The suppression of natural affection betrayed by the remark still more
astonished the host.

"But they believed in God," he said.

"They should have believed Mahomet was his Prophet."

"I fear I am giving you pain, O Emir."

"Dismiss the fear, O Hadji."

Again the Jew sought the choicest date in the basket. The indifference
of his guest was quick fuel to the misgivings which we have already
noticed as taking form about his purpose, and sapping and weakening it.
To be arbiter in the religious disputes of men, the unique consummation
called for by his scheme, the disputants must concede him room and
hearing. Were all Mohammedans, from whom he hoped most, like this one
born of Christians, then the two conditions would be sternly refused
him. By the testimony of this witness, there was nothing in the heredity
of faith; and it went to his soul incisively that, in stimulating the
passions which made the crusades a recurrence of the centuries, he
himself had contributed to the defeat now threatening his latest
ambition. The sting went to his soul; yet, by force of will, always at
command in the presence of strangers, he repressed his feeling, and
said:

"Everything is as Allah wills. Let us rejoice that he is our keeper. The
determination of our fate, in the sense of what shall happen to us, and
what we shall be, and when and where the end shall overtake us, is no