When Orkhan led his first 1,000 boys to a dervish priest to bless them,
he flung the sleeve of his robe over the head of one of them, and asked
that the great God of Mahomet would make "their arrows keen, and their
swords deadly."

Thereafter, the dervish cap which they wore had always a long sleeve-like
pendant behind. And the prayer of the dervish was certainly answered.

One thousand boys recruited these ranks every year; and as the years
rolled into centuries, the organization became a more and more terrible
instrument of vengeance in the hands of the Sultan, whose body-guard it
formed.

The line of Sultans following Othman was characterized by intellectual
force of a high order. There was a swelling and irresistible tide of
conquest which moved not only toward Europe, but into Asia. One tribe
after another was absorbed, until all the strongholds of the old Saracen
Empire were in the hands of the Sultans, who replaced the Caliphs; and
like them were not alone temporal rulers, but the representatives of
Mahomet himself.

Composed in this way of a great heterogeneous mass of races, hostile to
each other, and to the Turk, the Ottoman Empire had but one element common
to all. That was its religion. The Sultan stood to them in the place of
the Prophet--hence they dared not defy nor resist his will. And it is this
power of religious fanaticism which not alone created the Empire, but has
held it together long after its vital forces have departed.

* * * * *