Hence, the secret preparations inside the Hotel and out of it for a second remove, for a final flight. Shakib packs up; Najma is all ready. And Khalid cuts his hair, doffs his jubbah, and appears again in the ordinary attire of civilised mortals. For how else can he get out of Beirut and the telegraph wires throughout Syria are flowing with orders for his arrest? In a hat and frock-coat, therefore (furnished by Shakib), he enters into the carriage with Mrs. Gotfry about two hours after midnight; and, with their whole retinue, make for Riak, and thence by train for Beirut. Here Shakib obtains passports for himself and Najma, and together with Mrs. Gotfry and her dragoman, they board in the afternoon the Austrian Liner for Port-Said; while, in the evening, walking at the side of one of the boatmen, Khalid, passportless, stealthily passes through the port, and rejoins his friends. CHAPTER X THE DESERT We remember seeing once a lithographic print representing a Christmas legend of the Middle Ages, in which a detachment of the Heavenly Host--big, ugly, wild-looking angels--are pursuing, with sword and pike, a group of terror-stricken little devils. The idea in the picture produced such an impression that one wished to see the helpless, pitiful imps in heaven and the armed winged furies, their pursuers, in the other place. Now, as we go through the many pages of Shakib's, in which he dilates of the mischances, the persecutions, and the flights of Khalid, and of which we have given an abstract, very brief but comprehensive, in the preceding Chapters, we are struck with the similarity in one sense between his Dastur-legend, so to speak, and that of the Middle Ages to which we have alluded. The devils in both pictures are distressing, pitiful; while the winged persecutors are horribly muscular, and withal atrociously armed. Indeed, this legend of the Turkish angels of Fraternity and Equality, pursuing the Turkish little devils of reaction, so called, is most killing. But we can not see how the descendants of Yakut and Seljuk Khan, whether pursuers or pursued, whether Dastur winged furies they be, or Hamidian devils, are going to hold their own in face of the fell Dragon which soon or late must overtake them. That heavy, slow-going, slow-thinking Monster--and it makes little difference whether he comes from the North or from the West--will wait until the contending parties exhaust their strength and then--but this is not our subject. We would that this pursuing business cease on all sides, and that everybody of all parties concerned pursue rather, and destroy, the big strong devil within them. Thus sayeth the preacher. And thus, for once, we, too. For does not every one of these furious angels of Equality, whether in Constantinople, in Berlin, in Paris, in London, or in New York, sit on his wings and reveal his horns when he rises to power? We are tired of wings that are really nothing but horns, misshaped and misplaced.