Routledge rides alone (2024)

TO THE LADY OF COURAGE
WHOM I MARRIED

[8]

Jerry Cardinegh, dean of the British word-paintersof war, was just home from China, where he had caughtthe Allies in the act of relieving Peking. It had been agoodly and enticing service, both to watch and to portray,calling out much of glorious color and tension and peril,and not enough slaughter to chill the world’s appreciation.Cardinegh sat by the fire in his little house in CheerStreet, London, and was ministered to by his daughter,Noreen, a heavenly dispensation which the old campaignerbelieved he had earned. A dinner together, justthe two, truly a feast after lean months crossing themountains of separation. Then whiskey, glasses, soda,pipes, tobacco, papers of the afternoon—all served bythe dearest of hands. The gray, hard veteran lived,indeed, the maiden filling his eyes.

Twenty he had left her, and she was twenty still,but the added fraction of an inch made her look verytall, and startled him. There was a mysterious bloomunder the luminous pallor of her skin; fathoms moreadded to the depth of her eyes, and a suggestion ofvolume to her voice. Nature and heritage had retouchedthe girlish lips in color and curve, widened the tenderIrish eyes, added glow and amplitude to the red-gold[10]hair.... There had only been two women in theworld for Jerry Cardinegh, and the other was a memory—themother.

“And who do you suppose is coming to-night,deere?” he asked. There was a silver lining of theTyrone tongue to all that Jerry said, but it was so subtleand elusive as wholly to defy English letters, save possiblythat one word “deere” which he rolled fondly forNoreen, and here and there in the structure of a sentence.

“Some of your war-men to relieve Peking againto-night? Who, father?”

“Just one. The best and weirdest of them all. He’son the way home to the States. You met him in Tokyofive years since—after the Japanese had whipped China,and the Triple Alliance had stepped in to gobble thetrophies.”

The girl stirred the fire in the grate thoughtfully foran instant, then started up in a glad, impatient way.“Routledge-san?”

“The same. Now, that’s queer—after five years—Imean, the Japanese title of address—‘Routledge-san.’”

“That’s what I used to call him, and I always thinkof him so. I think of him a great deal. His work in theReview makes me. He is one of very few whom I couldwelcome gladly—this first home-night with you, father.”She spoke with the old fearless candor that Cardineghloved.

“So you think of Routledge a great deal? Andwhy, deere?”

“He sees deeply. His work is illuminating to me.Sometimes I think of him sitting back of his work andsmiling because he knows so much that he dares not set[11]down. I think Routledge-san loves Asia—as you, aswe—love Ireland, father.”

“You could not think about a better man, Noreen,”said Cardinegh. “And so he knows a lot that he doesn’twrite for the Review? Well, maybe so.... Hetalks quite as well as he writes—when the spell is on him.I don’t know a man who can clear a mind of all savewhat he’s tossing into it—like Routledge. And thewords seem to twist and work their way deep likeburrs—when he leans forward with an idea.”

Noreen smiled. “And why has he not been back toLondon in all these years?”

“You have said it—because he loves Asia.”

“But he has not been back to America?”

“Routledge is quite as much at home in London as inPhiladelphia, his native city. He has worked for theAmerican press as well as for the English. You see, heneeded us because England has something doing moreor less all the time in the field. In fact, since Japantook the Chinese Port Arthur in ’94, there has beenplenty for one man to do in following American andBritish arms—Cuba, South Africa, the Philippine Archipelago,and now China again. But I have met him offand on around the world. They are good men of ourtribe, Noreen, strong, brave, and wise men, but Routledge,of them all, has warped his craft deepest into myslip, so to speak. I love the lad.”

She was moving about among the shadows of thesitting-room—a touch of her hand here and there, unconsciouspreparation, probably, for the guest, and a queertension in her eyes. It was nine, and a gusty winternight, when Cardinegh admitted the world-wanderer and[12]took his great frieze coat. Noreen watched from thefar end of the hall. Routledge spoke low and laughingly,and caught the elder man by the hand and shoulder. Asense of exhilaration in full sweep dilated the veins of thegirl, and with it, too, was a certain chill of dread, somenameless portent—a blend of joy, and its price in pain,all in that first glimpse. It was like the prelude of asong, or the prologue of a story, which contains anelement of each emotion in the appeal of the whole....

“And this is Noreen—the little Noreen whom I oncedared to call my Japanese sweetheart. Why, it’s waterout of the rock to see you again, Miss Noreen!...Jerry, the years have been consummate artists here inCheer Street while we’ve been away growing old.”

Noreen heard herself saying, “I have felt close toyou a great many times, Routledge-san,—all wrappedup, as in a blanket, in those fat Review columns underyour name.”

“’Tis true,” said Cardinegh. “We’re all flawfulimitations beside you, son.”

“I was thinking how good, how ripping good,‘Routledge-san’ sounds again,” the guest declared.“It’s like a song of home heard from a passing ship.”

Before the fire, the two correspondents unshippedonce more under the guns of the Taku forts, for thelistening girl, and followed the Pei-ho, that roiled drainof a bitter land, up to the Tientsin wall.

“Routledge deserted us that day—went back to hisown countrymen—the American column,” said the father.

Jerry wanted the story told for Noreen, and hismemories challenged and animated Routledge. “Yes,I wanted to see my boys again,” he acknowledged. “I[13]had one good look at them in Cuba, under Lawton,who was killed a year or so later, under my eyes, onthe banks of the Maraquina River in Luzon. The Philippineswas a rapid, pretty service, but a service of detachments.I was eager to see how the boys worked innumbers. The American troops are nervous, you know,a little too highly evolved to be atoms. They live for ahigher game in their country—commerce and inventions.Some time the nation will rise even to a better growththan that—I mean, to the spiritual evolution.

“The boys were mostly ill in China, thin-blooded fromthe tropical Philippines. The column was full of fever,coughing and cursing a little. They shook in the chilldamps of the nights up Tientsin way.... Poorchaps, but it was good to hear them talk, before the grayold walls of Tientsin—that night when the world washanging to the cable-ends for the flash, ‘battle.’ I rodealong the huddled column and heard Texas, Indiana, NobHill and the Bronx, Halsted Street and Back Bay—allfrom the shadows on the ground, that breathed tiredoaths and shivered in the drive of the fine, chilled rain.”

Jerry took up the picture excitedly: “Do you rememberwhen the spray of sparks shook out from behind thewall?—the party in charge of the fireworks was tryingthe night to see if it were dark enough. Then followeda succession of booming crashes. It was as if theplain was drawn tight as a drum-head, and they droppedcomets on it.... The Chinos got the Russianrange about that time, and left open sores in the snakySlav line. And I want to know, Routledge, did you hearthe high-pitched scream from the Japanese when theysnatched the glory of the lead?... Ah, we’ll hearfrom those brown dwarfs again!”

[14]“I think so,” said Routledge. “They ran forwardlike hounds, snapped at each other and gave tongue likea pack closing in for the kill. Yes, I remember, and thenthe fire broke out behind the wall in the native city, andthe sky took on the red—the red of an Indian blanket!It shone red on the faces of the boys from the States....Miss Noreen, you listen large-eyed as Desdemona.”

“Tell me more about your boys,” she whispered.

“The trumpet screeched ‘forward,’ and the columnquickened into life,” Routledge explained, “sprang likemagic into formation and swept past, panting, laughing,shouting in the rain. God, pity them! They were goodboys—good boys, all. I wish they had all come backwith their dreams all turned true.... They didn’tknow what was ahead, except they had seen the blindgray stones of the wall through the dusk at the end ofthe day’s march. They didn’t know what the fight wasabout, but they ran to break the wall, gladly, against therock of centuries—into fire and steel and the yellow hatefrom all the hells. It meant nothing to them after thewall was broken. That’s the queer, ugly part of it.The man in the ranks always gets the worst end—andso pitifully often doesn’t even have a sentiment to enthuseover. He’s apt to fall in a fight against as goodfriends as he has anywhere on this spinning planet, andwhat meaning has the change of national boundariesto his mother?” Routledge was thoughtful for amoment....

“It seems hard to use grown-ups like that—men,white men, with spines at right-angles from the snake’s,and a touch of eternity in their insides somewhere. Poor[15]devils, getting the worst of it—that’s always the way!...I watched the tail of the column swaying by—watchedthe last fragments blotted up in the rain andthe night. Already, in a red mist on the Tientsin Wallthe dance of death had begun.”

Noreen’s eyes were filled with mysteries and mistiness.As in his work, Routledge now suggested to hervolumes unsaid. Her heart sensed the great wealth ofthe man. She felt an inner expansion. Pity was almosta passion in his face; and there was hate, too—hate forthe manipulations of the rulers of the earth, which droveforward that poor column cursing and coughing in therain. She saw it all—as if she had been at his side thatnight—the fire-lit field running with the reddest bloodof earth. And across the world she seemed to see thefaces of the maids and mothers of these boys—facesstraining toward them, all white with tragedy. Andmore, she seemed to see for an instant the Face of thehigh God, averted from His images, because they wereobsessed in that profane hour by the insane devils ofwar.... The profile of Routledge fascinated her.He had spoken lightly—as he was accustomed to speakbefore men to whom war was a career—but the arousedgirl saw in his eyes, tightly drawn against the lamp-light,a mystic’s rebellion against the inhumanity ofmaterial power. About his eyes and graven entire uponthe tropically embrowned face was a look impossible tothe men her life had known.

“I was tangled up in a reserve of Russian infantryafterward,” Routledge concluded. “Jerry, you’ve heardthe Russians sing?”

[16]“Aye, at Plevna and before, son.”

“It’s a thing worth living long to hear—wild andmournful as a Siberian winter.... This reserveroared its song as it bored into Tientsin—a song ofsnow-bound hills and ice-bound hearts—poor muzhiks!And a British battery, tons of charging steel and brass,thundered the bass!”

So between them, the two correspondents coveredthe story of that one fight in the night—on the way tolift the lid from the legations at Peking. A messengerfrom the Witness office at this point brought certaincable copies for Cardinegh to comment upon for aneditorial paragraph or two. He went into his study.

“Routledge-san, do you mind if I ask you to talkmore?”

Noreen edged her chair closer like a little girl anticipatinga story.

“Such listening as yours,” he laughed, “would makea Napoleon disclose his plans for the next morning’sbattle. It would bring out the best of any man’stales. Ask me anything that I know and it is yours.”

“Always when the other correspondents comehere to Cheer Street—and nearly all of them call to seefather—I have made them all tell me about the bravestdeed—the bravest man—they have ever seen or known inall their services. I think I know them all but yours.”

“And what do you think my bravest man will belike, you collector of heroisms?”

“That’s just the point, Routledge-san. I think yourswon’t be a man of merely brute courage. That’s whyI am so anxious to hear.”

“In this case I am like one of the messengers to[17]Job—I alone remain to tell you. I have never told anyone, but sometimes it occurs to me to write the story ofRawder for the few who care to understand. He is myproperty, Miss Noreen, a humble martyr with a mightysoul like Saint Paul’s.

“He is a man born to suffer, as all the great are,who crucify themselves in various ways to lessen thesufferings of commoner men. I have never felt the sameabout any other man. There is something quite miraculousabout our relation. Accidentally, as it appears, Ihave met him somewhere every second year for a doubledecade—the last time in Hong Kong this trip home. Isurely shall see him again? Does it sound foolish to you—thisidea of being destined to meet a certain some onefrom time to time somewhere—until the End?”

“No. I want to hear it all, just as it comes to you,with all your thoughts about it—please. Father will bebusy for a half-hour in his study. I think I shallunderstand.”

Routledge leaned back with a cigarette, which withhim was only an occasional indulgence. “As I say, Imeet him every second year in my wanderings, and Iam always healed from the jangle of the world andworld-politics after a day with Rawder,” he resumed,watching her. “He had a strangely unattractive faceas a boy—slow with that dullness which sometimes goeswith the deaf, and a moist, diffused pallor that suggestsepilepsy. His original home was away up in a NewEngland village, restricted as a mortise-box in its thoughtand heart. The Rawders were a large, brief family—sixor seven children—the whole in harrowing poverty.Certain of the littler ones were hare-lipped; all were the[18]fright of other children. I never liked New England....I can see yet the gray, unpainted house of theRawders, high on a barren hill against the gray, bittersky—rags in the broken window-panes; voices in thehouse that you could not forget, yet loathed to remember....All died in a year except this boy whobecame my friend. All met the Reaper without pomp orheraldry, the funerals overlapping, so that the villagewas dazed, and the name of Rawder stands to-day forOld Mortality at his worst. So there was left only thisone, a strange, wordless type of Failure in the eyes ofthe village.

“He was a little older than I—but a sort of slave ofmine. I see it now. I had everything that good familyand parental wisdom could bless a boy with, and he hadnothing. That I pitied him seemed to warm his soulwith gratitude. He expected so little and was willing togive so much. I wish I had understood better then....He aspired to the ministry, but his ordinationwas long denied him. He was second in his class afteryears of study in a theological school, earned with incrediblepenury, but his trial sermon or something about himshocked the community. I know now that it was awider, gentler piety. About this time I had come infrom my first trip around the world. Unable to get achurch, he asked for a foreign mission, the smallestmission in the loneliest, most dreadful land. His answerwas a whisper through the assembly of preachers, challenginghis sanity. Forgive them, as he did, MissNoreen. I could not have fully understood the featuresof his tragedy, but I remember that when I parted fromhim that time, there was a vague desolation in my heart.[19]I could not forget the deep, troubled eyes nor the heavyhomely face, all scourged with harshness from a babe,a veritable magnet of evil fortunes.

“Back from England again, I encountered him inBoston under the banners and torches of the SalvationArmy. He was thinner, deeper-eyed, richer-voiced, andall animate with love for his race. For the first time Ifelt the real spell of the man. It was something in hiseyes, I think—something that you see in the eyes of alittle child that is dying without pain.”

“Visions,” she whispered.

“Yes, that is the word. Some God-touched thingabout the man in the streets of Boston. But I am makingmy story long, Miss Noreen. I did not know that I hadall these details. It has become rather an intimate fancyof mine—this story.”

“Please tell me all. I think it is to be the story of agreat victory.”

“Yes, the years to come will end it so.... Twoyears ago, I was riding with Tarrant’s cavalry in southernLuzon when I discovered Rawder among the troopers.It was in the midst of a blistering march of twelve hoursfrom San Pedro Macati to Indang, without a halt forcoffee or bacon. He did not see me, and I could notget to him until the column broke formation. What hemust have suffered climbing Fool’s Hill as a regularcavalry recruit! There was a fight in the afternoon, andthe column was badly jumbled. Every fourth man stayedbehind with three horses and his own. The rest advanced,dismounted, into action. Rawder was with thefighting force. I caught a glimpse of him during theearly stress of things. There was just as much iron in[20]his jaw as in Tarrant’s, whose valor had vibrated acrossthe Pacific. Even so, I heard a non-commissioned officerabuse him like a cur—God knows why, unless it wasbecause Rawder did not shoot to kill. That night whenwe entered Indang, I could not find him. He was not inthe formation next morning. Tarrant rode on withouthim. Apparently, I was the only one who cared. Ithink he was regarded much the same in the cavalry ashe was by the Methodist conference and before the committeeon foreign missions.

“The next week Tarrant’s column struck war—a bitof real war. I found all that archipelago-service interesting,hit-and-run campaigning, with all the humaninterest of bigger lines. We were caught on a sunkenjungle-trail and fired upon from three sides. Small innumbers, but that fight was of the sort which makesthe mess-talk of English regiments for decades, andtheir flag decorations. I never saw a bit of action atcloser range. It was even shown to me—the peculiarway men open their mouths when struck about the belt.I heard souls speak as they passed—strange, befuddledutterances, from brains and lips running down, but full ofmeaning—sayings of great and memorable meaning. Isaw Tarrant stand for thirty seconds under the firstvolleys, dismayed in the yellow glare. There is no sightfor a soldier so terrible as a glimpse of havoc in the faceof his chief, but he righted quickly enough. For themoment the men tried to cover themselves in the soiledshort straws of their religion.

“It was a voice in the jungle that had startledTarrant. I tell you the whole story, Miss Noreen,because of that voice in the jungle. The natives were[21]led by a white man, who wore the khaki of an Americansoldier. It was this white leadership which had herdedTarrant’s column for slaughter in that hot sink of thejungle. The cry of ‘Rawder! Rawder!’ went up fromthe American command. Something in the voice troubledme—just for a second—with the fear that Rawder mighthave run mad at the last.... Listen, I think thereis no hate in the world so baleful and destructive as thataroused by a deserter who leads the enemy against hisown people. And this man led a black force of Malays!...The natives retired finally, and the white manwith them. An Indiana soldier was dying in the sunwhen all was still. I heard him say wearily, ‘Gawd, ifI could only have killed Rawder, hell would have beena cinch for me!’

“That’s how they hated him that day. The story ofRawder, the deserter, went around the world. It hadthe eternal grip of interest of a scapegoat who turns intoa fire-brand. Manila sent column after column of infantryinto the Indang country and down below to theCamarines, but the renegade was not to be captured justyet.

“I continued to ride with Tarrant for awhile afterthat. He found action when there was any; moreover, Ifelt that the real story of Rawder had not been written.He was big to me, and I could not believe the voice fromthe jungle was his. Tarrant was ordered with his troopand two others, dismounted, to Minday, a little islandsouth of Luzon, which Nature has punished in variousways. I remember the empty, sun-blinded inlet, as ourlittle transport stirred the sand. Not a banco or cascocame out to meet us. We were in the midst of a people[22]who put up no front for peace. There is a Spanishtradition that each male native of Minday is possessedof seven devils and the leaders ten.

“‘Best fighting men on the islands—these Mindayans,’Tarrant told me. ‘The price of life here is to killfirst, to kill all the time, snakes and men.’ That night Iwandered about the deserted port in the Crusoe silence.At the edge of the town, I was ‘put out’ by the route offlashing stars—a blow on the head from behind.

“Oddly enough, Miss Noreen, the natives let melive. In the morning I awoke in a bungalow and discoveredRawder sitting in the doorway.

“His queerly-cut eyelids were drawn together by theintensity of light. Outside, the sunlight waved in purewhite flame. It was the vividest time of the day, of thehottest time of the year, in the fieriest island of theglobe. Minday is insidious. You can breathe and walkoutside, but if you don’t get under cover when yourscalp warns you with its prickling, you will likely beburied at eventide by the wild dogs of Minday. Or,possibly, if your vitality is immense, the sun will spareyour life, but fry the contents of your brain-pan, whichis rather worse than losing an arm.

“Rawder did not note that I was awake. He wasexchanging ideas with a young Mindayan whose skinwas the color of the dead wet oak leaves which floor thewoods at home in the spring. It appears that this stainedone had been in Luzon and learned eighteen or twentywords of English. Through these, and the signs whichclasp the world, Rawder was amassing Mindayan forthe purpose of—administering Methodism to the natives.

“I had been unconscious for many hours. I could[23]not rise, and my brain seemed to be working on a littleboy’s shift. For ages, it seemed, I watched the hand andlip converse, too weak to call, to ask why I lived—myskull filled with sick-room wonderings. Rawder laboredon with the language, calm, gentle, homely unto pain.He was leaner, stronger, than before; untanned, but thepasty pallor was gone from his face. Years had outgrownthe heritage of physical disorder. I had alwaysnoted how his thoughts formed, slowly, thoroughly,without adornment, but each thought straining his limitationsto the roof of his brain. If an action wereinvolved in any of Rawder’s thoughts, he carried outthat action, as good hounds run—to the death. I sawnow that wonderful look about him, that Heaven-warmedsomething which distinguishes a man who has greatwork to do in the world. Perhaps I alone could see it.They say God never sends a great soul among menwithout some one to recognize it. It may be that thehonor is mine in the case of Rawder. Stricken as I was,I could not help noting his endurance of concentration.This, as you know, is the gift only of mystics. He wasdriving the monkey-mind of the Mindayan interpreterto the beds of torture with it.... He saw, at last,that my eyes were open, and came to me, kneeling downto take my hand. The native seized the moment toescape.

“It transpired I was in the real village, two milesback from the port. The Mindayans had brought mewith several American soldiers who had wandered thenight before over the edge of camp, to furnish a brighttorture-entertainment in the town-plaza. Rawder had[24]saved my life, but the others had gone out in unmentionableways.

“‘I was awake when they brought you in,’ he said.‘These people have not rallied to me very strongly yet,or I could have saved the boys who were captured....But you—I begged for your life through the interpreter,saying that you were a great teacher and not a soldier,showing them the difference in your garments—and yourface.’

“Perhaps you can picture, Miss Noreen, his strugglewith the natives, while I had lain unconscious thatnight.... I explained to him that Tarrant’s commandtook him for a deserter and a renegade, whoseleadership had made fiends of the Tagals. He stared outin the open for a long time without speaking. He wasnot whipped nor enraged, as a lesser man would be. Ithink I shall always remember his words:

“‘I seem to fail so many times and in so many waysbefore getting started in my real work, Mr. Routledge.The soldiers are not to blame. They could not understandme; and yet my purpose was so simple. I shouldnot have told them that I meant to be a missionary inAsia when my enlistment was through. It confusedthem. Some time all will understand. Some time Ishall do well and not fail.’

“‘But how did you get away from the command?’I asked.

“‘I do not know,’ he answered. ‘During the fightI fell from the heat and a slight wound. I awoke alone,concealed my arms in the jungle, and tried to followthe troop. I must have mistaken the trail, because Inever saw the American outfit again. Three days of[25]night travel brought me close to the big native coasttown of Triacnakato, where I fell in with a party ofMindayans, there on a trading voyage——’

“‘Tell me, Rawder,’ I interrupted, ‘why you joinedthe cavalry in the first place.’

“‘Asia called to me. Always, in those last days inBoston I heard Asia call me to work. I had no money toreach the Pacific nor to cross it, so I was enlisted with aregiment ordered to service here. I had heard of certainsoldiers doing good work among their fellows in the oldEnglish regiments, and thought that until I was freeagain I might be a help in the troop. White men do notseem to listen to me, Mr. Routledge.’

“Thus he talked, Miss Noreen. Do you like him alittle bit—my great man, Rawder?”

The girl regarded him hesitatingly for a moment, asif to reply was not easy. “I like him so well,” sheanswered at last, “that I wish it were my destiny to meethim every little while up the years, as you do. Tellme all.”

“And so he had started in to teach the words ofJohn Wesley, and others, to these Mindayans whomSpain had left to themselves on account of their ferocity.God knows why the Mindayans gave him a Messiah’schance to learn their language and explain his message,but they let him live. And now I must tell you aboutanother moment or two of battle. There has been fartoo much war already for your frightened eyes, but thisis short and about my bravest man.

“As we talked, there was a sharp crack of a Kragcarbine. I could not rise, but crawled to the doorway.The Mindayans had formed in the plaza for action.[26]Tarrant was coming with his squadron of cavalry tosettle for the murders of the night before, and the nakedMindayans essayed to meet him in the open—as theTagals of Luzon had never dared to do. It was all onin a moment. Out of the jungle came the boys from theStates—queer, quick lines, blowing their bubbles of whitesmoke, dropping down to fire and running forward inskirmish, answering the trumpet-talk as running metalanswers to the grooves of a mold. In the blazing open—ina light so intense that it was pain to look through it—theforces met. Mindayans, with guns dating fromMagellan; the Americans with their swift, animateKrags; a squadron of white men, three skeleton troopspicked from forty States, stacked against a thousand-oddglistening blacks all enthused to die. Hell’s forbiddenchambers were emptied that hour, Miss Noreen. I hatedwar then—but have hated it since far more.

“They met—before my eyes they met—and the deadflew out of the lines like chaff, and were trampled likechaff by the toilers. Hand-to-hand at last; shiny blackof flesh against the dull green-brown of khaki; thejungle alive with reserves exchanging poisoned saladsof metal; science against primal lust; seasoned courageagainst fanaticism; yellow sky above, yellow sandbeneath; blood-letting between, and the eternal jungle onevery hand. It was a battle to haunt and debase awatcher’s brain.

“I did not know Tarrant’s prowess until that day.One man might falter in his command, but the lineswere rigid as steel. His trumpeter interpreted everymovement of the commander’s lips. I pawed thematting of the hut, but could not lift the anchorage of[27]my hips. Rawder stood above me, watching, the linesof his sweating face weaving with sorrow. The thingwas growing upon me—what the end of the fight wouldmean to him—but his sad face was clean of all fear.Years ago, when I was a boy and loved physical courage,I should have worshipped that clean look of his. Tearsin his eyes for the men who had brutalized him!...

“There is always a last minute to a fight, MissNoreen,—when each force puts forth its final flicker ofcourage, and the lesser zeal is killed. The last drain ofgameness wins the battle, when strength and strategyare gone. It wins for spiders and boys and armies.Tarrant had it.... When it was all over, the menof Rawder’s troop saw him in the doorway and rushedforward.

“‘Mr. Routledge,’ he said softly, ‘they are comingfor me. The boys have spoiled my mission here.’

“His hand touched my forehead. The ghastly illnessleft me.... I don’t believe in telling a lady astory which one would refrain from telling his fellowwar-scribes, Miss Noreen, but believe me, you haveimpelled it with perfect listening——”

“His hand touched your forehead,” she repeated.

“Yes, and there was something about the touch thata dealer in war-stuff could not very well enlarge uponin print. At one moment I was but the shell of a man—andthe next I could rise.

“Rawder’s old troop was running forward to finishhim—Tarrant in the lead. I tried to make them hear—thesewhite men, as they rushed in, full of the hang-overhell of a fight. But they would not hear me. The mensaw only the crown of a great day—to kill the deserter[28]who had led the Tagals against them in Luzon—Rawder,the renegade, whom they believed stood also behind thedeaths of last night and this day. To kill him afterwhipping the Mindayans would call down the glory ofthe Pantheon.... Rawder stepped back, smiling,empty of hand. I managed to trip Tarrant and yell thestory in his ears as he fell. A top-sergeant went by mewith a native-knife.... The fluids were runningfrom the man who had saved me, before Tarrant or Icould intervene, but the rest were stopped.

“Hours afterward, in the night, he regained consciousness.At least, consciousness wavered in his eyes,and I bent to hear, ‘I am not yet to die.’...

“And it was true, Miss Noreen, in spite of a fearfulwound—but that is all healed.... Tarrant wasrelieved from Minday. Back in Manila, we learned thatthe real renegade of lower Luzon had been capturedalive by volunteer infantry. His name is Devlin, and heis since notorious in Luzon story. Through Tarrant,whom I saturated with the substance of Rawder’s character,my bravest man was discharged for disability....A month ago, I left him on the Hong Kongwater-front. He had found night-work among thesailors—saving them from the human vultures who preyupon poor Jack-ashore-with-money-in-his-pocket—hard,evil-judged work, but the only kind that Rawder knowsso far. Many a drugged or drunken sailor has awakenedon board his own ship with a tithe of his earnings anda whole skin left, to wonder vaguely in after voyageswho was his strange-voiced, gentle-handed protector—thelast he remembered in Hong Kong.... Rawdertold me I should find him in India next—said that he was[29]called to the heart of India by a dream. He is to find histeacher.... Is it beyond belief to you, MissNoreen, that there is a great meaning in this Indianshadow which has fallen upon my bravest man? I haveknown Hindus who could look beyond the flesh of men—despisedby their own race—and discover souls ofstirring evolution and inspiring purity.”

Jerry Cardinegh entered. Noreen caught her breathquickly, as if suddenly awakened from a dream.

“I feel that some time I shall see your bravest man,Routledge-san,” she whispered.

The dusk was stretching out over the windy hills.There had been a skirmish that day in upper India. TwoBritish columns which had campaigned for months aparttelescoped with frightful sounds of gladness. HerMajesty’s foot-soldiers, already tightly knotted abouttheir supper-fires, hooted the cavalrymen who were stillstruggling with halter-shanks, picket-lines, and mountsthat pounded the turf and nickered sky-high for thefeed-wagons to come in. Every puff of wind bore anew smell—coffee, camels, leather, gun-reek, cigarettes,saddle-blankets, and nameless others. To-morrow therewould be a mile square of hill-pasture so tainted by manand beast that a native-bullock would starve beforecropping there until the season of torrents soaked itsweet again.

The civilian correspondents grouped together formess. There was Bingley of the Thames, respected butnot loved, and rather better known as the “Horse-killer”—ayoung man of Napoleonic ambition andCowperish gloom. There was Finacune of the Word,who made a florid romance of war-stuff, garnished hisbattle-fields with palms and ancient temples, and wouldno more forget his moonlight than the estimate of thenumber slain. Finacune made a red-blooded wooer out[31]of the British army, and a brown, full-breasted she-devilout of the enemy. His story of the campaign was acourtship of these two, and it read like “A Passion inthe Desert,” for which the Word paid him well and lovedhim mightily. Finacune had another inimitable peculiarity.He possessed one of those slight, natty figures whicheven civilized clothes cannot spoil; and he could emergefrom thirty days in the field, dapper and sartorially fitas from a morning’s fox-hunt.

Then there were Feeney and Trollope and Talliaferro,who carry trays and announce carriages in this narrative,though high priests of the press and Londoners of mark.

The point of the gathering was old Jerry Cardinegh,of the Witness, by profession dean of the cult of theBritish word-painters of war, but a Tyrone patriot, boneand brain and passion. Just now, old Jerry was taking adry smoke, two ounces of Scotch, commanding hisservants to beat a bull-cheek into tenderloin, and adorningthe part of master of ceremonies. Cardinegh wore easilya triple fame: first, and always first, for the quality ofhis work; second, for having seen more of war (twenty-sevencampaigns since he messed with the ChineseGordon, to this night in Bhurpal) than any other manon the planet; and third for being the father of NoreenCardinegh, absolutely the loveliest young woman manifestingat the present time in London. The old man’stenderness of heart for Ireland and for all that Irelandhad done and failed, was known in part among thescribes and Pharisees. It had been an endless matter ofhumor among his compatriots. Just now Finacuneremembered the stock question and launched it:

“Jerry, if England and Ireland went to war, which[32]would be your home-office—London Witness or DublinContemporary?”

Cardinegh had never answered twice the same.“Neither,” he declared lightly now, extracting a can ofkippered herring from Finacune’s saddle-bags, “but acaptain’s tent, during such times as I wasn’t leadingthe Irish to glory. Have you an opener? I need a relishto cut this whiskey.”

“The old war-horse isn’t always humorous,” remarkedBingley, who was sitting apart. Bingley alwayssat apart, lest somebody should see his black book ofnotes or borrow his provisions.

Trollope turned to Finacune with a whisper. “Thedean is looking ill. Have you noticed?”

Finacune nodded.

“It would be a heller if this little affair in the hillsshould prove the old man’s last campaign,” Trollopedrawled softly.

Another figure emerged from the dusk, and JerryCardinegh leaped with a roar into the arms of an agilegiant in a great frieze coat. For a moment it appearedas if the two were in deadly conflict. Pup-tents wereunpinned, supper-kits scattered, native servants crawledoff as from a duel of man-eaters, and the saintly camelslifted their heads in fresh dismay. It was a good, arelishable greeting, and the proper way for men wholove each other to meet after prolonged absence.

“Arise, my children, and kow-tow to Routledge, yourspiritual father!” Cardinegh commanded at last.

All but Bingley obeyed.

“Get up, you young scut,” Jerry called ominously,“or go feed with the camels.”

[33]“I haven’t the honor of knowing the gentleman,”Bingley said without rising.

“Better read your history some more,” the deanobserved, turning his back upon the young lion of theThames. “Gentlemen,” he resumed with an oratoricalpause, “behold the man whom the Gods formed for awar-correspondent—or a spy, as you like—and theytempered him in hell’s fire and holy water—the Gods.Gentlemen, this is Routledge, who knows India betterthan any of you know London, and he’s an American.This is Routledge, who rides alone, who stays afield intimes of peace promoting wars for us—and more wars.I say, Routledge, when were you home last?”

“Sit down, you ‘damaged archangel,’” Routledgesaid laughingly. “I sat before your fireside in CheerStreet, London, little more than a year ago.”

Hearing the name of the newcomer, the “Horse-killer”was not slow to gain his feet. He came forwardhastily, the sullenness gone from his face, giving placeto a mixture of envy and admiration. He stared longand intently at the gaunt profile of Routledge. Finacunesaw the look and interpreted it for his own pleasure inthese words: “And so you are Routledge, the, just now,so-called greatest of all. Well, I am Bingley of theThames. I have surpassed all the others in this campaign,and some time I shall measure wit and grit withyou. Meanwhile, you are worth cultivating.” Andtruly enough the first words of the “Horse-killer” ashe extended his hand were:

“I am Bingley of the Thames, Mr. Routledge.”

“I have both seen and heard of your work, and[34]admired it, Mr. Bingley,” Routledge responded cordially.“It is good to know you.”

“And I have heard of you, too,” Bingley replied, tothe delight of the others.

Routledge embraced several old friends, but to mosthe was known less in person than by reputation. He hada tendency to laugh at the Powers in the act of makingwar, a tendency to make the world see that war was ahang-over from the days when men ate their flesh hotfrom the kill, not from the fire. Veiled under all hiswork, and often expressed openly in a stinging line,was his conviction that war was a ghastly imposition uponthe men in the ranks. This was considered by the restas a mere mental dissipation of a truly great worker.

A certain aloofness added to the mystery and enchantmentof the man. In the field, he would attach himselfto some far-ranging column out for dirty work, choosinghis command from an intimate knowledge of the leaderand the men; to which was added a conception of India,her topography, strategies, fighters, and her methods ofthought and action which could hardly be paralleled—outsideof the secret service—in any British mind.

The Review invariably kept a second man at theheart of things to cover the routine, so that Routledgecould follow his inclinations for hard-riding and bringin his wondrous tales of far chances, night attacks, theenemy at first hand, the faces and valor of the few whohearkened to the swish of the Reaper, the scream frominert flesh as the spirit flees away—the humor, the horror,the hell of the clash.

It is an axiom of the craft that in a platoon fightingfor its life there is all the grip of human interest that[35]appals in the collision of fifty-mile battle-fronts; andRoutledge played the lesser game to the seeds. It wassaid of him that he could crawl into the soldier’s brainand watch the machinery falter in full blast and breakdown. Always you felt, as you read him, that he had agreat pity for the ranker, and a great hate for thesystem that used him.

Where the Terrible was involved, there was a joltingenergy in the descriptive powers of Routledge. Eventhe type which bore his messages from the field to thestreets of London seemed sometimes vivid, cracklingcharacters snapped hot from the reeking centres of war.He could make his first lines stand out in the thickReview columns like a desert sunset.

At the end of a campaign, instead of seeking theseductions of hero-worshipping London, Routledgewould drift, possibly disguised, into some Indian hot-bed,there to study language, occultism, Borgian poisons, orCleopatran perfumes. Tales of his ways and his worktook the place of his presence at home in times of peace.Some traveller coming in from afar would relate howRoutledge had smiled through a six-day water-famine;how Routledge had missed the native knives which findso often the source of human fountains in the dark. Itwas whispered, and accredited, that the Brahmins calledhim One; that they remembered him as great and distinguishedand of sacerdotal caste in some former incarnation,and were loyal still. This is an honor so greatthat there are not five score men in all the occident whoadequately can appreciate it. Mother India is sensitiveto the warming currents of a great man, even though hebe a derelict in the world.

[36]Routledge had made the English-speaking worldutter his name familiarly and to look for the same inpublic prints. For this reason, Finacune, with his typewriteron his lap, an American poncho spread upon theturf beneath him, his back against a stone, and a lanternat his elbow, rained a column upon his machine. Finishingthe work with a half-smile, he hooted aloud:

“Oh, Routledge—see what comes o’ riding alone!In a month or six weeks, God loving the mails, the Wordwill publish: ‘The civilian mess was joined to-night bythat young roving planet, Cosmo Routledge, who inpresent and former campaigns has driven straight tothe source of exclusive information and pulled the holein after him.’ Then, for a stick or two, I have discussedthe great frieze coat,” Finacune added whimsically,“described the prophet’s brow, the slender hands ofswift eloquence, and the sad, ineffable eyes of Routledge,born of America, a correspondent for the British, acitizen of the world, at home in India, and mystic ofthe wars.”

“Just add,” Cardinegh remarked meltingly, “thathis heart beats for Ireland.”

That was a marvellous night. Big natures throbbedin rhythm. Whiskey as it sometimes will—the devil ofit—brought out the brave and true and tender of humanspeech. Routledge told a bit of the story of the greatfrieze coat.... They were moments of tramplingviolence in the narrative; instants of torrid romance—towhich the wearer had been a witness or a listener....

“Ah, they made cloth in those days,” old Jerry sighed.“Would you look under the collar of it for the name ofthe old Belfast maker?”

[37]“It’s there, sure enough,” said Routledge, “as Tyroneis water-marked in the great Cardinegh scroll.”

Jerry did not answer for a moment. His face lookedsingularly white in the dark.

“The dean went back to Ireland just before we cameout here this trip,” growled old Feeney, of the Pan-AngloNews Service. “It seems he couldn’t start an insurrectionthere, so he rushed back to the Witness office andhaunted the cable-editor’s room until the Bhurpalesetook pity on him and began shooting at Tommies.”

Hours passed with talk and laughter, liquor and song.It was strictly a night session of the inner section ofwar-painters; and in spirit the high priests of elderservice trooped back to listen among the low-hangingIndian stars.... It was knee-deep in the morninghours when Routledge and Cardinegh drew apart atlast. They walked out between the snoring lines,whispering:

“Jerry, what has this narrow-gauge campaign doneto you? Fever or famine? You look drawn and blownand bleached.”

“I am going into the lair after this,” Cardinegh said.“The boys won’t believe it, but this is absolutely my lastfling at the field. I am going home to Noreen, son, andLondon and the Witness may go to hell.”

There was unnatural venom in the old man’s words.His tightened hands stirred restlessly; his eyes, seenin the flare of a match as he lit a cigarette, were unquiet,alive with some torture of tension. Routledge grippedthe vehement arm.

“You are oxidizing a bit too much tissue, old war-horse,”he said quietly. “You’ll want to go into the[38]meadows for a while when you get back—but you won’tstay there. This stuff—the smell of it, as now in thedawn-dew, and the muttering formations presently”—Routledgewaved his arm over the bivouac—“thingslike this won’t let you run long in the pasture. Whenthe war-headings begin to grow on the front pages ofthe Witness, and the cloud no bigger than a man’s handgrows and blackens into a mailed fist gripping a dagger—why,you’ll be at the lane-fence nickering for harness.”

“Routledge, don’t go over all that rot again,” saidthe old man. “It isn’t that I’m out of strength, but I’mtoo full of hate to go on. I’ve always hated this smugEnglish people, and I’m not mellowing with years. Ifeel it hotter and hotter—sometimes I feel it like arunning incandescence inside. It leaves my brain charredand noxious—that’s the way it seems to me....Yet, I have been one of England’s first aggrandizers. Ihave rejoiced in print at her victories. I have cheeredwith the low-browed mob, ‘God save the Queen!’ Ihave borne the brunt of her wars—the son of my father!”

