once that Khalid is slow, even slower than the law itself? Nevertheless, if this were a Novel, an elopement would be in order, but we must repeat, it is not. We are faithful transcribers of the truth as we find it set down in Shakib’s Histoire Intime .
True, Khalid did ask Najma to throw with him the handful of dust, to steal out of Baalbek and get married on the way, say in Damascus. But poor Najma goes over to his mother instead, and mingling their tears and prayers, they beseech the Virgin to enlighten the soul and mind of Khalid.
“Yes, we must be married here, before we go to the desert,” says she, “for think, O my mother, how far away we shall be from the world and the Church if anything happens to us.”
And they would have succeeded, the mother and cousin of Khalid, in persuading the parish priest to accept from them the prescribed alms and perform the wedding ceremony, had not the Jesuits, in the interest of the Faith and the Church, been dogging Khalid still.
For if they have failed in sending him to the Bosphorus, they will succeed in sending him elsewhither. And observe how this is done.
After communicating with the Papal Legate in Mt. Lebanon about that fatal Latter Day Pamphlet of Thomas Carlyle, the Adjutant-General, or Adjutant-Bird, stalks up there one night in person and lays before the Rt. Rev. Mgr. his devil’s brief in Khalid’s case. It has already been explained that this Pamphlet was fathered on Khalid by the Jesuits. For if they can not punish the Voice which is still pursuing them—and in their heart of hearts they must have recognised its thunder, even in a Translation—they will make the man smart for it who first mentioned Carlyle in this connection.