CHAPTER III
all ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains .— Isaiah xviii: 3
HANDS 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:
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