Routledge was disturbed, but he chuckled softly.“One would think you were still a fire-brand of theFenians, Jerry.”

“I know to whom I am talking,” was whisperedqueerly. “The Fenians are not dead yet—not all theFenians.”

“When did you hear from Miss Noreen last?”

“Oh, it’s a fortnight. We ought to get mail atMadirabad.... I must write. My God, I mustwrite!... Don’t mind me if I ramble a bit, Routledge.I drank rather plenty to welcome you back.Whiskey sizzles along my spine rather faster than once[39]upon a time.... And you haven’t seen Noreenfor——?”

“For over a year,” Routledge said.

“And you haven’t heard that they call her the mostbeautiful woman in London?”

“Yes, Jerry. I heard it from General Falconer atBombay; from the Sewards in Simla; from Bleakley,who came back to Hong Kong after a year’s leave witha made-over liver and a child-wife. But then I knew it,Jerry—yes, I knew it.”

“But she burst into bloom astonishingly after youleft us. She has never forgotten you, Routledge....She is like the Irish girl who gave her to me.”

“Come on to bed, Jerry. We drive like carrion-birdsacross the world wherever there is blood spilt upon theground. We’re not fit for a woman to remember.”

“The woman who gave Noreen to me—could rememberand wait, son!... Ah, God, the red hells Ihave passed through!”

Routledge reflected upon the furious emotions whichhad stormed his old friend in a ten minutes’ walk. Fromthe furnaces of British hate, he had swept to the coldcaverns of gloom wherein he had laid the wife of hisyouth. Only four months ago he had left Cardineghhard, full-blooded, iron-gray. The dawn showed himnow a bent, ashen, darting-eyed old man, of volatilebut uncentered speech. The tragedy of it all was germinatingin the faculties of the younger man. Moreover,with a thrilling freshness, the night and the return toold London friends had brought back his own memories....“She has never forgotten you, Routledge!”...Nor had he forgotten the pale, exquisite[40]face of Noreen, large-eyed with listening under thelamp in Cheer Street. Her every change of expressionrecurred to him; and for each phase of the story he hadrelated, there had been different ranges of sorrow andsympathy.

In the queer, sensitive mood, Routledge tried to putaway his memories. Only a God was fit to mate withthis moment’s conception of Noreen Cardinegh, as hestood with her father in the new day, already defiledby the sprawled army. He wished that he had not seenso much of war. Fate had put a volume of battles intothe binding of his brain. In the very centres of his life,series upon series of the world’s late and horrible tableauxhad been imprinted. Routledge was impressed with thequeer thought that such pictures must dull the delicacyof a man and sear the surface of his soul, like lava over-runninga vineyard of Italy.

“Will you go home after this little thing is over?”Jerry asked suddenly.

“Yes, and it won’t be long.”

“You wizard!—what do you mean?” Cardineghmuttered, with a start.

“I mean the present bubble is just about to bepricked.”

“I—at least, the boys—supposed this campaign to bebut nicely on!” Cardinegh’s voice was a husky whisper,and his hand had gripped the sleeve of the other. “Tellme what you know!”

“Softly, Jerry!” The voice of Routledge was inaudibletwo feet from his lips. “It’s all rumor—indefinite,ungrippable, as if the clouds had whispered it—and yetthere is something big behind it all. Down in Calcutta,[41]the seats of the mighty are trembling. British India—takeit from me—is too agitated by some discoverywithin, or revelation from without, to bother muchfurther with a little native rebellion like this. And yeteven this may have its relation to the big trouble. Anative paper has dared to print this sentence—a goodsentence, by the way: ‘Mother India is quivering withhatred for her white child, the British foundling!’Would a Hindu journalist dare to print that withoutreal or fancied backing? ‘Unauthoritative, but importantif true,’ as the Review says, is my own idea. It isthis: Russian spies have insinuated themselves somewhereinto the arcanum of British India; the Bear haslumbered off with information that is already pulling theEnglish forces into defense—from bigger game than theBhurpalese. If Russia is arming the Border States andhas secured information of the fire-brand sort againstEngland—the latter is a good deal like a shorn Samsonjust now—throwing so much power in little Bhurpal!...Something’s askew. There’s a rival in thenorth.... It’s all vague, vague, but big—big as Asia!...Listen to an amateur prophet, old Ironsides:if we live three years, we’ll see a collision of fifty-milebattle-fronts!”

They were back in the civilian camp. Cardineghdid not speak, but his face was mad with excitement,his hands ungovernable.

The Powers are held together with links not weldedby hands. The strain upon the weaker links sets toquivering the entire cable of civilization. Certain sectionsof the system grind constantly against each other,and inevitably there comes a period when snapping isimminent. At such a time the two material forces drawapart for defense. Frequently peace is preserved bysilent affronts of power; frequently by an easing oftension on either hand, a more comfortable adjustmentof boundaries, and thick applications of the lubricant,diplomacy. The time is critical, however, and in eitherbackground the engines of war are assembled againstthe crisis.

Something had happened in India. It was retchingfor outlet at Calcutta, seething through Indian provinces.London and St. Petersburg were jerking with its startlinggalvanism. The correspondents afield in Bhurpalbegan to sense this mysterious friction, but could get noword nor line on the truth. Rumors were thick asconfetti in Mardi Gras. Rumors ran through all shadesof dreaming and shapes of reason. One story was thatChina had wiped out the foreign concessions from HongKong to Vladivostok and had challenged the world towar; another that Russian armies were swarming over[43]the Himalayas, and that all India stood ready to backthe Russian Bear against the British Lion; that Englandwould call upon Japan and the United States, and Russiademand the alliance of the French and Germans; inshort, that there would be a merry manifestation of hellaround the world.

Routledge tarried but one day with the civilian outfit.He had been gone but forty-eight hours, with Bulwer-Shinn’scavalry, when the rousing mystery which he hadintimated to Jerry Cardinegh in their brief night walk,began to be felt by the army and its followers. Thatwhich was known in the secret councils of Calcutta andLondon never reached the field, but the results did.The campaign came to an abrupt close. The hand behindhistory beckoned; and arteries of horse, guns, and infantry,running like lines of red ink over the map of Bhurpal,were bottled up into garrisons to wait. The petty insurrectionin the hills, which had called the soldiers andscribes to action after a bleak stretch of peace, was asremotely forgotten as the vagaries of a fever past.

One after another the correspondents were recalled—uneasy,irritable, their work half-done and wholly lustreless.All their cables of the last days (messages thathinted some grave international lesion; the strained,dwarfed results of minds that searched the stars andthe soil for truth) were either stopped in the sendingor answered by a crisp word that nothing more of thesort was wanted. This was heart-breaking.

Feeney, Finacune, Trollope, and Talliaferro had fore-gatheredon the veranda of the Bengal Hotel in Calcutta.They were awaiting ship for Madras, Bombay, andHome. It was ten days after the big social night in[44]Bhurpal, and early in January, 1902. Trollope had promulgateda theory. It was a full-rigged, painstakingly-ballastedtheory, involving hours of heavy work in asmutty, sweltering coach on the way down from Madirabad,and Trollope was a heavy man who drew heat—“theBlue Boar,” a few intimates dared to call him.The theory contained a discriminating opinion, weighedto a dram, on the cause of the sudden scatter of troopsfrom field to garrison, and undertook to interpret thepregnant undertone of disorder which whispered acrossthe empire. A cablegram from his paper, the Examiner,had just been delivered, and was spread out upon thetable before the others. Trollope was breathing hard.

“Can’t use theory matter,” the dispatch read. “Campaignclosed issue.”

Trollope looked up presently and found awaiting hiseyes three wide, indulgent smiles. Trollope was soseldom disconcerted that he now furnished an enjoyablemoment for the others.

“Cheer up, fat boy,” observed Finacune. “Your oldman always was a ruffian. The Word handed me thesame thing when I undertook to explain to the boarding-schoolsof London what this reverse was all about, onlythe Word did it in a refined, delicate way. You knowI dreamed it all out that Russia had come to pay court toMother India, and that there was a hitch about TommyAtkins acting the best man——”

“It was the only decent thing I sent in from thecampaign,” Trollope growled.

“They know more about it at Home than we do,” saidFeeney, the saturnine, a confirmed wanderer, next toCardinegh in years of service. He had searched the[45]world for forty years to watch the crises of humanevents.

Finacune inquired with a trace of animation, “We’veall four been recalled, haven’t we?”

The others disdained to answer, but Finacune went onairily. “We are experts—picked men—the choice ofEurope to cover the turmoils of India and elsewhere.None stand beside us. Is this the truth or not?”

It was acclaimed that this was plucked from the originalgarland of truth.

“Now,” the Word man asserted, “we find our cables,our expert and expensive cables, not cut, not filed forreference, not even trusted to the janitor’s basket, but,so far as we know, burned unborn!... We havereceived no explanation. We are not even told that wehave done well or ill.”

“I was told to shut up and come home,” drawledTrollope.

“The same pellet in different coatings is beingabsorbed in the systems of three of us present,” Finacuneadded. “Listen. I’ve got a theory. England ismenaced by her logical enemy from the North. Somebrilliant coup has been executed by the Russian spies,or else there has been treachery. I make no pretension ofknowing just what has happened. Any way, it is bigenough to make our native rebellion look like a flickerin a holocaust. The trouble is so big that it must be keptfrom the world, from the English people, from all butthe Engine-room of England! We are muzzled, andour papers are muzzled. In a word, the crisis is so bigthat the Press has rallied around the Throne—to keepthe matter dark!”

[46]There was considerable comment after this. Theatmosphere was charged with earnestness. The beliefgrew that the clear-headed little humorist, Finacune, hadpricked the pith of the question. The situation furnishedcertain gorgeous playthings for discussion. The ideathat the Czar’s secret service, either through the purchaseof a traitor or some miraculous thievery, had securedinformation explosive enough to blow out the Britishunderpinnings from India, amounted to a huge and awfulconception in the English mind. Even the pale, listlessTalliaferro, the stately Commonwealth’s “Excalibur,”stirred restlessly.

There was sharp scattering of gravel along the driveway,and the four turned to see Jerry Cardinegh ridingout on a gray gelding of splendid style and power. Hesped by at a fast rack, bending forward in the saddle,his white, haggard face in vivid profile against the vine-hungwall to his right. His gloved left hand held thebridle-rein with the rigidity of an artificial member.His shoulders did not seem to fill the coat he wore; hisbody looked little and shrunken on the huge beast; hislips moved.... In the mind of each one of thefour, queerly enough, was lastingly imprinted this flyingglimpse of the well-loved dean as he swung out of thedrive on to the Jasper Road.

“Speaking of wanting to know a thing,” observedTrollope, “I should like to know what is pulling downthe old man.”

“We’ve all got to break,” said Feeney gloomily.“Jerry’s breaking the approved way like a good machinewhose parts are of equal tensile strength.”

“I wonder if it is possible,” came from Finacune[47]slowly, “for the dean to have a line on the mystery, andthat it is so desperate—you know there are some situationsso desperate—that if one looks them straight inthe face he is never the same afterward.”

“Any international disturbance that could throw oldJerry Cardinegh off his feet, or off his feed, would haveto concern Ireland,” observed Feeney.

Trollope took up the subject. “It was after thatnight that Routledge dropped in upon us in Bhurpal—thatJerry began really to tear down. They had a talktogether after we turned in.”

“Who should know the real thing—if not that demonRoutledge, who rides alone?” Feeney questioned.

“Gentlemen,” said Trollope, clapping his hands fora servant, “we sail to-night for Home. By the graceof the weird god of wars, we’ll be in London, at theArmy and Navy Reception, within a month. Possiblythen we shall be trusted with the secret which our papersdare not trust to the cable—the secret that is gnawing atthe vitals of who shall say how many Powers? In themeantime, let us all drink to the man who wrote ofEngland’s wars—save the deathless Feeney here—whenwe were just learning to read fairy-tales—drink to theman who just rode by!”

“May I add a line, Trollope?” Finacune asked, asthe pegs were brought.

The “Blue Boar” nodded.

“When it comes time,” said Finacune, “for the manwho just rode by to finish his last battle—which we alllose—may he pass out from the arms of the most beautifulwoman in London—his daughter!”

They drank standing.

[48]Old Feeney broke the silence which followed. Theysaw in an instant that he had something big to impart—andthat there was joy in the telling.

“The Pan-Anglo Agency of stripped news which Ihave the honor to represent, sent me a little story thismorning,” he declared, with the thin, cold smile whichthey all knew.

“Feeney, you dead planet, do you mean to say thatyou have got a ray of light left?” Finacune asked. Thetwo were very hearty friends.

“The Press has rallied about the Throne, as yousay, my emotional young friend,” Feeney went onblandly, “but the Throne in the interim has turned oneof the smoothest tricks known to diplomacy—all in thedark, mind you—one of the deepest diplomatic inspirationsever sprung in the law and gospel of empire-building.Let us say that some one, by a bit of treachery,has thrown Afghanistan’s fighting power to the Russians,lifting it out of the English control. Also let us grantthat Russia, confident of this bulk, is waving the fire-brandalong the whole northern border of British India—plungingthose sullen native states into rebellion—andtelling them why! All lower India, people of the plains,will respond to the disorder. It has been a case of waitingfor a full century—waiting for the exact moment forinsurrection. India is the prize waiting people. Theybuild for eternity. In a word, my sweet children of abattle or two, England faces a great war—with all Indiaenergized by Russia—a ten-to-one shot!”

Feeney sat back and smiled at the vine which hadbeen the background for Jerry Cardinegh’s passing.The others squirmed impatiently.

[49]“What does England do in a case like this?” oldFeeney requested at length.... “O glorious England—Omy England of wisdom and inspiration! DoesEngland say, ‘Let us fight Russia if we must’?...No, my fellow-sufferers; England looks at the map ofthe world. The heads of her various top-departments inLondon draw together. I mean her Home, Colonial,and Foreign offices. One of those mute inglorious Gladstonesfinds an old petition that has been laughed at andthrust aside for months. It is from Japan. It is readand re-read aloud. The unsung Gladstone of the outfitmakes a sizzling suggestion. Japan has asked for anAnglo-Japanese alliance. With a turn of a pen it isdone. What does this mean, my brothers?”

The thoughtful Talliaferro deigned to speak: “Japancommitted harakiri—that is, many of the young, impulsiveflowers of the army and navy did—seven years ago,when Russia led the Triple Alliance and looted thetrophies, including Port Arthur, from Japan’s victoryover China. With England’s moral support in an alliance,Japan will start a war with Russia to get hertrophies back. I’ve got an idea that Japan thinks shecan whip Russia.”

Talliaferro talked so seldom that he was well listenedto.

The ancient Feeney clapped his hands. “If you hadthe nerve to follow troops in action, that you have inworld-politics, Talliaferro, you’d have us all whipped,”he said. “You’ve got it exactly. The insulation has longbeen worn off between Russia and Japan, specificallybetween Korea and Manchuria. Japan, looted of herspoils from the Chinese war, is one vast serpent’s tooth[50]for Russia. With England’s moral support—I say moralsupport—Japan will tackle Russia and sing anthems forthe chance.”

“You don’t mean that such an alliance is signed?”Finacune asked excitedly, and Trollope was leaning forward.

“Exactly,” said Feeney quietly. “The Pan-Anglowired me the story to-day, and the Pioneer here willprint it to-morrow morning. Japan will now makedemands of Russia that will force a war. That will pullRussia up from England’s India borders. Some diplomacy,that alliance, my boys! England has jockeyedRussia out of her aggression; rendered helpless the ideaof rebellion in India because Russian support is neededthere; England has put half of Asia between her boundariesand the possibility of war! The absolute splendorof the whole matter is that England calls her unheard-ofalliance with Japan—a movement for the preservationof Chinese and Korean integrity! I ask you in all truthand soberness—as Saint Paul said—isn’t this humor forthe high and lonely gods?”

Routledge parted from Bulwer-Shinn’s cavalry atMadirabad and reached Calcutta two days before theothers, except Bingley, who was but a couple of hoursbehind him—just enough for the latter to miss the boatRoutledge had taken to Bombay. The “Horse-killer”took himself mighty seriously in this just-miss matter,and was stirred core-deep. He wanted to have the firstword in London as well as the last word in India. Hehad studied the matter of the mystery with his peculiarzeal, cabling his point of view in full. So rapidly hadhe moved down, however, that he missed a cable fromthe Thames, hushing further theories. It was with ragethat he determined to railroad across India and regain thelost time, possibly catch a ship ahead of Routledge atBombay. This was the man he feared at home and afield,in work and play.

Bingley must not be misunderstood. He was a veryimportant war-man, a mental and physical athlete,afraid of few things—least of all, work. Such men areinteresting, sometimes dangerous. Bingley was honest inmaterial things; on occasion, hatefully so. He was theleast loved of the English war-correspondents, and oneof the most famous. He envied the genial love which thename of Routledge so generally inspired; envied the[52]triumphs of the “mystic,” as Finacune had called him;copied the Routledge-method of riding frequently alone,but found it hopeless to do so and preserve the regard ofhis contemporaries. The careless manner with whichRoutledge achieved high results was altogether beyondBingley, as well as the capacity of seeming to forget thebig things he had done. It was necessary for Bingleyto be visibly triumphant over his coups; indeed, penetratinglyso. This failure of manner, and a certaingenius for finding his level on the unpopular side of aquestion, challenged the dislike of his kind.

Routledge settled himself for the long voyage withmuch to think about and Carlyle’s “French Revolution”—alreadyread on many seas. Ordinarily, a mysterysuch as he had left in India would have furnished materialfor deep contemplation, but he chose to put it away fromhim and to live in full the delights of a returning exile.Bombay was agog with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, butRoutledge did not give the subject more than one ofhis days out of the last Indian port. He missed nothingof the significance of this great move by England, whichhad so entranced Feeney, but when he undertook todelve for the first cause his faculties became lame andtired, and he had learned too well the therapeutics of sea-travelto continue an aimless grind. An accomplishedtraveller, he put aside all wastes of hurry and anxietyand allowed his days and nights to roll together withoutthe slightest wear. Consequently, big volumes of tissuewere renovated and rebound. With Routledge, it wasnot “To-morrow we will be at Port Said,” but a possiblereflection to-day that “we are somewhere in the RedSea.” Frequently, he read entire nights away; or dozed[53]from midnight until dawn, wrapped in a rug on deck.His brain fell into a dreamy state of unproductiveness,until he could scarcely recall that it had ever been arather imperious ruler of crises; a producer of piledwords which developed, in war’s own pigments, thecountless garish and ghastly films which his eye hadcaught. The month at sea smoothed the hard lines ofservice from his face, as it softened the calluses of hisbridle-hand.

It was not until the dusk, when his boat steamed intothe shipping before Marseilles, that the old click-clickof his mental tension was resumed and the thought-lightsburned strong again. He found then that much whichhad been vague and unreckonable at Calcutta was clearedand finished, as often so pleasantly happens after a seasonof pralaya, as the Hindus express the period of rest,whether it be sleep or death. Standing well forward ondeck, with the brilliance of the city pricking the dark ofthe offing, it was borne to Routledge that his life at thisperiod had reached a parting of the ways. The divergencesstretched out before him clearly, as if his mindhad arranged them subconsciously, while his materialfaculties had drowsed in the lull of far journeying.Thoughts began to rain upon him.

“Routledge, how are you and the world to hook upfrom now on?... You’ve played so far, justplayed, scattered your years all over the earth, with butlittle profit to yourself or to the world. If you shoulddie to-night you would possibly have earned five lines ina thirty-volume encyclopædia: ‘Cosmo Routledge,American born, an English war-correspondent and traveller,rode with Tom, stood fire with Dick, and ran with[54]Henry; undertook to study at first hand various nativeIndia affairs, and died of a fever at the edge of’—Godknows what yellow desert or turbid river.”

He smiled and lit his pipe, musing on. “The pointis, I’ll be dead long before the fever—if I keep up thisworld-tramp—dead to myself and to men—one of thegreat unbranded, crossing and recrossing his trail aroundand around the world.... Shall I sit down inLondon or New York, and double on my whole trail sofar on paper—books, editorials, special articles, longdinners beginning at eight, an hour of billiards, a desk insome newspaper office—fat, fatuous, and fixed at fifty?...Which is better, a gaunt, hungry, storm-bittenwanderer, with his face forever at the fire-lit window-panesof civilization, or a creased and cravatted masterof little ceremonies within? A citizen of ordered daysand nights, or an exile with the windy planet foreverroaring in his skull?”

They were warping his ship into dock, and the voicesof France were thick in the night.

“Routledge, you’re evading the issue,” he mutteredafter a moment. “It isn’t that you must choose betweenone city and the wide world; nor between the desk or thesaddle, a tent of skins or a compartment of brick. Youcan ride a camel in London or pack a folding-bed over thepeaks to Llassa; you can be a tramp at home or aneditor afield. It isn’t the world or not, Routledge, but—awoman or not!”

The flapping awning took up the matter at length.Routledge relit his pipe dexterously, sensing the very coreof the harbor-breeze with his nostrils, and shutting it off....He would cross France to-night; and dine in Paris[55]to-morrow, breathe the ruffian winds of the Channelto-morrow night, and breakfast again in London....His brain had put off the lethargy of Asia, indeed—quickenedalready to the tense stroke of Europe. He wasvehemently animate. The rapid French talk on the pierbelow stirred him with the great import of massed life—asit might have stirred a boy from the fields enteringthe city of his visions. A few hours and thenLondon!... “She has never forgotten you,Routledge.”...

Once he had seen the mother of Noreen—the womanwho, for a little while, was the embodied heaven to JerryCardinegh; heaven in spirit to the old man now. A faceof living pearl; the gilding and bronzing of autumnalwood-lands in her hair; great still eyes of mystery andmercy.... In a way not to be analyzed, the sightof her made Routledge love more Jerry Cardinegh’sIreland. Tyrone was hallowed a little in conception—becauseit had been her home.

In Paris, at the Seville, the next afternoon, a servantinformed Routledge that a lady was waiting for him inthe Orange Room. There was a lifting in his breast, athrilling temperamental response. Some fragrant essenceof home-coming which he had not thought to find inParis swept over his senses.... She was sitting inthe mellowed glows and shadows of the Seville’s famousparlor. The faintest scent of myrrh and sandal; Zunipotteries like globes of desert sunlight; golden tapestriesfrom the house of Gobelin; fleeces of gold from Persianlooms; the sheen of an orange full moon through riftedclouds of satin; spars of gilded daylight through thebillowing laces at the casem*nt; the stillness of Palestine;[56]sunlight of centuries woven into every textile fabric—andthe woman, Noreen, rising to meet him, a vividclassic of light and warmth.

“Routledge-san!”

“To-morrow, I expected to see you—in London,” hefaltered.

“I have been living in Paris. I return to CheerStreet to-night—to make ready for father to-morrowafternoon.”

He was burning with excitement at the sight of her,and the red was deep in her cheeks. It was as if therehad been wonderful psychic communions between them;and, meeting in the flesh at last, they were abashed,startled by the phenomenon.

“Mr. Bingley told me that you were to be in Paristo-day. He left for London last night. I was impatientto see you. Possibly I did not wait long enough for youto rest after your journey.”

Routledge did not answer. He was smiling in astrange, shy way, as few men smile after thirty. Moreover,he was holding fast to the hand so eagerly offered.

“Do forgive my staring at you,” he said at last.“I’ve been away a very long time. In India——”

“You may stare, Routledge-san. Men coming homefrom the wars may do as they will,” she laughed.

“Finding you here in Paris is immense, Miss Noreen.I was planning to keep the way open from Bookstalls toCheer Street—to ride out with you possibly, watch youpaint things, and have talks——”

“You’ll stay in London for a time, Routledge-san?”

“Yes, until you and Jerry appeal to the Review tostart a war to be rid of me.”

[57]She did not need to tell him that she was glad.“Come, let’s go outside. It’s like an enchanted castlein here—like living over one of your past lives in allthis yellow stillness.”

She could not have explained what made her saythis. Routledge liked the idea, and put it away to betried in the crucible of solitude. “Where did you leavefather?” she asked when they were in the street.

“Away up in Bhurpal—two or three days before wewere all called in.”

He dreaded the next question, but, understanding thatit would trouble him, Noreen pushed into the heart ofthe subject without asking.

“Of course, he wouldn’t tell me, but I’m afraid heisn’t well. I seem to know when ill befalls any one dearto me.”

“It was a dull, hard-riding campaign, but he weatheredit.”

“I feel him white and time-worn somehow, Routledge-san.It is his last time afield. He will need mealways now—but we won’t talk of it.”

She led the way through the crowded streets—a cold,bright February afternoon, with the air cleanly crispand much Parisian show and play about them. “I’lltake you to my studio, if you wish.... It is quietand homey there. Most of my things are packed, butwe can have tea.”

“I was planning to leave for London to-night,” heventured.

“Of course—we’ll take the same boat. And to-morrow—to-morrowthere will be things for a man todo in Cheer Street—getting ready for father.”

[58]Both laughed. It seemed almost too joyous toRoutledge.

“I can’t endure London—that is, I can’t live therewhen father is away,” she said presently. “It seems lesslonely in Paris. London—certain days in London—seemto reek with pent tragedy. There is so much graysorrow there; so much unuttered pain—so many livesthat seem to mean nothing to the gods who give life. Isuppose it is so everywhere, but London conceals it less.”

“Less than India?”

“Oh, but India has her philosophy. There is nophilosophy in the curriculum of the East End....I wish I could think about India as you do—calmly andwithout hate for the British ascendency there. At least,without showing my hatred. But it seems so scandalousand grotesque to me for a commercial people to dominatea spiritual people. What audacity for the English tosuggest to the Hindus the way to conduct life and worshipGod! I am Jerry Cardinegh’s girl—when it comesto India and Ireland. It must be that which makes mehate London.”

“England is young; India old,” said Routledge.“Many times the old can learn from the young—how tolive.”

“But not how to die—and yet India has had muchpractice in learning how to die at the hands of theBritish.... We mustn’t talk about it to-day! Theword famine rouses me into a savage. India famine;Irish famine; the perennial famine of the London EastEnd!... Coming home from the wars, you mustnot be forced to talk about bitter things. I want to sitdown and listen to you about your India—not the[59]Cardinegh India. We always see the black visage behindIndia, as behind Ireland. You see the enchantment ofIndian inner life—and we the squalor of the doorways.Yes, I still read the Review.... Ah, Routledge-san,your interview with the English ‘missionary-and-clubman’in Lucknow was a delicious conception; yetback of it all there is something of horror in its humor tome. Most of all because the ‘missionary-and-clubman,’as I saw him, under your hand, would have perceivednone of the humor! He would no doubt have called ita very excellent paper—yet every line contained an insinuationof his calamitous ignorance and his infant-soul!I must repeat—what audacity for the cumbering fleshof a matter-mad people, undertaking to teach visionaryIndia—how to look for God!”

Routledge invariably became restless when the valuesof his own work were discussed before him.

“By the way, Miss Noreen,” he said, “I left Bingleybehind me in Calcutta——”

“He said so, but crossed India by rail and caught aship before you at Bombay. Father and the others willbe in London to-morrow. They left ship at Naples tobe in time for the Army and Navy Reception to-morrownight.”

Routledge was a trifle bewildered as he followedNoreen up the stairway into the studio, and sat downby the window. The place was stripped of many thingsidentified with her individuality, and yet it was all distinctlya part of her. Trunks and boxes were ready forthe carrier, her portmanteau alone opened. Out of thisshe drew the tea-things, and the man watched withemotion. After the alien silence of the Orange Room[60]and the turmoil of the Parisian streets, the studio wasdear with nameless attractions. All the negatives of hismind, once crowded with pictures of Paris and civilization,had been sponged clean by India. The momentsnow were rushed with new impressions.... Thestamp of fineness was in her dress, and to him a far-flingingimport in all her words. The quick turn ofher head and hand, all her movements, expressed thatnice elastic finish which marks an individual from theherd. It was even as they had told him in India. NoreenCardinegh had put on royalty in becoming a woman.

The man did not cease to be a trifle bewildered. Hewas charged again with the same inspiring temperamentwhich compelled him to tell her the intimate story ofRawder, and to tell it with all his valor and tenderness.Impedimenta which the months had brought to his brainand heart were whipped away now before those samewondrous, listening eyes. Memories of her had alwaysbeen the fairest architecture of his thoughts, but theywere as castles in cloudland, lineaments half-lost, comparedto this moment, with the living glory of NoreenCardinegh sweeping into full possession of his life. Allthat had been before was dulled and undesirable; evenhimself, the man, Routledge, with whom he had lived somuch alone.... In this splendid moment of expansion,it came to him—the world’s bright answer to hislong quest for the reason of being.

“Routledge-san, I have wine and tea and biscuit, andyou may smoke if you like.” She drew up a littletable and chair for herself. “It will be an hour beforethe carrier comes for my trunks, and I want you to tell[61]me if you have seen again—our bravest man. It’s longover a year since you left him in Hong Kong.”

“Miss Noreen——”

“I’d rather be Noreen to you.”

“Noreen, what is the force of Rawder’s bigness toyou?” Routledge asked, after watching her severalseconds.

“He serves blindly, constantly, among the dregs, andhas mercy for all men but himself!” she said intensely.“The living spirit of the Christ seems to be in him, andnothing of sex or earthly desire. I have pictured him,since you told me the story, as one pure of soul as any ofthe prophets or martyrs. I care not for the range of hisbrain when he has a human heart like that!... Iwish I could say all he suggests to me, but I mean—Ithink he is close to God!”

“Thank you,” said Routledge. “It is one of thefinest things I know, to have you speak of him as ‘ourbravest man’—to share him with me.... Yes,I have seen him again, and there is another story to tell,and I will tell it, as he told me:

“It began with his leaving Hong Kong. He wasnever so weary nor so faint-hearted as on one certainday. It was about the time I was with you for an eveningin Cheer Street. He declares when that night camehe went out on the water-front to his work with a‘wicked rebellion’ in his heart. A night of rain andstorm. He had rescued a fallen sailor from the Chinese,and was leading him to his own lodging when he wasstruck from behind and trampled. ‘I’m afraid theymeant to kill me,’ he divulged, and added in apology thatthe lives of the Chinese are so dark and desperate on the[62]water-front. His old Minday wound was reopened, andhe awoke to feel that death was very close. You see, thepolice had found his body in the rain. He was driftingoff into unconsciousness when a vision appeared.

“He had never touched India at that time in thislife, but it was a bit of India that appeared in his vision,and it was all very true to him.... Nightfall anda little village street; an ancient Hindu holy man sittingin a doorway, head bowed, his lips moving with theIneffable Name. Very clearly Rawder saw this and therest, so that he would know the place when he saw itagain—the sand, the silence, the river sweeping like arusty sickle about the town, and his old master sitting inthe doorway.

“This was the picture that came to him as he layin a station of the Hong Kong Sihk-police, and close todeath.... The Hindu holy man, so old that heseemed to be a companion of Death, looked up sorrowfullyand said: ‘My son, I have come down fromthe goodly mountains for you. Just this way, you shallfind me waiting. Make haste to come for me, my chela,for I am full of years, and already am I weary of theseplains and so many men. There is work for us to dobefore we go back together to our goodly mountains.’

“The Sannyasi spoke in Tibetan, which Rawder hadnever heard before, but every word he understood as Ihave told you. ‘And how swiftly did I heal after that!’he exclaimed to me, smiling. His pain left him and hiswound closed magically. They told him he would die ifhe left his bed, but he finished his healing on the road tohis river and his village. All was made easy for him, asour bravest man declares. There was a ship in the[63]harbor, which needed a man to peel vegetables, andRawder fitted in, remaining aboard port after port, untilsomething prompted him to go ashore at Narsapur,which lies among the mouths of the great Godavari. Oneof these he followed up to the main stem, and journeyed,on foot for months and months, studying the natives andtheir language, doing what appeared to him among thedead and the living in the midst of famine and plague,and ‘knowing no hunger nor thirst nor pain.’ These arehis words, Noreen.”

“He is like one of those mystics,” the woman said,“like Suso or St. Francis of Assisi—who would notreckon with physical pain.”

“Yes.... I did not remain long in Americaafter leaving you in Cheer Street. In fact, I was back inIndia months before this last trouble arose in Bhurpal—withRawder in India. It was at Sironcha, where theGodavari joins the Penganga, that I found him, and hetold me all these things. Then for awhile I journeyedwith him, and it was very good for me. Always he washelping—down at the very roots of the disorder of things.I thought of you very much. You were the only oneI had told of Rawder. That’s why I was so glad to hearyou say ‘our bravest man.’”

“And his master?”

“Yes.... It was far north of Sironcha, on thePenganga, and he had been hurrying, hurrying, for days.I was to leave him at Ahiri for the service in two daysmore. At nightfall, we came to the little village, withthe Penganga sweeping about it like a rusty sickle. ‘It isthe place—I know the place,’ he kept repeating....Even I was not surprised, Noreen, to see the aged[64]Sannyasi sitting in the doorway, his lips moving with theIneffable Name.... And so our bravest man foundthe master he had earned; the old master who had comedown from his lodge in the goodly mountains to takeback the purest man-soul I have ever known.”

“Then you—then you will never see him again?”the woman cried.

“That is what is strange to me, Noreen. He said Ishould see him again in India this year. He said I wouldknow the time and the place. They are journeying northwardtoward the hills on foot and very slowly. Onemight travel around the world, and, returning, find themonly three or four latitudes northward from the place ofparting. And so I left him very happy, learning Tibetanand Chinese, and the ancient wisdom, happily helping inthe midst of the world’s direst poverty.”

“And you have no thought to return to India so far,Routledge-san?”

“No.”

The tea was perfect. The carrier came and took thetrunks and boxes. They sat together in the strippedstudio while the twilight hushed the distances. The streetbelow lost its look of idling, and the figures movedquickly.... There were no lights. The manthrilled in the black hallway as the woman whispered anadieu to her little Paris place; then shut the door, and,feeling for his hand, led him to the stairs.

They dined at the Seville, took a night-train forCalais, and talked on the steamer’s deck in the Channel.It was a night of stars and cold gusts of wind. Thelights of France died out behind. A ship appeared aheadlike a faint, low-swinging star, loomed mightily, hergreat form pricked in light, and passed swiftly by, sonear that they heard her crushing the seas, and the throbof her iron heart.... Noreen was saying:

“It’s so good not to have to travel alone. I have beenso much alone. I seem to tell you things quite amazingly....I must be intensely strange in some way,possibly psychic, because I dream so many things whichremain vividly afterward.”

The picture she meant to put into words came clearlywith Routledge listening.

“Once, when I was so little that I couldn’t talk plainly—solittle that you might have balanced me in yourhand—a woman came to the tiny room where I lay. Itwas in the midst of the night. Father was in Asia somewhere.I was awake, I think, because I heard the womanfumbling at the door. She was a big, hysterical thing andsuddenly screamed that my mother was dead—thenrushed away, leaving me alone in the dark!... Itwas at a lonely English country-house in winter. I[66]remember the snow and the winds and the gray, tossingsky and the nights. I had to stay there alone until fathercame home. For more than a month I was in that greathouse, with naked, sighing trees all around—trees closeto the walls of the house. They cut the wind intoribbons and made a constant moaning. And, oh, thenights were eternal! I was in a broad, cold room in thegreat, creaking house—and always I could hear hard-breathingfrom somewhere. Alone, I wore out all myfears there—until at last I had no fears, only dreams ofthe night that lived with me all through the day. I havenever gone near that country-place since father came.How terrible he looked! It left me strange and different—sothat I was never like a little child afterward....Routledge-san, why do I tell you all thesethings? Not in years have I talked so much in one day.”

“Nor have I listened so raptly, Noreen.”

“I wouldn’t have tried to tell you so much—exceptthat you are to be back in India within a year....It has come to me, Routledge-san, that you are to govery quickly!”

There was a creak of a wicker-chair in the shadowsof the engine-room air-shafts behind them. Noreengrasped his arm impulsively. It was not that she hadsaid anything which the world might not hear, but herconcentration had been intense, and the little story shehad told had been so intimately personal to her that nowoman, and only this man, had ever called it forth. Therewas quick cruelty in the thought of it being overheardby a stranger. In any case, the spell was broken. Routledgewas irritated. The recall from the world of thewoman, and the feeling of oneness with her which the[67]strange little confidence had inspired, was pure unpleasantness.

“I’ll go to my state-room now,” she whispered.“There is only a little while to rest.... Good-night,Routledge-san. I’ll be abroad early.”

He knew that she would not have thought of her cabinyet, even though the hour was late, had it not been forthe intrusion of the creaking chair. Routledge took herhand and spoke a brisk good-night. Returning to thedeck-chair between the air-shafts, he sat down and aroseagain carefully. The sound was the same. He tested thechair thoroughly and found that in no possible way couldthe wind have caused the creak.... They had stoodlong within eight or nine feet of the chair. A gentlemanwould have given some notice that he was within hearing,or, better still, would have gone his way—unless asleep.This last was unlikely, because the deck was searched bya keen winter wind. In the smoking-room was an individualwhose face had become familiar to Routledge sincehe had taken the Paris train at Marseilles the night before—amiddle-aged man, strongly featured, wearing a whitemustache. This traveller had also stopped at the Seville.He glanced up from a game of solitaire as Routledgeentered. There were a bridge-party and one or twoothers in the apartment. Routledge chose a cigar verycarefully, and managed to whisper to the attendant ina light, humorous way:

“Let me look at that cordial-flask a moment, and tellme how long that man at solitaire has been here.”

The other handed him the package and whispered,“Just about five minutes.”

Routledge purchased the cordial and passed out. It[68]happened that he glanced into the smoking-room througha half-curtained window, and met the eyes of the WhiteMustache fully.... It was a little thing—scarcelya coincidence—for one to cross France by the same stagesin twenty-four hours and break the journey at the samehotel in Paris. Moreover, because the stranger was notin the smoking-room fifteen minutes before did not establishthe fact that it was his weight that had made thechair creak.... Routledge was disinclined to rest.The day had revolutionized his systems of being. Helonged for daylight again, quite forgetting his usualpatience with the natural passing of hours and events.The day itself had been unspeakably fine, but there was adisturbing reaction now and a premonitive shadow thatwould not be smoked nor reasoned out of mind.

This, on the night of his perfect day. NoreenCardinegh had given him every moment of her time inParis, not even saying good-by to her friends....It was not the mystery in India; not the swift failing ofJerry Cardinegh, which his daughter felt, though she hadnot seen; not the White Mustache nor the creaking chair—thesemerely wove into a garment of nettles. The premonitionwas not even his own. It was Noreen Cardinegh’s,and had to do with his leaving her and hurryingback to India.... “It has come to me, Routledge-san,that you are to go very quickly!”... Thegreat frieze coat was wet with Channel mists andChannel spray when the half-dawn developed the Doverpier, and the eyes of the wanderer were filled once morewith the seven shades of English gray.... Noreenwas out before the full day.

