Adventure Magazine Cover — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The King in Check company with these men and others. They did not see me in the beginning, because I entered by the door of a house three-score and five paces farther down the street; and having by that means gained the roof I descended to a gallery built of stone above one end of the coffee-shop, and there lay concealed among evil-smelling bags. “They conversed in Arabic; and presently when other men had entered, some of whose names I overheard and wrote down on this sip of paper, Yussuf Dakmar locked the outer door, turning the great key twice and setting a chain in place as well. Then he stood on a red stool having four short legs, with his back to the door that he had locked, and spoke in the manner of one who stirs a multitude, gesticulating greatly. ‘“‘The argument he made was thus: He said that Jerusalem is a holy city, and Palestine a holy land; and that promises are all the more sacred if given in connection with religious matters; whereat they all ap- plauded greatly. Nevertheless, a little later on he mocked at all religion, and they ap- plauded that too. “He said that the Allies, persuaded thereto by the British, had made a promise to the Emir Feisul on the strength of which the Arabs made common war with the Allies against the Turks and Germans, losing of their own a hundred thousand men and untold money. ‘So, sahib. Next he asked them how much of that promise made by the Allies to Emir Feisul as the leader of the Arabs had been kept, or was likely to be kept; and they answered in one voice, ‘None of it!’ Whereat he nodded, as a teacher nods gravely when the pupils have their lesson well by heart, and said presently in a voice like that of a Guru denouncing sin: | ***A woman’s promise is a little matter; who believes it? When it is broken all men laugh. A promise extorted under threat or torture is not binding, since he who made the promise was not free to govern his own conduct; that is law. A promise made in business,’ said he, ‘is a contract contingent on circumstances and subject to litigation. But a promise made in wartime by a nation is a pledge set down in letters of blood. Whoever breaks it is guilty of blood; and whoever fails to smite dead the breaker of that oath, eommits treason against Allah!’ “They applauded that speech greatly, sahib, and when they grew silent he bade them look about and judge for themselves 17 at whose door the breaking of that sacred promise really lay. ‘Show me,’ said he, ‘one trace of Arab government in all Pales- tine! Who own the land?’ he asked them. ‘Arabs!’ said they. ‘Yet to whom has the country been given?’ he shouted. ‘To the Jews!’ they answered; and he grew silent for a little while, like a teacher whose class has only given half the answer to a question until preseritly one man growled out “To the sword with the Jews in the name of Allah!’ and the others echoed that which satisfied him, for he smiled, nevertheless not using those words himself. And presently he continued: , ‘“‘““We in this room are men of enlight- enment. We are satisfied to leave past and future to the speculations of idle dreamers. For us the present. So we attach no value to the fact that Feisul is descended in a straight line from the founder of the Moslem faith; for that is a supersitition as foolish in its way as Christianity or any other creed. But who is there like Feisul who can unite all Arabs under one banner?’ “They answered, sahib, that Feisul is the only living man who can accomplish that, making many assertions in his praise, Yus- suf Dakmar nodding approval as each spoke. ‘Yet,’ said he when they had finished, ‘Feisul is also fallible. In certain ways he is a fool, and principally in this: That he insists on keeping his own promises to men who have broken their own promises to him.’ And like pupils in a class who recite their lesson, they all murmured that such a course as that is madness. ““«So,’ said he, ‘we are clear on that point. We are not altruists, nor religious fanatics, nor slaves, but men of common- sense who have a business in view. We are not Feisul’s servants, but he ours. We make use of him, not he of us. If he per- sists In a wrong course, we must force him into the right one, for the day of autocratic government 1s past and the hour has come when those who truly represent the people have the first right to direct all policy. If the right is still withheld from them, they must take it. And it is we, in this room who truly represent the Arab cause, on whom lies the responsibility of forcing Feisul’s hand?’ “Well, sahib, these three prisoners who sit here offered at once to go to Damascus and kill the men who are advising Feisul wrongly. They said that if they were given CoOmiclbookxs C@