In Baalbek, on the other hand, he drank deep of the pain, but not of the joy, of love. He and his cousin Najma had just lit in the shrine of Venus the candles of the altar of the Virgin, when a villainous hand that of Jesuitry, issuing from the darkness, clapped over them the snuffer and carried his Happiness off. Here was a love divine, the promised bliss of which was snatched away from him.
And now in Damascus, he feels, for the first time, the exquisite pain and joy of a love which he can not yet fathom; a love, which like the storm, is carrying him over terrible abysses to unknown heights.
The bitter sting of a Nay he never felt so keenly before.
The sleep-stifling torture and joy of suspense he did not fully experience until now.
But if he can not sleep, he will work. He has but a few days to prepare his address. He can not be too careful of what he says, and how he says it.
To speak at the great Mosque of Omaiyah is a great privilege. A word uttered there will reach the furthermost parts of the Mohammedan world. Moreover, all the ulema and all the heavy-turbaned fanatics will be there.
But he can not even work. On the table before him is a pile of newspapers from all parts of Syria and Egypt—even from India—and all simmering, as it were, with Khalid’s name, and Khalidism, and Khalid scandals. He is hailed by some, assailed by others; glorified and vilified in tawdry rhyme and ponderous prose by Christians and Mohammedans alike. “Our new Mahdi,” wrote an Egyptian wit (one of those pallid prosers we once met in the hashish dens, no doubt), “our new Mahdi has added to his harem an American beauty with an Oriental leg.”
What he meant by this only the hashish smokers know.