“Let’s take the earlier train for Charing Cross,” she[69]said. “I believe we still have time. Our luggage ischecked through, and we can breakfast en route.”

He brought his bag, and Noreen took his arm companionablyas he appeared on the main-deck again....She was all in gray like the morning, save fora touch of yellow ruching at her throat and her hair’sgolden wonder-work.... Routledge turned on thepier at a step behind. It was the White Mustache in light-travellingorder, hastening to make the early train.

A breakfast-table was between them. “Routledge-san,”she said, leaning toward him critically, “you don’tlook the least bit tired, but I doubt if you’ve slept sinceI left you. Beside, your coat is all wet.”

“I did smell the Channel a bit,” he replied, thinkingthat a man who looked dull and worn in the presence ofNoreen Cardinegh would be incapable of reflecting lightof any kind. “I couldn’t? feel more fit and keep my self-control.Though I am not an Englishman, it thrills tosee England again.” He glanced from his plate to hereyes and then out upon the winter fields, sweeping bythe window like an endless magic carpet. “Some time,when there are no more wars,” he added, “we shallwrite an essay and call it, ‘Grape-fruit and KentishGardens.’”

They separated at Charing Cross, to meet again inthe evening at the Army and Navy reception. Routledgerepaired to his old lodgings in Bookstalls Road and satdown before his grate-fire in the midst of old trophiesand treasures. Bookstalls was a crowded part of London,rushing with many small businesses, and convenient tovast tracts of unbroken undesirability. It was a gorgethat boomed continual clamor. Even at night, when the[70]protest from the cobble-stones should have sunk to itsstillest, the neighboring fire-department was wont toburst open at intervals like the door of a cuckoo-clockand pour forth tons of clangorous polished metal.Whistles from the far river whipped the smoky air whenthe small factories were at peace; night-shifts of workmenkept the pavements continually animate. There wasan iron-tongued guard in the belfry of Old Timothy’sChurch that never let an hour go by without brutallyhammering it flat, and then bisecting it; and on Sundaysand Saints’ days, the same bell sent a continual crashingthrough the gorge with a hurting, tangible vibration, likea train in a subway.

Bookstalls had been decadent for decades. Whengrandfathers were little boys it had been a goodly placeof residence, but small factories had long been smokingit out. Indeed, it sat in venerable decrepitude by thefires of its shops. Certain habitués lived on, nor notedthe progress of decay, more than an old rat perceivesthe rotting mould sink deeper into his confining walls, orthe crumble of his domestic plasters.

Routledge in London was one of the habitués. Theplace was associated to him with dim beginnings—astore-room of sentiments and war-relics kept by the year.Before this fire he had written his first views of Londonfor an American newspaper, and here he had broughtvarious reminders of travel. To Bookstalls he returnedfrom his first journey to India—returned with the oldbrown Mother’s mystic whisperings in his brain, hermystic winds filling the sails of his soul. Gazing at thissame grate-fire, tranced as by the heart of crystal, he hadsunk into his first meditations, murmuring the star-reaching[71]OM—until the boy within him, crude with Europe,broke the spell in fright, lest his divided bodies jointogether no more. Those days he had drunk deep ofthe Vedas; and the Bhagavad Gita was one with himaccording to his light. Out of these he came to see andfeel the great Wheel of Births and Deaths and Re-Birthsmoving true and eternal in the cogs of Karma. And,having once sensed and discovered this, the little problemsof the earth’s day and generation are but gentlecalisthenics for the mind.

Routledge looked back upon those pure days wistfullynow. It is given a man but once in this life tofollow the Way. When manhood is fresh and sensitive,retaining all its delicate bloom and unhurt power; andwhen, full of a hunger that never falls below the diaphragm,the young man turns for Truth to the mastersand sages—this is the time to choose between the worldand the stars! This is the time that the world givesbattle to detain the searching soul. “Look, yonder is aJoseph climbing to God!” cries the old Flesh-mother;and, gathering her minions of enchantment and herdragons of fear, she scorns the lower cities, all safelyswarming to her tribute, to pluck at the skirts of theHeaven-called.... What red flowers of passion shestrews before him on the rocky, upland way; what songsof conquest she summons from the lower groves; withwhat romances does she stir his rest, all fragrant-lippedand splendor-eyed; what a Zion she rears of cloud andclay to hold his eyes from the Heights—are not all thesewritten, aye, burned, into the history of Man?

Who goes beyond? A valiant few.... If theenchantments fail to hold him, and if his clear eyes penetrate[72]the illusions of sense; lo, the path grows steep anddark before him, and there are dragons in the way! Thefaith of the youth must be as Daniel’s now, which istetanus for lions and palsy for every monster. He hasnot lingered with the lusts. Will he not falter beforethe fears?

The many tarry in the tinsel gardens of sense; thefew turn back before the roar of the Furies; the One—butwho can tell how the bay-tree blooms for him, whereglory waits?...

The saddest part of all is, that those who are calledand turn back, learn in the coolness of years how treacherousare the enchantments, and that never a dragonof the dark harmed a hair of Strongheart; but the wayshines not so clear for a second journey, and the soulis hardened with skepticisms past responding to theInner Voice. The man must be born again.

Routledge sat in his old leathern chair and lookedback a little sorrowfully upon the boy of twelve yearsago, all clean from the dust of the world’s trails, uncallousedby war, sensitive to the spirit, stirring in thechrysalis of flesh, all lit with star-stuff!... If onlyhe had known Noreen Cardinegh then!... Hecould look deeply within. He did not love the mannerof man he saw in himself—a wanderer striding over theEast; sitting down often for a year, in the places whitemen choose most ardently to avoid, and devoting himself(who dared look back wistfully now upon those beginningsof spiritual life) to the reddest ructions of Matter—war,red war.

He shook his head bitterly, rose, and went to the[73]window, looking down upon thronging Bookstalls withunseeing eyes. Out of it all came this at last:

“No, Routledge-san, you have given your reddestblood and whitest fire to old Mother Asia. Would itbe fair and clean of you to yoke the remnant—and suchan earthy remnant—with the lofty purity of NoreenCardinegh?”

Long he stood there in the depths of thinking, untilstartled by the softly uttered name:

“Routledge-san.”

He was sure his own lips had not formed the syllables.He wondered if it had winged across the city from CheerStreet.... His glance fell to the road. Below, anda little to the right he perceived the White Mustache.Routledge seized his hat and descended quickly, but thestranger was gone. For a half-hour he tried to trap theother into a meeting, but in vain. It was after mid-dayand raining. He had intended to go to the Reviewoffice, but the old leathern chair and the friendly lodginglured him back. To-morrow would do for theReview. To-night, the Army and Navy reception.Everybody he knew would be there.... She hadasked him to come to Cheer Street, but he could notbring himself to break in upon old Jerry’s home-coming.He stirred the fire and fell to musing again in the glow.

Routledge left his lodgings a little before nine thatnight, and breasted the February fog in his greatfrieze coat. He was minded to hail a cab when hewearied of walking, but the time and distance were putbehind with a glow and a gradually quickening pace.It was a good four miles from Bookstalls to TrafalgarSquare and the Armory where the Army and Navyreception was held. He skirted Hyde Park, now in thezenith of its season, and glimpsed Piccadilly again. Itsfull electric bloom was a ghastly sheen in the fog.London, the old and blackened brick Mammoth, wassweet to him, even now vaporing in her night-sweat....He had thought of these shops, clubs, lights,smells, and monuments in the long, heaven-clear Indiannights. Afar in the Himalayas, where the old Earth-motherstrains hungrily toward the stars (as does thesoul of man who broods in those austere heights), he hadthought hard upon these stirring pavements and yearnedfor them in red moments of memory. In the rice-landsof Rangoon; in the cotton country Bombayward; in thebazaars of Lahore; overlooking the plains from Simla;in the under-world of Calcutta, and the house-tops ofBenares—he had mapped these streets in reflection andcolored certain land-marks with desire.

[75]Here, in his own world-yard again, walking for anhour through the centre of London, and not a human hadhailed him. The strokes of ten boomed down from somespire lost in the muffling mists.

“One would have to carry a lantern, like the oldprophet of the barrel-house, to find his playmates in anight like this. Besides,” he added, “most of my playmatesby this time are bathing in the vanities across theSquare.”

There was a herd of carriages at the entrance to thefamous ball-room; and under the awnings he encounteredthe quick, natty figure of the much-liked Finacune—seizedthe shoulders of the little man affectionately.

“Hello, old heart—my first glimpse of a white manin the Home-zone——”

Finacune turned in an abrupt, unnerved way. “Why,how d’ do, Routledge?” he mumbled throatily. Hisright hand had jerked toward the other from habit, butwas withdrawn without the clasp. “How d’ do? Comin’in, I s’pose?”

With this astonishing greeting, the Word man leapedup the stone steps and left his “mystic of the wars”beneath the dripping canopy, not a little perturbed. Therather intent regard of the cab-starter pulled Routledgefrom his reflecting after a moment, and he followedFinacune into the Hall, being shown at once to the gentlemen’scoat-room. Apparently Finacune had shed hisouter garment with incredible speed, for he was notthere; nor any other guests. Routledge’s first thoughtwas that a joke was being perpetrated at his expense,Finacune’s action merely preparing the way, but he could[76]not hold fast to this. His whole nature was sensitive atonce to a formidable disorder.

His name trembled above the sense-stirring music ashe stepped upon the floor of the brilliant hall. It wasa distinguished company of admirals, generals, civiliancampaigners, and exalted representatives of the Home,Foreign, and Colonial Departments; the bravest men ofthe kingdom, perhaps; certainly some of the fairestwomen. The throng moved about in a slow, suppressedway; and the faces turned toward him not gladly, notpointedly, but in a quick, secretive, on-the-defensivefashion, as upon some huge agent of menace and craft.

With difficulty, Routledge controlled the muscles ofhis face. The public speaker knows the moment. Hereis straightforward testimony of the power of mind overmatter. That first volume of abhorrence and distrustwhich his eyes had ever met, seemed to rub out hisfeatures and weave its own image upon the flesh. Henever forgot the sensation. Women craned their headsbehind the shoulders of the men. A steward passedbefore him, fell into the current of hatred, and his facealtered visibly. Routledge summoned all his resistanceand smiled. He understood instantly that only a fewof the men, the most valued tools of the kingdom, knewthe specific allegation, and that by the others he wascharged with some dreadful generality. Finacune haddisappeared. Jerry Cardinegh had not arrived. Trollope,that goodly bullock of a man, most slow of all to beblown in a gale of popular opinion, stood nearest toRoutledge. The two faced each other fixedly.

“I say, brother, what’s up?” Routledge inquiredlightly.

[77]“I was thinking of interviewing you on the matter—notfor publication, of course, but for my own curiosity,”was the puzzling answer.

Routledge quickly stepped forward, but Trollopeturned away.

Burling-Forster, an artillery chieftain, whose valor,years before at Quetta, had vividly been placed before theBritish people by Routledge, the only civilian detachedwith him at the time, took the place of Trollope nowand stared with steady, stony insolence, an accomplishmentof Englishmen only, at the man who had made himfamous. He did not move to take the hand whichRoutledge was careless enough to offer him. However,Burling-Forster uttered a sentence which showed thathe quite forgot that there were women in the room.

There was not a shade of change now in the brownhue of Routledge’s face, nor in the pleasure of his smile.

“Colonel, I once saw your temper working to bettereffect,” he said courteously.... “Feeney,” heremarked, turning to the grim visage of the old man,“perhaps you may tell me—am I out of order to inquirewhat this game is?”

“It appears to me,” Feeney answered gloomily, “thatyou are out of order anywhere.”

“Thank you—I didn’t know.”

It was now the turn of Dartmore, the editor of theReview. As has been related, it had been the recentvocation of Routledge to make this newspaper importantin and between wars. To be insulted by Dartmorewas like being thrown from a horse into a hedge ofSpanish-bayonets.

“I am glad that you were crafty enough not to call[78]at the Review office to-day, though you’ve got hell’sown audacity to come here. Don’t go to the Review foryour cheque. I will see to it that it is brought to theRubicon Buffet within an hour. I advise you to buysomething with it to kill yourself.”

A tall figure in evening wear brushed by Routledgenow, rather roughly and without apology. It wasBingley, of the Thames. For an instant Routledge wasblinded—the Hindus name it well—by the red mists ofpassion. He had drilled himself to bear the words, hadlistened coldly, curiously, for the past few moments,but the actual physical contact unleashed his rage.

“I shouldn’t advise him to kill himself until he iswell clear of the shores of England, Dartmore—the taint,you know!” Bingley said with a brassy smile.

The face of a woman hurrying toward him throughthe breathless groups in the great reception hall pulledRoutledge out of delirium.

“Bingley,” he remarked, shutting his eyelids forcibly,as if to expel the rheum of anger, “I’ll bear in mindyour suggestion.”

The editor turned his back upon his prince of servants,as routine men frequently dare to do. A butler stood byRoutledge with the great frieze coat. The air becameelectric with whisperings. The whole company wasintent upon a matter, the nature of which only a handfulknew. But the others discussed it in awed, hungryeagerness—in that deplorable, hungerish way of lesserfolk who are enabled to forget their own limitations bythe spectacle of one of the mighty fallen. Routledgeswung into his outer garment, smiling strangely....

Then the ladies of the kingdom gasped and the[79]valiants stared. A lady broke in through the narrowingcircle and ran to the outcast—a wondrous Irish ladyof red-gold hair and pale gold silk. Her hand fell uponthe sleeve of his great-coat, and her face, the masterpiecefrom the famous gallery of Erin, was upturned proudlybut pitifully to his.

“They won’t tell me—they speak of treachery, butno one dares to tell me—what is this horrid mistake?”she demanded.

The sudden look of tenderness in Routledge’s eyesgave way to fear and pain. The others had stepped back.

“Run away, you blessed girl,” he whispered. “Somethingbig is wrong. I seem to understand it least of all—butit* plain I’m bad medicine here now. It will all comeout. Meanwhile, don’t be seen with me, Noreen!” Headded in the shadow of a whisper, “Your father——”

“Father will be here to-night. He brought me tothe door, promising to be back within an hour. I thinkhe went to find you. Oh, he’s changed—more than Ifeared! But you, Routledge-san——”

“Please leave me. You are assailing your positionby talking with me. That hurts worse than anythingthese people might say. I shall go out and think itover.... Good-night, Noreen, my dear friend.”

But she clung to his arm. “What do I care whatthey think of me? I want you to know—you mustknow when you are alone—that there is one woman whowill stand by you, through all things!”

Her words were not lost to the periphery of thecrowd. He drew back stoutly, but his heart sank whenshe added even more loudly: “Remember, you have onefriend—even though all your brave companions fail!”

[80]His lips moved with the words: “Dear Noreen—sayno more.”

“Remember me!” came back to him.

For an instant she watched as he turned to the door—lineageto Plantagenet and stuff of angels warm in herheart. The other women fathomed his attempt to shieldher from them and from her own impulsiveness. Whatthey thought of his gallantry they did not tell; but whatthey thought of Noreen Cardinegh was revealed injewelled combs and in the elaborate artistry of back-hairwhich met her eyes when she turned once more tothe hall.

“Mighty brave of you, I’m sure, Miss Cardinegh,”said Bingley, stepping to her side. “I should like tohave a friend so loyal. But you’re wrong this time,really——”

“Even so, Mr. Bingley, I shall trust to my ownjudgment,” she answered, moving swiftly into the throng,where he did not essay to follow.

Routledge had not missed the attitude of the Halltoward her. The tempest of abhorrence, though a newand very wonderful brand of battle, did not shatter hisphilosophy, but the slight which his champion was enduringfor his sake—this was grim hell in his heart.

Outside he fought it, the roar of dripping London inhis ears. A cab drove up to the reception-canopy, andher father, Jerry Cardinegh, stepped out—incrediblyshrunken, altered, and uncertain of step. Far differenthad he left London for India less than a year before, ahard, weathered, full-blooded man. Routledge hungerednow for his friend of friends, but he did not call.

In the Rubicon Buffet, across the Square, the[81]Review’s cheque was handed him presently by a messenger.The outcast signed the receipt, and sat downdazedly, forgetting to drink. An hour later, Burling-Forsterentered the buffet with some friends from theArmory. The artilleryman saw Routledge at a far tableand backed out.

“We will go on,” said he. “I perceive that this isno place for us.”

The manager’s quick eye had seen Burling-Forster’sglance rest upon the solitary figure at the distant table,and he stared doubtfully now at Routledge. The latterrose and approached him. “Forgive me,” he said,quitting the place. “Not for fortunes would I impairthe popularity of your excellent buffet.”

London had changed in an hour; it was pitiless, alien.Yet he could laugh at London. The thought that madehim writhe had to do with the gorgeous woman who hadcast herself into the débris of his fortunes—the womanwho had meant so much to him in the silences of service....He moved about in the fog; passed the Reviewoffice, glanced up at the fourth floor, the blazing lightsjust a pale glimmer now. Friends were there, puttingtheir best of brain and hand into the maw of the morningpaper. The cutting sentences of Dartmore returned,and he did not go upstairs. In the little press-club aroundthe corner, the day men were in festival. Routledgewinced—and passed by. There was time still to catcha night-train for Paris, but he couldn’t let the mysterybeat him, not even for the glisten of Paris—not for NewJerusalem! He would wait and ask no questions. Abroad, low building very lavish with its music, lights,and laughter appeared at length upon the right of way.[82]Routledge inquired of a policeman what was going onwithin.

“It’s the cab-drivers’ annual ’op, sir,” the officer said.

“May one enter who is not a cab-driver at present?”Routledge asked.

“’Avin’ the price, sir.”

All things to all men, Routledge fell gladly into thegathering, buying seas of beer and continents of cake.Within a half-hour he had telephoned to Rupley’s for aten-story confection, and presently many couples, shining-faced,were preening and pirouetting for the possessionof it. Had he been the King’s groom, he couldnot have mounted higher in the estimate of the guests.His heart grew warm with the fun. It was after midnightwhen the new social stratum tumbled about hisears. The hard-headed little master of ceremoniesapproached, very white and sorrowful:

“I regrets hexceedingly to say, sir, that one as ’asbeen dismissed from the Harmy’s and the Noivy’s ’op,sir, cawn’t rightly be expected to find a boith ’ere.”

Routledge had a large view of the world, and a compressednotion of the personal equation, but his humordid not save him now from being stung hard and deep.

“You are quite right, of course,” he said. “I’m verysorry to have intruded, and very thankful for the goodtime up to now. Good-night.”

There was a murmur of sorrow from many femininequarters when the great frieze coat was brought, butit was quickly silenced by the undertone of intelligencewhich spread like poison through the hall. The butlerat the Army and Navy reception had told one of thedrivers, who, turning up later at the celebration of his[83]own guild, found the outcast there. Thus have empiresfallen.

Routledge walked the full distance to his lodgings.Sometimes he smiled; sometimes he found himself stridingforward with mad swiftness; then he would smileagain, and pull up to the pace of a leisurely gentlemanenjoying the night air. Entering his stairway in Bookstalls,he just avoided stumbling over a little figure curledup asleep. His heart went out to the street-waif. Herewas one, at least, in London who had no hate nor insultfor him. The impulse came to carry the little one upinto the warmth. Without waking, the child was placedin a big chair before the grate-fire in the lodgings upstairs.Then Routledge sat down to meditate.

“This is a merry old trail—God knows I love it!”he muttered. “I have had what the good gray poetwould call a night of ‘richness and variety.’...Perhaps I would be less happy did I know the breed ofincubus which has fallen upon me.... I shall probablybe turned out of here in the morning—perhaps becast into stone and steel. It is strange, strange, that I,Routledge, whose business it is to tell the world thegossip of inner courts and the issue of open fields—thatthe point of my own fate should be buried in mebefore I get a look at it!... And that wondrousgirl! Why did I not know her when the dust of theworld had not fallen upon me; when I had not lookedupon the world’s red wines—because they were red!...Routledge, old wanderer, how often has somewoman arisen to save you from death—and now a womanarises to save you from your friends!”

A watcher would have thought, for a long time afterward,[84]that Routledge dozed, with the stem of a nargilehbetween his teeth, except for the soft bubbling in thebottle and the tiny puffs of smoke at long intervals. Thedawn came in, graduated from gloomy gray to the dead-whiteof a sunless morning.... The bell arousedhim. He arose and opened the door. Jerry Cardineghwas on the stairs.

Routledge stepped back from the open door. Hewas afraid to extend his hand, lest it be repelled. Whenthe old man rushed across the landing and gripped him,he felt a rather novel kindling of gladness.

“God, son!” Cardinegh muttered, sinking into achair. “I thought you had slipped London. This is thethird time I’ve been here the last ten hours.”

“It must have been three this morning when I camein, Jerry, and I left about nine last night.”

“I was here between nine and ten, and again atmidnight.”

“Then you didn’t stay long at the Armory? Youdon’t mean to say that the boys gave you an ovation—ofmy kind? Miss Noreen must have told you.”

“Routledge,” the other said slowly, struggling toget a tight rein upon a herd of flying faculties, “theywelcomed me in the old way, but the place was disordered.You had been gone only a moment or two.Noreen was waiting for me in the ladies’ room—readyfor the street. She would have gone home alone had Inot arrived just then. Hurrying me away, she told mehow you had been received. After that, she insisted uponcoming here with me, though I told her I wanted to talkwith you alone. Give me some whiskey.”

[86]Routledge was startled by the shaking avidity withwhich Cardinegh carried the raw spirit to his lips.

“We came here direct from the Armory—Noreenand I,” he said breathlessly. “When we did not findyou, we drove back to Cheer Street—and tossed therest of the night. God pity her—I couldn’t tell her!Routledge, I didn’t dare to tell her!... Shebegged me to assure you again and again of her faith.She will see you to-day——”

There was a faint sigh and a soft squirming from thethird chair before the fire. It had been turned awayfrom the light. Cardinegh jumped to his feet withhorror in his face.

“You’re nervous, old King-maker. Why, it’s justa little London waif I picked up asleep in my stairway.”

“Do you suppose he has heard what I’ve said?” theold man demanded huskily.

“You haven’t said anything yet that the world mightnot hear. Sit down and smoke, Jerry. God still reigns,and we’re Home.”

Cardinegh stared at the little figure curled up beforethe fire, catching his breath audibly.

“I’m all shot up,” he panted. “Say, but it’s like you,son, to pick up the little outcast.”

Routledge smiled, because the last word had a bigand new meaning. “Perhaps our voices will bother him.I’ll put the lad in the next room,” he said, and untangledthe knotted muddy laces, placing the wet, worn shoesevenly before the fire. As he lifted the boy in his arms,the eyes opened sleepily, but Routledge could not seethe face pressed against his shoulder. They were drowsy,startled eyes, wise and very shiny, like those of a mouse.[87]Routledge laid him upon his own bed and dropped ablanket over him. “Poor little gaffer, you smell likeBookstalls Road,” he muttered. “I could pick you outblind among the odors of India. Nothing short of ariot could keep you awake, but poor old Jerry will talkeasier with you here—and the door shut.”

He drew his chair close to the other, and said genially:“And now, Jerry, tell me what is good for me toknow.”

“Did you have a ghastly night, son,—your first nightat Home in over a year?”

“I prefer to call it an interesting night.”

“You are about to rise with cumulative glory. Doyou remember our last talk in the field—the bivouac atBhurpal?”

Routledge nodded.

“And you suggested that the spies of the RussianBear had worked down over the hills, and looted certainstartling secrets having to do with British India?”

“It was only a suggestion. The facts are not clearto me yet. There was a colossal derangement somewhere—thesame, I take it, that hurled England into alliancewith Japan. I appear to be the only man in Londonwho has been denied the truth.” Routledge reached forthe amber-bit of his nargileh.

“They say a man is last to hear what is going on inhis own house.”

“What is the parallel, Jerry?”

“I’ve got to come to that. All London does not know—exceptthat you are under a cloud for treachery. Fortymen in London know exactly what has happened inIndia. Perhaps ten of this forty were at the reception[88]last night. The forty believe you to be the man whoturned the monster trick in Afghanistan, well-called theBuffer State. They are the exalted heads of Departments—Foreign,Home, Colonial, War, and Secret-servicechiefs—men who live in the shadow of the Throne.Six, at most, of the correspondents are in the secret. Therest can’t tell what you did, but to them, just the same,you are the ranking Iscariot.... Routledge, howmany men know the truth about Shubar Khan’s LotusExpedition?”

“Possibly the same forty men.”

“And the soldiers of Colonel Hammond’s regiment?”

“That is a historical mystery,” Routledge said.“Many are dead; the rest scattered and lost. The secretwas miraculously preserved. Why, this is the masterpieceof England’s department of espionage.”

“The records of Colonel Hammond’s debauch inblood were stolen last autumn,” Cardinegh whispered.“The whole story was stolen—Hammond’s confession,the testimony of his court-martial, even to the disposalof the men of his regiment—the men who knew all!...God! what a story for Russia to put into thehands of the thrice ten thousand sons and sons’ sons ofShubar Khan in Afghanistan!”

Cardinegh laughed in an uncontrolled way.

“Routledge, my son,” he went on nervously, “whenthe Pathans and the Afridis turn to war, British Indiaforgets her polo and her billiards and her forestry....It all dates from the Kabul massacre—you remember,sixteen thousand white men and women and childrenkilled. Colonel Hammond’s father and mother wereamong the dead. He was but a mite of a boy then, but[89]it drove him mad when he became a man and was sentback to the same service as a colonel. You are one ofthe forty, Routledge. You know the story. The KhyberHills and the same old trail where his parents were slainstarted a leak in Hammond’s skull. He was a goodofficer before that, or he wouldn’t have been a colonel.That leak grew into the torrent which washed away themountain that fell upon Shubar Khan’s twenty-five hundred—men,women and children—down below in thevalley——”

“That’s a nice figure of speech,” Routledge saidsoothingly. “But, Jerry, the facts, as I heard them werethese: Colonel Hammond lost his mother and father onthe same trail he was leading his troops over that night.That he had gone mad, everybody grants—from muchbrooding on the old Kabul massacre. He was out afterShubar Khan with his regiment, and just before duskdiscerned the bivouac of the Pathans thousands of feetbelow in a valley. Shubar Khan had fifteen hundredsoldiers, and a thousand women and children had joinedtheir men in camp.

“Hammond’s original idea was to meet the Pathansin battle, but he happened to see this cliff hanging precariouslyover the steep slope. Now Hammond was afamed engineer. Mad as he was, he did not forget hiscraft. As for the women and children whom his scoutsreported below—this only made the madman more keen.Remember, his mother had died just there.... Helooked at the slope, and saw that if he could start thecliff, he could send an avalanche upon the crowded camp.It wasn’t fighting. England wouldn’t have done it, butwe’re dealing with the insanity of a single leader. Hammond[90]had dynamite. Also the Pathans didn’t know thatthe English regiment was above. The cliff was aimedat the camp. The blast worked. Falling rock dug atrench in the mountain, gaining tons of power everyfoot of slide. What happened has been kept secret bythe British, but you and I know. Twenty-five hundredPathans—including a thousand women and children—wereburied alive. If Hammond had been able to keephis remnant of a brain, it would never have come out,but he was raving when he brought his outfit back toheadquarters, and this started his men to thinking. Alittle thinking and they understood all. The toweringatrocity, no one denies, but it was done by a madman—notby England, Jerry.”

“The Pathans thought it a natural landslide—untillast autumn,” Cardinegh remarked, and there was exultationin his eyes.

A chill swept over Routledge for an instant, as ifhe had been in the presence of a human without a soul.The colossal havoc wrought decades ago by an insaneEnglishman was not a thing to be talked about asCardinegh talked—his eyes gleaming with triumph.Even the Afghans had never learned the truth, so perfectwas the British management. They looked upon theavalanche as a dreadful chastisem*nt of the gods. Theyhad gone back to scratch their rocky fields and raise theirscrawny lambs with a growing belief that the godswanted the English in their land, and that gods who couldturn loose mysterious landslides knew best.

The ghosts of Shubar Khan’s twenty-five hundred—troopingthrough the monster hills on the darkest nights—theycould not speak. The soldiers of the mad colonel—had[91]they not all been divided, sent to fill the loneliestposts and the most hazardous fore-fronts, under theeyes of the secret-service men who see all and say nothing?...It was not England’s fault, this work of acrazed Englishman who undertook to avenge the massacreof the sixteen thousand. It was a thing to behidden deep in the hearts of a few—this grim and terriblehistory.

To have Russia get it now—the indisputable documents—wouldenable her to start Afghanistan boilingagain. The Border States and all India would be embroiled.More than all, the British troops serving inIndia would be lashed into mutiny by the story of whathappened to the men of Colonel Hammond’s regiment—themen who knew all. Yes, Russia could build her greatwar upon it—the long-prophesied war—and drive herpuppets against England for the possession of northernIndia.

Routledge was filled with shuddering by thesethoughts of war, and by the man before him, laughingsoftly, insanely, and drinking raw whiskey—anotherColonel Hammond in the flesh!

“Let me get this straight, Jerry,” he said lightly.“One man steals the documents which tell the wholetruth about Shubar Khan, and puts the story in the handsof the Russians——”

“And at what a time!” Cardinegh exclaimed passionately.“When did Abduraman die?”

“Last October. He was a valuable man for theBritish,” Routledge added thoughtfully. “He held thePathans and the Afridis from fighting the English, and[92]at the same time managed to avoid angering Russia. Hewas the man for the Buffer State.”

“His sons are not so valuable.” Cardinegh chuckled.“Abduraman died of a stroke, as the newspapers said.It was a stroke!... When was Cantrell, the BritishAgent in Kabul, murdered?”

“A month later.”

“When were we all called in from the field andBhurpal forgotten?”

“A month later still.”

“What a God-given time it was!” the old manexclaimed.

Routledge saw the need of holding Cardineghtogether until he could get the whole story. “I can seeclearly how one man might use these documents to startwar in Afghanistan,” he capitulated; “how Russia couldspread the hell all along the border, supplying powderand guns, and getting a formidable enemy launchedagainst England, before taking the field herself. I caneven see how all India, ‘seething with hatred for herwhite child, the British foundling’—I always liked thatsentence—might arise and say, ‘This is the acceptedtime.’ More than that, I can see how the story of ColonelHammond’s lost regiment might start a contagion ofmutiny patches over the British army——”

“Some work for one man.”

“Big work, Jerry,” Routledge agreed. “I can see itall so far, but you will have to pardon me for having alittle interest left in the fact, that I was practicallyejected from the Armory last night.”

The old man fell silent and his fears whipped himagain. “Don’t murder me until I am through, son.[93]You are supposed to be the man who gave the story tothe Russian spies.”

“Ah!” said Routledge. “I am supposed to be theman, and yet no one consulted me upon the matter. IfI were merely supposed to be the man—would I havebeen turned out?”

“The forty who know the story—have no doubtabout you.”

Here a great light was thrown upon the recent activityof the White Mustache. “Why am I not arrested,Jerry?”

“The Government does not dare.”

“Publicity?”

“Exactly. The truth about Afghanistan to-day is asecret guarded with men’s lives. Arbitration is afirebetween here and Petersburg. If India and Russia sawthe British people aroused, the chances are that theywould be forced to strike at once. Soldiers are beingrushed secretly toward Khyber Pass. Troop-ships areembarking suddenly and without ostentation from Englandthis moment. To make this story public—and thiswould be in danger by your arrest—would start theIndian sympathizers around the world. The mere nameof Shubar Khan brings old England to her knees. Thishas been a pregnant day in the Inner Circle, my son.No, you will not be arrested.”

“Why am I not murdered quietly?”

“The same reason, with another. I attended to that.Every one who knows this story of Shubar Khan mustbe reckoned with. I told them that you must be keptalive—that I could secure your written confession. Theybelieve that I am at it now.”

[94]Routledge was throwing the whole strength of hisconcentrated faculties into the eyes of the old man.Cardinegh’s face was like death.

“Where did you meet the secret agents?”

“At Naples. They had me on the carpet almostbefore I left ship.”

“This is the most absorbing tale I have ever encountered,Jerry. I am to give you a written confession ofhow I fell in with the Russians and gave them the documentsconcerning Shubar Khan, which I had stolen.Why did you choose me to make this confession—becauseI am your best friend?”

“Yes,” Cardinegh answered hoarsely; “because youare my best friend. Not another man in the world wouldhave carried the burden for me. They would never havelet me reach London.”

Routledge bent forward and spoke with loweredvoice: “Then it was you who fell in with the Russians——”

“Yes.”

Routledge couldn’t help it—the presence of the otherput a poisoned look into his face for an instant. The lastfifteen minutes he had endured every phase of astonishmentand horror. The revelation shook the psychic rootsof his being.

“For the love of God, son—don’t look at me thatway! Wait till I have told you all. I thought you werealready in London—with Noreen. I was in Italy, andthey never would have let me reach here. I never couldhave seen her—or Cheer Street again.”

Pity came to Routledge. He looked down upon thewreck of Jerry Cardinegh. He caught up his own nerve-ends[95] and bound them together, smiled, and placed hishand upon the old man’s knee.

“How often I have found it,” he said musingly,“that a day like yesterday portends great events. I hadthe queerest sort of a day yesterday, Jerry. Hour afterhour I sat here, neglecting things which needed doing,thinking, thinking. I have found it so before in mylife—days like yesterday preceding a crisis....Weren’t any of the other boys suspected, or any of thesoldiers? Why was it that the finger of the episodepointed to you or me?”

“Since October the whole occult force of the Empirehas been upon the case,” Cardinegh answered. “It wasa civilian job on the face of it. That was incontrovertible.All the other boys fell under the eyes of theservice. They didn’t know it, of course, but each dayof the past four months we have been covered, our pastsbalanced. One after another, the process of eliminationvindicated them—all but you and me. Your infernalhabit of campaigning alone was against you, your beingan American, your Brahmin affiliations, your uncannyknowledge of the Great Inside. Still, they took nothingfor granted. At Naples two agents drew me to cover,demanding what I knew. It was you or I. They knewit, and I knew it. The bulk of suspicion leaned yourway. I shaped more evidence against you, hinted thatI could secure your confession, if they only let me aloneuntil I could get to you.”

“Tell me again just why, Jerry.”

“Because I wanted a day—just one day! I hadn’tseen Noreen for nearly a year. I wanted a day with her.I needed to arrange her affairs. God help me, Routledge,[96]I wanted her to love the old man—one more day! Icouldn’t cable you. I thought—I thought you wouldhold the weight one day—for old sake’s sake!”

“And what do you propose to do, Jerry?”

“I have had my day. I am going to the War Departmentwith the facts this morning!”

“And then?”

“Vanish.”

“And your daughter—Miss Noreen?”

Cardinegh swallowed with difficulty. His unsteadyfingers fumbled at the place where a man in the fieldcarries a bit of ordnance. The ghost of a smile shookitself out on his face.

“Don’t think I am sorry,” he said. “I joggled theseats of the mighty. It was a life’s work. I’ve got myjoy for it. It’s not what I expected—but it’s done. Ican’t see the good of it clear as I did—but it’s done.Only I wanted to look it in the face like the old JerryCardinegh might have done—not sick, shaking, and half-drunk.I should have done it when the little house inCheer Street only meant to me a sweet resting-placebetween wars. I burned out before the end, my son.”

“But Noreen——”

“In the name of God, don’t drive that home again!She’ll never know what the forty know. She’s providedfor. I have had my day—thanks to you. They’ll let meclear from England. I’m accustomed to take short-noticetrips, and to stay long. She will hear—as shealways feared some time to hear—oh, typhoid in Madagascar,a junk murder up the Yangtse—potted somewhere!...Blessed little Noreen. In tears shetold me what had happened to you at the Armory. Think[97]how I felt, son. She loves you, Routledge. What—whatI’ve done doesn’t affect her value—in your eyes?”

“Jerry, how did you get away with this thing inIndia?”

“Nobody knows but me. I suppose I’d better tellyou. Before my last short trip home, there was a rumorof fighting in Afghanistan. You remember, eight or nineBritish correspondents gathered there, including you andme. Cantrell and I were rather close; and old Abduraman,I think, trusted me more than any of the others, onaccount of my age and service. He was an insatiablelistener, and a perfect, an improved, double-action pump.I think it was one of the elements of his greatness—thewily old diplomat.

“Any way, I was closeted with him many times.You would come in at night after studying the strategicpoints of that devil’s land; no doubt, from Kabul to thePass. For once in my life, I was content with officework. I mean Abduraman’s court and his thoughts.Then, too, I was much with Cantrell, who was a sort ofsecret-service chief in that district, as you well understand.From time to time the different agents wouldcome in for a night—the men who do the dirty work forEngland.”

Cardinegh’s eyes blazed again. With a few admirablesentences, Routledge steadied him and regained the continuity....

“It was a still night, hot as hell,” Cardinegh wenton. “Kabul can be hot when the winds die down fromthe mountains—but you were there that night. Youknow. I was in Cantrell’s house. Three of the Namelesswho serve England with their lives, and are satisfied[98]with a cipher message or a whispered word of praisefrom some head of department——”

“I’ve studied the secret service, Jerry,” Routledgeventured mildly. “It is interesting, but I’m more interestedto know what happened.”

“We all proceeded to relax. The devil in me wouldnot be burned by the fieriest wines. Remember, Cantrellwas a weak man, but sincere. The other three had beenstudying Afghanistan against towering odds. They knewmore about the inner life of the Buffer State than anythree white men, not excepting Cantrell and yourself,between Persia and British India. They were sure ofCantrell. As for old Jerry Cardinegh—why, they tookme for granted.

“Presently—it was very late—everybody but oldJerry had the bars down and soaked. Then I venturedto open the question of Colonel Hammond. It was anold story to Cantrell and to the three—not a new storyto me, but a strange one. I was fascinated by the insidetalk. Here were men who had kept the secret for years;the men—at least, two of them—who had helped toscatter the British troops of Colonel Hammond.

“Suddenly Cantrell arose and staggered to his safe,glancing at the shut door and the open windows of theoffice. He fumbled with the knob for a long time beforethe big door swung open. Then with small keys whichhe found inside he got into the inner compartment anddrew forth a fat envelope.

“‘Speaking of Colonel Hammond,’ Cantrell said, witha drunken smile, ‘I’ve got the whole documents here.They were never trusted to the mails, but they trusted[99]me. I’ve never brought them out before—but we havefallen into the arms of our friends. Isn’t it so?’

“We all acquiesced, and then there was interestingreading. Routledge, it was the great story I had beenlooking for—all that I wanted to know about one of themost damnable military expeditions ever transacted. Isaid to myself the world ought to know about this. Thatwas because I was a newspaper man. Then I said again,‘The world ought to know about this,’ and that was thehumanitarian end. I was thinking of Ireland and India.

