The Hartley Brothers by Charlotte Maria Tucker

A FEW days were passed in journeying through the desert, whose dreariness was occasionally broken by an oasis, where water was found, and where the party could gather the red berries of the samh, while the camels cropped the delicate green twigs of the ghada, which form a graceful feathery tuft. Here the Persian travellers would linger for many hours, smoking, lounging on the scanty grass, eating fruit, telling stories, and reciting poems.

"Can you recite anything? " Ali once asked young Hartley.

"Not in Persian. I know nothing of that or any other Oriental tongue save scraps of Urdu; but I have learned by heart a good deal in English."

"That will serve," said Ali, who prided himself not a little on his knowledge of the European tongue. "Repeat to me and Hassan, who knows something of English, the finest thing which you know in the language."

The Persians, seated on carpets, smoked their narghillahs, as Robin, without hesitation or comment, repeated part of the opening chapter of the First Epistle of St. John.

Ali listened in grave silence, Hassan with undisguised impatience and aversion. "May the bones of his fathers be defiled who utters such heresies! " he exclaimed; then rising angrily, and spitting in token of disgust, the Persian walked away.

Ali pushed his own narghillah aside.

"Do you really believe, O Feringhee," he cried, "that the blood of your Prophet purifieth from sin?"

"The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all sin-the Word declares it," was Robin's reply.

Ali shook his head sadly. "Not all-it cannot be," he murmured.

"God hath said it; His Word is true, though all the world should deny it! " cried Robin boldly. "But," he added gravely, "the promise is to those who walk in the light, and have fellowship one with another."

"What is it to 'walk in the light'? " asked Ali.

"To walk with God, love Him and His people," replied the Knight of St. John.

"Perhaps you do so," said Ali, gloomily; "but there are some who neither can nor will so walk in the light. And there are stains which no blood could remove, even were your religion a true one."

"I know not of any such stains," quoth 'Robin.

"Suppose now-just suppose-that a murderer sought pardon from God, could he find it? " asked the Amir.

"David, who committed murder, found grace," replied Robin. "He repented, and though he was punished on earth, we know that he was washed white in atoning blood."

"There you are wrong," said Ali, quickly; "Hasrat David died long before your Prophet was born."

"But not before He existed," said Robin; and reverentially, he added, "Christ's sacrifice was for all the world; it saved believers who lived before His first coming, as well as those who now live before His second coming. The light from the Cross shines all around, behind as well as before."

"You think that even murderers may be saved," said Ali; "but there are different degrees of murder. A man slays his foe in open fight-that is fair; or by stratagem-perhaps stealing on him in his sleep. There may, as you say, be forgiveness for that."