Hardly a half-mile
now lay between air-liner and shore. Suddenly the Master began to
speak:
"Listen, Lieutenant! Events are at a crisis, now. I will speak very
plainly. You know the Arabs, good and bad. You know Islam, and all
that the Mohammedan world is. You know there are more than 230,000,000
people of this faith, scattered from Canton to Sierra Leone, and
from Cape Town to Tobolsk, all over Turkey, Africa, and Arabia--an
enormous, fanatic, fighting race! Probably, if trained, the finest
fighting-men in the world, for they fear neither pain nor' death. They
welcome both, if their hearts are enlisted!"
"Yes, yes, I know! Their Hell yawns for cowards; their Paradise opens
to receive the brave! Death is as a bride to the Moslem!"
"Fanatics all, Lieutenant! Only a few white men have ever reached
Mecca and returned. Bartema, Wild, and Joseph Pitt succeeded, and so
did Hurgronje, Courtelmont, Burton, and Burckhardt--though, the Arabs
admit only the two last.
"But how many hundreds have been beheaded or crucified? No pilgrimage
ever takes place without a few such victims. A race of this type is a
potential world-power of incalculable magnitude.
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