“Two of the secret-service men were asleep finally.Cantrell moved about and served on legs of hot wax.

“‘I’m glad you put that back in the safe, Cantrell,’I said, when the envelope was safely in my pocket. ‘Youcould do a lot of damage to England with that justnow.’

“I glanced at the secret agent who was awake, andfound that he was not in on my steal. I should havemade a joke of it, if he had been. The fact is, I did notreally have the idea of stealing the papers until I foundthat I had done it.... Cantrell locked the safe,and the world was mine—all in a coat pocket!... Youmind, when Cantrell was killed, or assassinated, thesafe was blown open—quite a while afterward? I hadbeen back to England and to Ireland with Noreen inthe meantime.

“God, how I have whipped the English!... Whenyour name was spoken last night at the Armory,the faces about me were like a lot of blood-mad dogs—nostrilsdilated and hackles up. I had to love you,Routledge, to turn loose upon you—the Hate of London!”

[100]“And you had the Hammond papers all the time youwere in England and Ireland?” Routledge inquired.

“Of course. I had only a few weeks in Europe beforeI was called back to the Bhurpal skirmish-stuff. Youhad stayed in India——”

“But when and where did you get the papers to theRussian spies, Jerry?”

“In Bhurpal—as that affair opened. It was weeksbefore I met you that night of the gathering when thetwo British forces came together. I stopped at the RestHouse in Sarjilid, on the way by train from Calcutta tothe front. It was there I heard a Russian sentence froman alleged Parsee. I was onto the spy in a moment, butfirst I want to tell you why I turned over the papers tohim. First, rather, I want a drink of whiskey. I’m talkingthick and fast, and it burns out the energy.”

Routledge served him. “Why you gave Cantrell’spapers to the first Russian spy you met in India is whatI want to know,” he said carelessly.

“Listen, then. The idea came to me before I wentout to India on that Bhurpalese mix-up. I told you thatNoreen and I took a little trip to Ireland. I shouldn’thave gone back to Tyrone—where her mother bloomed—whereI was a boy. I shouldn’t have gone back!”

The old man’s voice trembled, but he did not lose hispoint.

“As it was, my son, the thoughts of Noreen’s motherand Ireland were burning too deep in memory....But we went back. The sun was going down on thelittle town. It was dirty, shrunken, decayed—that oldstone city—and the blithest place a youth ever met amaiden, or passed his boyhood.... Ah, the[101]mothers and youths and maidens and the memories ofold Tyrone always sung in my heart—when I couldforget England!”

Routledge lit a cigarette over the lamp and handedit to Cardinegh without speaking. Jerry did not continuefor a moment. Then followed the impression his birthplacemade upon him—the veteran with his daughter:

“I can’t forget our last look—the old town, shrunkenand silent in the midst of her quarries. I heard the mutteringin the doorways, as we have heard it in India.The best blood had gone to America; the knitting-workswere shut down—the remnant starving. It was like Indiain plague and famine, but I could have borne that....It was the next morning when I saw the Britishgarrison quartered upon the town——”

“You know how Colonel Hammond felt when somethingsprung a leak in his brain,” Routledge suggested.

“You’ve hit it, boy.... There was the oldtown, starving at best, with three hundred British soldiersdevouring its substance! It made me think of a fallencamel—with a red-necked vulture for every bone in thecarcass. And that’s Ireland and that’s India!”

The whiskey was bright in the old man’s eyes.“Look out, Routledge, when you hear a snap in yourbrain! You said something to that effect....I went back to India, as you know, up from Calcutta toSarjilid, where I met the Russo-Parsee. I thought ofNoreen and her mother, and Tyrone, and the service ofEngland, which I know as well as you. I thought ofIndia.

“What did I find in Sarjilid? There was a faminethere, too, and a garrison of red-necked vultures; sand[102]blowing down from the windy hills; stench from thehuts; voices from the doorways; a salt-tax that augmentedthe famine because the people needed but couldnot buy their own product; naked brown children, fleshlessas empty snake-skins—but I won’t go on! I mustgo to the war-office presently.... It was at Sarjilidthat I met the Russian.... It may be that I amanother Colonel Hammond, but I gave the documentsaway. He was an enchanting chap—that Russian!”

Cardinegh here whispered the details of his treachery.The politics of the world would not be cleaned by thedialogue, but the big fact remains that the documentsconcerning Colonel Hammond’s dynamite went into Russianhands—a fire-brand for her to ignite Afghanistan,the Indian Border, and British mutinies.

“Then I went back into the field to watch. Weekspassed,” he continued hastily. “We met in Bhurpal, andyou told me what you had discovered. I knew. Eachday was a brimming beaker of joy to me then. I sawBritish India shudder at the broken vessel of her secrets.

“Routledge, it was as if you struck a viper in thespine. British India curled up. I had struck her in thespine. She writhed and curled up!”

Cardinegh laughed again. “Ireland will be rid ofBritish garrisons. They will travel oversea to fight theAfghans and the Russians now. The red-necks at Sarjilidwon’t have to travel so far! There’ll be a fifty-milebattle-front, as you said—you ‘amateur prophet’! Youand the other boys will campaign—but old Jerry won’tbe there. I’ve had my day—and this is another one.I’m off to lift your load, my son.”

The veteran campaigner arose and donned his coat.[103]Routledge was pacing up and down the room. Cardineghreached the door, and, holding to the knob, spoke again:

“I know what you think, my son. You think thatmy plan miscarried. You think that England spoiledmy work—that her treaty with Japan was my answer.You think that England will rub away the rest of theinsulation between Russia and Japan, and that the Bearwill fuse into the Rising-Sun—that all this will pullRussia up from the border of British India. Ah! ... and you think well. I can’t see it all as clear asI did once. I can’t feel the thought of failure as I didonce. England has time to strengthen her borders andcover her nakedness if Russia and Japan fight—but thestory of Shubar Khan is told and my work done! It’sthe initial lesion, Routledge, and the veins of BritishIndia are running with the toxin of a disease—sometimesamenable to heroic treatment—like the Anglo-JapaneseAlliance—but always incurable!”

Rain upon the windows. The atmosphere was heavyin the lodging, heavy from a sleepless night. Tobaccoash upon the floor; white embers in the grate; the finerash of burned emotions in the eyes of the men. Neitherhad spoken for several moments.... Whose wasto be the desolation of war? Was North China or ChinaSouth soon to rumble with the tramp of foreign armies?Routledge put the question away among the far concernsof his mind. It was a moment now to mourn the manbefore him. There never had been an instant of hate forJerry Cardinegh—perhaps, a full sweep of horror, at first,but that was gone, and in its wake was a pity ofpermanence.

He mourned his friend who was mad, dead. Theyears had wrought a ghastly trick here. Under manyconstellations, he had heard Cardinegh whisper his passionatehatred for England and her relation to Irelandand to India. Not a little of it Routledge himself shared.He perceived now that this passion had devoured thereason and sweetness of the old man’s mind. TheCardinegh of old days looked no longer out of thesehunted, red-lit eyes. A pestilence had deranged the well-lovedface. It was evil now in the fire-light—like atampered chart. A life of brooding had vanquished theexcellent humor at the last. Oppression had nursed a[105]demon to obsess the brain and make a shudder of a goodname.

“I must go,” Cardinegh said roughly. “It is mylast day. This morning my final arrangements forNoreen. An hour with her—then to the war-office withthe revelation. You’ll stay here, son. Stick to thesewalls—until Dartmore and the boys bring your gloryback to you.... I can see them trooping in!...And Noreen—ah, the gladness of her!”

Routledge opened wide the windows and stood bywhile the morning swept in, damp, chill, but cleansing.

“Sit down a moment more, Jerry,” he said finally.“I want to ask a favor of you. It is a hard thing, adelicate thing—harder and more delicate than the thingyou trusted to me, without asking. There is no otherwhite man whom I would dare ask such a favor.”

“Out with it, son.” Cardinegh watched him wonderingly.Routledge sat down and leaned forward, a finelight in his big, calm eyes.

“I told you I had passed an interesting night, Jerry.It was more than that—a wonderful night. Thoughtshave come to me that never squirmed in mortal brainbefore. I felt this vast moil of London—my enemy!I felt it gathering about my ears like the Tai Fung inthe China sea. It was rich, incomparably rich, the stimulusof a Cæsar—this Herod-hate of seven million souls!I’ve been thinking for hours, Jerry—and I should havebeen writing—stuff for glory—the great book! Whiskeywouldn’t bring out such work, nor drugs, nor Yogiasceticism. I have glimpsed such work in stars, in battle-smoke,in bivouac fires, in the calm and distances of themonster Himalayas; perhaps in the eyes of women—but[106]glimpses only, Jerry! To-night it came like a steadystream of empyrean fire. I want months of it—months!I would pay half my life to have London and the armyhating me this way until the work is done. It’s thestuff that sings in the veins of kings. Give it to me—forthe book!”

“Wake up! You fool—wake up!”

“Listen, old champion,” Routledge went on passionately:“I have spent this life gathering the data ofexperience. I have crossed the Sahara in the hue andgarb of a camel driver; I have lain months a yellowMohammedan in the huts of Lahore; as a Sannyasi, Ihave trudged up to the roof of the world. And the fighting,Jerry—Pathan, Zulu, and Burmese; and the revolts—Afghan,Balkan, Manipur, African, Philippine—allthese came back, vivid, splendid last night—pictures fit togild and garnish the Romance of the Open. And, Jerry,I have peered into the mystic lore of India, the World’sMother—subtly and enticingly to color it all! I wantto do this, Jerry, the Book of our Tribe! I shall writeit in blood, with pillars of fire leaping up for chapter-heads—ifyou will only leave this flood of power in myveins—the Hate of London!”

Cardinegh, gasping, clutched his hand. “One of us—youor I—is mad——”

“Mad, of course,” laughed Routledge. “A man mustbe a little mad with the inspiration of Keats and thepunch of Carlyle banging together in his brain.”

Hope lived wildly now in Cardinegh’s eyes. “Andwhile you are doing the book,” he muttered, “I am tolive out your tinsel and truffles here, play the grizzledwarrior—led about by the child of her mother....[107]Routledge—Routledge, your brand of stimulus is newand raw.”

“I’m tolerated to ordinary poisons, Jerry. A manimmersed in gentle azure can’t get the other pigmentsout of his brain.”

Cardinegh arose. “It’s sweet heaven to me,” hemurmured strangely, with quivering lips. “It is a restsuch as I have never known. I never was ready to restuntil now, until to-day—when I thought the chance wasburned away. You want to take this?”

“Yes.”

“Months of life—Home, Noreen!... Damme,Routledge—I’m broken! It’s like you, Routledge—it’slike you——”

“To me it’s a gift of the gods! Hold on, Jerry, untilI bring back the Book—hold on and sit tight!”

Cardinegh left the lodging and Bookstalls, bewilderedby his new possession of days. The strain that had kepthim afoot until the end; that had stiffened his body andfaculties for the end itself; carrying him step by stepfrom the Khyber Hills, through the Bhurpal campaign(the days in which he had watched the results of thefire he had started); the strain that had roused his personalcraft to baffle and disarm those men of uncannykeenness at Naples, and pulled him up for a last rallyin London—was lifted now, and with it relaxed the substanceof his brain and body. Doubtless, he would havepreserved his acumen upstanding, and an unsnappednerve, to bid Noreen farewell and make his confession atthe War-Office to-day—but there was no need!

The old man walked along mumbling, forgetting thewhile to hail a cab. The miracle of it all, though it did[108]not appeal to him, was that he had lost his ruling, destroyinghatred for England. Cheer Street and Noreen—theblessedness of her hand to help him; her touch so likeher mother’s upon his brow; the eyes of her motheracross the table—months of life, of rest, of Home andNoreen!... These were his thoughts. There wasno room for world-politics, for war, for passion. Eventhe thing which Routledge had done hovered in the background.It was a piece of inhuman valor, almost too bigto hold fast to. Routledge was identified in his brainnow with the stirring braveries of days long gone; withother sunlights in which men met the shock of thingsin full manhood; it was of another, of a ruddier, world toold Jerry’s eyes to-day.... In a remote way, hefelt that once he might have revelled in the hate ofLondon. Perhaps it was one of the things peculiar tothe middle distances of manhood—as far from the comprehensionof the elders as of the children. That therewas an element of sacrifice in the action of Routledgewas not entirely lost to Cardinegh, but he put it awayamong the misty glories of memory—days when manhoodwas in its zenith of light and power. It was notof the present; it had nothing to do with the numbnessand the swift, painless softening of to-day.

“Noreen!” he called, at the front door in CheerStreet.

A servant told him that Noreen had been away foran hour.... With a startled look, the servant drewa chair close to the fire for the old man, poured a grogfor him, set his smoking things to hand, and backedstaring out of the room.... Hours afterward,Noreen found him there—the glass, the pipes, the daily[109]papers untouched. His smile was like something whichthe wind had blown awry. His eyes were depleted offire, of fury. Even the starry worship which her presencehad reflected in them yesterday was dimmed—aswere the mighty images of the wars in his brain....He roused at the sight of her, started to speak ofRoutledge, halted, reflected, then drank.

“Hold a match to my pipe, child. It was yourmother’s way. You’ve been gone the long while, deere.”

She obeyed. The majesty of pain was upon her faceas she hurried away. Locked in her own room, longafterward, she heard him humming quaveringly an oldIrish folk-song—lost from her brain a dozen years.

After taking the hand of Jerry Cardinegh at thestairs, Routledge returned to his room, smiling a triflebitterly.

“That was certainly a fragile underpinning to reara great lie upon,” he mused. “I couldn’t have made oldJerry swallow that a year ago.... But there’s goodhumor in the idea—the book of Routledge energized bythe dynamos of British hate—a book of wars from a manwho rather likes to promote the ranking rottenness ofwar.... But the name of Cardinegh cannot godown just yet with that of Colonel Hammond, and theLotus Expedition; with treachery.... Living God,how that sweet girl haunts me!... I must puther away—far back among the cold, closed things. Itisn’t fair to use her as a trellis for thought-vines likemine. She is just psychic enough to know, withoutwords——”

He thought presently of what Rawder had told himabout returning to India this year; also of Noreen’samendment—that he was to go very quickly. How faroff it had seemed yesterday!... Routledge wasstanding at the window. Though his active mind wasfilled with sadder, finer matters, a process of unconsciouscerebration was alert for the White Mustache in the[111]street below. This certain secret agent was not in sight,but there was not a single individual of the throng whomight not be identified with that silent, fameless department—themen who had kept the secret of Shubar Khanin spite of Colonel Hammond’s regiment, which knew all....London was running with its sordid morningbusiness—grinding by in the gray morn and the rain.

“London,” he exclaimed softly, marvelling at thegreat thing which had befallen him, “the keyboard of theplanet! How the Excellent Operator hungers to turnthe full voltage on me now!”

Routledge was hard-hit, and made no pretenses tohimself otherwise. He did not want to go back to Indiato-day. The thing he had managed to pray for—theHate of London—was a crippling horror. It tore downthe inner life of him. He felt already the encompassingloneliness of an expatriate; worse, he felt against himthe gigantic massed soul of the English. It peopled theshadows of the room and the street and his brain, fillinghim with weakness and faltering. It was not that theidea of death hung to the flanks of his being. He couldlaugh at death with a sterling principle. Rather, it wasthat all that had bound him to life was dead—work andplay and light. He was chained to a corpse—the hate ofLondon. It was an infectious corrosion which brokehis own spirit, as no physical dread had ever done; yet,stricken as he was, he felt himself torn in the counter-attractionof two great passions—between his sweetestwoman and his bravest man.... A light rappingat his inner door startled him. It was the Bookstallsboy.

“Kin I come out now, Mister?”

[112]With a gasp of relief, Routledge turned to the door;but, on the way, his eyes fell upon the two worn, fallen-inshoes, set so evenly before the fire.

“Bless you, lad—just a minute,” he said.

He gathered up all the change his pockets had held,big and little pieces of silver, and dropped them softlyinto the shoes, now stiffly dried,—then opened the door.The small, draggled chap emerged briskly, took in hishost from head to foot with a quick, approving look,then glanced out of the window to locate himself. Itwas all coming back to him apparently.

“I was sleepin’ in yer street-stairs,” he explained, asif to get it straight in his own mind. “Then I didn’tknow nothink till I ’eerd woices.”

“What’s your name, little soul?”

“Johnny Brodie.”

“Did the voices bother you, Johnny?” Routledgeasked.

“Naw. I was too warm. Nothink like woices neverbothers when you’re warm. Is them your stairs? Nobodynever come up them stairs late afore.”

“Have you slept there often, Johnny?”

“Not wery,” the boy said nervously.

He had given Routledge a start for a moment. Itwas not past the White Mustache to have used a lad ofthis size, but, once used, the lad would never have spokenof “woices.” Besides, he had slept on the stairs before.Johnny was looking about the walls with covert appreciation.Guns, saddles, and soldier-pictures appealed tohim. They were proper man-things.

“How long have you been in Bookstalls, and aroundhere?”

[113]“Allus.”

“But haven’t you any place to sleep?”

“Lots.” It wasn’t said with humorous intent.Johnny Brodie was struggling with his shoes.

Routledge regarded him with joy.

“Lor-gordy,” muttered Johnny, in an awed voice.“Wishermay die if you ain’t tipped over a bank in meboots!... Mine?”

Routledge nodded.

“Well, I’m chivvied! I ’ont be safe nowheres witall this.”

“Johnny, are all your places to sleep like my stairs?I mean, haven’t you any regular place?”

The boy gave him a quick glance and decided thatthis was not the time for lies.

“Lor-gordy—them stairs ain’t bad—on’y wen it’swery cold. Naw, I ain’t got nothink reg’lar.”

“There’s a bit of a room just your size, Johnny, in theback-hall,” the man said. “I’m going away again to-day,and these rooms will be locked up for a long time, butI’ll be back, I think. If I were to fix it with the goodlandlady for you to have that little room—and I’ll giveyou a regular army blanket like the soldiers have, tocurl up in when it’s cold, and a little cot, and all thethings you need—would you use it every night?”

“Lor’! Say, Mister, honest?”

He nodded. “Run along then, Johnny, and get agood breakfast, and I’ll have it arranged when you getback.”

Routledge came to an agreement with the woman ofthe house; carried from his own rooms blankets, soap,towels, pictures, a pair of military brushes, an unused[114]pocket-knife, a package of candles, and many other littlethings to the wee box of a room in the hall, takingmuch pleasure in the outfitting.... He hadnot yet brought his own baggage from CharingCross, and was glad now. London had become to himlike a plague quarantine, a smothering menace. Hewould leave London to-day, and Noreen Cardinegh, withoutdaring to see her again. His every movement, herealized, was watched. Even to take her hand for amoment would reflect evil upon her. The White Mustache,or one of his kind, would observe, and a lastingrecord would be made. He paced the floor swiftly,murdering the biggest thing in his life.

... He could go to Rawder. There was healingin that. Perhaps the old Sannyasi would take him forthe chela of his chela. He could hide in England’s India,which only a few of the secret service knew so well ashe.... Could he put all the wars and illusions of matteraway, drink of the ancient wisdom, wander beneficentlyuntil the end, with two holy men, in the midstof God’s humblest poor? Could he put behind him allthat was supreme and lovely of his life this hour, sinkit in the graveyard of his past with other dead desires?

It was just a rush of vague, vain thoughts. Hadhe been pure as the boy, twelve years ago, and wise asthe man now, and if he had never known NoreenCardinegh, possibly then the old Sannyasi might say,“Be the disciple of my disciple; and, free from all theillusions of the flesh, journey with us up into the silenceof the goodly mountains.”...

But this life would never know freedom from thatthrilling, beautiful memory. He could sacrifice a union[115]with Noreen Cardinegh, but never renounce her fromthe high place of his heart. She was wedded to thesource and centre of his life, and no asceticism couldshrive her from him. He might put half the planet’scurve between, but the bride the world had formed forhim would be the eternal crying voice in the wilderness;and until they were mated in this or another life, theWheel of Births and Deaths would never whirl him freefrom love, the loftiest of all illusions. Though he sat ina temple upon the roof of the world, holding his thoughtsamong the stars until the kusa grass beneath him wasblown like dust away, and his body petrified upon thenaked rock, the last breath from the ruin would stir hislips to the name of the world’s bright gift to him—Noreen.

Johnny Brodie returned. Routledge took him by thehand and led him into the midst of his possessions....It was quite a happy time, with the old landladylooking on, and a mysterious fund in her pocket forJohnny stockings, and Brodie trousers and even dinners,when old Bookstalls was remiss in her duty. Finally, atthe last moment, Routledge dropped his hand upon theboy’s shoulder. The face was turned up clear, the eyesunblinking. The man was no longer afraid.

“Johnny,” he said, “the best fellows in this worldare those who are strong enough to hold their tonguesat the right time. Nobody must know about this littleroom—nobody. To you, I’m just a decent stranger whohas gone away. If anybody asks who or where or howor why about me—you don’t know. This is all yours.Sleep tight, and say nothing. If you need anything thatyou can’t get yourself, go to the landlady. Be clean about[116]what you do everywhere—I don’t mean in the room,Johnny, but everywhere, in the street, too. Not cleanabout your hands and face—that’s good—but mostlyabout what you think. I may come back some time, andI may not, but you’ll be fixed here as long as you need.Think of it, Johnny Brodie—remember this well: alwaysif something hits you from inside that a thing isn’t goodto do, don’t hurry about doing it. Think it over. If youwouldn’t do it when the person you like best in the worldis watching, it isn’t a good thing to do alone.”

Routledge locked his lodgings. With the boy attachedto one hand and his bag in the other, he went down intothe street, and just at that moment a carriage opened atthe curb, and Noreen Cardinegh stepped out. Routledgetook the outstretched hand, but there was a warm floodof pain widening within him, as blood from an openedwound....

The rain-coat hung about her like a delicate harmony,its hood covering her hair; and its high-rolling collar,bound with scarlet, thin as a thread but vivid as anoriflamme, concealed her throat. That lustrous, perfectoval face in the rain. It was luminous from within likea pearl, and had its scarlet-edging in the curving, exquisitelips, strange with inner vividness. Never had shebeen so wondrous to him as he felt the superb zest of lifebeneath the pearl-gray glove that moment in grimyBookstalls. A conception of womanhood that widenedthe limitations of any man!... He lifted his glancefrom the pavement, where it had been held for an instantby the glittering point of her boot, and found the greateyes upon him—pools of splendor which held his temple,white as truth, golden sunlight on its dome; and, far[117]within, a dim, mystic sanctuary where Mother Earthhad built a shrine for him.

“Thank God you have not gone, Routledge-san!”she said in a low way. “Tell me—ah, but I know—youwould have gone without a word to me.... Youthink it is right?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you punish me this way, Routledge-san?...Do you think I mind what London cares orthinks? Do you think London could force me to believeill of you?... I must talk with you! May wenot go up into your rooms, out of the crowd and therain? The little boy may come.”

There was not a window commanding the streetwhich might not have held the White Mustache thatmoment; not a single passer-by who might not have beenone of his kind.

“I have turned in my—that is, I have given up myroom,” he faltered.

“I must talk with you. Come into my carriage.That will be the better way. The little boy——”

She caught the look of hostility in the street-waif’seyes. She was taking the man away. There was anotherlook, the meaning of which she did not miss. Routledgebent down to him.

“Good-by, little soul,” he said. “I’ll find you insome doorway again some time—maybe in the doorwayto fame. Be a good little fellow always. Don’t gettired of being clean, and some time you’ll be mightyglad.”

The boy watched the carriage move slowly away[118]among the truckage—until a stranger put a hand uponhis shoulder.

For many seconds neither spoke; then it was Noreen.

“What is this big thing you are doing, Routledge-san?”

“I cannot tell—even you.”

“Yes, but you need not have hurt me so. You weregoing away without a word to me—and I am so proud tohave been for you—against the others.”

“Noreen, you must believe that it is not good foryou to be seen with me now. Every movement I makeis known; everyone in the slightest communication withme is under suspicion. Your loyalty—I cannot evenspeak of steadily, it is so big and dear—and because it isso, I shudder to drag you into these forlorn fortunes ofmine. It is in the power of these people to make youvery miserable while I am gone—and that is anguish tome, nothing less.”

“You think of me—think of me always, and a littlesocial matter which concerns me!” she exclaimed. “Icare nothing for it—oh, please believe that. Last nightyou left the Armory, not knowing what had befallenyou. This morning you know all. Could you have doneunconsciously—anything to turn the Hate of London uponyou?... It is not in reason. I believe it is justand right for me to know what my father told you inthe night—but you will not tell me——”

“This thing is mine to carry—to carry alone. Lastnight I laughed. To-day I find that it is not a thing tolaugh at. The Hate of London,”—Routledge carved outthe words slowly and clearly, in spite of the resistance[119]of his whole humanity—“I have brought upon myself.”

“Not with dishonor!”

He was silent.

“Not with dishonor, Routledge-san!” she whisperedtriumphantly, peering into his eyes. “You could notconvey a falsehood to me, not even to shield another—noteven if you uttered the words of the lie. Your eyeswould tell the truth to me!”

Rain splashed upon the windows of the carriage. Theface so near him in the gloom was like the vision of amaster-artist, too perfect for the poor human hand. Thepressure of her shoulder; the fragrance of her presence;the voice of her which stirred within him the primalmystery of other lives—against such he fought forstrength.... It was not passion in the red meaningof the word, but a love that made the railway gates atCharing Cross his portals to living death.

“Think what you will,” he commanded, after amoment. “God knows, I do not want you to think medevilish, but you must be silent to others about me....You will make me suffer more than you know—ifyou stand against London for me—when I am gone.It was a magnificent life labor of your father’s whichpurchased for you—your place in London....Noreen Cardinegh, I shall leave the carriage as weapproach Charing Cross; and in the name of God, donothing to further attract my infamy to your name!”

“We will say no more about that,” she answeredquietly. “I shall avoid every man and woman in Londonwho would dare to speak of infamy and Routledge-san inone breath, but if they seek me out!... But I haveother things to say. You must go, and I must stay.[120]Before you go, I shall tell you what you have done forNoreen Cardinegh, and what you mean to her—to me....You are my bravest man, Routledge-san....When I was but a little girl my father told me of you. Ihave heard all the men speak of you. Yours would havebeen the greatest of all welcomes at the Armory last night—savefor this terrible mystery. I saw the way that littleboy looked up at you this morning. I know what hethought—for the same thoughts were mine in Japan whenI was but a little older. And your work has been deepand important to me—a personal, illuminating service.It has made me see the vanity of piled stones, the futilityof possessions. In looking the way you pointed—I havefound that real life is not food and metal——”

The tension was eased for a moment. Routledgelaughed softly. “Why, I am but a dealer in war-stuff—themost godless of all matter, Noreen,” he said.

“A dealer in war-stuff—to make the world see thehorrible farce of it! Oh, don’t think I have failed tosee the import of your work, or failed to contrast it withthe ponderous egotism of certain other English war-correspondents,who build their careers upon wars—withtheir dull studies of tactics, their heavy handling ofstrategies—so comically like a child panting with heavystones. Do you think that I did not see, in spite of yourbrilliant description how the Japanese caught and heldthe van at Tientsin, the real picture of your whole story—thatof a cruel, ruthless nation of insensate boys—runningto jaw instead of mind?”

Routledge was startled by the expression of a thoughtwhich the Review would not intentionally have published,less obviously than in a charade. There was nothing of[121]vanity in the matter, but her words became dear tomemory—rifts in that dreadful parting hour. Certainlythere was deep gladness for the woman in the telling:

“They speak of you losing yourself in India formonths and months. Do you think I have missed allthat you have found, Routledge-san, when you were lostto men? I know something of what India means to you,her submission and her famines, and the hundreds oflittle Warren Hastings’ trooping over her, from Lahoreto Pondicherry, brooding of pounds and power! Why,to me you have placed it clear as Carlyle with his reverberatingthunders of fifty years ago. Here is England,sitting dull-eyed among her flesh-pots, and yonder isIndia—drained. You did not say it in direct words,Routledge-san, but you made me see the provinces ofIndia scattered about like the shells of insects in a spider’sweb, and this London—the darkened lair of the watchingeyes.... Oh, I have seen all that you mean,Routledge-san, but more—the bigger, finer things thannational relations.... You have gone into thesilent places to meditate, and to me you have broughtback the images of the silence—big, chaste things, likeour bravest man. There is good and there is hope in theworld which holds such men and such things—andbecause of you I have kept my optimism. I seem to havea perfect torrent of talk, but I have been so much aloneto think—and you are going away. I want you to knowthat you and the things you have brought to me arebigger—than London and the world.... When Ispeak with you—I seem to have known you always....And then you are going away—with a burden inyour heart, which no act of yours put there....[122]Why is it, Routledge-san, that one’s bravest man mustsuffer such deluges of evil?”

“Noreen, you are resistless,” he murmured. “It islife——”

She pressed her face to the pane, tried thoughtlesslyto brush away the blurring rain on the outside. With aquick, savage return of pain, she realized how near theywere to Charing Cross.

“I haven’t told you—all that I mean yet, Routledge-san!”she whispered feverishly. “You met some adversarylast night and conquered. You are weak and hurt—butyou have won.... I cannot quite understand,but the sentence ringing in my brain is this: ‘The younggrain is springing on the field of Waterloo.’... Imet my adversary in the night—and I have won, too.When I think of you—it rushes over me like a tidal wave—tofight London and the world for you; but I have mywork here. It must be done cleanly and without a cry.My father needs me. The best is gone from him already—andI must treasure the rest; but it will not be always....And when my work is finished in Cheer Street,Routledge-san, I shall cross the world to find you!”

He felt it hard to breathe in the desolation. A desirefull-formed and upstanding, in spite of the mockery of it,vanquished him for a moment. It was to keep on withher—riding, journeying, sailing—with her, through thegates of Charing Cross, to Southampton, New York, SanFrancisco, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Hong Kong,Singapore, Calcutta—up the Ganges to its source in theHills, and there among the mystic people of his heart, todwell with her, adoring in the stillness of starlight, in themorning glow.

[123]“I shall be nameless, and a wanderer——”

“And my bravest man!... This is not unwomanly,Routledge-san. This is farewell. The girl istorn from me—and the woman speaks her heart....No one but you could understand. Always I have beenstrange.... I cannot leave it unsaid. I shall cometo find you when I am free! It is not—not that I shallask you to marry me. It is not that—but to be withyou! I think—I think that you are so noble that mybeing a woman would not complicate.... Routledge-san!It is Charing Cross!”

Swiftly she drew tiny scissors from a pocket-case,snipped from her temple a lock of hair, tied it with astrand of its own, and thrust it into his hand.

It was light, living, warm like a bird in his palm.Her last words intoned through his dreams for manydays:

“Remember, I am Noreen Cardinegh—who believesin you always—before all men—for all time. And I,too, must be brave and enduring until my work is done—andI may cross the world to find you!”

... He was standing at the curb before the greatstation. The carriage had turned away. There came tohim out of the throng—a cry, not to his ears, but straightto his breast, a cry wild with desolation, which his heartanswered....

He purchased his ticket, and rechecked his baggage,and then passed through the gates to the gray, smokyyards. From the deck of his steamer at Southamptonthat night he caught a last glimpse of the White Mustache,a satisfied smile on the keen, hard face. In a cold,distant fashion, Routledge marvelled that he was allowedto leave England alive.

“J. J. Jasper, Syracuse, New York,” was beinginscribed in the hotel registers along the travelled-linesaround the world. Mr. Jasper was making no haste.“I have been rushed all my life until now,” he explained.He was a sincere, hard-thinking, little man of fifty, whohad manufactured road-carts for thirty years, and hadsucceeded remarkably well in emancipating himself frombusiness—a high-ranged achievement for only the fewAmericans.

Mr. Jasper was interested in India long before hetouched Bombay, going east. This happened because hissister was a member of a theosophical class back inSyracuse. He had heard of “dreamy India” for manyyears, of Madras and the Ganges, of yogis and astralbodies, of esoteric sections and H.P.B., of Sinnett, Olcott,Besant, masters, famines, of karma, devachan, pralaya,of metempsychosis and the Great White Lodge of theHimalayas.... “Go to Madras, James,” his sisterhad told him. “By all means, go to Madras. Ourheadquarters and our libraries of occult literature arethere. It may be that our president and founder, Mr.Olcott, will meet you personally, or Annie Besant, themost noted woman in the world. Don’t call it ‘Besant’,like the author, but as if it were spelled ‘Bessant.’ Thereare reasons, James, esoteric reasons.”

[125]And so Mr. Jasper went to Madras. He took thehand of white-bearded Olcott,[A] a rounded man, who hadnot lost interest in the New York bar or press simplybecause he was president and founder of a great body ofgenerally refined men and women who have the temerityto believe that buying cheap and selling dear is not thesupreme glory of man. Also Mr. Jasper pronouncedit “Bessant,” for esoteric reasons, but he did not meetthe most noted woman in the world, since she had takenher annual flight to London.

In the midst of all his seeing and smelling and broodingamong the coast cities of India, Mr. Jasper wasimpressed with the dire poverty of certain districts. Theheart of the man was wrung, and his brain filled with theEverlasting Why. At the house of a missionary inNizagari, he ascertained certain facts. The Hindus ofthe town were hungry. They came to the missionary,men and wives and babes, and begged most pitifully forfood.

“If we could only eat food once in two days, wewould ask no more!” they cried.

“God, this is famine—the famine of the Bible!” exclaimedthe American.

“Ah, no,” replied the missionary. “You must allowme to correct you. There is no recognized famine inNizagari.”

“If this is not famine—what does the word mean?”

“Go to the central provinces,” the missionary saidwearily. “Famine is declared there.”

Mr. Jasper thought long that night. He recalled[126]being left once, when he was a much younger man, inNew York city over night without money. The metropoliswas a city of strangers to him then, but, as now, acity of pure and plenteous water, free lunches, andbenches to sit upon. Moreover, it was a summer night;and yet before mail-time in the morning, Mr. Jasper feltthat his cosmos had dropped into chaos.... “Iwill arise and go to the Central Provinces,” he declared.After many weary days, he alighted from his train in thehot, fetid city of Nagpur.

“Famine,” they told him—he thought he saw faminein the eyes of the English—“yes, there is famine northward,but the government has taken it in hand. You see,when a famine is officially declared it doesn’t lastlong....”

Mr. Jasper hurried northward, lest it be over beforehe reached there. He wanted to see the conditions whichwould cause the Anglo-Indians officially to recognizefamine. Finally, it was borne upon him that he mustleave the railway to discover the reality, and he made hisway eastward, for a long day’s journey, by bullock-cartand sedan-chair, across a burning, forsaken land to thetown of Rydamphur—too little and too far for theEnglish yet to have heard its cry. Least of villages,Rydamphur, a still, sterile, Christless place, sprawledupon a saffron desert. He paid his coolies at the edgeof the village, and they pointed out the Rest House amongthe huts.

The place was dead as a dream creation. There wassomething febrile, unnatural in the late afternoon sunlight.The houses looked withered and ready to fall inthat dead-gold light. He passed a darkened doorway[127]and was stabbed by the spur of horrid understanding—ablast of unutterable fetor.... He ran for a step ortwo, horrified as if he had trodden upon the dead in thedark. His brain was filled with muttering: “This isfamine! This is famine!”... Mr. Jasper turnedshortly, and saw emerging from the darkened hut—awhite man in native dress. It was a face incapable oftan, and fixed with a sorrow too deep for tears—a wild,tragic sorrow, vivid in the fever-wide eyes....

It was all nightmarish and inchoate. Thus he enteredthe oven of bricks called the Rest House, and bathed,changed, and gasped, while the snoring punkahs whippedhim with hot, sterilizing breaths.... Dinner thatevening at eight. Mr. Jasper sat down to a table witha gaunt, embrowned stranger in white linen—a wastedgiant, with a head and figure of singular command; eyesthat were weary and restless, but very wise and verykind. So sun-darkened was the face that Mr. Jasperthought at first his companion must be a native of highcaste; especially since he ate no meat and sparingly ofthe rest. The dinner was meagre, but a feast compared towhat was expected in the nucleus of a famine district.

“I didn’t suppose such a variety of food could be procuredhere,” Mr. Jasper observed.

“There has been plenty of food to be had for money,until the last day or two,” the stranger replied.

“And the natives have no money?”

Mr. Jasper realized that the question was inane, buthis eagerness was great to draw the man before him intoconversation. There was a distinguished look in theman’s face which promised much. He proved by nomeans disinclined to talk; indeed, seemed urged by a[128]strange zeal for conversation that night, as one who hasbeen in prison, or somewhere long and far from his kind.

“I came here, not out of vulgar curiosity, but strivingto understand,” Mr. Jasper said.

“And how do you like our great brown MotherIndia?”

“She does not feed her children.”

“That is true. Mother India must come back to thetable of the world and learn how things are served bythe younger peoples—the sharper-eyed, quicker-handedpeoples. You have heard the story, no doubt, that Indiahad once great and profitable industries. Her commercialsystems were founded upon mutual service, not upon competition.Then the East India company and Englandcame. ‘Mother India, you are quite absurd,’ said England,and she took away all the mutual benefit industries,and reorganized them again in the true English way.‘We shall show you how, Mother India,’ she said. Indiamust have been inept, because England never gave themback.”

Both men were smiling. “Then you think Indiafamines are the result of British rule?” the man fromSyracuse observed.

“If I told you that, it would be right for me to explainwhy I think so. That would take some time, and thenight is very hot.”

“I came to Rydamphur to learn the truth. Somehow,I believe I shall succeed—if you will tell me whatyou can, sir.” The stranger’s eyes brightened.

“Discussing the matter seriously, it is well to beginwith Macaulay’s sentence. ‘The heaviest of all yokes isthe yoke of a stranger.’”

[129]“You are not an Englishman?” Mr. Jasper asked.

“No, but does that signify? Many English havespoken the truth. Edmund Burke said, ‘The Tartarinvasion was mischievous, but it is our protection whichdestroys India.’ The English historian, MontgomeryMartin, wrote that so constant a drain as England’s uponIndia would impoverish England herself if she were subjectedto it. And here reflect that the wage of the laborer,when he gets work, averages but twopence a day.J. I. Sunderland observes, ‘The British have given Indiarailways, jute-mills, tea plantations, and many thingselse.... The profits go to the British.’ Mr.Sunderland, no doubt, remarks elsewhere about the opiumindustry. Herbert Spencer declares that it was an arrogantassumption upon the part of the British to accept asa fact that India exists for England. He also characterizesEngland’s relations to India as a ‘cunning despotismwhich uses native soldiers to maintain and extendnative subjection.’”

“But we in America,” said Mr. Jasper—“I refer tothose who have not looked deeply into the question—evenour president, Mr. Roosevelt—have regarded Englishrule in India as a vast and beneficent system.”

