of beating." Suddenly he paused and looked at the Arabs.
"By George!" said he, "that's a sight worth seeing!"

[Illustration: Hour of Arab prayer p142]

The great red sun was down with half its disc slipped behind the violet
bank upon the horizon. It was the hour of Arab prayer. An older and more
learned civilisation would have turned to that magnificent thing upon
the skyline and adored _that_. But these wild children of the desert
were nobler in essentials than the polished Persian. To them the ideal
was higher than the material, and it was with their backs to the sun and
their faces to the central shrine of their religion that they prayed.
And how they prayed, these fanatical Moslems! Wrapt, absorbed, with
yearning eyes and shining faces, rising, stooping, grovelling with their
foreheads upon their praying carpets. Who could doubt, as he watched
their strenuous, heart-whole devotion, that here was a great living
power in the world, reactionary but tremendous, countless millions all
thinking as one from Cape Juby to the confines of China? Let a common
wave pass over them, let a great soldier or organiser arise among them
to use the grand material at his hand, and who shall say that this may
not be the besom with which Providence may sweep the rotten, decadent,
impossible, half-hearted south of Europe, as it did a thousand years
ago, until it makes room for a sounder stock?

And now as they rose to their feet the bugle rang out, and the prisoners
understood that, having travelled all day, they were fated to travel
all night also. Belmont groaned, for he had reckoned upon the pursuers
catching them up before they left this camp. But the others had already
got into the way of accepting the inevitable. A flat Arab loaf had been
given to each of them--what effort of the _chef_ of the post-boat had
ever tasted like that dry brown bread?--and then, luxury of luxuries,
they had a second ration of a glass of water, for the fresh-filled bags
of the new-comers had provided an ample supply. If the body would but
follow the lead of the soul as readily as the soul does that of the
body, what a heaven the earth might be! Now, with their base material
wants satisfied for the instant, their spirits began to sing within
them, and they mounted their camels with some sense of the romance of
their position. Mr. Stuart remained babbling upon the ground, and the
Arabs made no effort to lift him into his saddle. His large, white,
upturned