“They applauded that speech greatly, sahib, and when they grew silent he bade them look about and judge for themselves at whose door the breaking of that sacred promise really lay.  ‘Show me,’ said he, ’one trace of Arab government in all Palestine.  Who owns the land?’ he asked them.  ‘Arabs!’ said they.  ‘Yet to whom has the country been given?’ he shouted.  ‘To the Jews!’ they answered; and he grew silent for a while, like a teacher whose class has only given half the answer to a question until presently one man growled out, ’To the sword with the Jews in the name of Allah!’ and the others echoed that which satisfied him, for he smiled, nevertheless not using those words himself.  And presently he continued: 

“’We in this room are men of enlightenment.  We are satisfied to leave past and future to speculations of idle dreamers.  For us the present.  So we attach no value to the fact that Feisul is descended in a straight line from the founder of the Moslem faith; for that is a superstition as foolish in its way as Christianity or any other creed.  But who is there like Feisul who can unite all Arabs under one banner?’

“They answered, sahib, that Feisul is the only living man who can accomplish that, making many assertions in his praise, Yussuf Dakmar nodding approval as each spoke.  ‘Yet,’ said he when they had finished, ’Feisul is also fallible.  In certain ways he is a fool, and principally in this:  That he insists on keeping his own promises to men who have broken their own promises to him.’  And like pupils in a class who recite their lesson, they all murmured that such a course as that is madness.

“‘So,’ said he, ’we are clear on that point.  We are not altruists, nor religious fanatics, nor slaves, but men of common sense who have a business in view.  We are not Feisul’s servants, but he ours.  We make use of him, not he of us.  If he persists in a wrong course, we must force him into the right one, for the day of autocratic government is past and the hour has come when those who truly represent the people have the first right to direct all policy.  If the right is still withheld from them, they must take it.  And it is we in this room who truly represent the Arab cause, on whom lies the responsibility of forcing Feisul’s hand!’

“Well, sahib, these three prisoners who sit here offered, at once to go to Damascus and kill the men who are advising Feisul wrongly.  They said that if they were given money they could easily hire Damascenes to do the dagger work, there being, as the sahib doubtless knows, a common saying in these parts about Damascus folk and sharp steel.  Whereat Yussuf Dakmar suddenly assumed a sneering tone of voice, saying that he preferred men for his part with spunk enough to do such work themselves, and there was an argument, they protesting and he mocking them, until at last this man, whose neck the glass cut, demanded of him whether he, Yussuf Dakmar, was not in truth an empty boaster who would flinch at bloodshed.