“Ah, yes,” responded the stranger, with a queersmile; “as you say, those who have not looked deeplyinto the question, regard it so. There was anotherAmerican president, Mr. Lincoln, who declared that noman is good enough to govern another man....But there are errors of judgment all around the world,and errors of ignorance which make for cruelty. Englishagents will come here to poor little Rydamphurpresently with rice and millet, and when the rains start,[130]the periodic famine officially will be declared over foranother year, and the people of this district will arise tothe normal condition of forty millions of India—thatof slow starvation.”

“But why don’t the Hindus emigrate?”

“Mother India cannot afford to give her childrenpassage money,” the stranger declared quickly. “Sheis sending a few, the pith and promise of her young men,to America and elsewhere to learn from the youngerpeoples how to take care of herself in commercial matters,in the hope of reviving her industries in centuries tocome. But the ordinary low-castes, the fuel of the famines,would have to starve a little extra in good times to savefrom their earnings the price to cross one of our NorthRiver ferries. They would die long before they hoardedthe fare from Brooklyn Bridge to Coney Island.”

Mr. Jasper’s eyes kindled at the references. “Butwhy do the Hindus not fight?” he asked.

“India has no arms.”

“But even our little South and Central AmericanStates get arms and fight right merrily with them.”

“India is poorer than the little South and CentralAmerican States—so poor that it requires a white manyears to conceive the meaning of her poverty.” Thespeaker leaned forward and added in a slow, bitter way:“Forty millions in India are hungry to-night: fortymillions are never otherwise than hungry—they passfrom the womb to the burning-ghats, never having knowna moment of repletion: yet England drains India of onehundred million dollars a year. Listen; in the lasttwenty-five years of the nineteenth century ten millionsin India died of famine. In the same period England[131]vampirized this land of the hungry of twenty-five hundredmillions of dollars. This is one of the tragic facts of theworld.

“Here’s another: in the nineteenth century Englandcompelled India to maintain five times as many troops aswere needed for her own defense or her own subjection—inother words, forced India to furnish troops for Britishconquests outside of India!... Would you mind,sir, if I uttered a sentence that has never been utteredbefore?”

Mr. Jasper laughed a little nervously.

“It was India that whipped Napoleon.”

“There’s some shock to that statement. Tell mehow.”

“In the fifty-seven years between the battles ofPlassey and Waterloo, England looted a billion in poundssterling—five thousand million dollars—from the conqueredIndian people. This was the price India paid forbondage, for ruined industries and periodic famines.This was the period of England’s military expansion.The army that crushed Napoleon was fed and clothedand armed by Indian tributes.”

Neither spoke for a moment, and the stranger addedwith an impressiveness that Mr. Jasper never forgot:“It is rather stirring to remember that this old Indiawas highly civilized, in a rich meaning of the expression,ripe in arts, letters, and incomparable philosophies, whenthe ancestors of the English were painted savages. Indiawas the leader of Asiatic civilization, and perhaps therichest country in the world, when England broke in uponher. What is old India now? Hearken to the souls passingin little Rydamphur to-night!”

[132]“But what, in God’s name, can be done?” Mr. Jasperdemanded.

“When England begins to treat India as she wouldbe forced to treat a colony of white men, aggressive asAmericans, for instance, India will begin to discover hergray of morning.”

“But England won’t do that until India becomes amilitant people.”

“No, I’m afraid not. England still has much of herimperialistic arrogance.... A little while ago, oneof the ablest of the native editors, an old man, was banishedfrom the country for six years because he publishedan article in his paper pointing out his country’s misfortunes.This aged editor was a Murahti, and duringhis trial called for a Murahti jury. On the contrary, thejury was made of English and Parsees. The prisonerdid not know a word of the court’s proceedings until aninterpreter informed him of his banishment. Anotheryoung Hindu nobleman was recently banished for lifebecause he took part in public speeches. The Englishjudge who sentenced this young man declared that therewas no reason for one Hindu addressing a gathering ofHindus, since the latter had no votes. I call that a ratherinteresting political homily.”

“It is chief among outrages,” declared Mr. Jasper.

The other regarded him intently a moment, as ifdeliberating whether it were wise to go a bit farther. Hestudied the deep and honest interest in the perspiringface, and caught up the question afresh:

“India, the best of India, has lost from her blood thatwhich makes for war and commercial conquests. Sheis the longest suffering of all the nations. She asks only[133]for peace. Those great playthings of the more materialpowers—navies, soldiery, colonies, armament—she cannotappreciate, cannot understand. India is not cowardly.You would not call an old man a coward because herebukes with a smile a young brute who has struck him.Old mystic India prefers to starve rather than to outrageher philosophy with war. She has even adjusted herphilosophy to the spectacle of her children starving,rather than to descend to the outgrown ugliness of physicalwarfare. It has been work of mine to study thenations somewhat, and I have come to think of them ashuman beings at different ages.... Look at youngJapan—the sixteen-year-old among the powers! Abrown-skinned, black-eyed boy, cruel, unlit from within,formidable, and itching to use again the strength he hasonce felt. To the boy-brain, supremacy at war is thehighest victory the world can give. Japan has the healthof a boy, heals like an earth-worm, and blazes with pridein the possession of his first weapons. Like the boy again,he is blind to the intrinsic rights of women. Shamelessly,he casts his women out over the seven seas to fill thebrothels of every port—breeds human cattle to feed theworld’s lusts, and knows no prick of pride—but watchhim run hot-breathed to the rifle-pits if so much as abit of humor from an outside nation stirs the restlesschip upon his shoulder! Brute boy, Japan, the trophiesof conquests are as yet but incidents to him. The soldieris in highest manifestation; the expansionist not yetweaned. He fights for the great glory of the fight—madwith the direct and awful lust of standing in the midstof the fallen....

“America?... Yes, I am an American.[134]America is thirty-five, as I see her, and her passion isfor the symbol of conquest, Dollars. America is self-trancedby looking into money, as those who gaze atcrystal. The dollar-toxin riots in her veins. All thecorrosion of the cursed Hebraic propensity for the concrete,appears to be the heritage of America. She isamassing as men never amassed before. She is lean fromgarnering, so terrifically beset with multiples and divisorsthat she has not even learned the material usages ofmoney—how to spend gracefully. One night an Americanis a profligate prince; the next day a scheming,ravening, fish-blooded money-changer to pay for it. Sobusy is America collecting the symbols of possession, thatshe has little time to turn her thoughts to war, thoughshe has by no means yet lost her physical condition.Having whipped England once, and purged herself withan internecine struggle, America now believes that shehas only to drop her ticker, her groceries, and her papercontinents, snatch up the rifle and cartridge-belt—to whipthe world. Just a case of necessity, you know, andGrants and Lees and Lincolns will arise; labor turn intomilitia, and the land a sounding-board of trampling invincibles.But war is not the real expression of Americain this young century. Financial precedence over one’sneighbor, vulgar outward flaunts of opulence, lights,noise, glitter, show—these are the forms of expression invogue—concrete evidences of a more or less concreteaccumulation. The excesses of America are momentaryin contrast to the steady glut-glut of big-belted Europe.Of her glory I do not speak, of her humor, her inventions.It is this low present propensity—that is hard tobear. So rich still are America’s national resources that[135]she has found no need of an India yet. May she put onwisdom and sweetness while the evil days come not—Godbless her!...

“Look at England—fat and fifty, overfed, short ofbreath, thickening in girth, deepening in brain. Englandbuilding her ships to fatten in peace; talking much ofwar to keep the peace, but far beyond the zest and stir oftrumpets. England, entered upon her inevitable period ofphysical decadence, boasting of conquests, like a middle-agedman with rheum in his eye, the clog of senility underhis waist-coat, stiffness in his joints, and the red lights ofapoplexy bright upon his throat—who throws out hischest among his sons and pants that he is ‘better thanever, e’gad!’ England, sensuous in the home, crowdingher houses like a squirrel’s nest in the frosts; an animatedstomach, already cultivating and condimenting her fitfulbut necessary appetites; wise and crafty in the world,but purblind to her own perversions and lying in the rotof them.... England, who will not put awayboyish things and look to God!... She is drainingIndia as Rome drained Gaul, as Spain drained Mexico,and accelerating the bestial*ty which spells ruin—with thespoils.... What a sweet and perfect retaliation ifGaul could only have seen the monstrous offspring ofthe Cæsars; if the Aztecs had only endured to see whatbefell Spain after the Noche Triste; if India—but didnot India point out in her philosophy the wages ofnational, vampirism—before Cortez and before theCæsars?

“Then, if I am not wearying you, we might look atRussia, sundering in the pangs of wretched age. Mad,lesioned, its body a parliament of pains, its brain vaporing[136]of past glories in its present ghastliness of disintegration.

“And India, I see a difference here. All men as allnations must suffer. Europe and America are learning tosuffer through their excesses; India through her privations,a cleaner, holier way.... I think of India asan old widow who has given away her possessions to alitter of Gonerils and Absaloms—put away all the vanitiesof conquest and material possessions—a poor old widowwith gaunt breasts and palsied hands, who asks only aseat in the chimney-corner, and crumbs from the tableof the world!... She has still kept a smile ofkindliness for the world, as she sits in the gloom, hersoul lifting to the stars....

“After all, famine blinds us, because we are herein the midst of it. It is hard to restrain one’s rebellionin the midst of Rydamphur’s dead, when one thinksthat the Englishman spends for intoxicating drinksannually two-and-one-half-times what the Hindu individualspends for food, drink, fuel, clothing, medicine,recreation, education, and religion. It horrifies us littleto think that at home they are spending on roaringBroadway, this very night, in dines and wines and steins,and kindred vanities and viciousness, enough to keep amillion native mothers in milk for their babes a fortnight.If we could sit away up in the Hills so that all the worldwere in its proper relation and perspective, we might perceivesomething sanitive and less sodden in starvation,something less pestilential than the death of drink andgluttony. You know the soul burns bright at the endof much fasting.”

The tall stranger had spoken mildly in the main, as ifdiscussing matters of food before him. Only occasionally[137]he leaned forward, his eyes lit with prophecy or rebellion.Mr. Jasper felt the animation of the other’s presencemost remarkably. He had never met such a man, andsaid so with boyish impulsiveness.

The other regarded him with genuine gratitude. “Iwas afraid that I had spoken too freely. One is inclinedto be fluent in the thing he knows well. I do not meanto say that I know India, but only that I have studiedIndia long. She has many facets, and at best one’s viewsare but one’s own.”

Mr. Jasper offered his card.

“I thank you,” said the stranger. “I am not carryingcards just now. My name matters little to any one,but I wish you a very good night.”

The Syracuse manufacturer went to his room and satin the dark under the punkahs, staring out the window andstudying what he had heard. The saffron desert wasghostly gray under the brilliant low-hanging stars, andall objects were black and blotchy upon it. It made himthink of paintings of Egyptian nights—paintings hunghe could not remember where. He was troubled becausethe stranger withheld his name. Here was a man withwhom he would have rejoiced to travel, to knowbetter and better. The thought which recurred strongestout of all that he had heard was: “All men, as all nations,must suffer. Europe and America are learning to sufferthrough their excesses; India through her privations, acleaner, holier way.”

The drone of the punkah-leathers ruffled his very goodnerves at last, and Mr. Jasper went out to walk. In alittle hut at the far end of the street, to which he wasattracted by candle-light and the voices of white men,[138]he perceived three figures through the open doorway.One was an ancient Hindu, sitting with bowed head uponthe matting. The second was a white man in nativedress, whom he had seen emerging from the hut ofhorrors in the afternoon—the face incapable of tan andvivid with tragic sorrow. The third was the sun-darkenedyoung giant who had left him earlier in the evening,who had spoken of India and of her famines, and discussedthe Powers as familiarly as one might discuss hispartners or rivals in business. Quite inadvertently, Mr.Jasper heard the name which had been withheld fromhim by its owner—the name of Routledge.... Thenext day he mentioned this name to the Englishman ofthe Famine Relief, who had brought provisions to littleRydamphur. He discovered that it was a name to uncoverdevils.

Leaving the Rest House, Routledge walked in themingled gray and shadow to the hut of the candle-light,where Mr. Jasper afterward saw him. He entered softly.The aged Hindu sat cross-legged upon a mat of ricestraw, his eyelids closed as if by effort, his lips and entirechest moving with the Name. This was Sekar, themaster who had come down from the goodly mountainsfor his chela—the bravest man. Rawder was lying full-lengthupon the floor, his head raised over an open book,upon which the light shone. He held up his hand toRoutledge, and a glad smile formed on the deep-lined,pallid face.

“Sit down in the cool of the doorway, and let us talk,my good friend. What has the day brought you?”

Routledge obeyed, amused at “the cool of the doorway.”The night breeze was but a withering breathfrom the hot sand.

“The day has brought sundry brown babes, and Ihave dutifully squeezed a milky rag into their openmouths. Also, I bought the last rice which the Chunderperson who keeps the Rest House will sell at any price,and passed it out to the edges of the hunger. The morningwill bring us more dead. What a gruesome monotonyit is—dying, dying, dying—and they make so little[140]noise about it. Also, I was so oppressed with famine thatI found a good, unobtrusive American and crowded himwith facts for an hour—a countryman of ours, Rawder.”

“A countryman of ours,” Rawder repeated softly.“It is long since I have heard the sound of a thoughtlike that. I am not to see my country again, goodbrother.”

“Then, has Sekar told you what you are to do?”

“Yes. We travel to-night northward. The Englishwill be here to-morrow with grain, so that our work isdone in Rydamphur. You will stay here until to-morrow,as you said, and then return westward to the railroad,when the English come.”

“Are you permitted to tell me all that he said?”Routledge asked.

“Yes. To-night at dusk, Sekar stirred from hismeditations and we spoke together long. I told him thatyou meant my whole race to me; that you were dearer tome than any human being I had ever known. I askedif he would permit you to travel with us a little longer.He shook his head. There is much for you still to do inthe world. He said that you would begin to find yourwork as soon as you reached travelled-lines. I toldhim that your life was in danger where the Englishwere many; that your life had been attempted in Madras,and that it was a heavy sorrow for me to part with you sosoon. I asked him if your work in the world were absolute—ifit would not be good for your soul to travelslowly to the Hills, doing what we found to do on theway. Sekar shook his head.... Ah, Routledge,my brother, there is to be another war for you. Therewill come a day in which you will know a great need[141]for human aid, and it will not be given me to come toyou—but another—a woman!”

Rawder’s voice trembled. Routledge never forgotthe moment. The restless, writhing flame of the candle,straining as if for more vital air; little Rydamphur, outof the ken of the world, and death moving from hut tohut; the still, dreadful Indian night; the ancient mystic,tranced in meditation, so emaciated with years and asceticismthat each added breath seemed a dispensation; thewhite face of Rawder, which had long since been gravenwith beautiful meanings for his friend; the eyes ofRawder, which had never been defiled by hate or rage orlust, so radiant with sorrow now; and the revelations onRawder’s lips, which half the human family is still soyoung as to have called madness.

“He is right,” said Routledge. “It is the law.You have naught to do with human attachments on theway to the Hills. And I am to follow the fortunes ofanother war?”

“Such a war as never has been——”

“In Asia?”

“Yes. In the north—beyond the mountains. Hedid not say more, but you are soon to know. God pityyou, Routledge! How gladly would I take the travailfrom you! You are to fall—not among the piled dead,not in the thundering centres of battle, but apart....You are to live. He promised me that you would notdie, and that another, a woman, would come to help you.I know you are to live, because it is written that oncemore in this life I am to take your hand.”

“Just once more?”

“Yes.”

[142]“Did he tell you where?”

Rawder bowed his head. His fingers trembled uponhis knee.

“In the Leper Valley,” he said.

“Must you still go to the Leper Valley?”

“It is there I am to meet that which you once called‘The Dweller of the Threshold,’” Rawder said.

In the silence of a moment the men regarded eachother. From the ancient Hindu came the majestic Name,intoned as from a sea-beaten cavern—deep, distant, portentous.The chela bowed in spirit, closing his eyes.Routledge was lost to the world for an instant—hungbreathless in space, as if the world were flinging backfrom him like a receding wave.

“I was hoping that Sekar would not always lead youthrough the slums and hells of the world, Rawder,”Routledge said at last. “You caught full in the face allthe perfected venoms of a New England country town,even to the persecutions of your church. You had tolearn Boston under the flare of the torch. The grislyhumor of American troops was your portion in thecavalry, and godless Minday your first mission. HongKong gave you her loathsome water-front to sweep, andyou were all but murdered there, as in Minday. Indiahas led you into the midst of her plagues and famines.You have toiled in the forefront of her misery. No browhas been too degraded by disease for your hand to cool;no death has been so triumphant that you would not bendto cover it. I thought at the last you might taste justa morsel, perhaps, of the beauty and sweetness of things,before you were lost to us beyond the Hills....Instead, you go to the Leper Valley.”

[143]Rawder regarded him with a grateful smile, in whichthere was wonderment that his friend should haveremembered all this, but he spoke with gentle remonstrance,“My little services have been for the least ofmen because they needed them most. It did not happenthat way; it was intended so. From the beginning, theonly men who would listen to me were those humbled bygreat pain, or lost in great darkness. I do not understandeven now why I should have earned the boonof a Master to abide with me. Yet he has come—andI am the happiest of men. The Leper Valley—that isbut a halt on heaven’s highway.... I am thehappiest of men, Routledge, my brother, yet the mightiestpain of my life has fallen upon me——”

Rawder went to the door and stood silent for severalmoments; then turned back to the light, his face calmer.

“I have loved you strongly, Routledge. You havebeen to me—the representative man. I have never knownthe touch of a woman’s hand, nor the eye of a woman—butfor you I have felt all the great love of a man for aman. To-night, before you came, Sekar told me that onlyonce again in this life I am to see you. It is to be aftermy trial in the Leper Valley. After that, I am to putaway all love for you in the flesh, since it binds me tothe Wheel.... This is harder for me than manyMindays, harder than service through interminablefamines, harder than blows and revilings from multitudesof men, harder than any trial in the Leper Valley. Tothink that you must descend again into battle—you whoknow so well the awful sin of war—that I should havea fore-knowledge of you being maimed in the body, andto be unable to go to you—ah, nothing that I must face[144]in the Leper Valley can haunt and torture the soul ofyour friend like this.”

The half had never been told before. Routledgebowed before the great devotion of this simplest andholiest man the world had shown him. In a swift gestureRawder’s hand had passed between the eyes of thecorrespondent and the candle-flame. Fragile, trembling,almost transparent, it was eloquent with a beautyRoutledge had never noted before. Within himselfgreat changes were enacting.

There was power in that little Rydamphur hut, powerfrom the hidden wells of creation. It was made clear tohim what force had impelled Sekar to find his chela.There was karma still for the ancient Hindu to work out,since he dragged his weary, grave-hungering flesh downfrom the peace and purity of his mountains to the burningplains of men—to take back this whitest soul of theOccident.

“Rawder,” Routledge said slowly, reverently, “Ithas long been a big part of my understanding—what youmean to me. I once told a lady of you—of my bravestman—and this lady watches and listens for you acrossthe world. That I go back into battle again is quite rightand inevitable. I have not yet reached Mother Earth’sgraduating class. The wound which you foretell is nothing.It is good that I am to see you once more—evenin the Leper Valley—though it holds you longer than Ithought from the rest you have earned. As for parting,you know better than I that the word has no meaning.You know better than I that the relations between masterand disciple do not end with the body, nor the relationsof friend and friend. There never has lived a pure great[145]soul, who has not glimpsed what means the emancipationfrom the flesh, and discerned in his high momentssuch joys that the strength of his soul was sternly triedin the effort to live out his allotted days. If such glimpseswere given to all men, the nations would suffer from ashock of suicide such as no war nor famine ever wrought.

“We will both go gladly to our work. I see mymission clearly to-night. It is to scoff at war before men;to show what a monstrous activity it is for men; to showhow black is the magic of the ambitious few, who dareto make cannon-meat of God’s multitudes. I, the watcherof many services, who am supposed to bow before thebattle-lines, and carve my career from their triumphs anddefeats, shall laugh at their untimely and ridiculousmanifestations. At the last, I shall paint war so red, soreal, in all its ghastly, abortive reality, that the nationsshall shudder—as at the towering crime on Calvary—shudderto the quick of their souls, and sin no more!”

The moment was exalted. Something vaster, nobler,than mere human consciousness expanded withinRoutledge.... He saw the pitiful pawns throngingto fill the legions of Cæsar, who stooped to learn thenames of certain of his centurions. He saw that blackplague, Napoleon, and the regiments herding for slaughterunder his glaring, spike-pointed eye; great masses ofGod-loved men vying to die swiftly at a word from thatiron-rimmed cavern of desolation, Napoleon’s mouth—themouth which deigned to utter from time to time thenames of chiefs he counted upon presently to murder.Cæsar and Napoleon, incarnates of devilish ambition,mastodons of licensed crime, towering epileptics both....He hungered for the time when the world would[146]learn to bottle such admirable concentrates of hell-poisonbefore they shamed humanity by driving poor group-souledmasses first mad and then into the ignoble deathof war.

“It has been a high night to me, Rawder,” Routledgesaid. “I am proud to thank you for showing me mywork. And I can see yours on and on—even to theLeper Valley.... Strange, Rawder, but there isa picture with it, in my mind—a picture that has alwayscome to me in high, hard moments.... Nightfall—a landof hills and heat, and a dusty, winding highway.The Christ passes in the midst of a throng. He is weary,athirst, and hungering. The empty voices of the crowdbind His thoughts to misery. The pitiful ways of menhave put a martyrdom of sadness in His heart. At lengthabove the whispering of feet on the warm sand, abovethe Babel of the followers, comes to His ear alone a moanfrom the darkness. It thrills with agony. He leaves thehighway. The throng understands. They pull at Hisgarments and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ Even the leperlying in the darkness warns Him, ‘Unclean!’ as is thelaw.... But the beautiful Christ bends with thetouch of healing!...

“I shall come to find you in the Leper Valley, mybravest man. And you shall go on after that to thegreat peace that is ‘mortised and tenoned’ in the graniteof the Hills!... But, Rawder, you shall look backout of the glorious amplitude beyond the Leper Valleyto find at last that your friend is nearly ready. Perhapsyou will come for him—even as Sekar came for you.”

With a quick intaking of breath, the material consciousnessof the Hindu returned.

[147]“It is the hour,” he said to his chela. “We travel inthe night.”

Again the fleeting look of agony across the whiteface of Rawder, but Routledge gripped his shoulder, andspoke to Sekar:

“It is a little thing, but I have plenty of money, ifyou need it. Would you not travel—at least, out of theregion of great heat—in the fire-carriages of the English?A fortnight’s journey each daylight?”

The Sannyasi answered: “The beloved of my disciplehas earned many favors. It has been made clearto me that we must travel alone and on foot. I am veryold, but there is still strength for the journey—or Ishould not have been sent.”

He stretched out his hand—it was like a charredbranch—and Routledge bent his head for the blessing.

“You have chosen well, beloved of my chela. It isthe shorter, steeper way you tread. This life you havededicated to the service of men, and you are bound to theWheel by the love of woman. Fulfil the duties all, andthe way shall be quickened. Once more our paths shallmeet—and there shall be four—in the Leper Valley!”

Rawder poured a cup of water upon the aged feet,dried them with a cloth, and drew the sandals firm.

“Night and morning I shall send you my blessing,Routledge, my brother,” he said, standing near the door.“Morning and evening, until we meet again in the LeperValley, you shall know that there is a heart that thrillsfor the good of your life and your soul. Good-by.”

They passed out into the torrid night. Their whitegarments turned to gray; then dulled into shadows,northward on the dust-deep Indian road.

Routledge sat long in meditation after Rawder andhis master had taken up their journey. Time passedunmeasured over his head until he was aroused by theguttering of a candle-wick. In quite an un-Americanfashion, he believed the prophetic utterances which thenight had brought. The more a man knows, the morehe will believe. The mark of a small man is ever hisincapacity to accept that which he cannot hold in continualsight. Still, Routledge endured a reaction for thehigh moments of the recent hour. Sekar and Rawderand the power were gone from Rydamphur. He evenfelt abashed because of his outbursts to Rawder, solong had he been accustomed to the iron control of hisemotions. It was not that he was sorry for what he hadsaid, but torrential utterance leaves depletion. He didnot feel the strength now to make men laugh at wars,nor to stay the tide of the world’s wars by painting thevolcanic wrath of nations in all its futile and ferocioussignificance.

That he was to be hurt in the new war was in itselfbut a vague anxiety, dull of consideration except for itsrelation to the foretelling—that another was to come tohelp him!... He wondered if the wound wouldcome from his enemies. Once before, a night in Madras,[149]as he was entering a house of hiding a noose of leatherdropped upon his shoulder. It was jerked tight with asinister twang. Routledge had just escaped the garrotein the dark. He could not always escape; and yet he wasnot to die next time. Rawder said: ... “To fallwounded, apart from the battle-field, to lie helplesslyregarding men and events from the fallen state, insteadof face to face—this was but one of the tossing tragediesof cloud in his mind. Yet there was a radiant light inthe midst of it all—only one woman in the world’s half-billionwould come to him.”

Any suffering was cheap to prevent her coming—buthe could not prevent! One cannot run from a visionor a prophecy. It is well to obey when one is ordered upinto Nineveh. Even Sekar had cast him off, because hewas a counter-attraction to the soul of Rawder. Hecould not forswear war—and so avoid the promisedwound, which would enable her to find him—since he wasnot to meet the levelling stroke during a collision oftroops, but somewhere apart. It was a chain of circ*mstancesin which he was absolutely powerless—and shewas coming to him!

First, it would mean that Jerry Cardinegh, the manhe had preserved, was dead. If he were dead withhis secret, Noreen would find him—Routledge—identifyherself with the most loathed of outcasts, fleeing foreverbefore the eyes and fingers of England. There wasrebellion against this in every plane of the man’sconsciousness. He could not suffer his love, nor hers,to be tested by such a tragedy. He would flee againfrom her.... But if old Jerry had rememberedthe truth at the last—if the fates had willed him to[150]tell the monstrous truth—and the Hate of London werelifted from the name of Routledge, to become a heritageof Noreen Cardinegh—and then if she should come tohim! He could not cover his eyes to the flash of radiancewhich this thought brought him.... He wouldhave died to prevent such a thing from coming to pass.For more than a year, he had kept out of the ken of theworld, to forestall any efforts on the part of the Cardineghs,to find him. He was worn to a shadow, hunted,harrowed, hated, lost to himself in disguises, ever apartfrom the gatherings of men and the decent offerings oflife—all to prevent the very thing which, in thinking ofnow, lit every lamp of his being. Quite as readily wouldhe have performed the treachery for which he sufferedas return to the father of Noreen Cardinegh, saying:“I am tired, Jerry. Give me back my name.” But if,after all he had done to spare her from the truth, thefates ruled against him—then he would not flee fromher!

Hours passed. Every little while, through the pilingcumulus of disorder, would flash the reality, and forthe interval he ceased to breathe.... To thinkof looking up from some half-delirium and discoveringher face! To feel the touch of her hand—this woman—attunedto respond to every vibration of his voice andbrain and heart.... Sometimes he fell into a heresyof manhood and demanded of himself what significancehad England, the world, compared with the rest of hisdays with Noreen Cardinegh, in the glory of their unionwhich formed a trinity—man and woman and happiness....

He laughed bitterly at the starry distances. “It[151]would be a fitting end for a man who is supposed to havebetrayed the country he served—to allow a woman toshare such fortunes as mine, and take up the trail of anoutcast.”

Routledge rose to go to the Rest House, but reflectedthat it must be nearer dawn than midnight. He wascuriously disinclined to seek his room at this hour. Withhis face to the doorway, he sank down upon the mattingand rested his chin in his palms.... The touch ofRawder’s hand awoke him, and he stared in wonder at thechela, his own eyes stinging from the East. The figureof a woman was prone before him.

“Routledge, my brother, here is work for you. Ifound her far out on the road. She was crawling intoRydamphur, carrying the child. I could not leave her.She is close to death. Sekar waits for me, and so again,good-by.”

Rawder had turned with a quick hand-clasp, andhurried away in the dawn-light to his master. It was allover quickly and strangely—as some psychic visitation.Routledge was already weary of the pitiless day. Theblazing temple of dawn had shone full upon his eyelidsas he slept, and there was an ache deep in his brain fromthe light.... The woman raised her head fromthe ground waveringly, like a crushed serpent, andplucked at his garments. There was a still, white-lippedbabe at her breast. Her voice was like dried sticksrubbing together. He held the cup of water to her lips.

“I am the widow of Madan Das, who is dead sincethe drouth,” she told him. “The white holy man carriedme here, leaving the other on the road. This is my son—theson of Madan Das. There were two others, both[152]girls, but they are dead since the drouth. Also thebrother of my husband, who was a leper. My husbandworked, but there has been no work since the drouth.First we sold the cow——”

“My good mother, don’t try to talk,” Routledge said,as he lifted her into the hut, but she could not understand.As soon as he had placed her upon the matting,she took up the tale, thinking that she must tell it all.Her face was like dusty paper; her lips dried andstretched apart. Her hair had fallen away in patches, andher throat was like an aged wrist.

“First we sold the cow,” she mumbled, trying tofind him with her eyes, “then we sold the householdthings. After that we sold the doors and door-posts.Even after that the food was all gone, and my husband,whose name is Madan Das, gave his clothing to hisbrother, who is a leper, to sell in the village for food.A neighbor lent my husband a cotton cloth to put abouthis loins. The chaukadari tax was due. Madan Dascould not pay. We were starving, and one of the babes, agirl, was dead. The tahsildar” (a collector for theEnglish) “came and took away from the second babe,who was in the doorway of our house, a little brass bowlfor the tax. There was in the bowl some soup which mybabe was eating—a little soup made of bark, flower-podsand wild berries.... Since then there has beenno food. Madan Das is dead, and the two girls are dead,and the brother of Madan Das, who is a leper, died lastnight. The white holy man carried me here, leaving theother on the road. This is the son of Madan Das——”

Life was going out of her with the words, but shewould not stop. Her heart was pounding like a frightened[153]bird’s. The weight of them both was but that of ahealthy child—an armful of dissolution.

“Listen, mother,” Routledge said. “Do not talk anymore. I am going to the Rest House to get food for youand the son of Madan Das. Lie here and rest. I shallnot be long.”

Even as he left her, she was repeating her story. Hereturned with a pitcher of hot tea, strong enough to colorand make palatable the nourishment of half a can ofcondensed milk. He brought a servant with him, and asheet to cover the woman. Routledge handed the childto the servant, and lifted the mother’s head to a cup.Afterward he cleansed her face and throat and arms withcool water, and bade her sleep.

“The little one is quite well, mother,” he told hersoftly. “All is well with you now. The English willbe here to-day with much food, and you have only torest. The child eats.”

“He is the son of Madan Das,” she mumbled, “andI am his mother.... Do not forget.”

She sank into a half-stupor. The servant had spooneda few drops into the babe’s mouth. Routledge took thechild—a wee thing, light as a kitten, numbed from want,and too weak to cry. Its body had the feel of a glove,and the bones showed white under the dry brown skin,and protruded like the bones of a bat’s wing. The servantwent to fetch a basin of water.

“Why must you, little seedling, learn the hunger-lessonso soon?” Routledge reflected whimsically. “Youare lots too little to have done any wrong, and if yourbit of a soul is stained with the sins of other lives, youare lots too little to know that you are being punished[154]for them now.... I should have asked Sekar ofwhat avail is the karmic imposition of hunger upon thebody of a babe.”

He sponged and dried the little one, wrapped him ina cloth, and fed him again—just a few drops. The sonof Madan Das choked and gurgled furthermore over ahalf-spoonful of water.

“Oh, you’re not nearly so far gone as your mother,my son. She was already starving before your inestimablefountains dried.... And so they tookaway your sister’s little brass bowl—and the soup made ofbark and flower-pods and wild berries. The poor tahsildarmust have been very tired and hot that day....And so your worthy uncle who was a leper sold theclothing of Madan Das, who borrowed a loin-cloth froma neighbor, and did not need that very long....Curl up and sleep on a man’s arm, my wee Rajput.”

Between the two, Routledge passed the forenoon. Atlast, miles away across the dusty sun-shot plain eastward,a bullock-cart appeared, and long afterward behindit, faint as its shadow, another—and others. Almostimperceptibly, they moved forward on the twisting, burningroad, like crippled insects; and the poles of the native-driversraised from time to time like tortured antennæ.There was a murmur now within the huts of strickenRydamphur. Routledge had sent his baggage west tothe railroad and settled his account at the Rest House.He would leave with the coming of the famine relief.The child was better, but the woman could not rally.The nourishment lay dead within her. The bullock-cartsmerely moved in the retina of his eye. He was thinkingdeep, unbridled things in the stillness of high noon.

[155]The great law of cause and effect had brought theanswer to his whimsical question of a few hours before.Why did karma inflict starvation upon the child beforethe tablets had formed within him on which the lessonmight be graven for his life’s direction? The son ofMadan Das was but an instrument of punishment forthe mother.... What wrong she must have done,according to Hindu doctrine, to him in one of the dimother lives—when she was forced to bring him into theworld, the famine-world of India, forced to love him,to watch him waste with hunger, and to crawl with himin the night. Incomparable maternal tragedy. The sinsof how many lives had she not expiated up yonder inthe withered fields!

The woman’s arm flung itself out from her body, andlay in a checkered patch of sunlight. It made Routledgethink of a dried and shrunken earth-worm which themorning heat had overtaken upon a wide pavement. Hereyelids were stretched apart now.

Sierras of tragedy are pictured in the eyes of thestarving. Processes of decay are intricate and marvellous—likethe impulses of growth and replenishing. There isno dissolution which so masterfully paints itself in thehuman eye as Hunger. The ball is lit with the expirationof the body, filled with a smoky glow of destroying tissue.The unutterable mysteries of consummation are windowedthere. The body dies, member by member; allflesh save the binding fibres wastes away, and the hideoushectic story of it all is told in the widening, ever wideningeyes—even to the glow of the burning-ghats—all isthere.

And the mother’s eyes! She was already old in the[156]hunger-lesson. The husband, Madan Das; the leper, hisbrother; the two little girls; the little brass bowl—allwere gone, when this child ceased to feed upon themother’s flesh. And still she crawled with the last of herbody to the town—all for this little son of Madan Das,who slept the sleep of healing within reach of her arm.

Routledge gazed upon the great passion of motherhood.In truth, the little hut in Rydamphur had been tohim a place of unfolding revelations. He had seen muchof death in wars, but this war was so poignant, so intimate....Why did the woman sin? Routledge’stired brain forged its own answer on the vast Hindu planof triple evolution. Countless changes had carried thiscreature, as he himself had been carried, up from a wormto a human. It is a long journey begun in darkness, andonly through error, and the pains of error, does the soul-fragmentlearn to distinguish between the vile and thebeautiful. In the possession of refining senses, and thetravail of their conquering, the soul whitens and expands.Often the wild horses of the senses burst out of controlof the charioteer of the soul; and for each rushing violence,the price must be paid in pangs of the body—untilthere are no longer lessons of the flesh to be learned, andthe soul puts on its misery no more.... Routledgecame up to blow, like a leviathan, from the deeps ofreflection, and wondered at the feverish energy of hisbrain. “I shall be analyzing presently the propertieswhich go into the crucible for the making of a prophet,”he declared.

The servant had brought a doctor, but it was mereformality. Routledge bent over the dying woman. Herheart filled the hut with its pounding. It ran swift and[157]loud, like a ship’s screw, when the clutching Pacificrollers fall away. In that devouring heat, the chillsettled.

“Do not forget.... He is the son of MadanDas, and I am his mother——”

“I shall not forget, good mother,” Routledge whispered.“A worthy man shall take care of him. This,first of all, shall I attend.”

“Madan Das was a worthy man——”

The rest was as the rattle of ripe seeds in a windblownpod.... Routledge turned his face from thefinal wrench. There was a foot-fall in the sand, and ashadow upon the threshold, but Routledge raised his handfor silence. The moment of all life in the flesh whensilence is dearest is the last.... The child stirredand opened its eyes—roused, who can tell, by its ownneeds of a metaphysical sympathy? And what does itmatter? The man covered in the sheet the poor bodywhich the soul had spurned, and turned to feed the childagain. The American was at the door.

“And have you been specializing in famine at firsthand, Mr. Jasper?” Routledge inquired.

“Yes, and I see, sir, that you have been doing more.”

“The task came to me this morning. A little touchof motherhood makes the whole world kin, you know....This baby seal is the son of Madan Das. He issleepy, having ridden all night bareback—and the bonesof his mount were sharp.”

“Allow me to say, rather from necessity than anynotion of being pleasant,” Mr. Jasper observed slowly,“that I think you are a wonderful man.... Ihave found myself weak and cowardly and full of strange[158]sickness. I am going back to the railway filled with agreat dislike for myself. The things which I find to dohere, and want to do, prove a physical impossibility. Iwant to leave a hundred pounds in Rydamphur. It isbut a makeshift of a coward. It occurred to me to askyou how it would be best to leave the money, and where.”

“Don’t be disturbed, Mr. Jasper,” Routledge said,struck by the realness of the other’s gloom. “I knowthe feeling—know it well. A white man is not drilled inthese matters. God, I have been ill, too! I am ill now.See the soaps and water-basins which I have served withmy ministrations—and I am old in India. It is the weaknessfrom hunger which makes the people a prey to all theatrocities of filth and disease. First famine, then plague....A hundred pounds—that is good of you. I knowa missionary who will thank God directly for it—all nighton his knees—and he will not buy a can of butter forhimself. I will lead you to him if you wish.”

They passed through the village. The English werecoming with the bullock-carts, and the people, all thosewho could crawl out of their huts, were gathered in theblazing sunlight on the public threshing-floor. Mr.Jasper quickened his step and averted his face....Routledge had been several days in Rydamphur, and aguest in most of the huts, but there were many upon thethreshing-floor now (the old in agony, borne there bythe young; loathsome human remnants moving uponthe sand) that he had not seen before. It profited not tolook deeply into that harrowing dream of hell, in thelight of the most high sun, lest the spectacle remain in thebrain, an indissoluble haunt.

[159]“Yes, I know, Mr. Jasper,” Routledge muttered.“It is shocking as the bottom of the sea—with the watersdrained off. It is the carnal mystery of a famine.”

There was but one thing left in Rydamphur forRoutledge to do. It concerned the servant of the RestHouse, whom he had found good, and the little son ofMadan Das.

“This is to be your child,” he said to the man.“The mother is dead, and the others of the family liedead in the country. I am leaving Rydamphur now, butby chance I shall come back. You shall attend themother’s body—and take the child for your own. It isthe wish of the very holy man who tarried here a fewdays. It was his chela who carried the woman in fromthe country during the night. It is also my wish, and Ileave you money. More money will be forthcoming indue time. First of all, I want you to buy a little brassbowl, which shall be the child’s own. Remember thename. He is the son of Madan Das. And now give meyour name.”

