that they
prayed. And how they prayed, these fanatical Moslems! Rapt, 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 newcomers 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! I 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 face glimmered through the gathering darkness.

"Hi, dragoman, tell them that they are forgetting Mr. Stuart," cried the
Colonel.

"No use, sir," said Mansoor. "They say that he is too fat, and that
they will not take him any farther. He will die, they say, and why
should they trouble about him?"

"Not take him!" cried Cochrane. "Why, the man will perish of hunger and
thirst. Where's the Emir? Hi!" he shouted, as the black-bearded Arab
passed, with a tone like that in which he used to summon a dilatory
donkey-boy. The chief did not deign to answer him, but said something
to one of the guards, who dashed the b