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

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! 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