It was done in order. An hour after, when all thevillage was attracted to the threshing-floor, and thebullock-carts were creaking in, and the sweating, harriedEnglishmen were pushing back the natives, lest they fallunder the wheels, Mr. Jasper perceived the man who hadso fascinated him set out, alone and without conveyance,along the sandy western road toward the railroad.

It was a night late in October when Routledgereached Calcutta, where he was forced to sink deeply intothe native life to avoid recognition. With two months’[160]files of the Pioneer, he sat down to study the premonitivemutterings of the Russo-Japanese war. They were widein aim, but deep with meaning for the man who hadmastered the old game of war. The point which interestedhim most in regard to this inevitable fracture of theworld’s peace was not brought out in the Pioneer. Justhow much did the awful activity of one Tyrone patriot,Jerry Cardinegh, have to do with the ever bristling negotiationsbetween Tokyo and St. Petersburg?... Inthe light of the present developments, the Anglo-Japanesealliance was one of the cleverest figments of diplomacyin the history of national craft. Japan was a fine tool,with a keen and tempered edge. It would take all thebrute flesh that Russia could mass in Manchuria to bluntit. Decidedly, Russia would have none left to crumplethe borders of British India. Meanwhile, England hadnothing more serious to do than to collect her regularIndian tributes, attend her regular Indian famines, and tovent from time to time a world-wide whoop of encouragementfor her little brown brothers, facing the Bear.

“That reminds me,” Routledge reflected with a start,“that all this is my work. I took it from JerryCardinegh.”

He breathed hard, and perused again the long, wearystory of negotiations, the preliminary conflict. It appearedthat Russia recognized Japan’s peculiar interest inKorea, and called it reasonable for her to take charge ofthe affairs of the Korean court.... “By the way,”Routledge mused ironically, “the Anglo-Japanese alliancewas hung on the fact that Korea was to be preserved anautomatic unit. However, the Anglo-Japanese alliancewas hung in haste.”... The Czar observed that[161]he had a peculiar brotherly regard for Manchuria,and that Japan must bear in mind that her Korean businessmust remain for all time south of the Yalu. “Don’tcross that river,” said Nicholas.... Ominouscourtesy, rejections, modifications, felicitations, andthe thunder of riveting war-ships in each navy-yardof the respective Powers involved. Brute boy, Japan, ata white heat from Hakodate to Nagasaki; Russia sweetlyignoring the conflagration and sticking for Great Peter’sdream for a port in the Pacific.

And so it stood when Routledge closed his last Pioneerin his Calcutta hiding-place, and embarked Europeansteerage for Shanghai. Two days north of Hong Kong,the steamer ran into the first breath of winter, andRoutledge drew out the great frieze coat to go ashore inthe Paris of China. Far out on the Hankow road, heensconced himself in a small German hostelry, and caughtup with the negotiations through the successive editionsof the North China News. Not a line anywhere regardingthe life or death of Jerry Cardinegh.

Closer and closer, the Powers drew about to hear thefinal back-talk between Russia and Japan. The lattersaid that she would establish a neutral zone along thenorthern Korean frontier, if Russia would do likewise onthe southern frontier of Manchuria. Some humorist inEngland observed that you cannot have a neutral zonewithout war; and the correspondents set out from England,via America, where they picked up the men fromNew York, Chicago, and Three Oaks—travelling west tothe Far East. At this point, Routledge, with greatsecrecy, made possible through a solid friend in NewYork, secured credentials, under an assumed name, for[162]free-lance work in the interests of the World-News.Thus passed the holidays. The first month of 1904 wasremarkable for the unexampled tension created by Japanburning the cables for Russia’s last word.

Routledge thrilled in spite of himself. He felt thatthis was to be his last service and the biggest. What afarce were the negotiations, with Japan already a-trampwith soldiery and the great single-track railroad fromSt. Petersburg to Port Arthur groaning with troop-trains;with India locked tight in the strong white Britishhand for at least another decade; with England turned towatch her Asiatic agent spitted on the Czar’s rustybayonets—what a farce, indeed, with Russia willing, andJapan determined, for war.

Late in January, and a snowy twilight. Routledgestood for a moment on the Bund in Shanghai. He wassailing that night for Chifu, and wondering as he stoodin the falling dark, his face concealed in the high-collar,how fared Jerry Cardinegh in the crux of these greataffairs. Was he dead—or dead in brain only? OfNoreen—thoughts of Noreen were always with him.

One of the launches of an Empress liner was leavingthe Bund in a few minutes for the ship in the offing—hernose turned to Japan. Routledge was thinking thathe would have to play the game alone now, if neverbefore. He smiled at the thought of what the boys gatheringat the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo would do if heshould turn up among them.... Suddenly he felta man’s eyes fixed upon him from the right. He turnedhis head carelessly, and discovered a figure marvelouslylike Finacune’s stepping overside into the launch. Itdisappeared into the small cabin. Routledge turned his[163]back to the launch with that degraded, shrunken sensationwhich concealment always incited.

“They would murder me,” he muttered absently.“I must swing it more than ever alone—from the edgesand alone.”

A woman’s hand touched the sleeve of the greatfrieze coat, and Routledge jerked about in a startled way.Men and wars were obliterated like dry leaves in a flame....The launch whistled a last time.

Jerry Cardinegh experienced a very swift andremarkable transition. All the red-blooded hatred withwhich he had executed his coup in India was drainedfrom the man sitting in London. His gigantic schemeaccomplished, Cardinegh withered like a plant overturnedin a furrow. Instead of facing the consequences withthe same iron humor that he had faced the wars of histime—as he had planned for months, in the event of discovery—hisgreat mad zeal had burned him out. Hefound himself old, run-down, pitiful, hungering for peace,when his young Messiah had come—praying for theimperial stimulus of English hatred in order to write agreat book of the craft. In his weakness and in the powerfulattraction of home and Noreen, Cardinegh had notanalyzed the idea seized at random by Routledge. Laterhe was incapable. Always the young man had beenstrange in his ways and startling in his achievements.Jerry had sensed the crush of this thing which the otherdemanded for a stimulant. Vaguely, the old man picturedfrom time to time the “mystic of the wars” sunk andsteeped somewhere in India, turning out stupendous narrativesunder the goad of secrecy and peril.

Even the swiftest physical changes are more or lessimperceptible to the victim, whose body is gently numbed,and mind shadowed by a merciful cloud. The veteran[165]felt his years, and talked much of their weight, but healone was incapable of perceiving the extent of his ruin.And what desperate irony was there in the trick whichNature played upon him! His brain held fast to theexciting minutiæ of Plevna, and the elder services, butlost entirely his latest and crowning strategy to encompassBritish disaster. He had conceived and carried outa plan to force a Russo-Indian alliance against England—andhad practically forgotten it. More than that, the factthat his work had been foiled by England’s counter-alliancewith Japan seemed scarcely to touch his mindafter his last talk with Routledge. Memory served himmightily from her treasures of old actions, but the recordof his awful lone war and its dreams had been writ inwater.

Cardinegh gradually grew more and more content asthe silence from abroad endured and his own forcesfailed. Many Londoners came to pay him homage; andwith a single glance, the visitors understood that it werewiser to talk of El Obeid and the Chinese Gordon ratherthan of the new century. So the old campaigner, busywith his callers, his pipes and Latakia mixtures, hiswhiskies, white and red, finally came to forget for weeksat a time that the honor of his days was not his own.

Only occasionally, between long periods of serenity,there would come a stirring tumult to his brain. At suchtimes he was frightened and speechless. Nameless fearspulsated through him like the rise and fall of a tempest.Once when the old man thought he was alone, Noreenheard him mutter at the fireside: “He’s lost in Indiasomewhere—working and brooding, the young devil,—butwar will bring him out of his lair.”

[166]He was as usual the next morning. Had Noreen notbeen altogether in the dark in regard to the specificcharge against Routledge, she could have put this andother fragments together into a rough form of truth.The few who knew all, imparted nothing. To the rest,the name of Routledge was attached to a certain unspeakableatrocity, and was thus whispered wherever Englishmenroved and strived. The man’s mysterious figurehad been in the London press for years. England makesmuch of her correspondents, and Routledge, the Reviewman, had aroused comment from Auckland to Winnipeg—familiarcomment, like the record of a general. Acurse had fallen upon the name now, and it was none theless heinous because the reason, so far as the multitudewas concerned, was a historical mystery. Articles likeFinacune’s from the field in Bhurpal had given Englishmeneverywhere an idea of the personality of this arch-enemy;and the fact that Routledge was still alive, andmiraculously unpunished, was a covert challenge to theBritish around the world.... Noreen despaired oflearning the truth. The merest mention of the subjectharrowed and discountenanced her father, and netted norevelation whatsoever.

Hers were stern, hard-checked days, full of heart-hunger.It seemed to her sometimes as if her individualitymust perish in the midst of this interminable systemof agonies. That last hour in the carriage had left herthrilling, burning. She wished she had said even moreto show her loyalty.... She thought of Routledgeout on God’s great windy seas—always alone, always ondeck in storms that drove others below; she thought ofhim moving in the hidden slums of India, native of the[167]natives, eternally shadowed from his kind—alone, wasted,accursed.... Once—it was the same night that hehad slipped from a noose in the house at Madras—shewoke with a scream to find that it was only a dream—thathe was being murdered. Yet she was terrified fordays, as only one can be terrified whose brain is fineenough to respond to the immaterial currents, moldingand weaving behind all scenes and things.

Often it came to her, “This is my battle. I mustfight it cleanly and without a cry. It is hard for him andhard for me—as much as we can bear. Only Routledge-sanand I can know how hard—and God, who measuresour strength. But I shall see him again. I shall see himagain. I shall see him again.”

Beyond this, she could never go in coherent thinking.In calm moments, and without any warning, there wouldcome to her just a glimpse beyond, but never by deliberatelyforcing her thoughts. What glimpses they were,winged, marvelous,—of a bewildering intensity past thehandling of common faculties.... A great, strong-souledwoman, fashioned with the beauty of angels, andinspired with a love of the kind that only the dreamerscan know in spirit.... And she held fast to whatwas left of her father, loved him, nor allowed thevision of crossing the world to her lover to militateagainst the work of the hour.... As for Routledgedegraded, Routledge-san doing a shameful thing—thiswas unthinkable, a masterpiece of evil, one of the world’sfour-dimension errors, which held him outcast in awilderness where her soul cried nightly to be.

Autumn of the following year, and still Jerry Cardineghsat in the little rooms in Cheer Street, his daughter[168]ministering.... Noreen made a pilgrimage toBookstalls. It was a day reserved from summer, andshe had waited until afternoon when her father napped.All things were made ready for his comfort when heawakened, and she had the hours. Her carriage turnedinto the rutty, cobble-paved road, narrow and eternallyjammed. The upper front windows of the old housewere closely curtained.... She had never been upthere, though once she had asked to go.... Herfather and others had told her of the wanderer’s trophy-room,which Routledge kept from year to year and occupiedso seldom. How fared the master in thishour?...

The street boy who had been with Routledge thatlast morning was passing swiftly, carrying the wares ofa pastry-cook upon a tray. He had the look of one whowas trusted and prospering. She called and he ranforward, but halted in excitement.

“Why, you are the Boy!” she declared joyfully.

His answer was equally engaging: “Has the Mancome back?”

“Won’t you come into the carriage with me—so wecan talk about the Man?” she asked.

Talking about the Man was desirable but forbidden.Another party had wished to talk about the Man. Itwas but a moment after the Man had left him, in thecarriage of this woman. A stranger had touched hisarm, asked queer questions in a clumsy, laughing way,stood treat variously, and bored for information in themost startling and unexpected fashion, always laughing.Altogether that had been a forenoon which made himdamp to remember. Night after night, in the little hall-bedroom,[169] he had gone over every word which the strangerhad extracted. He felt that the Man would have beenproud of him, but there had been several narrow squeaks....As for the Man, Johnny Brodie had built hisfuture and his God-stuff about Him. It wasn’t altogethera matter of clothes and grub and a room of hisown. There was something deeper and bigger thanthat.... And this woman—her chances were slimabout getting anything out of him about the Man.

“I got these ’ere torts to carry?” he said. “Hasthe Man come back?”

“No, but we’ll talk about him—when you are throughwith your work.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about ’im.”

“Oh, but it’s enough that you know him—and arefond of him. How long will you be busy?”

“Till dark.”

“Oh, dear! But you will come to my house afterthat, won’t you, Boy? I’ll have a good supper for you—andsome things to take away. You’ll be glad if youcome.... Won’t you come, Boy?”

Five minutes later, Johnny stared at the recedingcarriage and at the money in his hand. He had promisedto go to Cheer Street that evening when his work wasdone. How it came about, was one of those things whichhe must figure out in silence and darkness. Certainlyhe had not intended to go. Evidently she was one ofthe Man’s possessions, and what a way she had withher!... Everything about the Man was right. Hewas all that a man could and should be. More wouldbe superfluous and distasteful.... It had lookedas if the Man had wanted to be alone that morning,[170]when this woman had borne him away in the carriage.Johnny had never quite forgiven her for that. Possiblythe Man might have had more to say to him if she hadn’tcome.... She wanted to go up into the Room,but the Man hadn’t allowed that....

“’E took me in, an’ not ’er!” he mused with suddenamazement.

The long-locked lodging—that Superlative Place!...Johnny had a pet dream. He was back on thestairs, and the Man came and carried him up into thatplace of kingliest attraction. Those were rooms like aman ought to have—shields, guns, knives, saddles, tuftsof hair (certainly scalps), chain-shirts, and shirts withtattoo-marks all over; and there was one saddle, withmud still on the stirrups, sorrel hair on the cinch, anda horsy smell.... Johnny jerked himself out of hisdelectable memories.

“I’ll go,” he muttered; “but she needn’t think she’ll’ear anything about ’im from me.”

Noreen returned to Cheer Street in the twilight,troubled by the thought that there was to be company inthe evening. She had forgotten, and wanted the wholetime with the boy.... He had passed the night inthe lodgings with Routledge—the very hours which hadmade an outcast of her lover. What might the boy nothave heard? At least he knew the Man—one soul inLondon who knew Routledge and did not seek to crushhim.

Her father regarded her hungrily as she entered.

“You’ve been gone long, Noreen,” he said. “’Tis aqueer thing that comes over a man with the years, deere.[171]I was thinking this afternoon of going away for a year—thethought of it! It’s all gone from me. Old Jerry isoff to the wars no more, unless they furnish portablepavilions for the women of the correspondents.”

She knew that his liveliness was unnatural, but somuch of her work was mere service for the tragic effacementof a loved one, that she brightened responsively tohis slightest mental activity. Dinner was nearly overwhen the door-bell rang. Noreen left her father at thetable and admitted Johnny Brodie, leading him into thesitting-room.

He removed his cap carefully, uncovering a nobleachievement of water, wrought against gritty odds, witha certain treasured pair of military brushes. The capwas carelessly stuck in his pocket. His shoes—but theblacking of Bookstalls and many other roads had thestart of months and asserted itself before the drying fireabove the recent veneer of the stranger brand. JohnnyBrodie looked captured and uncomfortable, so thatNoreen despaired to win him. Had he been older oryounger, she could not have failed; but there he sat, amale creature all deformed by years and emotions, precocitiesand vacuities—a stained and handicapped littlenobleman, all boy, and all to the good.

“We haven’t heard from the Man, either, Johnny,”she said. “We are terribly worried about him andawfully interested. I know he was very fond of you,and I hoped you could tell us something about him. Didyou know him long?”

“Nope.” The boy wondered who else was includedin the “we.”

“But that morning you seemed to have such a fine[172]and complete understanding. Did you often spend anight with him?”

“Nope. We was fren’s, though. ’E’s the right sort.Gives me a bloomin’ Tommy’s harmy blanket to sleep in,and wen I goes to get into me boots—they’re filled witbobs an’ tanners. I looks up, an’ ’e’s grinnin’—as if ’edidn’t know as to ’ow they got there.”

It was all replenishment to her veins. “And didn’the go to sleep that night, Johnny?” she asked softly.

“’Ow should I know?” he demanded innocently.

“I thought maybe you’d know. He told me—thatis, I know he had a visitor besides you that night.”

Manifestly this would never do. Noreen felt uncomfortablein her probing. She must make him see howimportant anything he might say would be not only toher, but to the Man.... As for what the boy knew,an analyst, or, better, an alienist, would be necessary topiece into a garment of reason his poor little patches ofunderstanding, in regard to what he had heard thatnight—names of men and places and deeds outsideof Bookstalls. The fact that Johnny Brodie did notunderstand, was no reason why he should uncover hispatches to this woman who understood so much. Hewas a little afraid of her, and not a little sorry that hehad come. He felt, in spite of himself, that his facewas telling her that he knew a great deal about that night.He squirmed.

Noreen sensed many of his mental operations, aroseand knelt before him, her elbows upon his knees, andlooked up into his face.

“Boy,” she whispered, “you are very good and dearto me for trying to keep his secrets. He is a great and[173]good man, who means very much to you and to me. Heis doing for some one else (who cannot love him as youand I do) a great thing and a hard thing, which keepshim away from us. So long as the secret is kept, Boy,he will have to stay away, but if we knew the secret wecould bring him back to us and be very happy....I want you to tell me all that you know, all that youheard that night while the visitor was there—but beforeyou do you must understand that you are doing onlygood for him. His good, his welfare, is life and deathto me. I love this man, Johnny Brodie, I think evenbetter than you do. Won’t you help me to bring himback?”

His eyes were wide with temptation. He longedto consult her about the laughing stranger who hadpumped him. Many things had happened to him intwelve flying, graceless years, but nothing like this.Never would come another moment like this—with thewoman, whom Bookstalls had gasped at the sight of,kneeling before him. The fate of a city might wellhave wavered in the balance before the pleading ofsuch a woman. He had a premonitive sense thatthis moment would become more significant the olderhe grew. She overturned half his resistance with thesingle fact of sharing with him the possession of theMan and acknowledging his almost co-equal rights inall that pertained. It was not her interest, but theirinterest.... And then—the seething curiosity formonths—this woman could tell him why the Man wantedthe Hate of London! There could be no mistake aboutthis last. The Man had begged for it in many ways andin such language as was never heard in Bookstalls,[174]except in the Socialist’s Hall. How could one old man,all scarred and shot up, give him the Hate of London?

At this instant Jerry Cardinegh opened the door fromthe dining-room. Noreen felt the little body turn rigidunder her hands and saw the thin jaw tighten. As sheturned hastily to her father, she heard Johnny Brodie’svoice—the voice of one who has triumphed overtemptation:

“Ask ’im! Wot yer askin’ me fer—wen ’e knows?”

She hurried to lead her father back into the dining-room,but he could not stir. His eyes had fixed themselvesupon the boy, and seemed to be draining fromhim some deadly poison. His liquor betrayed him, asit ever betrays the old and the fallen. The tissue it hadsustained collapsed in his veins and the low light lefthis brain. Only there remained horror as of a basiliskupon his face. His bright, staring eyes had a look ofisolation in the midst of altered ashen features.

It was too much for Johnny Brodie—this quick formationof havoc on the face that had been florid andsmiling. Moreover, he saw the conspiracy against himin the woman and the old man. He clapped his handto his pocket—the cap was where it belonged—boltedinto the hall and down the stairs.

Noreen’s lips formed to call his name, but the lookof her father forbade. She heard the slam of the frontdoor.

There was but one face in the world—the face ofthe boy who had so startled Jerry Cardinegh in Routledge’srooms their last night together—that could havebrought to the old man as now the falsity of his position,the shame of his silence, and the horrid closing ofhis life. Routledge himself could not have done this,for he would have returned with a smile and a grip ofthe hand. Cardinegh had received in full voltage thegalvanism Routledge had craved as a boon. He triedto speak, but the sound in his throat was like diceshaking in a leather box. He tried again unavailingly,and sank into a chair. Noreen brought the whiskey.

“Why, father, it was just a little boy whom Routledge-sanknew,” she soothed. “I found him on thestreet to-day, and asked him to come to see us to-night—becausehe had known Routledge-san.”

For an hour he sat quietly, and neither spoke.

The bell rang. Noreen steeled herself to meet aparty of correspondents who had promised to drop inupon Jerry that night. The old king was not forgottenby the princes of the craft, and his daughter wasunforgettable.

“Are you well enough to see the boys, father?”

In the past hour the old man had felt the fear ofhis daughter’s presence, a deadly fear of questions. A[176]sort of hopeless idea came to him—that men in the roomwould be a defense—until he was himself again.

“Of course. Bring them in.... The littlechap—— ... I was gripped of a sudden....It’s an old dog at best, I am, deere!”

Finacune, as handsome as a young rose-vine in hisevening wear; the heavy, panting Trollope, who put onweight prodigiously between wars; Feeney, with hislook of gloom, as if a doom-song were forever chantingin his brain; and young Benton Day, of slight but verypromising service, the man who was to take Routledge’splace on the Review in the event of war—these filled theCheer Street sitting-room with brisk affairs. Noreen’sheart was in the dark with the little boy fleeing back toBookstalls through the noisy October night. Old Jerrywas shaken up and embraced. There was to be a fullgathering of war-scribes at Tetley’s later, to discuss theRussian reply to certain Japanese proposals received bycable in the afternoon. The dean was invited to preside.Noreen saw the pained look in the eyes of Finacune ashe relaxed her father’s hand.

“I’ll not go,” said Jerry. “I drink enough at home,sure. Did you say Russia has been talking back—thoughit’s little interest I have in rumors of war? It’s a boy’swork.”

“The Czar says Japan may run Korea, but as forManchuria it is, ‘Hands off, Brownie.’” said Finacune.

“Which means——” Trollope began.

“The same old tie-up,” added Finacune. “Onlycloser to the cutting. Cable to the Pan-Anglo thisafternoon declares that Japan has already granted theinevitability of war.”

[177]“Russia suggests,” Benton Day observed carefully,“that Japan offer no military demonstration in Koreafrom the Yalu down to 40°. Japan says in reply thatshe must have a similar zone of gunless activity, then,north of the Yalu.”

“And the fact is,” said Feeney, “they’ll be shootingat each other from bank to bank before the ice is outin the spring.”

“It’s a theory of mine,” Trollope offered, “thatJapan will sink a Russian battleship or blow up a Russiantroop-train, and then observe playfully that further negotiationsare uncalled-for.”

Jerry was staring at the carpet, apparently in deepthought. Noreen was close to Finacune.

“Don’t ask him again to go to Tetley’s with youto-night,” she whispered. “He is far from well.”

“I thought it would cheer him up—to preside overan old-fashioned session of prayer for action.”

She shook her head. Her father now stared aboutfrom face to face and finally fixed upon her the nervoussmile.

“There’s a deere,” he said, “run and see if thedinner things are cleared away. We must get about theboard—for a toast to the work ahead.... Come,boys, to the dining-room.”

They obeyed with enthusiasm. Glasses and thingswere brought by Noreen. Jerry sat rigid at the head,perspiration upon his brow, the struggle for light tothink by in his brain. The men felt the strain, andpitied the woman.

“And what does England do in all this?” Cardineghasked huskily, after a painful pause.

[178]Old Feeney was nearest the dean. He dropped hishand upon the other’s arm in a quiet way. “Englandboosts for Japan, Jerry,” he replied. All were eager torelieve the strain by a detailed discussion on any subject,but the dean renewed:

“And is all quiet in India?”

“Quiet as the ‘orchard lands of long ago,’” saidFinacune.

There was something in the old man’s voice whichsuggested to Noreen the long forgotten passion—so outof place here. She trembled lest he should prove unableto handle himself.

“England——” Cardinegh rumbled the name. It wasas if he were fighting for a grasp upon all that thegigantic word had meant to him. “England ought tobe down there fighting the Czar on the British-Indianborder—not on the Yalu.”

It was clear to all why England was not embroiledwith Russia—the Anglo-Japanese alliance—save to theold man who should have known best. The truththundered now in the clouds of his brain, but he could notinterpret. Nobody spoke, for the dean’s hand was raisedto hold the attention. The gesture was a pitiful attemptto assist him to concentrate. He faltered helplessly, andfinally uttered the words nearest his lips:

“Finacune, the florid,—you’re for the Word asusual?”

They all breathed again. The old man had founda lead.

“Always for the Word, Jerry—I write war for theskirt-departments of London.”

[179]“And you, Blue Boar—for the Examiner?” hedemanded of Trollope.

“The same.”

“And Benton Day—you——” Cardinegh’s expressionsuddenly became single-pointed. Here were breakersagain.

“It’s not rightly settled, sir. I’ve got lines outseverally. I really do want to go.”

“Then Dartmore didn’t call you to the Review yet?”

“I did speak with Dartmore,” said Day. “Thingsare not altogether settled, though.”

Jerry regarded him for a second, as if to say, “I’llget back to you, young man, when I am through withthis peroration.”

“And, Bingley, the ‘Horse-killer’?” he resumed.

“Goes out for the Thames, as usual. There’s a ladthat means to make us all sweat,” Finacune said thoughtfully.

“Feeney—you old were-wolf—you’ve been scratchingold Mother Earth in the raw places—almost as longas I have. What are you out for this time?”

Feeney hesitated, and Trollope dragged out theanswer: “All kinds of berths for Feeney. The Thameswill put out a dispatch-boat which he can command ifhe likes. The Pan-Anglo wants him for the Russianend. Also he’s got an offer to follow the Japanese.Feeney told me more about the Yalu country, and thatnew cartridge-belt of creation, while we were walkingover here to-night—red-beard bandits, Russian granddukes, Japanese spies, with queues, who have beenmapping Manchuria for ten years—than any white manhas a right to know.”

[180]The fact was that old Feeney had about closed togo out for the Witness, which Jerry had left open.

“There’s no need of asking about Talliaferro,”Cardinegh said impatiently.

“No, Talliaferro is Peter Pellen’s ‘Excalibur,’ asusual; and will set out on schedule for the Yalu or theGugger—wherever the fronts meet.”

“And the Witness?” Jerry said, clearing his throat.His thoughts were like birds starting up in the dusk,clots of night without name and form.

Finacune arose and filled the breech. “The Witnessawaits the word of the greatest of us all—our dean,Jerry Cardinegh. I propose now a drink to him standing—tothe greatest of our kind!”

Personal vanity had never fallen into the senility ofthe Irishman, but he arose with the others, and hisface caught up an old wild look familiar to everyonein the room, as he raised his hand to speak:

“Let us drink to the greatest of us all, as you say,—notto the decayed correspondent which the Witness doesnot wait for.” His eyes flashed with a sudden memoryof the windy night in Bhurpal. “Let us drink to thegreatest of us all—‘the man whom the gods formed fora war-correspondent—or a spy, as you like—whom theytempered in hell’s fire and holy water’—drink to CosmoRoutledge, already afield!”

The old man did not note the suppressed disorder,nor the dawn of joy on the face of his daughter.

“I remember he called me the ‘damaged archangel’that night,” he added softly, and turned to Benton Day:“God be with him this night—and with you, too, lad—foryou’ll need Him—to take his place.”

[181]Jerry drank ceremoniously and alone, but there wasa fuller tribute than any emptied glass ever tokened—inthe brimming eyes of Noreen.... The boyswere in the hall.

“I’m going—not to war, lads—but to bed,” Cardineghsaid, and presently called after them at the door:“May the patchwork for peace fail to cover the kneesof the nations!”

Noreen was alone. Her brain, sensitive from wearinessand wounds, moved swiftly, restlessly. She knewat this moment the correspondents would be discussingthe phases of her father’s madness—whispering atTetley’s of the fall of the chieftain. Later, at the banquet-table,when the wines swept away all lesser regards,they would no longer whisper.... These menwere her friends all. Not one would have hesitated toserve her well in any need. She did not want to dothem an injustice; and yet there was something in theirminds that was stinging and foreign now. The cause wasin her own mind, and she realized it. They were bigamong men, big among their kind, honorable and genuine,but it was not in human reason for them to shareher immutable trust, any more than they could sharethe feminine outpouring of her heart for the man afield.Also she knew that there were few things in this worldthat Routledge could have done wicked enough to shakethese men so utterly from allegiance to him. He hadbeen to them a mystical attraction of virtue, as he wasnow in their eyes the imperator among criminals.

She understood something of what her father hadpassed through in the recent hours. The sight of theBookstalls boy had withered him like some disordered[182]ghost; and yet, to her, there was a greater tragedy inwatching her father try to hold his old place as chief atthe table of war-men. He had not lost that king-tortureof consciousness which showed him that he was not as hehad been. His struggle to cast out the abiding fatuities,and to regain his old high place of mental activity, wasterrible to witness—like the suspension of his facultiesupon a cross.

Little could be added now to Noreen’s suffering. Itis not given to one in the depths to realize what perfectsoul-substance the recent months had brought her. Thethought had come in her happier reactions, that if shewere like other human beings, the patience, the self-control,and the purity of her yearning—this bearing allcleanly and without a cry—was great with temperingand expansion. But the hunger within her was deep andmasterful for the end of it all. As never before, she feltthe need of a human force to lean upon. There wasneither priest nor pastor nor woman in her life. Herheart cried out for a greatness such as Routledge hadsuggested in Rawder. To her, their bravest man was asplendid, glowing picture of sorrows; before such a oneshe could have knelt and found healing, indeed....And with what infinite content could she have knelt in thishour before the disciple of Rawder!

It is a dear but delicate thing to chronicle that mattersof sex were practically untouched by the mind of thewoman in so far as Routledge was concerned. Not atall did she despise these matters; nor is it to be inferredthat she was one of those miraculous innocents whor*ach maturity with a mind virgin to the mysteries ofcreation. She had felt with a thrilling, exquisite sense[183]the imperious young summer of her life, and all thatthrobbing veins and swift-running dreams mean underthe steady stars.... But the call to her out ofall creation—which was the voice of Routledge—wasvital with a rounder and more wonderful vibrance.

One art of his that had found the heart of her washis conception of the inner loveliness of life. He caughtthe finer relation of things. He could love the lowliest,hunger with them, and realize in their midst the brotherhoodof man. He perceived the great truths everywherewhich purely physical men, of necessity, must miss. Hisdiscovery of Rawder was great with meaning to Noreen,and his adoration for those silent sacrifices which summedinto a life of glory unobserved by the world. He couldlove India without hating England. He could be thegreatest of war-scribes and despise war. He laughedat material possessions and bowed before breech-cloutchivalry. He had witnessed processes of life and deathin their most cruel, intricate, and abominable manifestations,but had preserved his optimism. This, which somany words are required even to suggest—and which iscovered in the single expression, soul growth—was therousing, irresistible appeal of Routledge to the womanwhose spiritual age was sufficient to respond to it.

The man’s intellect—in contrast to the enchantingmystic element of his mind—compelled, stimulated, andenfolded her own. When Routledge talked, such asympathy was aroused within her that she could watchthe play of scenes before his eyes, the tithe of which onlyhe told. In all that he had said and written she found thesame smooth-running, high-powered intelligence. Shehad never touched his limitations, therefore infinity could[184]hold no greater delights. She loved the harmony of histalents and the sterling, one-pointed direction of a manwhose life is apart from the complicated lives of modernmen. All dimensions of knowledge were in his mind;and yet its surfaces were free from taints and scar-tissue,preserved with virginities. His thoughts had that firmdelicacy of the strong, and some of his thoughts hadripened in mystic suns and rains.

Once she had been but one of many champions ofthe man and his work. From time to time under hisname, the Review had ignited London. The men of hisworld and hers had granted his supremacy as a picture-makerof war—and yet to her this was one of his lesserattractions. She loved to look into his conception ofthings back of the words. How pitiably often were thewords shaped to meet the so-called needs of a dailypaper, as the bones of a Chinese foot are crushed intoa thimble. It was the master behind the narrator; theman who lived and moved in a wonderland that was ahopeless arcanum to the many; the man who glimpsedthe temple of truth, if not from within, at least from thegardens—it was he who fascinated the woman. Andsince she loved him, she was proud that his intelligenceenfolded her own.

The physical man, Routledge, all men had foundexcellent in those good days before the mystery. Hisendurance and bravery had formed many classics forhis craft. He had always bewitched her father. Incidentally,her life among the many friends of her father—soldiers,seamen, and civilian campaigners—had taughther that man’s judgment for man is best.... Butit was not Routledge, the fearless and tireless; not[185]Routledge, the male, who called her so ardently thisnight. At least, it was less the male than the mind; andless the mind than the mystic.... It would bethe idlest affectation to assert that actual marriage withRoutledge was beyond the pale of her thoughts; andyet this was not her ultimate passion. To be with himin great wanderings of gentle purport; to meet the sunsand storms with calmness and cheer; constantly to toiltogether, helping, meditating, always together on theworld’s highways, always looking toward God’s GoodHope, with thoughts in the stars, but not so lost in thestars that they missed the sorrowing by the roadside;—wanderinggrateful for life together, having a tear forthe helpless, a smile for the beautiful, and a love foreach other so vast and pure that it must needs love theworld and reflect the love of God.... Such wasNoreen Cardinegh’s dream of the fullness of days—sogreat a gratitude to the Most High for the presence ofher lover, that it would manifest itself in eternal servicesto those who could not be so happy—services that falteredbefore no pain, quailed before no horrent spectacle,and retained their sweet savor in the lowliest hauntsof men.

Marriage.... It might come. In somegarden of the world, there might be a halting, when thefull tides of life swelled together. No fixed date, exteriorformality; no words uttered by a Third could releasethese two for triumphant nuptial flight!... Shehad seen too much mangling of this intimate and portentousmoment between man and woman, by a stranger,the member of a paid profession—how often the merelicensed liberator of lusts. A signal from him, as to[186]runners set for a Marathon—the spirit of chastity alreadya ghost....

If she should some time turn in the day’s journey andmeet in the eyes of Cosmo Routledge that challengewhich startled her into full-length a woman—with oldNature’s anthem flooding her vein and brain—then ofall times, in their incarnation, would there be but thehand of the conqueror to lead her to the place the earth-godshad made ready!... After that, the formalities,the blessings—and the law which, being good forthe many, is necessary for all....

She leaned against the mantel and closed her eyes,trying to find her lover’s lodge this night in the wildernessof the world.

“Nor—Noreen!”

The voice, rough, charged with fright in itself, shookthe woman to the very roots of her life. Her wholepsychic force had winged away to find the mate; onlyher body was in the silent room in Cheer Street. Thereis a thrilling hurt in the sudden intrusion of physicalforce upon such contemplation. She ran to her father’sroom.

“Eh, Gawd! I—I was dreaming, child,” he mumbled,as she entered the dark where he lay.

Hai, Johnny Brodie of Bookstalls, there’s a sweetlady looking for you! Possibly you know it, scamp,and are tricking from doorway to doorway behind hercarriage, and grinning because those of whom she inquiresdon’t know a little maverick like you....You think she is out to do harm to the Man; and youwon’t be caught with her elbows on your knees again,and her great gold-brown eyes boring into your hardhead where the Man’s sacred secrets are!... Perhapsyou will, after all, Johnny Brodie, but it will beafter this narrative (when there are lights again in thatroom of mystery and enchantment across the hall), andthe Man is back in Bookstalls, there being no furtherneed of secrets.... The Hate of London will neverchange direction by reason of gossip of yours, JohnnyBrodie, because “the best fellows in this world are thosestrong enough to hold their tongues at the right time.”You learned that lesson, Manikin. Did you learn theother so well—about it not being good to do a thingalone, which you wouldn’t do if the one you liked bestin the world were watching? That’s a harder lesson....No, it won’t be your revelation of that impregnablenight which brings the outcast into love and laurels,but so badly have you frightened a poor old man that he[188]is about to rush half around the world to avoid meetingyou again—instead of dying in Cheer Street....Your short-trousered part in these events ended with theslam of the Cheer Street door, Johnny Brodie—but Godlove you, little boy, and Johnny Brodies everywhere!...

The next morning, and thrice in the week following,Noreen Cardinegh drove to Bookstalls and threaded theunkempt way up and down in vain for the boy. Shehad failed to learn the name of the pastry-cook whoemployed him, and it would have been her last thoughtto seek him in the house of Routledge’s lodgings.Though a familiar in Bookstalls, he was an unfiled humandocument of the ancient highway; and always she returnedto Cheer Street profitless.... It would bemerciless to question her father; and yet he seemed todivine her anxiety to find the boy, and to fear her successas a visitation of death. It was hard for her to see him,the man whose courage had been a point of British commentfor forty years, white, shaken, and exhausted fromsuspense when she returned from Bookstalls. Still, hedared not ask if she had seen the boy; and she did notconfess that she had been searching.

Her only line on the mystery was to this effect:Routledge, though innocent, was blamed by England forsome appalling, unmentionable crime, openly unpunishable.Her father and a few others knew the specificcharge. Routledge had not known this at the Armory,but knew it the morning afterward. Meanwhile, herfather and Johnny Brodie had been with him. All theboy’s actions denoted that he knew something, possibly[189]a great deal in a fragmentary way, which she might beable to piece together into an illumination. He musthave known something, since he apparently had beenpledged to silence. At all events, he was lost.

It must be understood that Noreen’s conviction ofher father’s integrity had never been shaken. It wasmore than a family faith. His life had been as a recordaccessible to all men. It did not even occur to her tobuild a system of reasoning upon the hypothesis of anyguilt of his, even though much was strange and foreboding.She had heard her father mutter that a war wouldbring Routledge out of his lair. She could not forgetthat her father had come back from India on the dayof the Reception, all consumed and brain-numbed fromstrain. For a moment in her arms he had broken completely—actinglike one who was to be dragged fromher to the gallows. The next morning, after his returnto Cheer Street from Routledge, the tension was gone.

Comparative peace had endured, with only an occasionalrestless interval, until the sight of the Bookstallsboy had filled him with inexplicable dread. His conditionwhen she returned from her fourth journey to Bookstallswas such that she determined not to go again. One oftwo results was inevitable if this devouring tension wasnot speedily relaxed—utter insanity or swift death. Onemore circ*mstance in this connection intensified the mystery,even though it gave her gladness—her father’s toastto the outcast, the toast that was drunk alone. He waswithout that poisonous personal hatred which the othersmanifested toward Routledge. All these thoughts hadworn grooves in her mind from much passing, but theydid not evolve her father’s shame.

[190]Throughout the week, the correspondents had droppedin by twos and threes to bid them good-by. Negotiationswere at a dead-lock, and the London dailies wanted theirmen on the spot for eventualities. Most of the men weregoing west to the Far East—the twenty-five day route,via America. Some one, however, mentioned Suez, andthe name was on Jerry Cardinegh’s lips for an entireafternoon. At dinner his idea broke into words:

“Come, deere, we must pack to-night. We’re offto-morrow for Japan on the P. & O. liner, Carthusian.We can smell the ruction in Japan—and it’s a good placeto live. London—aye, God, the old town is murderingme!”

