a Saladin. But He who made those
heroes will make others like them, better, too. He may have made one
already, and that one may be wandering now in the desert. Now think
what can be done in Arabia, think what the Arabs can accomplish, if
American arms and an up-to-date Koran are spread broadcast among them.
With my words and your love and influence, with our powers united, we
can build an Arab Empire, we can resuscitate the Arab Empire of the
past. Abd'ul-Wahhab, you know, is the Luther of Arabia; and Wahhabism
is not dead. It is only slumbering in Nejd. We will wake it; arm it;
infuse into it the living spirit of the Idea. We will begin by
building a plant for the manufacture of arms on the shore of the
Euphrates, and a University in Yaman. The Turk must go--at least out
of Arabia. And the Turk in Europe, Europe will look after. No; the
Arab will never be virtually conquered. Nominally, maybe. And I doubt
if any of the European Powers can do it. Why? Chiefly because Arabia
has a Prophet. She produced one and she will produce more. Cannons can
destroy Empires; but only the living voice, the inspired voice can
build them."

Mrs. Gotfry is silent. In Khalid's vagaries is a big idea, which she
can not wholly grasp. And she is moreover devoted to another
cause--the light of the world--the splendour of God