Part 23 (2/2)

I fetched Rasta from his prison He had co me with stony, malevolent eyes

'I'm very sorry, Sir,' I said, 'for what has happened But you leftjob on hand and I can't have it interfered with by you or anyone You're paying the price of a suspicious nature When you know a littleto see that you are kept quiet and comfortable for a day or two You've no cause to worry, for you'll suffer no harive you my word of honour as an American citizen'

Two of Sandy's miscreants came in and bore him off, and presently Sandy hi taken, Sandy said he didn't know 'They've got their orders, and they'll carry the unknown area in Constantinople to hide ahimself in a chair and lit his old pipe

'dick,' he said, 'this job is getting very difficult and very dark But rown in the last few days I've found out theof the second word that Harry Bullivant scribbled'

'Cancer?' I asked

'Yes It -has been dying for ht a Gerave him a few hours of life By now he erer For a s 'Then that busts the show,' I said 'You can't have a crusade without a prophet'

'I wish I thought it did It's the end of one stage, but the start of a new and blacker one Do you think that wo as the death of her prophet? She'll find a substitute-one of the four Ministers, or someone else She's a devil incarnate, but she has the soul of a Napoleon The big danger is only beginning'

Then he told s He had found out the house of Frau von Eineae retinue, and the fame of his minstrels-for the Companions were known far and wide in the land of Islam-came speedily to the ears of the Holy Ones Sandy, a leader in this ht to the notice of the four Ministers He and his half-dozen retainers becae of Islamic lore and his ostentatious piety, was admitted to the confidence of the household Frau von Einem welcomed him as an ally, for the Coandists of the new revelation

As he described it, it was a strange business Greenled to meet the demands of his protectress The four Ministers, as Sandy saw them, were unworldly ascetics; the prophet hih a practical saint with so brain and ere those of the lady Sandy seemed to have won his favour, even his affection He spoke of him with a kind of desperate pity

'I never saw such a nity like a high enius if I can judge these things I think I can assess hi of the soul of the East, but it would be too long a story to tell now The West knows nothing of the true Oriental It pictures hieous drea The Kaf he yearns for is an austere thing It is the austerity of the East that is its beauty and its terrorIt alants the sas at the back of its head The Turk and the Arab ca spaces, and they have the desire of thenate, and by the by they degenerate into that appalling subtlety which is their ruling passion gone crooked And then co They want to live face to face with God without a screen of ritual and ies and priestcraft They want to prune life of its foolish fringes and get back to the noble bareness of the desert Remember, it is always the empty desert and the empty sky that cast their spell over theht which burns up all rot and decay It isn't inhuman It's the humanity of one part of the huood as ours, but it's jolly good all the sarips me so hard that I'm inclined to forswear the Gods of reat siht to the heart of Islae But for our sins it's been twisted into part of that daanda His unworldliness has been used for a cunning political move, and his creed of space and sieneracy My God, dick, it's like seeing St Francis run by Messalina'

'The woht,' I said 'She asked me what I stood for, and I invented some infernal nonsense which she approved of But I can see one thing She and her prophet may run for different stakes, but it's the same course'

Sandy started 'She has been here!' he cried 'Tell ht she was about two parts mad, but the third part was uncoht,' he said 'I rong in coht more complicated She runs the prophet just because she shares his belief Only what in him is sane and fine, in her is mad and horrible You see, Germany also wants to simplify life'

'I know,' I said 'I told her that an hour ago, when I talked more rot to the second than any normal man ever achieved It will come between me and my sleep for the rest of my days'

'Germany's sialootism and the pride of the man in the Bible that waxed fat and kicked But the results are the same She wants to destroy and simplify; but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, but the sirinds down all the contrivances of civilization to a featureless monotony The prophet wants to save the souls of his people; Germany wants to rule the inanie to cover both And so you have the partnershi+p of St Francis and Messalina dick, did you ever hear of a thing called the Superman?'

'There was a ti else,' I answered 'I gather it was invented by a sportsman called Nietzsche'

'Maybe,' said Sandy 'Old Nietzsche has been blareat deal of rubbish he would have died rather than acknowledge But it's a craze of the new, fatted Germany It's a fancy type which could never really exist, any more than the Economic Man of the politicians Mankind has a sense of humour which stops short of the final absurdity There never has been, and there never could be a real Superet into trouble, my lad, if you talk like that,' I said

'It's true all the saic which we never have, and some of the best of them don't see the joke of life like the ordinary ht to the heart of things There never was a man so near the divine as Joan of Arc But I think, too, they can bethat ever was breeched, for they don't stop still now and then and laugh at themselvesThere is no Superman The poor old donkeys that fancy themselves in the part are either crackbrained professors who couldn't rule a Sunday-school class, or bristling soldiers with pint-pot heads who ihien made a Napoleon But there is a Superwoht our job was nearly over,' I groaned, 'and now it looks as if it hadn't well started Bullivant said that all we had to do was to find out the truth'

'Bullivant didn't know No man knows except you and me I tell you, the woman has immense power The Ger to play it for all she is worth There's no cri, and if need be she'll cut all her prophets' throats and run the show herselfI don't know about your job, for honestly I can't quite see what you and Blenkiron are going to do But I'm very clear aboutto stick to it in the hope that I'll find a chance of wrecking itWe'reeastward tomorroith a new prophet if the old one is dead'