She had thought of it many times, but until last weekher father had been happy in Cheer Street, entirelyimmune to the war ferment. Noreen understood whathad turned London into an iron pressure—one little boy,lost in din and fog and multitudes. She was glad to goaway.

The first few days at sea helped her father, but theimprovement did not last. They travelled very leisurely,sometimes stopping over a ship in different ports. Itwas with a quickened heart that the woman saw theIndian coast again after several years. Routledge wasintricately identified with the India of her mind now,and she knew that somewhere in India he was living outhis exile. Always in those days and nights of watchingand labor with the sleepless old man who was leavingher hourly, with the accelerated speed of a river thatnears its falls, she was thrilled with the hope that Bombayor Madras or Calcutta would give her some living wordof the outcast. She hardly hoped to see Routledge; but[191]with a triple hunger she yearned to hear that he lived,even to hear his name uttered by some one in whom themystery had inspired hatred.... But the Indianports furnished nothing concerning Routledge. Theyrevived, however (and in her maturity), the half-formedimpressions of her girlhood on the Anglo-Indians andtheir life. To observe and despise certain aspects of theruling people was as certain a heritage from her fatheras was that fairer evolution of the spirit with which shehad been blest by some elder lineage.

The English at Home, Noreen had ever regardedwith a mental reservation, or two; and with those telling,divining eyes which are not rarely filled with Irish light.She had repressed and even tried to root out an instinctiveanimus for certain monuments and institutions largein British life; she tried constantly to shut her eyes tothat quarry of self-infatuation, perdition deep, fromwhich these monuments and institutions were carved.She came to triumph over her critical impulses at home,partly because her incisive barbs were dulled by constantcontact and repetition—but India again after the fewvital years of growth!... Londoners might forgetthemselves for an hour or two a day on the Thames.They allowed it to be taken for granted an hour or two aday at Home that they were English. In India, they weremore English than the English.

It must not be forgotten that Noreen Cardinegh’smind was the arena of interminable rebellion against thebanishment of Routledge. All Englishmen of rankarrayed themselves in contrast to him. She knew thatthis was wrong, useless; that the energy which spentit*elf in contrasting to the disfavor of the English,[192]reacted with a hurt to her own finest nature, but shecould not help it now. As a daughter of Jerry Cardinegh,she could not be free from something of his passion;moreover, body and brain, she was spent in his service.There were vast areas of unhealed tissue within her—theagony of a daughter of strong devotion, and theagony of a woman whose romance is mined and countermined.So it was a weary and supersensitive naturethat caught its new series of impressions of Anglo-Indianlife—the life of pegs and chits; men moving in acircle like those lost in the woods; men speaking of theirlivers as of members of the family; hot, heavy dinners;the religious, life-and-death ceremony of eating anddrinking; the arrogant assumption of superiority overthe native, and each separate foreigner a cyst of thegreat British drain! Such were the men of the Indianports to whom the name of Cosmo Routledge was asblack magic. It all came back to her like an ugly dream,and it is not strange that she returned speedily to herships to cleanse herself from her thoughts in the prophylacticsea-winds.

A day north out of Hong Kong on one of theEmpress steamers, Noreen drew her chair to a shelteredplace on the promenade to rest an hour. The afternoonwas keen and renovating after the slow days of heat inthe Indian Ocean. Two Americans were standing at alittle distance, and one was speaking with animation.A sentence of his reached the woman’s ears from timeto time, between boisterous rushes of wind....“One of the best talkers I ever heard in my life.”...“No personal hate about it.”... “Literallyquartered England and fed her to the pigs.”...[193]“No, wouldn’t give me his name, but I learnedit.”... “When I mentioned his name afterwardto an Englishman, he turned pale, as if I had turned loosethe devil.”... “Speaking of famine conditions,this Routledge——”

Mr. Jasper, whose Indian studies had been put asidefor the time by the pressing call of human interest toTokyo, turned quickly just now at the touch of a handupon his sleeve, and found a woman whose face he isstill remembering—even as he enjoys recalling all thewords and phrases of the mysterious stranger ofRydamphur.

“Forgive me, sir,” Noreen panted, “but I could nothelp overhearing something you said. You—you mentioneda name that is very dear to me—Routledge!”

“I did—yes. A man I met in Rydamphur, of theCentral Provinces of India. Excuse me, did you say hewas dear to you?”

“Yes.”

“That is so queer—a rather pleasant surprise for me.Others have felt differently about Routledge. Are yousure you mean this man—a very tall fellow of thirty-threeor thirty-four, with a thin, dark, striking face,and a striking way of putting things in words?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

Jasper offered his card.

“I am Miss Cardinegh, Mr. Jasper. Won’t youplease tell me all that you can about him. It means somuch to me.... Shall we go into the reading-room?”

Jasper assented, begging leave from his companion....They sat down together, and the American[194]restored Rydamphur from memory. Since he had thoughtmuch of his day and night in that little centre of suffering,he built the picture rather well. He described themanner of Routledge, and related a few of the faminefacts as he had drawn them in that evening-hour at theRest House.

“As I look back on it all, there is a queer atmosphereabout the whole affair,” said Jasper. “Such a place Inever have known, as that little dining-room in Rydamphur.Mr. Routledge seemed to grasp at once that myinterest was sincere. His mind was filled with the pithof things I wanted to learn. No Englishman seemed tobe able to talk impersonally on the famine.... I’llnever forget the baking night in that house. Thepunkahs jerked every moment or so, as if the coolie hadstopped to scratch himself. There was a cat-footedservant hanging about, and the lamps were turned low—asif a bright flame could not live in that burned air.”

Mr. Jasper took evident pleasure in the intensity ofinterest his narrative inspired. “But first I must tellyou, Miss Cardinegh,” he went on, “that just as Ientered the town in the afternoon, I passed a little hutwith an open door. The breath that came out to me,I’ll not attempt to describe: only to say that there wasin it more than realism. I had come far to see a realfamine, and this was my first lesson. A few steps onfrom the hut, I turned to see a white man coming out.It was not Mr. Routledge, but a smaller man, dressed innative garb. I have thought much of his face. It hada look as if all the tragedies that a man can know hadbeaten upon it; and yet it was so strong and so calm....It was all like a dream to me. Then this wonderful[195]talk with Mr. Routledge at dinner. Afterward,I asked his name, but he withheld it laughingly—in sucha way that I took no offense—only wondered at it.”

“But you learned his name——”

“Yes, I will tell you. That night after he left me,I went to my room and thought a long time on thethings he had said. I remember one of his sayingsimpressed me greatly—that we of the occident hadlearned to suffer only through our excesses—but Indiathrough her famines. He intimated that the latterprocess is better for the soul.... It was too hotto think of sleep, so I went out to walk in that still,stricken place. At the far end of the street, I saw acandle-light and heard the voice of a white man. Andthat voice I shall never forget—so low was it, so thrillingand gentle. I remember the words—they were printedon some inner wall of my brain. This is what the voicesaid:

“‘... Night and morning, I shall send you myblessing, Routledge, my brother. Morning and evening,until we meet again in the Leper Valley, you shall knowthat there is a heart that longs for the good of yourlife and your soul. Good-by.’... I hurried back,lest it be thought that I was eavesdropping. The manwho spoke was the white man in native garb who hademerged in the afternoon from that hut of unburieddead. The man whom he addressed as ‘Routledge’—andthus I learned his name—was the one who hadtalked to me so brilliantly at dinner. A third sat in thecandle-light—a very aged Hindu.... It is all verymemorable to me, Miss Cardinegh.”

Again and again he told the story, or parts of it, to[196]the woman; also of the doings of Routledge the nextmorning, before the English came. Noreen thankedhim brokenly at last and hurried back to her father’sstate-room. Mr. Jasper saw very little of the lady duringthe rest of the voyage, and lost her entirely at Shanghai,where in stopping over he is left behind the movementof the present narrative—a worthy, growing Americanwho will have much to tell his sister of Madras andthe interior, in spite of missing the illustrious AnnieBesant, pronounced “Bessant” for esoteric reasons.

The incident was like oxygen to the tired woman.Nearing Shanghai, the Empress steamer nosed thewinter zone, and Jerry Cardinegh was not well enoughto go ashore. Noreen had shopping to do, and took theafternoon launch up the river for an hour in the city.Snow was falling. On the Bund, Noreen encounteredFinacune, who had come down from Tokyo to get aglance at affairs from the outside. He declared thatlittle or nothing was to be learned in the Japanese capital.Already the nation was constructing an impenetrableatmosphere about her great war. Finacune was goingback on the Empress. As the time was short, theyparted to attend their several errands, planning to meetat the launch later.

With her parcels, Noreen hurried back from the shopsto the Bund in the winter twilight. Finacune, who hadnot seen her, was fifty feet ahead, also making for thewater-front. She saw him stop short, stare for aninstant at the profile of a huge, gaunt figure—in thegreat frieze coat! It was then that the mighty leap ofher heart forced a cry from her throat.... Routledge,staring out over the darkening river, started at[197]her voice and the touch of her hand. For a moment hepressed his fingers against his eyes as if trying to shutout some haunt from his brain. Then he, spoke slowly:

“I did not think that there were substances fineenough in the world to make a woman so beautiful——”

“Routledge-san! Oh, God, there is only a momentor two!”

“I should not have been here,” he began vaguely.“Some one may see you talking with me.”

“Don’t speak of that!... Oh, words are suchpuny things now! I thought we understood each otherabout that. Tell me, are you ill? You look——”

“No, not ill, Noreen. I shall be tiptop when I getup yonder into the field.... You startled me. Ithink I was in a kind of dream about you, and thenyou——” The old dread returned to his mind. Hewondered if the man who had passed had been Finacune.“Are you alone? I wouldn’t have anybody see youtalking to me.”

All that was in her heart was called forth by thespectacle of her giant’s pallor and seeming weakness.Proudly she put all this into words:

“I would not care if the whole world saw me withyou. It is the same with me—as I told you on the wayto Charing Cross! What you may think—does notmake me afraid. You have done no wrong. I want tobe with you—but the time is not yet come. It is dreadful.Why do you forget all that we told each other—allthat I told you?”

“I have not forgotten,” he said huskily. “Thescars of that hour in the carriage—leaving you that hour—wouldnot suffer me to forget, but I should not speak[198]this way. I wrong you speaking this way. I am only aworld-tramp between wars.... And this war Imust watch alone—from the edge where the others donot go. God, what a coward I should be—to chanceyour happiness——”

The launch whistled—a tearing in her brain. Thecall to her father was instant and inexorable....But she clung to Routledge—drew him to the very edgeof the stone-pier, blind to the glances of men and womenwho brushed by.

“Quick, tell me of Jerry!” he said. “Is he out forthe war?”

“My father is dying a slow death out yonder on theship. I must go to him. Already he is dead to wars andfriends—all but dead to me!” She added imperiously,“When my work is finished with him, I shall keep mypromise, Routledge-san. I shall come to you!”

“No—I’m going where you could not follow——”

“I shall find you!”

“But I have nothing between wars—no British pressnow, Noreen—only a begging-bowl in India. Why, myname is a whispered hate!... Just a begging-bowlin India, Noreen—and your sweet faith in me.”

She was splendid in the ardor of her answer:

“That begging-bowl in India—I shall carry and sharewith you! I shall take for mine—that name of whisperedhate!... Routledge-san, you have done no wrong—butI should love you, if you led the armies of theworld—to burn London!”

He helped her aboard, as the bow was putting outinto the river. “In a time like this there are not bigenough words for you, Noreen Cardinegh.”

[199]“Oh, Routledge-san,—until I come, take care of yourlife for me!” she called.... Then, fearless, full-voiced,she added, standing in the snowy dusk: “Andwhen I come—I shall take care of your life for you—evenin the Leper Valley!”

He watched her through the big, slow-falling flakes,until the launch disappeared behind the white stern ofan American gunboat.

Finacune caught a train for Tokyo, after disembarkingat Yokohama, an hour or two before the Cardineghs.He wanted to prepare the way at the Imperialfor the coming of the dean and his daughter. It wasdark when he reached Shimbashi station and crossed theGinza to the now-famous hotel. Certain of the Englishcorrespondents were gathered in the lobby, it being notyet time to dress for dinner. These Finacune beckonedto the billiard-room, and, standing at the head of thefarthest table, glanced over the faces to be sure thatnone but the trusted British were present. Then he whisperedimpressively:

“Scene: the Bund at Shanghai, snowy twilight; time,five days ago. Looking out upon the darkening river,‘... a face thin as a dead camel’s and yellow-whitelike coral!’ That’s one of his own sentences, andGod pity or punish the sorrow of his face—as youlike——”

“Cut out the scenario,” ordered Bingley. “Who wasit?”

“The great frieze coat.”

Bingley was first to break the silence.

“Nice raw state of affairs,” he remarked savagely.“I s’pose he has caught on with one of those fluttered[201]newspapers of New York. They are grabbing up anybodyover here, even the remittance-men, so they won’thave to pay expenses out. Rather raw deal, I call it,—tobe forced to ride with a traitor in this campaign.”

It was the austere Feeney who answered darkly,“Recall, ‘Horse-killer,’ that Routledge rides alone.”

“I can’t see yet why the secret service doesn’t delegatea man to get him,” Bingley whispered.

They had not heard that a venture of the kind hadfailed at Madras.

“There is a time for all things,” Feeney replied.“England never forgets a man like——”

“Are you quite sure of the face you saw?” inquiredBenton Day, the new man of the Review. His tone wastroubled. His work was cut out for him—to keep upthe war-reputation of the old paper of fat columns.

“Surely,” Finacune said cheerfully, “unless thebottom dropped out of my brain-pan.”

Trollope sniffed ponderously, and was about to commentwhen the little man of the Word resumed:

“Also, I am permitted to say—and this with a greatand sweet joy—that our dean, war’s own favorite, JerryCardinegh, came up with me from Shanghai on theEmpress, and that he will be here to-night with hisdaughter, Miss Noreen.”

The announcement was acclaimed.

“I heard he was coming,” said Feeney, “but how amI to meet the old champion—me, holding down his oldchair-of-war on the Witness.”

“He’ll never think of it,” said Finacune. “OldJerry is nearly out of sight—over the bay. He didn’tleave his state-room coming up—only let me see him[202]once. His daughter is with him day and night. Theold man thought he’d like to get into the zone of waronce more—before he goes out on the last campaign,where we all ride alone.”

It is to be observed that the little Word man did nottell all he saw on the Bund at Shanghai.

The men repaired to the buffet to break the strain.Those were heavy days—those early February days inTokyo. War was inevitable, but not declared. Tokyowas sort of pleased at her own forbearance. The vaccineof European civilization had worked with fullnessand dispatch. Here was proof: the Russian minister hadbeen allowed to clear, double-eyed and teeth still straight.The mobs in the street did not profess to understand thevalue of allowing the enemy to depart personally intact—butit was being civilized. The world was watching theyoung yellow nation’s first venture in humane war; afterwhich, if she conducted herself prettily, the world wouldbe pleased to admit her into the first flight of the powers,where all things having to do with economy, polity,expansion, revenue, and survival are done in a finishedfashion. England was watching—and stood behind her.Japan must conduct herself in such a way as not to dragEngland into the conflict.

Japanese infants played soldiers; Japanese policemenplayed soldiers; rickshaw coolies, beneath the contemptof a soldier, dreamed of future incarnations whenthey should evolve into soldiers; Japanese merchantssnuffled, rubbed their damp hands together, and weptinternally because the Great Wheel of Fate had notskited them off into the military class, instead of amongthe low-brows of the shops. And the soldiers themselves—how[203]they strutted and performed in the streets,critically mirroring each other and bowing profoundly,blind to all glory and sorrow not of the soldier, andimportant as a grist of young doctors just turned loosewith their diplomas among the ills of the world....Aye, funny and pitiful, the young Power looked in itsWestern pants and guns.

What did England think—smiling back at the peaceof her Indian borders—of these wee, wet-nosed, scabby-headedIslanders (with their queer little cruet-standsbuckled between their kidneys), in full cry with “BanzaiNiphon” from cape to cape? What England thoughtwas not what England said, as she reserved the frontpages of her daily press for Japanese victories—whetheror no. Not exactly an ally in spirit was wise old England,but an ally in letterpress—the veriest Titan of apress-agent.... Funny and pitiable indeed wasthe ranting, tramping Japanese infantry in the streets ofTokyo—funnier than stage infantry—quite like string-pulledmarionettes of papier maché; but let the truth betold, the truth that rises clear from the final adjustmentof objects in the perspective: The oil of all the chlorates,nitrates, and fulminates filled those queer little kidney-cruets;and these same little Japanese infantrymen provedpackages—papier maché packages, if you like—of lyddite,bellite, cordite, romite, hellite, and other boiled-downcyclones.

On one of those ugly gray afternoons of early February,Benton Day of the Review received a cablegramfrom his chief in London, Dartmore. There are few menwho would express themselves ironically by cable at the[204]London-Tokyo rate of toll. Dartmore did it, and themessage follows, with flesh and organs added to thecipher-skeleton:

The Review thought you would be interested to know thatJapan has declared war and smashed part of the Russian fleet.This news from New York. Kindly inform Tokyo war-office,which I understand is just a step from your hotel.

Benton Day had come up from common things bystrong, hard, well-planned work. He had known fewdefeats, and these cut deeply. The cable from Dartmorewas the worst whipping of his career. Gray with shame,he sought the billiard-room of the hotel, where he foundan animated group of British and American correspondentswho had just heard the news—ten hours after ithad been printed in London and New York. He foundthat Dartmore alone had taken pains to be ironical inthe matter. The truth was exactly as ungetatable inTokyo as in Mombassa—until the war-office chose togive it up. Benton Day was only to blame in so far ashe was not a telepathist. This knowledge eased himgreatly, but did not detract from his anger at Dartmore—anemotion which is bad for a young man to take out onhis first big campaign. The little sentence in the cablegramregarding the fact that London had received thenews from New York, held big interest for Feeney, thesaturnine.

“Japan was busy last night,” he communed. “HerMr. Togo smashed the Russians off Port Arthur, andher little Mr. Uriu, off Chemulpo. It’s about time,” headded with a trace of Indiana humor, “Japan wasdeclaring war. But the thing that gets me is, how didNew York know?... Finacune, my young[205]friend, was it you who suggested something about thegreat frieze coat catching on with New York papers?”

Harrowing weeks at the Imperial followed, whilearmies augmented, navies fought in the dark, and thebearers of the light of the world made newspaper copyout of heathen temples and Japanese street scenes. Freelances fled to outer ports, there to hearken unto the talesof refugees and weary the world. And the names ofthese, the Japanese carefully ticketed to Failure, andsevered from Opportunity forever.

The Blue Boar, Trollope, wore best of all. He bathedin many springs throughout the empire, peeked intostrange quarters of both capitals, and ate and drankafter the fashion of those who are formed of arcs andnot of angles. From time to time he cabled his paperthree words of hope, and eight words of expense account.Trollope strolled down the menus in all parts of Niphon—nativeand European menus—with fine relish, and waitedserenely for the time when he should lean and hardenin the field, his sleeves rolled up—one hand covering thestrategy of armies, the other at a cable-end, and his sweatingface reflecting the pink and pearly flush of fame.

It was not so with the others. Finacune was raggedand restless. The pale Talliaferro looked twice for hisown shadow. Feeney’s dark fighting-face wasted andhardened, until it seemed hewn from a block of brownbone; and Trollope’s serene and changeless calm wroughtupon Bingley’s nerves like an active poison.

These two did not pretend to speak at the last. TheHorse-killer took on the look (his gray eyes were coldand immutable as corner stones, anyway) as if he would[206]spur over a sea of dead men’s faces to get a big tale anda free cable. It would not have been so bad except thatthe London papers, coming in now with the first cablesof the correspondents, showed a consistent garbling anddistortion of their reports. Home writers occupied milesof space, placed Togo along with Lord Nelson, andMutsuhito with Gladstone—a deep planned, consciencelesscampaign of fact-mutilation for the extolling ofJapanese character and mettle. New York, young inwar-handling, was inclined to follow London’s diplomaticlead, against the reports of her own men. February andMarch ended before the first batch of the British correspondentswere informed that they could take the fieldwith Kuroki’s first army.

Feeney and Finacune remained in the billiard-roomthat last night at the Imperial, long after the rest hadgone. These two men had pulled apart from the othersin pulling together—the most florid with the dullest ofwriters; the showiest with the deepest. It had been anevening of rousing festivity. Possibly because these twohad drunk less than the others; or possibly because theirhopes for the field had been prolonged and mangled forsuch a length of time that they could not sleep now untilthey were actually booming down the Tokaido, Feeneyand Finacune were billiarding idly after one o’clock inthe morning and cooling the fever of the night’s strongerspirits with long, chilled glasses of soda, lightly flavoredwith Rhenish wine.

Jerry Cardinegh had come down for a moment earlyin the evening for a word of parting. For days nonehad seen him below; and only a few of his older friendswere admitted to the big, dim room, overlooking the[207]park of the Government buildings—where a womanlived and moved, lost to light and darkness, and struggledevery inch with the swift encroachments of the inevitable.Noreen’s father relied upon her, as upon air anda place to lie. God knows what vitality he drew fromthe strong fountains of her life to sustain his last days.

Incessantly active, Noreen Cardinegh was worn to abrighter lustre, as if fatigue brought out the fineness ofher human texture—a superlative woman who held herplace and her dreams. Finacune had loved her for years.He was closer to her own romance than any of herfather’s friends; and the little man perceived with anagony of which few would have thought him capable,that his own chance was not worth the embarrassmentof telling her. Indeed, Finacune told no one. This washis best room, and locked. Noreen Cardinegh was theimage there, beyond words, almost an abstraction. ThisWord man was rather a choice spirit, if not a great one.He was thinking of Noreen now, as he knocked the ballsaround. She had appeared with her father earlier inthe night, and had stood behind him under the oldMoorish arch at the entrance to the billiard-room—darknessbehind her, and a low table-chandelier infront....

Finacune was thinking, too, of the old man whomshe had helped down-stairs to say good-by to the boys.Cardinegh had been his boyish ideal. He would not beseen again—and what a ghastly travesty was his lastappearance!... Jerry had entered walking rigidly,his limbs like wood, a suggestion of chaos in the shaking,aimless hands; the shaven face all fallen about the mouth;all the stirring history of an earth-wise man, censored and[208]blotted from the flame-rimmed eyes; the temples blotchedwith crimson and the mind struggling with its débrislike Gilliat against sea and sand and sky. And thewords the dean had uttered—nothings that meant death.

Feeney had just carefully and neatly made a three-cushioncarom, with the remark that he could do it againon horseback, when there was a light, swift tread uponthe stairway, a rushing in the hall, light as a blown paper,and Noreen Cardinegh burst upon them—half a torrent,half a spirit, indescribable altogether. The souls of thetwo men divined her message before she spoke, buttheir brains were slower. And their eyes were startled.To Finacune, it became an ineffable portrait—the frightenedface, white as pearl and set in gold; the dark silkwaist, unfastened at the throat; the red-gold hair dressedand wound seemingly in Mother Nature’s winds; theface refined in the whitest fires of earth; her eyes liketwin suns behind smoked glass; and the lips of Noreen—lipslike the mother of a prophet.

“Oh, come quickly!” she said, and was gone.

Finacune dashed up the stairway three at a stride,but he never overtook her—a fact for profound speculationafterward. She was bending over the edge of thebed, sustaining her father, when he entered. Cardineghstared at him wildly for a second; then hearkened toFeeney’s footsteps in the hall. When the latter entered,the dean turned imploringly to his daughter.

“Where’s Routledge?” he gasped. “He said he’dcome back.”

A single jet of gas was burning in the big room.With a nod of her head, Noreen signified for the men toanswer.

[209]“I haven’t heard from him, Jerry,” Feeney faltered.

“Eh, Gawd!—he’d better come quickly—or he won’tsee old Jerry. I’m going out—not with you, boys—butafield. I want to see Routledge. He said he’d comeback and bring his book—done under the pressure ofBritish hate. I told you, didn’t I—he took the hate fromme?... I told Noreen.... Feeney! Finacune!...It was I who gave the Russian spies theShubar Khan papers!... Don’t leave me, Noreen.Pour me a last drink, Feeney.... Gawd! but I’vetravelled in the shadow of death for two years—afraid—afraidto tell—afraid of his coming back! I can see now—hewouldn’t come back!... I’m not afraid now—butI’ve had my hell two years.... You wouldhave found it in my papers, Noreen. Show them to themen—cable the truth to London——”

“Jerry, Jerry,” whispered old Feeney, who wasstricken, “did Ireland get the best of you at the last?”

Finacune nudged him angrily. “Jerry,” he exclaimed,“don’t go out with this stuff on your lips. We knowyou’re doing it for Routledge——”

The woman turned upon him, but did not speak.

“I did it for Ireland—but it failed!” Cardineghanswered. “These brown mongrels are fighting in Manchuriathe Russians that England should have fought onthe Indian border!... Eh, Gawd!—the dark hasbeen long a-liftin’, deere—but it’s gone—and you knowfrom me, without the papers!... Ah, Nory, childof my heart——” He was straining upward toward herface, as if he could not see her well. “... ’Tisyour mother—’tis your mother—I’m off, darlin’——”

[210]“The old toast,” Feeney muttered. “It came true—thetoast we all stood to in Calcutta!”

The woman held but the ashes of a man in her arms,and they drew her away at last. They thought from thelook of her face that she would fall, but she did not.Instead, she said with sudden swiftness:

“Here are the papers. He told me all, just before Icalled for you. I wanted you both to hear. It is true.You must cable to-night to the war-office in London—tothe owners of your papers—to all those who know thestory. Then the secret service must be told—lest they doRoutledge-san further hurt. It must be done now. Tellthe other men to cable before they go out. I will cable,too.... My father is guilty. We went back toTyrone before the Bhurpal trouble—to the little townwhere he found my mother, in Tyrone. When he sawthe British troops quartered on that starving, sunken littleplace—his mind gave way. He had the papers then,which he gave afterward to the Russian spies!”

All this the woman spoke before she wept.

They were in a troop-train at last, down the Tokaido,the old cedar-lined highway of the daimios,—Feeney,Finacune, Trollope, Bingley, other English and as manymore Americans. The road was a brown streak of troop-ladentrains off to embarkation ports. Japan was sendingout her willing wealth of men to a brown and sullenland of such distances as would balk the short-sightedJapanese eye, so used to toy sizes in all things—toy trees,terraces, hills, and roads, whose ends are mostly in view.These men were off to fight now in the outer court of“the last and the largest empire, whose map is but halfunrolled.”

Bingley was sitting apart as usual, already in putteesand Bedford cords, a blanket-roll underfoot and a light,travelling type-mill in a leather-case by his side. Bingleywas brimming with the morbid, moody passion forBingley triumphs. A great type of the militant Englishmanthis, with his stiff jaw and strong-seasoned blood,utterly painless to almost everything but the spur ofambition; identified peculiarly, penetratingly, withBingley and no other; the six feet of animal namedBingley, in a soft shirt and Bingley cords. He wassombrely glad this April morning to be started for thefield at last. Presently the Thames, London, the world,[212]would hear the name of Bingley again—and the namewould mean a giant grappling with “monster heroisms”in the midst of Asia and armies. The revelation and deathof Jerry Cardinegh the night before had a personal aspectfrom Bingley’s point of view. It was that Routledge,vindicated, would have a free hand again. He wouldprobably oust Benton Day from the Review and seek toregain his old supremacy. Routledge would require lotsof handling, delicate and daring, to be downed anddimmed.

To Feeney and Finacune, the events of the nightbefore had taken a place among the great military crisesof their experience. They had cabled the morning hoursaway, as the other Englishmen had done, urged by thewoman. Indeed, the American correspondents were nota little disturbed by the unwonted activity of the Londonersat a time when, to them, all was done. What theconfession of Jerry Cardinegh meant to the English isdifficult adequately to express. Routledge had alwaysbeen outré and mysterious. The great treachery adjusteditself to him with a degree of readiness, since it is easierto identify a brilliant crime with an individual held loftily,than with one in the more immediate reaches of thepublic comprehension. But that old Jerry, their dean,their master of many services, their idol and chief, shouldhave turned this appalling trick against the British armswhich he had helped to make famous—this was a heart-joltwhich bruised the twinings of a hundred sentiments.Feeney was an Irishman, and could understand theCardinegh-passion, probably better than the others, buthe could not understand its expression in treachery. Tohim there was only one explanation—madness....

[213]They discerned the Pacific from the Hankone mountains,boomed through big, strange towns to Kyoto; thenSasebo, the troop-ships, and the landing at a Korean base,where they learned with bitterness that a second siegeof waiting had just begun. The world outside now wasbut a wordless buzzing of voices, as from a locked room.They were at Anju when the first brush happened atChengju (a neat little rout of Cossacks). They were atChengju when Kuroki occupied Wiju, regardless of thegrowling of the Bear. They were at Yongampho, in thelast few hours of April, when Kuroki crossed the Yalu,ten miles northeast, and fought the first great battle,named after the river. Always it was this way—a day ortwo’s march behind the business-end of the army.

It had been a dead delay in Tokyo; but it was a waitlively with aggravations now—the wisp of fragrant hayforever dangling in scent. An English military attachéarriving late from Seoul brought the word that the cablesof the correspondents reached their papers from sevento fifteen days late; and then with lineaments of the texteffaced by censorship—stale, egoless, costly messages.At this word one of the American scribes crumpled underthe strain and went out into the Yellow Sea in a junk, amad dream in his brain to meet the sea-god, Togo, faceto face. Old Feeney, accustomed to discuss strategieswith generals, was spurred to such a distemper that hecabled to be recalled. It is significant that his messagewas the first of the war to go through the Japanesecensor untouched by the blue pencil.

Aye, and when the silent red stream of woundedbegan to trickle back from the Yalu fight, it required aman to keep himself reined down to a fox-trot. It was[214]color, war-color, this back-throw from the welteringfields. Even this stopped, and Kuroki seemed hung foreverin the hills about Fengwangcheng. The civiliansbreathed hard those weeks, and lived in an atmosphereburned from human rage. Always excepting Trollope,the Blue Boar, who had a feeling for China. He studiedthe deep, rutty Chinese roads through the hills (back ofthe army), some of them worn into formidable ravines—erodedby bare human feet and the showers of centuries.There were strange little shrines and monasteries highin those grim hills, and Trollope filled a note-book withtheir names and history. There are strata of mysteryunder the cuticle of China of which the raw young mindof the white man can only conceive a tithe—and thenonly in the ecstasy of concentration. And what nameshe found—Road of the Purple Emperor; Spring of theWhispering Spirit; Cascade of the Humming-bird’sWing; Cataract of the Sombre Clouds; Grotto of theAdulteress’ Death—not names of mere flowery choosing,but names made florid by the necessities of a peoplewhose history is so long that a poetic glamour has fallenupon it. And the Blue Boar found much to eat of aweird flavory sort, and kept his poundage.

What strategy was this which held a big, fat, pompousarmy inactive through a golden month of campaigninglike this June? Bingley exclaimed that Kuroki was soinflated by the Yalu victory that he was content to huntbutterflies for the rest of the summer. The rumble ofreal war reached the writers from time to time. Apparently,the other Japanese generals were not like this gray-hairedFabius—Kuroki of the first army. A man namedOku, it was reported, had landed a second army at[215]Pitsewo, half-way down the east coast of Liaotung, hadbored straightway across some devilishly steep passesand cut off the fortress, Port Arthur, from the mainland.The story of this fight was insufferable poison to thewhite men with Kuroki. It had taken place on a narrowneck of land, where sits high the town of Kinchow, joiningthe little peninsula of the fortress to the big Liaopeninsula above. The rock-collared neck of land ismemorable now by a hill called Nanshan—the battle’sname. Oku burned five thousand dead after the fight,but he had cut off Port Arthur for the siege, and madepossible the landing of one Nogi with a third Japanesearmy at Dalny—cheap at twice the price. Japanese gunboatsand torpedoes at sea on the west had helped Okuget the strangle-hold on the neck of land, while a Russianfleet had bombarded from the bay on the east. Whattorture to believe this—that at last in the history of theworld armies and navies had met in a single action!It was almost unthinkable to be camping with Kuroki inthe ancient Chinese hills, while such a panorama unfoldedfor the eyes of other men—a battle such as the godswould put on flesh to witness.

Finally the word was brought in by the Chinese, whoknew all things, that this jumping-bean, Oku, had leftthe fortress to Nogi and the third army, and leaped northto join a fourth army, under Nodzu, who had effected aperfect landing at Takushan. Oku whipped poorStackelberg on the journey, Telissu being the historictitle of this incident of his flying march. Thus Yalu,Nanshan, and Telissu were fought without even a smellof smoke for Bingley, Feeney, Finacune, Trollope, andothers. It is to be noted that even Trollope blanched at[216]the great war story the world missed by not letting himin on Nanshan. That was one battle for a Tolstoi. TheEnglish civilians sat together on a breezy, sweet-scentedhill and watched the sun go down on one of those Juneevenings. Feeney was writing, the pad resting uponhis knee.

“What did you say was the name of your newbook?” Finacune inquired.

“‘Sitting Tight with Kuroki; or, The Wild Flowersof Manchuria,’” grumbled the old man.

Into the group presently came Major Inuki, theJapanese officer assigned to watch over the correspondents,to see that none escaped, to see that none learnedanything but generalities, to furnish unlimited courtesyand apologetic ramifications that stretched from Kirinto Port Arthur. Inuki also supplied universes of unverifiableinformation, having to do with vague Japanesemiracles and vast Russian casualties. He took off hishat now and bowed all around, inhaled a long breathwith a hiss through his sparkling teeth, and snuffledviolently.

“It iss more dan quite possible we will remain herefor to-morr’, my dear fren’s. In such case would it notbe of good to instruk your servan’s to ereck the tents—morestolidity?”

Feeney reached over and gravely clutched the flappingtrouser-leg of his Chinese coolie. “Jean Valjean,” hesaid, “you are instruk to ereck tents—more stolidity.”

“Me plentee slabee,” said Jean.

The odor of supper was abroad in the camp of thenoncombatants, and the twilight was deep in the valleyof young corn. Feeney and Finacune ate in silence.[217]These two were closer together—close as only two maleadults can be who have lived long alone in broad areas,sharing toil and irritation and peril; apart from women,but akin in memories and ambition. Feeney had riddenwith the greatest of the nineteenth-century generals. Hewas being herded now close to war, but out of range ofany good to his calling. He was thinking of Nanshan—whata battle to have added to his string! Finacune wasthinking of the world’s greatest woman—how she hadcome down like a spirit to the billiard-room that lastnight in Tokyo—and with what exacting zeal she hadcaused him and the others to cable away the last vestigeof glory from the name she bore.

“Blot up another piece of tea, Feeney,” he muttered,“and cheer up.”

“I was just about to suggest, my vivid young friend,that if you spilled any more gloom on this outfit, I shouldburst into tears,” Feeney replied.

There was a long silence. “What?” said Feeney.

“I’m a hare-lipped co*ck-roach, if it isn’t wonderful!”Finacune observed in an awed tone.

“What?”

“Suppose now—just now—suppose a white woman—allin a soft summer gown and blowing golden hair—shouldwalk through this camp? Think of it!”

“I did—twenty years ago,” said Feeney.

“Think of it now,” Finacune persisted raptly, leaningback against his saddle with a pot of tea in his hand.“The mere sight of her would jam a sweetheart or awife, or both, into the brain of every man present—thefirst kiss or a last, dim light somewhere, a word or acaress—the unspeakable miracle that comes to every man[218]some time—that of a woman giving herself to him!...Ah, that’s it, you old crocodile! It would allcome back on live wires—if a woman walked throughhere—to each man his romance—hot throats, dry lips,and burning eyes. The world holds a woman for us all—evenfor you, yoked to the war-hag; and if memorieswere tangible, the right woman would sweep in uponus to-night from five continents and seven seas. Awoman! The mere name is a pang to us lonely devils outhere in the open, where we blister with hate because weare not allowed to smell blood. Hell!—one would thinkI had just broken out of a gas-house.”

“Twenty years ago——” Feeney remarked.

“Hark, listen to that young American sing——”

“You listen to me, young man,” Feeney said forcefully.“These lines, with which I am about to cleanseyou from carnality are by my young friend Kipling:

“‘Sing the heretical song I have made,’” Finacuneadded, entirely uncooled.... “I’ve heard fat Londonclub men expatiate for hours on what they might havedone if they hadn’t married—the beasts! They couldn’ttalk that way to us, sons of Hagar, out here in thisunsexed wilderness! I’d tell ’em what it would meanto me—to be married to one woman! It would meanmore to me to be allowed to listen to whispered revelationsfrom one woman’s lips—than——”

[219]“Dam’ you, quiet down!”

“Guess I better had.”

“Shall we have a hand at crib?” Feeney asked softly.

“Not now—please.”

There was a dusky splash of red in the sky beyondthe western hills, and a faint red foam above. The eveningwas soft and sweet, and tobacco as fragrant as tropicalislands.

“Gad! I’m red-blooded,” Finacune murmured aftera moment. “I could squeeze milk out of a pound note.I’d like to see a dog-fight. If there’s a man-fight to-morrow,I’ll throttle Nookie-san, slide down into thestoke-hold, and see how this new brand of fighter shovelshell.”

“If you leave the woman behind,” Feeney grumbled,“I’ll go with you.”

“A man is an awful animal—when he’s fit as I am,”Finacune added. “The gang is certainly moonstruckto-night. Listen to that ungodly American sun-spottersing.”

“That’s just the point—her star’ll be shining—only,it may not,” Finacune whispered.

Feeney disdained to answer. Presently Major Inukiappeared again and announced guilelessly:

[220]“Gentlema’—my dear fren’s, our gen’ral expresshimself prepare to greet your illustrious peersonages—oneand every one—in his quarters at once. Would yoube deigned to follow my poor leadership?”

“Holy Father!—where’s my dress-suit?” Feeneyasked with a start.

“Such an honor does not increase our chances forwatching the next battle at close-range,” observedFinacune.

Nookie-san led them through the dust past innumerablebattalions, until on a rising trail the sentries becameas thick as fire-flies. After a twenty-minute walk theyreached the summit of a commanding hill. At theentrance of a large tent paper-lanterns were hung, andbelow in the light Kuroki’s staff was gathered. Felicitationsendured for several moments; then an inspired hushdominated all. The flap of the tent was drawn aside, anda small, gray-haired man of stars emerged stiffly. Hiseyes were bent toward the turf and thus he stood motionlessbeneath the lanterns for several seconds.

“General Kuroki,” spoke Inuki in a low voice.

The general raised his eyes for just an instant—great,tired, burning, black eyes with heavy rolled lids—bowedslightly, then backed into the tent.

“Now, there’s a man with no carnal lust in him,”Feeney commented to his companion. “He has commandedhis wife and family not to write him from Japan,lest their letters distract attention from his work athand.”

“And he drowned a thousand men crossing the Yalu,”remarked Finacune.

