As poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity, as a painter often prefers to paint a great canvas from studies and memory-quiet in his studio-rather than from the actual but too kinetic scene, so Hands as he read the news-sheets felt and lived the story they had to tell far more acutely than in London. He had more time to think about what he read. It was in this lost corner of the world that the chill began to creep over him. The furious sounds of Nature clamoured in his ears, assaulting them like strongholds; these were the objective sounds. But as his subjective brain grew clear the words his eyes conveyed to it filled it with a more awful reverberation. The awful weight grew. He began to realise with terrible distinctness the consequences of his discovery. They stunned him. A carved inscription, a crumbling tomb in half an acre of waste ground. He had stumbled upon so much and little more. He, Cyril Hands, had found this. His straining eyes day by day turned to the columns of the papers. CHAPTER III ALL YE INHABITANTS OF THE H WORLD, AND DWELLERS ON THE EARTH, SEE YE, WHEN ANDS awoke to terrible realisation. The telegrams in the newspapers provided him with a bird's-eye view, an epitomised summary of a world in tumult. Out of a wealth of detail, culled from innumerable telegrams and articles, certain facts stood out clearly. In the Balkan States, always in unrest, a crisis, graver than ever before, suddenly came about. The situation flared up like a petrol explosion. A great revival of Mohammedan enthusiasm had begun to spread from Jerusalem as soon as Europe had more or less definitely accepted the discovery made by Cyril Hands and confirmed by the international committee. It was no longer possible to hold the troops of the Sultan in check. It was openly said by the correspondents that instructions had been sent from Yildiz Kiosk to the provincial Valis in both European and Asiatic Turkey that Christians were to be exterminated, swept for ever from the world. Telegrams of dire importance filled the columns of the papers. Hands would read in one Daily Wire: 19 "PARIS (From our own Correspondent).-The Prince of Bulgaria has indefinitely postponed his departure, and remains at the Hotel Ritz for the present. It is impossible for him to progress beyond Vienna. Dr. Daneff, the Bulgarian Premier, has arrived here. In the course of an interview with a representative of Le Matin he has stated the only hope of saving the Christians remaining in the Balkan States lies in the intervention of Russia. 'The situation,' Dr. Daneff is reported to have said, 'has assumed the appearance of a religious war. The followers of Islam are drunk with triumph and hatred of the "Nazarenes." The recent discoveries in Jerusalem simply mean a licence to sweep Christians out of existence. The exulting cries of "Ashahadu, lá ílaha ill Allah" have already sounded the death-knell of our ancient faith in Bulgaria.' M. Daneff was extremely affected during the interview, and states that Prince Ferdinand is unable to leave his room." Never before in the history of Eastern Europe had the future appeared so gloomy or the present been so replete with horror. The massacres of bygone years were as nothing to those which were daily flashed over the wires to startle and appal a world which was still Christian, at least in name. An extract from a leading article in the Daily Wire shows that the underlying reason and cause was thoroughly appreciated and understood in England no less than abroad. "In this labyrinth of myth and murder," the article said, a sudden and spontaneous outburst of hatred, of Mussulman hatred for the Christian, has now-owing to the overthrow of the chief accepted doctrine of the Christian faith-become a deliberate measure of extermination adopted by a barbarous Government as the simplest solution of the problem in the Near East. The stupendous fact which has lately burst upon the world has had effects which, while they might have been anticipated in some degree, have already passed far beyond the bounds of the most confirmed political pessimist's dream. "From the fact of the Jerusalem discovery, ambitious agitators have hurried to draw their profit. Politicians have not hesitated to provoke a series of massacres, and by playing upon the worst forms of Mussulman fanaticism to organise that ghastliest system of crime upon the largest and most comprehensive scale. The whole thing is, moreover, immensely complicated by the utter unscrupulousness of that association universally notorious as the Macedonian Committee. These people, who may be described as a company of aspirants to the crown of immortality earned by other people's martyrdom, have themselves assisted in the work of lighting the fires of Turkish passion, and they have helped to provoke atrocities which will enable them to pose before the eyes of the civilised world as the interesting victims of Moslem ferocity." Thus Hands read in his rock cave above the boiling winter sea. Thus and much more, as the cloud grew darker and darker over Eastern Europe, darker and darker day by day. In a week it became plain to the world that Bulgarians, Servians, and Armenians alike had collapsed utterly before the insolent exultation of the Turks. The spirit of resistance and enthusiasm had gone. The ignorant and tortured peoples had no answer for those who flung foul insults at the Cross. As reflected in the newspapers, the public mind in England was becoming seriously alarmed at these horrible and daily bulletins, but neither Parliament nor people were as yet ready with a suggested course of action. The forces of disintegration had been at work; it seemed no longer possible to secure a great body of opinion as in the old times. And Englishmen were troubled with grave domestic problems also. More especially the great increase of the worst forms of crime attracted universal attention and dismay. Then news came which shook the whole country to its depths. Men began to look into each other's eyes and ask what these things might mean. Hands read: "Our special correspondent in Bombay telegraphs disquieting news from India. The native regiments in Bengal are becoming difficult to handle. The officers of the staff corps are making special reports to headquarters. Three native officers of the 100th Bengal Lancers have been placed under arrest, though no particulars as to the exact reason for this step have been allowed to transpire." This first guarded intimation of serious disaffection in India was followed, two days afterwards, by longer and far more serious reports. The Indian mail arrived with copies of The Madras Mail and The Times of India, which disclosed much more than had hitherto come over the cables. Long extracts were printed from these journals in the English dailies. Epitomised, Hands learned the following facts. From a mass of detail a few lurid facts remained fixed in his brain. |