ter, Shakib
was hurrying to the Hotel to confer with his brother Khalid and Mrs.
Gotfry.

"I saw the Order with these very eyes," said Shakib, almost poking his
two forefingers into them. "The kaiemkam showed it to me."

Hence, the secret preparations inside the Hotel and out of it for a
second remove, for a final flight. Shakib packs up; Najma is all
ready. And Khalid cuts his hair, doffs his jubbah, and appears again
in the ordinary attire of civilised mortals. For how else can he get
out of Beirut and the telegraph wires throughout Syria are flowing
with orders for his arrest? In a hat and frock-coat, therefore
(furnished by Shakib), he enters into the carriage with Mrs. Gotfry
about two hours after midnight; and, with their whole retinue, make
for Riak, and thence by train for Beirut. Here Shakib obtains
passports for himself and Najma, and together with Mrs. Gotfry and her
dragoman, they board in the afternoon the Austrian Liner for
Port-Said; while, in the evening, walking at the side of one of the
boatmen, Khalid, passportless, stealthily passes through the port, and
rejoins his friends.

CHAPTER X

THE DESERT

We remember seeing once a lithographic print representing a Christmas
legend of the Middle Ages, in which a detachment of the Heavenly
Host--big, ugly, wild-looking angels--are pursuing, with sword and
pike, a group of terror-stricken little devils. The idea in the
picture produced such an impression that one wished to see the
helpless, pitiful imps in heaven and the armed winged furies, their
pursuers, in the other place. Now, as we go through the many pages of
Shakib's, in which he dilates of the mischances, the persecutions, and
the flights of Khalid, and of which we have given an abstract, very
brief but comprehensive, in the preceding Chapters, we are struck with
the similarity in one sense between his Dastur-legend, so to speak,
and that of the Middle Ages to which we have alluded. The devils in
both pictures are distressing, pitiful; while the winged persecutors
are horribly muscular, and withal atrociously armed.

Indeed, this legend of the Turkish angels of Fraternity and Equality,
pursuing the Turkish little devils of reaction, so called, is most
killing. But we can not see how the descendants of Yakut and Seljuk
Khan, whether pursuers or pursued, whether Dastur winged furies they
be, or Hamidian devils, are going to hold their own in face of the
fell Dragon which soon or late mu