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Even a few years before, I might have dashed out, like Marmion, from the prison-fortress; but now the opportunity was past and the portcullis was down.
I recall the slow eastward spread of that infant light which led to the gradual emergence of the German and Austrian Bahá’í Communities, during the darkest period of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s incarceration in the prison-fortress of Akká.
And yet during these somber days, the darkness of which was reminiscent of the tribulations endured during the most dangerous period of His incarceration in the prison-fortress of Akká, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, whilst in the precincts of His Father’s Shrine, or when dwelling in the House He occupied in Akká, or under the shadow of the Báb’s sepulcher on Mt.
Embittered by his abject failure to create a schism on which he had fondly pinned his hopes; stung by the conspicuous success which the standard-bearers of the Covenant had, despite his machinations, achieved in the North American continent; encouraged by the existence of a régime that throve in an atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion, and which was presided over by a cunning and cruel potentate; determined to exploit to the full the opportunities for mischief afforded him by the arrival of Western pilgrims at the prison-fortress of Akká, as well as by the commencement of the construction of the Báb’s sepulcher on Mt.
From the Mexican custom house, from the post-office, the cable station, and from the grim old prison-fortress, San Juan de Ulloa, the Mexican flag flew as usual. In the streets of Vera Cruz natives and foreigners moved about as usual. Not even the Americans in Vera Cruz, except the consul, knew that this was the morning destined to become a famous date in American history.
Yet another wound was inflicted on her injured heart by the aggressions and violations of the evil-doers within the prison-fortress, yet another blow was struck at her afflicted being. And then her anguish was increased by the passing of the Abhá Beauty, and the cruelty of the disloyal added more fuel to the fires of her mourning.
What now remained to be achieved was the proclamation, in the city of Adrianople, of that same Mission to the world’s secular and ecclesiastical leaders, to be followed, in successive decades, by a further unfoldment, in the prison-fortress of Akká, of the principles and precepts constituting the bedrock of that Faith, by the formulation of the laws and ordinances designed to safeguard its integrity, by the establishment, immediately after His ascension, of the Covenant designed to preserve its unity and perpetuate its influence, by the prodigious and world-wide extension of its activities, under the guidance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of that Covenant, and lastly, by the rise, in the Formative Age of that Faith, of its Administrative Order, the harbinger of its Golden Age and future glory.
Such in sum are the salient features of the concluding utterances of that historic Proclamation, the opening notes of which were sounded during the latter part of Bahá’u’lláh’s banishment to Adrianople, and which closed during the early years of His incarceration in the prison-fortress of Akká.
When they saw the tears in the eyes of the Sultana, everyone for a moment was silent, and suddenly, amidst the stillness of that dumb moment, from the highest window of the prison-fortress of the Seven Towers, a man's voice called loudly into the square below: "Sultana Adsalis! Sultana Adsalis!"
Charles was now staying at the Castle of Loches, that gloomy prison-fortress whose dungeons were to become so terribly notorious in the succeeding reign.
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