life before; and I've felt a country heaving under the touch of one
of God's men--it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and
away from the crawlers. And I'd do it all over a thousand times for
him, and for what I've got out of it. I've lived. But, to speak
right out plain, I don't know how long this machine will run.
There's been a plant of the worst kind. Tribes we left friendly
under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have
gone under to rebels. Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that
the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the
great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk. Ebn Ezra
Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows
too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could
spoil it. The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair?
He says nothing. He stands up like a rock before the riot of
treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry
here. If he wasn't a Quaker I'd say he had the pride of an
archangel. You can bend him, but you can't break him; and it takes
a lot to bend him. Men desert, but he says others will come to take
their place. And so they do. It's wonderful, in spite of the holy
war that's being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over
this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be
out on the war-path against him. We should be gorging the vultures
if he wasn't the wonder he is. We need boats. Does he sit down and
wring his hands? No, he organises, and builds them--out of scraps.
Hasn't he enough food for a long siege? He goes himself to the
tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven't yet
declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and
takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes
down to us loaded with dourha. The defences of this place are
nothing. Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is,