The White Prophet, Volume 1 (of 2)Caine, Hall, Sir
General
The White Prophet, Volume 1 (of 2)
Caine, Hall, Sir
British -- Egypt -- Fiction; Egypt -- Fiction
"That night all the world and his wife declared that I was fishing in
troubled waters, and I hear that some brave souls fled panic-stricken by
the last train to Cairo, where they are now, I presume, preferring their
petitions at the Agency, but next morning (that is to say, this morning)
the air was calmer, and the great square, when I reached it, was as
quiet as an inland sea.
"It was a wonderful sight, however, with the First Suffolk lining the
east walls and the Second Berkshire lining the west, and the overflowing
Egyptian and European populace between, standing together yet apart,
like the hosts of Pharaoh and of Israel with the Red Sea dividing them.
"I rode up with Jenkinson a little before twelve, and I think the people
saw that though we had permitted this unusual experiment in the
interests of peace we meant business. A space had been kept clear for
Ishmael at the foot of the statue of the great Khedive, and hardly had
the last notes of the midday call to prayers died away when our man
arrived. He was afoot, quite unattended, walking with an active step
and that assured nobility of bearing which belongs to the Arab blood
alone. He bowed to me, with a simple dignity that had not a particle
either of fear or defiance, and again, Heaven knows why, I said to
myself, ’By —, I want to fight that man!’
"Then he stepped on to the angerib that had been placed for him as a
platform and began to speak. His first words were a surprise, being in
English and faultlessly spoken.
"’The earth and the sky are full of trouble—God has afflicted us, praise
to His name,’ he began, and then, pointing to the warships that were
just visible in the bay, he cried—
"’Men who are watching the heavens and who speak with authority tell us
that great conflicts are coming among the nations of the world. Why is
it so? What is dividing us? Is it race? We are the sons of one
Father. Is it faith? It is the work of religion not only to set men
free but to bind them together. Our Prophet says, ’Thou shalt love thy
brother as thyself, and never act towards him but as thou wouldst that
he should act towards thee.’ The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the law of
Moses say the same. The true Christian is the true Moslem—the true
Moslem is the true Jew. All that is right in religion is included in one
commandment—Love one another! Then why warfare between brethren so near
akin?’
"His voice, my dear Helena, was such as I had never in my life heard
before. It throbbed with the throb that is peculiar to the voice of the
Arab singer, and seems to go through you like an electric current. His
sermon, too, which was sometimes in English, sometimes in Arabic, the
two languages so intermingled that the whole vast congregation of the
cosmopolitan seaport seemed to follow him at once, was not like
preaching at all, but vehement, enthusiastic, extempore prayer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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