Page:Story of Turkey and Armenia.djvu/64

 46 The Powers were clamoring for reforms, the first condition of which was lacking. What and where and whom was he to trust?

Now, Abdul Hamid was not learned, nor clever, nor heroic, nor indeed anything in particular. But he was born of the house of Othman, and he was a devout disciple of Mohammed. For five centuries it had been the will of Allah that there should never be lacking a member of the House of Othman to reign as the Shadow of God among men. Therefore he might not unreasonably conclude it was the will of Allah that he, the rightful representative of that great house, should deliver Islam from the ruin which menaced it. But if it was the will of Allah that such a deliverance should be wrought, then it was not for him, Abdul Hamid, to tremble or to escape from the task laid upon him by providence. Years before, when he was still a young man, he had accompanied his uncle on the famous European tour, in the course of which Abdul Aziz visited London and was banqueted by the Lord Mayor. In those days it was noted that Abdul Hamid was of a very shy and retiring disposition. It was reported that when he was in the gardens at Buckingham Palace he would always slink behind the bushes and conceal himself if he saw anyone approaching. By constitution he was not self-assertive, and, like Hamlet, he regarded it as a cursed spite that he was told off to put to right times so cruelly out of joint. But, unlike Hamlet, Abdul Hamid is a Moslem, and a prince of the house which