[221]Bingley passed them with the remark, “I wonder ifGod has the dignity of Kuroki?”

Long afterward, when silence and stars lay upon thehills, there was still a low whispering in the tent ofFeeney and Finacune.

“I wonder where the great frieze coat is this night?”came with a yawn from the old man.

“God knows,” Finacune replied. “Alone in the darksomewhere—unearthing great tales to be printed undera strange name. If any one finds them, it will be Dartmore,and his roots will wither because they are not inthe Review. Or——” The little man halted suddenly.He had been about to add that a woman was apt to findthem. Instead he said, “Alone in the dark somewhere,hiding from the wrath of the world—unless somebody’shunted him down to tell him that he’s clean and desirableagain.”

“I’d like to see the great frieze coat this night,” saidFeeney in a listless tone, as if he had not listened to theother.

“I’d like to have been the one—to find him for her.”

“There never was a nobler thing done for a woman—thanRoutledge did,” the old man went on, after a pause.

“There never was a nobler woman,” breathed theflorid one.

As a matter of fact, Kuroki was only waiting forOku and Nodzu to join him in the great concentrationupon Liaoyang under Oyama. This battle was plannedto finish the Russians in the field, as Togo was to doat sea, and Nogi in the Fortress. Roughly, the Japanesenow stretched across the peninsula from the mouth ofthe Liao to the mouth of the Yalu—a quarter of a millionmen with eyes on Liaoyang—Kuroki on the right, Nodzuin the centre, Oku on the left. Oyama polished hisboots and spurs in Tokyo, preparing to take his rice andtea in the field as soon as it was heated to the propertemperature.

Late in June, Kuroki awoke and began to spread likea gentle flow of lava, filling the hither defiles of the greatShanalin range, making ready to take the stiff and dreadfulpasses which the Russians had fortified as the outerprotection of Liaoyang. Right here it must be interpolatedthat Bingley had cut Kuroki for Nodzu’s fourtharmy a few days before, when the two forces had touchedwings for a day. The “Horse-killer” was scarcely gonebefore Kuroki encountered one of the toughest andpluckiest foes of his stupendous campaign, GeneralKellar, who gave him terrific fights at Fenshui and[223]Motien passes, and tried to take them back after theywere lost. Again at Yansu, a month later, the doughtyKellar disputed the last mountain-trail to the city, andKuroki had to kill him to get through.... Thearmy was growing accustomed to the civilians, and thesewere days of service for the correspondents. It wasgiven them now to see the great fighting-machine ofKuroki—that huge bulk of flying power—lose its pompand gloss and adjust itself to the field. It faded into thebrown of the mountains, took on a vulpine leanness and anerveless, soulless complacence, like nothing else in theworld. Food was king; fighting was the big-game sport;toil was toil, and death was not the least of benefits. Itwas now August, and Kuroki’s part in the Liaoyangpreliminaries finished. A month later the battle was on....In the gray morning light of the twenty-ninthof August, the sound of distant batteries boomed overthe Shanalin peaks to the ears of the correspondents.Finacune leaped up with a cry:

“Liaoyang is on! And what are we doing away offhere?”

“Smokin’ our pipes in the mountings,” Feeneyanswered huskily, reaching for a match, “‘an’ breathin’the mornin’ cool.’”

“We’re lost,” Finacune declared bitterly. “I canhear the London experts howling, ‘Where’s Kuroki andhis lost army?’”

“Lost, is it? Hush! Come near me, young man.We’re lost, but destined to appear in good time,” Feeneywhispered. “I’ll bet you an oyster-stew to a dill-picklethat we are the flankers. We’re relegated off here to[224]cross the river when the moon’s right, and to bore in atthe railroad behind the city, while Oyama and Kuropatkinare locking horns in front.”

Old Feeney, wise in war, had hit upon the strategybefore the others; although any expert familiar with theterrain would thus have planned the taking of the city.That night Kuroki camped on the south side of theTaitse; and on the morning of the second day followingwas across with seventy thousand men. This by thegrace of a corps of insignificant-looking engineers, busylittle brown chaps who worked a miracle of pontooning—conquereda deep and rushing river without wettinga foot in Kuroki’s command. There had been rains, too,and between the showers, far salvos of cannon rode infrom the west on the damp, jerky winds.

There is no place so good as here to drop a conventionalfigure of the Liaoyang field. The strategy of thebattle is simple as a play in straight foot-ball. Japaneseand Russian linesmen are engaged in a furious strugglesouth and southeast of the city. Imagine Kuroki, theJapanese half-back, breaking loose with the ball anddashing around the right end (crossing the Taitse River)and boring in behind toward the Russian goal—the railroad.This threatens the Russian communications. Ifthe Russian full-back, Orloff, cannot defend the goal,the whole Russian line will be jerked up and out of thecity to prevent being cut off from St. Petersburg. Thisleaves the field and the city to the Japanese. Here is thesimplest possible straight line sketch of the city, river,railroad, and the position of the fighters when the battlebegan; also, shown by the arrow, the sweep of Kuroki’snow-famous end-run. [See drawing on next page.]

[225]The midnight which ended August found the intrepidflanker launched straight at the Russian railroad at thepoint called the Yentai Collieries, nine miles behind thecity.

“We’re locked tight in the Russian holdings thisminute,” Finacune whispered, as he rode beside the grimveteran.

“Where did you think we were—on some churchsteps?” Feeney asked.

It looked a dark and dangerous game to the dapperlittle man. The lure of action, so strong at Home, oftenturns cold at the point of realization. Finacune had thenerves which are the curse of civilization, and he felt thechill white hand of fear creeping along these sensitiveganglia just now in the dark.

“I haven’t a thing against Kuropatkin—only I hopehe is a fool for a night,” he observed presently. “Somehow,I don’t feel cheerful about the fool part. He musthear us tramping on his back door-steps this way. Whycan’t he spare enough men from the city to come out hereand sort of outflank the flanker?”

[226]“That’s just his idea,” Feeney replied, “but don’tforget that Oyama will keep him so dam’ busy belowthat it will be hard for him to match us man for man andstill hold on. However, remember he’s got the position,and he won’t need to match the Japanese—quite.”

As a matter of fact, Kuropatkin’s far-flung antennæhad followed Kuroki well. The Russian chief, knowingthe strength of his front position on the city, had determinedto slip back and crush Kuroki with an overwhelmingforce, leaving only two corps of Siberians, underZurubaieff, to hold off Nodzu and Oku from the innerdefenses of Liaoyang. General Orloff, who was in commandat the Yentai Collieries, where Kuroki’s flankingpoint was aimed, was under orders to attack the Japanesein flank at the moment Kuropatkin’s main force appearedto hit the Japanese in full. There was the constant roarof big guns in Orloff’s ears in that dawning of Septemberfirst—a rainy dawn. Also his own troops were movingalong the railroad. Another thing, there had been avodka-train broken into the night before by his own men.

Orloff thought he saw Kuropatkin coming, and setout prematurely. Kuroki was concealed in the fields ofripe millet, and turned to the work of slaughter withmuch enthusiasm, wondering at the weakness of theenemy. This slaughter of Orloff, which lost the battlefor the Russians, Feeney and Finacune saw.

“There’s eighteen burnt matches in your coat pocket,my young friend,” said Feeney, “and your pipe wouldlight better if you put some smokin’ in it—in the bowl,y’know. For what do you save the burnt matches?”

Finacune grinned shyly. “Wait till the fire starts—I’ll[227] be warmer. I’m always like this at first—like thelittle boy who tried to cure bees with rheumatism.”

“Something’s wrong with the Russians,” Feeneydeclared in low excitement. “We should all be dead bythis time—if they are going to whip Kuroki. Oh, war—waris a devil of a thing!” he added flippantly. “We’recrushing the farmers’ grain.”

“Shut up, you fire-eater. Haven’t you any reverence?I’m preparing myself for death.”

That instant they heard a low command from anunseen Japanese officer, and a long drawn trumpet-cry.The Japanese leaped up from the grain. All was atangle. Feeney, grabbing Finacune’s arm, seized themoment to break from Major Inuki and the others, andrushed forward to the open with the infantry.

“Come on,” he said excitedly. “We’re foot-loose!Come on, my little angel brother, and play tag with thesechildren!... ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers!’”

Never a wild rose of boyhood smelled half so sweetto Finacune as the ancient soil of Asia that moment, buthe was whipped forward by certain emotions, to say nothingof Feeney and the avalanche of Japanese. Theyreached the edge of the grain and met the first gust ofOrloff’s rifle steel. Down they went for the volleys, andthat moment perceived a most amazing trick of a shell.A little knot of ten Japanese were running forward justbefore them when there was a sudden whistling shriek.The ten were lost for a second in a chariot of fire. Whenit cleared only one Japanese remained standing.

“That Russian gunner bowled a pretty spare,” grimlyobserved Feeney. “Come, get up, lad. The volleys areover.”

[228]“Not this Finacune. I’m not short-sighted. I’mgoing to hold fast to this sweet piece of mainland justnow. Besides——”

The little man burst into a nervous laugh and glancedat his foot. Then he stiffened into a sitting posture.Feeney looked him over. His hat was gone, scalp bleeding,his shirt-sleeve burst open as if it had been wetbrown paper, and the sole of his left shoe torn awayclean.

“Queer about that shrapnel,” he mumbled. “I’minterested in shrapnel anyway. I haven’t got any moretoe-nails on that foot than a bee.”

Meanwhile, Kuroki was crushing the Orloff memberwith a force destined to wreck the whole Russiannervous-system. Out of the grain he poured torrents ofinfantry which smote the Russian column in a score ofplaces at once.

“Did you ever put your ear to the ground during abattle, Feeney?” the other asked wistfully. “It soundsaw’fly funny—funnier than sea-shells. Let’s try.”

Feeney did not answer. He was watching the disorderwhich swept over the Russian lines. It had changedinto a deluge tossing back toward the Collieries. Therewas a fury even in the clouds of powder smoke thatseemingly had nothing to do with the winds. Theydarted, stretched, and tore apart from the whipped-linewith some devilish volition of their own.

“There’ll be excitement presently,” the veteranremarked.

The other had risen and was clutching his arm, hisbare foot lifted from the ground. He was properlystimulated by the action, but kept up a more or less[229]incessant chattering, his brain working as if driven bycocaine.

“Ex—excitement! This is a sedative, I believe.Let’s lie down, you bald-headed fatalist——”

“Don’t dare to. Look at your foot. Dangerousbelow. Ricochets hug the turf.... Livin’ God!they’re going to throw out cavalry upon us! They’regoing to heave cavalry against Kuroki’s point! Bloomup, little man. Here’s where the most nerveless of thewhite races smite the most nervous of the yellow—andon horses!”

“I’m bloomin’ on one foot,” said Finacune.

Kuropatkin, apprised of Orloff’s error, was thunderinghis divisions up the railroad at double-time towardthe Collieries, but, despairing to reach the blunderingOrloff in time, had ordered his cavalry railway-guards tocharge the enemy.... They came on now withmediæval grandeur, a dream of chivalry, breaking throughgaps of Orloff’s disordered infantry—to turn the point ofthe Japanese flanker. Splendid squadrons!... Acurse dropped from Feeney’s gray lips.

“They’re going to murder the cavalry to put redblood into that rotten foot-outfit,” he said.

Finacune’s face was colorless. He did not answer.The sound of bullets in the air was like the winging of aplague of locusts. Often the two huddled together, allowinga gasping battalion to leap past them toward thefront. Kuroki was breaking his command into fragmentsand rolling them forward like swells of the sea.His front-rankers dropped to their knees to fire; thendashed forward a little way to repeat—all with inhumanprecision. Feeney’s field-glass brought out their work.[230]In a mile-long dust-cloud, the Russian cavalry thunderedforward like a tornado.

The Cossacks swept into Kuroki’s zone of fire.Feeney heard his companion breathe fast, and turned hishead. The Word man was staring into the heart of theCossack charge, his fears forgotten, fascinated unto madness.The earth roared with hoofs, and the air was rentwith guns. On came the cavalry until it reached Kuroki’spoint and halted it; but upon the Cossacks now fromthe countless Japanese skirmish-lines were hurled wavesof flying metal—waves that dashed over the Russianhorsem*n as the sundered seas rushed together uponPharaoh’s hosts.

“It’s like a biograph,” came from Finacune.

Kuroki was checked; his van ridden down. The Russianhorse, cumbered with its dead, and taking an enfiladingfire from half the Japanese command, was nowordered to retire. Only the skeletons of the glorioussquadrons obeyed. Kuroki was stopped indeed—stoppedto thrust an impediment aside. He rose from his knees,fastened a new point to his plow, and bored in towardthe railway upon the strewn and trampled grain-fields.Already the hospital corps was gathering in the endlesssheaves of wounded.

“One can tell the dead by the way they lie,” Finacunesaid vaguely. “They lie crosswise and spoil thesymmetry.”

Orloff was steadied a trifle by the cavalry sacrifice,and turned an erratic but deadly fire upon the Japanese....At this instant Major Inuki pounced upon thetwo correspondents and carried them back toward headquarters.He made very many monkey-sounds; was[231]quite unintelligible from excitement; in fact, at thethought of these two being suffered to see so much alone.If their heads had been cameras, straightway wouldthey have been smashed....

Practically they had seen it all. Kuroki’s work forthat September day was done. Shortly after the retirementof the cavalry, he received a dispatch from Oyamasaying that Kuropatkin had ordered a general retreat.Kuroki’s end-run had won the battle for Oyama; Orloffhad lost it for Kuropatkin. The latter, perceiving thehavoc at the Collieries when he came up with his bigforce, decided not to attack the victorious flanker.Instead, he set out for Mukden, and commanded Zurubaieff,the rear-guard, to pull up out of the city, crossthe Taitse, and burn his bridges behind him.

“He’s quite a little ornament-merchant, this Kuroki,”Finacune observed that afternoon, holding a very sorefoot in his hands.

“He’d put out hell—he’s too cold to burn,” repliedFeeney.

While Feeney and Finacune were flanking withKuroki, the “Horse-killer” was with Nodzu, whose businessit was to charge the Russian centre before Liaoyang.Bingley had not shifted commands without a goodreason. He had made up his mind to get to an uncensoredcable after the battle was over, and Nodzu wasnearer the outlet of the war-zone. Moreover, it was saidthat the civilian contingent with Nodzu was not subjectedto the smothering system, quite to the same extentas that with the flanker, Kuroki.

Nodzu, himself, did not appeal to Bingley. Heseemed like a nice, polite little person of the sort the“Horse-killer” had observed serving behind curio-countersin Tokyo. His voice was light, and his beard wasn’t iron-gray.Bingley remarked that a marooned painter wouldhave a hard time gathering a pastelle-brush from Nodzu’sbeard, and he noted with contempt that the general spokedrawing-room Japanese to his staff. The generals whomBingley respected, roared. They not only split infinitives,but they forked them with flame.

All three officers under Field-Marshal Oyama—Kurokiflanking on the right, Nodzu bearing in on theRussian centre, and Oku pushing up the railroad on theleft—had to fight their way to the positions from which[233]the three finally took the city. Many lesser towns andsome very difficult passes were picked up on the way.For instance, Oku, the left blade of the crescent, whowas being watched by the chief male figure in this narrative(as Bingley was watching Nodzu), changed theflags at Kaiping, Tashekao, and Newchwang on the way,Chinese towns of filth and fatness; and shoved beforehim in an indignant turkey-trot Generals Stackelbergand Zurubaieff.

Baking hot weather, and Liaoyang ahead! Nogi wasthundering behind at the fortress of Port Arthur; Togowas a red demon in smoky crashing seas; blood of theBear already smeared the Sun flag, and the blood-flowerwas in bloom in Manchuria.

Bingley felt the floods of hate stir and heat withinhim on the morning of August twenty-fourth, when overthe hills from the right, which was eastward, soundedthe Beginning—Kuroki in cannonade. Feeney and Finacunehad had the luck to beat him to real action. Thenext day Oku took up the bombardment on the left. Itwas not until the following morn that Nodzu leaped tohis guns, and the hot winds brought to the nostrils ofthe “Horse-killer” the pungent breath of powder.

The correspondents were held back in the smoke asusual. Five months in the field, and they had not yetcaught up with the war. Again, on the second day ofNodzu’s action, the correspondents were left behindunder a guard who was extremely courteous. This wasmore than white flesh could bear. The civilians implored,demanded. It was remarkable that Bingley did not mixstrongly in this rebellion. He was planning carefully,desperately, to be in at the end, and showed the courage[234]to wait. He realized that the battle was far from endedyet; even though Kuroki was mixing hand-to-hand inthe east, Oku in the west closing in over barriers ofblood, and Nodzu in the centre engaged daily with aten-mile front of duelists—a bare-handed, hot-throatedfiend, chucking his dead behind him for elbow-room.

Bingley studied maps and strategy—not from Nodzu’sstandpoint alone, but from the whole. What would hedo if he were Field-Marshal Oyama?

The theatre of war was dark on the morning ofAugust twenty-ninth, but in mid-afternoon Nodzu beganfiring—firing at nothing! He stood still and belchedthunder, as if it were something to be rid of; rippingopen the very kernels of sound, and making the summerafternoon no fit place for butterflies. Bingley’s eyes werevery bright. This tallied with one of his hypotheses.It was a demonstration, under the cover of which hisold friend Kuroki was to start a flanking movement.

That night the smileless young giant worked long inhis tent. Stretched full-length upon his blankets, alantern by his side, he wrote hard in his note-books anddrew maps of the flying flanker, whom Feeney andFinacune were now following. He showed these maps,all dated to the hour, in London afterward, with theremark that he had divined the strategy of Liaoyangbefore the battle.

He glanced at his watch, at last, and at his field outfit,which was all packed and in order. Then he slept untildawn. No one slept after that, since Nodzu was upwith the first light, like a boy with a new cannon on themorning of the Fourth. Bingley was missed at breakfast.His Korean coolies knew nothing, except that they[235]had been ordered to take care of the Bingley propertyand wait for orders. The “Horse-killer” had made aclean departure with a good mount and nothing but hissaddle-bags. Still, no one fathomed his audacity. Confidently,it was expected that he would be returned inshort order by some of the Japanese commanders whohappened to read the civilian insignia flaring upon hissleeve. As a matter of fact, Bingley quickly would havebeen overhauled had he not brooded so long and so wellupon the time. The middle Japanese army was too busythat morning to think of one daring civilian.

Bingley’s plan was this: To watch what he could ofthe battle, unfettered, making his way gradually westwardbehind Oku until the end, or until such time ashe mastered the color and saw the end; then to ridealone down the railroad, nearly to Fengmarong; thereto leave his horse, cross the Liao River, and travel onfoot down to Wangcheng. He planned to catch theChinese Eastern at Wangcheng and make the day’sjourney to Shanhaikwan beyond the Wall, where theJapanese could not censor his message. In a word,Bingley’s plan was to stake all on reaching a free cablebefore any other man, and to put on that cable the firstand greatest story of the greatest battle of the war.

That was a day in which Bingley truly lived. A milebehind Nodzu’s reserve, he spurred his horse down intoa tight darkened ravine, and tethered the beast long tocrop the pale grass blades thinly scattered throughoutthe sunless crevasse. Marking well the topography ofthe place, so that he could find it again in anything butdarkness, Bingley moved back toward the valleys ofaction. Nodzu was hammering the impregnable Russian[236]position before the city from the hills, and chargingdown at intervals great masses of infantry to hold themain Russian force in their intrenchments before thecity, and thus to prevent the Russian general from sendingback a large enough portion of his army to crush oroutflank the Japanese flanker.

Noon found Bingley still at large and across a bigvalley, now almost empty of troops. He was forced tocross one more ridge to command the battle-picture.This required a further hour, and he sat down to restupon the shoulder of a lofty, thickly timbered hill whichoverlooked the city for which the nations met—a huge,sprawled Chinese town, lost for moments at a time inthe smoke-fog. The river behind was obscured entirely;still, the placing of the whole battle array was cleared tohim in a moment. All his mapping and brooding hadhelped him marvelously to this quick grasp of the field.He wished that he could cable the picture of the city,the river, the railroad, the hills, just as he saw themnow—so that London might also see through Bingleyeyes. As for the rest—Nodzu’s great thundering gunsand his phantom armies moving below in the whitepowder-reek—he could write that....

“But I’ve got to get a strip of real action—I’ve gotto see the little beasts go,” he muttered at length. “It’sa long chance, but I’ve got to get a touch of the blood-end—todo it right. It is as necessary as the lay ofthe land.”

And down he went, forgetting fear and passing time,even during certain moments, forgetting the outer worldthat would cry, “Bingley! Bingley!” when he wasthrough.... Deeper and deeper he sank into the[237]white mist of smoke which five minutes before had beentorn by flame and riven with rifle crashes.

It was a moment of lull between Nodzu’s infantrycharges. A land current of air cleared the low distance.The southern line of intrenched Russian infantry lookedless than a mile away. Behind them, the land was pittedand upheaved with defenses to the very wall of the city,having the look, as Bingley observed, as the wind swiftlycleared away the smoke, of the skin of a small-pox convalescent.There was no sign of life in the Russianworks, but his quick eye marked that shrapnel wasemplaced on the higher mounds.... Had he liveda thousand years for the single purpose of viewing abattle—hundreds of acres of embattled thousands strainingin unbridled devilment; a valley soaked and strewnwith life essences, yet swarming with more raw materialfor murder—he could not have judged his advent better.It was the thirtieth of August—the day that Nodzu andOku began their un-Christly sacrifices to hold Kuropatkinin the city and in front, while Kuroki flanked.

Suddenly—it was like a tornado, prairie fire, and stampederolled into one—Nodzu of the pastelle-brush beardcalled up his swarm from thicket, hummock, gulley, ditch,from the very earth, and launched it forward against thefirst blank ridge of the Russians. This brown cyclonetore over Bingley of the Thames and across the ruffledvalley. The “Horse-killer” sat in awe. There was notyet a shot. The Russian trenches had the look ofdesertion.

“Hell!” he snapped viciously. “Those trenchesare abandoned. Kuropatkin might as well be cooling his[238]toes in Lake Baikal for all Nodzu will find there, and he’srushing as if——”

At this instant the Russian works were rubbed out ofvision in a burst of white smoke, and the sound of Russianbullets was like the swooping of ten thousand night-hawks....A terrific crash, a blast of dust, burntpowder, filings, sickening gases—and that which amoment ago was a dashing young captain with upraisedsword was now wet rags and dripping fragments of pulp.

“Shrapnel,” said Bingley. “He’s happy now. Hewas playing to a gallery of Samurai saints—that littleofficer.... Nervy devils all—never doubt it....But we’re walloped—walloped sure as hell. We cannever take those works.”

The position of the enemy was now obscured bytrembling terraces of white smoke, out of which pouredcountless streams of death, literally spraying Nodzu’scommand, as firemen play their torrents upon a burningbuilding. A rat couldn’t have lived out a full minute inthe base of that valley. The Japanese left a terribletribute, but the few sped on and upward to the first lineof Russian entrenchments. A peculiar memory recurredto Bingley. Once in London he had seen a runaway teamof huge grays attached to a loaded coal-cart. The tailboardof the cart jarred loose, and the contents streamedout behind as the horses ran. So the hard-hit streamedout from the Japanese charge as it passed over the baseof the valley.

Even as the maddest of the Japanese survivors wereabout to flood over the first embankment, it was fringedwith bayonets as a wall with broken glass; and along thelength of the next higher trenches shot a ragged ring of[239]smoke—clots of white strung like pearls.... As atrain boring into a mountain is stopped, so was Nodzu’sbrown swarm halted, lifted, and hurled back.

“The little brown dogs!” observed Bingley with joyfulamazement. “Why, they’d keep the British armybusy!... And they smile, dam’ ’em—they smile!”

This last referred to the dead and wounded whichthe hospital corps was now bringing back....From out of the welter, a new charge formed and failed.Again—even Bingley was shaken by the slaughter andhis organs stuck together—Nodzu hurled a third torrentof the Samurai up that unconquerable roll of earth. Itcurled like a feather in a flame, diminished, and falteredback....

The day was ending—Bingley’s gorgeous, memorableday. He had travelled twenty-five miles on foot; he hadcaught up with the Japanese army after five months inthe field; he had seen Nodzu charge and Zurubaieff hold;he had seen the wounded who would not cry, and thedead who would not frown.

The whole was a veritable disease in his veins. Theday had burned, devoured him. He was tired enoughto sleep in a tree, chilled from spent energy; so hungrythat he could have eaten horn or hoof; but over all hewas mastered by the thought of Bingley and his work—thefree cable, the story, the Thames, the battle, Bingley,the first and greatest story, acclaim of the world, theworld by the horns! So his brain ran, and far back inhis brain the films of carnage were sorted, filed, andlabelled—living, wounded, dead; the voices of the Japaneseas they ran, Russian-pits from which death spread,shrapnel emplacements which exploded hell; barbed[240]entanglements spitting the Japanese for leisure-slaying,as the butcher-bird hangs up its living meat to keep itfresh for the hunger-time; the long, quick-moving, burnishedguns that caught the sun, when the smoke cleared,and reflected it like a burning-glass—such were thedetails of the hideous panorama in Bingley’s brain.

The chief of his troubles was that Liaoyang still held.He had always laughed at the Russians, and looked forwardto the time when he should watch the British beatthem back forever from India. The valor of the stolid,ox-like holding angered him now. Suppose Liaoyangshould not be taken! It would spoil his story and holdhim in the field longer than he cared to stay. He hadbut scant provisions for two days. He planned to be offfor the free cable to-morrow night.

“It’s going to rain,” he gasped, as he let himself downat nightfall into his ravine. He heard the nicker of thehorse below. It did not come to him with any spirit ofwelcome, for Bingley was sufficient unto himself, but withthe thought that he must keep the beast alive for therace to the cable after the battle.

“Yes, it’s going to rain,” he repeated. “You cancount on rain after artillery like to-day.... LivingGod! I thought I knew war before, but it was all sparrow-squabblinguntil to-day!”

He found his saddle-bags safely in the cache wherehe had left them—this with a gulp of joy, for the littlefood he had was in them. Crackers, sardines, a drink ofbrandy that set his empty organism to drumming likea partridge. It also whetted his appetite to a paringedge, but he spared his ration and smoked his hungeraway. Then in the last drab of day, and in the rain, he[241]cut grasses and branches, piling them within the reach ofhis horse. A stream of water began to trickle presentlydown the rocks when the shower broke. Bingley drankdeeply, and caught many ponchos full afterward for hismount. Later he fell asleep, shivering, and dreamed thatthe devil was lashing the world’s people—a nation at atime—into pits of incandescence. The savagery of thedream aroused him, and he became conscious of a strangenessin his ears. It was the silence, and it pained likerarefied air. Wet, stiffened, deathly cold, he fell asleepagain.

The next day, the thirty-first, and the worst of thebattle, Bingley curved about Oku’s rear to the railroadwhich marked for him a short cut to the outer world.Another, that day, watched Oku closely as he forced theRussian right wing to face the Japanese, but Bingley,even from a distance, was charged and maddened by thedynamics of the action....

Late in the afternoon, a little to the west of the railway,he stopped to finish his food and gather forage forhis horse, when over the crest of a low hill appeared atall human figure. The Japanese put no such giants in thefield, and Bingley was startled by a certain familiarityof movement.

The man approached, a white man. Chill, weakness,and hatred welled suddenly in Bingley’s veins. He wasnot alone on the road to a free cable. The man he fearedmost in the world was entered in the race with him—theman he had seen last at the Army and Navy reception,and roughed and insulted, nearly three yearsbefore.

Routledge smiled, but spoke no word. Bingley regarded[242]the strong, strange profile, haggard, darkened asa storm arena. He saddled savagely and rode after theother. It was fifty-five miles to Wangcheng, where hemeant to catch the Chinese Eastern for Shanhaikwanto-morrow morning—fifty-five miles in the dark, overrain-softened roads.

“Hell! he can’t make it on foot,” Bingley muttered.“I’ll beat him to the train.”

And yet he was angered and irritated with the reflectionthat the man ahead had never yet been beaten.

Noreen Cardinegh buried her father alone. At least,those besides herself who took any part in the last servicefor the famous correspondent were only Japanese hiredfor the manual labor. To the English who were still atthe hotel, eager to assist the woman, and charged to doso by Feeney, Finacune, and Trollope before they left,the morning was sensational. In spite of the fact thatscarcely any one had been admitted to the Cardinegh roomfor the past two days, Talliaferro and others had arrangedfor the funeral. They were abroad at nine o’clock in themorning, and found the formality over.... TheJapanese clerk told them all. At her request, he hadmade arrangements with a Tokyo director of such affairs.The body had been taken out at dawn. Miss Cardineghhad followed in her rickshaw. A place had been securedin the Kameido gardens—very beautiful now in the cloudof cherry blossoms. She had preferred a Buddhist to aShinto priest; refusing the services of an American orEnglish missionary. The clerk explained that he waspermitted to tell these things now.... PossiblyMiss Cardinegh would see one or two of her friends atthis time.... Yes, she was in her room.

“Come,” she said in a low trailing tone, in responseto Talliaferro’s knock.

[244]Noreen was sitting by the window. The big room hadbeen put in order. The morning was very still. Thewoman was dry-eyed, but white as a flower. She heldout her hand to Talliaferro and tried to smile....Strangely, he thought of her that moment as one of thequeens of the elder drama—a queen of stirring destiny,whose personal history was all interpenetrated withnational life, and whom some pretender had caused to beimprisoned in a tower. This was like Talliaferro.

“We were all ready and so eager to help you, MissCardinegh,” he began. “You know, some of the older ofthe British correspondents have dared to feel a proprietaryinterest in all that concerns you. Why did youdisappoint us so?”

“I did not want anything done for him—that wouldbe done on my account,” she said slowly. “It wasmine to do—as his heritage is mine. I only ask you tothink—not that anything can extenuate—but I want youto think that it was not my father, but his madness.”

“We all understand that—even those who do notunderstand all that happened.”

“The tragedy is the same.... Ah, God, howI wish all the fruits might be mine—not Japan’s, notRussia’s!”

He started to speak, to uproot from her mind thiscrippling conception, but she raised her hand.

“You cannot make me see it differently, Mr. Talliaferro,”she said tensely. “I have had much time tothink—to see it all! You are very good—all of you.One thing, I pray you will do for me.”

“You have but to speak it, Miss Cardinegh.”

“When you take the field—all of you, wherever you[245]go—watch and listen for any word of Mr. Routledge....He may be the last to hear that he is vindicated.Follow any clue to find him. Tell him the truth—tellhim to come to me!”

Peter Pellen’s “Excalibur” accepted the mission,declaring that he would faithfully impress it upon theothers with the second army, shortly to leave; as Feeneyand Finacune certainly would do with the first. Andso he left her, one of the coldest and dryest men out ofLondon; and yet, just now, he carried himself under astiff curb, lest he forget his war....

“And that’s the end of the man who lowered thefluids in the British barometer, like a typhoon in theChina Sea,” he observed in solitude. “And the Japaneseburied him in the Kameido, in cherry-blossom time—buriedhim for money—the man who opened the veinsof their Empire!”

The work all done, Noreen Cardinegh met the deluge.The elements had been forming for three days. She hadsensed them vaguely in sudden shivers of dread. Hersoul was bared now to the primal terror, the psychicterror, of the outcast, against which seasoned valorquails.... By the window, she sat dry-eyed, in themidst of her father’s possessions! From the street,over the hotel-gardens, came to her ears the screaming ofchildren. Japanese schoolboys were passing, a processionof them. They were playing soldier—marching veryerect and proudly, with sticks for guns.

“My father did this!”... Upon such a sentencethe whole dreadful structure was built. Thoughts of herchildhood had their significance in the breaking of thishorrid storm of war. Aye, and the little house in Tyrone[246]before her coming! It was there that the black shadow,falling upon his country, crept into the brain of JerryCardinegh. The shadow grew, was identified with herearliest memories. Into her father’s mortal wound,inflicted by the passing of the sweetest woman, theshadow had sunk with all its Tartarean blackness. Shesaw it all now—the sinister, mysterious passion whichhad rivalled even his love for her. The wars had deepened,blackened it. The last visit to Ireland had turnedit into hideous, tossing night. And this was the beatingstorm—babes with sticks for guns, companies of soldiersin the f*ckiage, the wailing “Banzai Niphon” from Shimbashistation, where the regiments entrained for thesouthern ports of mobilization; and on the lower floorof the hotel, where still were gathering the war-expertsfrom all the earth.... The strength ran from herlimbs, and her heart cried out.

Japan, which she had loved, became like a hauntedhouse to her; yet she could not hope to find Routledgewithout some word concerning him, and Tokyo was thenatural base of her search operations. All the correspondentsgoing out with the different armies werepledged to communicate with her any word they mightreceive regarding him. The correspondents, unsecuredto any of the four armies, and destined to work fromthe outside—at Chifu, Newchwang, Chemulpo, Shanhaikwanor Shanghai—even these had promised her acable-flash at the sight of Routledge. Through an agentin New York she learned that the name “Routledge”was not attached for work in the Orient to any newspaperon the Atlantic seaboard; still, by cable she subscribed[247]for the chief American newspapers. Tokyo washer address.

She could not stay longer at the Imperial, which hadbecome a sort of civilian war headquarters. All was warin its corridors. In the Minimasacuma-cho of the Shibadistrict, she took a small house, establishing herself inthe native style, but she could not escape the agony.Japan was burning with war-lust from end to end;whetted of tooth, talon-fingered, blood-mad. Her fightingforce, one of the most formidable masses that everformed on the planet’s curve, was landing in Korea andLiaotung. What meant the battle of the Yalu to her;the tragedy of the Petropavlovsk, sunk off the tip of thefortress with Makaroff, the great Verestchagin, and fivehundred officers and men? Not a distant calamity offoreign powers, but Tyrone—Shubar Khan—Cardinegh—madness—treachery.What meant the constant tensionof Tokyo, singing in her ears like wires stretchedtight—like the high-pitched, blood-hungry song ofinsects in the night? It meant the work of her ownblood, her own accursed heritage.... She wascalled to the Imperial often for the mails, but she avoidedthe Englishmen there, and admitted none to the littlehouse in Shiba. Always, when there were white menabout, she fancied a whispering behind her; as, indeed,there was—the whispers that are incited by the passingof an exquisite woman.

In the early days following her father’s death,Noreen was besieged by men who appeared suddenly,quietly—men unknown in Japan—who demanded withseeming authority all the documents in her father’s effectswhich pertained to the treachery in India. These were[248]agents of the great British secret service—men of mysteryto all save those who threatened England’s innerwall. Noreen gave all that they asked, convinced themof her sincerity. They impressed upon her the needs ofutter secrecy, and assured her that the name of Routledgewas being purified to the farthest ends of the service. Itwas intimated, however, that this would require muchtime; as, indeed, it had to fix the crime upon him. Thesem*n worked but little with cables and mails.

So the wire-ends held her to Tokyo through Yalu andNanshan to the middle of June. She was returning fromthe Imperial at early evening with a bundle of Americannewspapers. She knew by the hushed streets thatanother battle was in progress; and she felt with thepeople the dreadful tension of waiting, as she hurriedswiftly along the wide, dirt-paved Shiba road. Tokyowas all awake and ominously still. A rickshaw-cooliedarted out from a dark corner with his cart, and accostedher in a low, persistent way. He wheeled his cart infront of her, as he would not have dared with a nativeor a male foreigner—and all in a silent, alien fashion.She could not sit still to ride—pushed the rickshaw asideand sped on in the dusk. She was ill, her throat parchedwith waiting, her face white with waiting. The founts ofher life were dry, her heart thralled with famine. Wherewas he for this new battle?... She passed knotsof women in the streets. They talked softly as shepassed and laughed at her, held up their boy-babes andlaughed. She knew something of the language, andcaught their whispering—the laughing, child-like womenof Japan, in whom transient foreigners delight. Theybreathed world-conquest into the ears of their men-children;[249] and were more horrible far in their whisperingand laughing, to Noreen now, than tigresses yammeringin the jungle-dark.

She faltered before the door of her house, afraid.The servants had not yet lighted the lamps, and withinit was darker than the street.... There, amongthe densest shadows, he sat—there, by the covered easelin a low chair. He was smiling at her, a white and aweary smile. His long, thin hands were locked abovehis head; his lean limbs stretched out in tired fashion,the puttee leggings worn dull from the saddle fenders;his chest gaunt, the leather-belt pulled tight.

Noreen sank to her knees before the empty chair, herface, her arms, in the seat where the mist of a man hadbeen!... How long she remained there she neverknew; but it was some time before light when she wasaroused by a far, faint roar beating toward her, acrossthe city. The roar quickened, broke into a great, throbbing,coherent shout, and swept by like a hurricane,leaving a city awake and thrown wide open to exultation.The battle of Telissu had been won. Only defeats aremourned in Japan, not the slain of a victory. Dawnbroke, and Noreen looked out on an altered Tokyo—loathsometo her as a gorging reptile.

“You are intensely psychic, Miss Cardinegh,” theEnglish doctor said. “This ‘vision,’ as you call it, meansnothing in itself—that is, so far as concerns the man yousay you saw—but it signifies that you are on the vergeof a nervous break-down. You must cease all worryand work, eat plenty of meat, and take long walks. It’sall nerves, just nerves.”

[250]“No, it does not mean that your lover is dead,” saidAsia, through the lips of the old Buddhist priest whohad buried her father. “Such things happen this way.He may have been sleeping, dreaming of you, when thestrength of your heart’s desire rose to the point of callinghis form-body to your house for an instant. It mighthave happened before in the daylight, and you did notknow—save that you felt restless possibly, and filled withstrange anguish. Had there been light, you would nothave seen him.”

“But,” she faltered, “I have heard at the moment ofdeath—such things happen——”

“Yes, but he did not need to die to be called to you.”

Yet she was deathly afraid. It had been the sameafter the night of her dream in Cheer Street—the nightthat Routledge had slipped from a noose in Madras. IfNoreen had known that!... It is well that shedid not, for she could have borne but little more.

Further weeks ground by. Only in the sense that shedid not die, Noreen lived, moving about her little house,in daylight and lamp-light, without words, but with manyfears. She tried to paint a little in those wonderfulsummer days—days of flashing light, and nights all litwith divinity—but between her eyes and the canvas,films of memory forever swung: Routledge-san in CheerStreet; in the golden stillness of the Seville; the littleParis studio; in the carriage from Bookstalls to CharingCross; in the snowy twilight on the Bund in Shanghai—yes,and the mist of the man here by the easel!...Always he was with her, in her heart and in her mind.

Not a word concerning Routledge, from the least orgreatest of the men who had promised to watch for him![251]Often it came to her now that he had either allied himselfwith the Russians or avoided the war entirely.Could it be that he had already followed the prophecywhich Mr. Jasper had repeated for her, and gone to joinRawder a last time in the Leper Valley?... Noone in Japan had ever heard of the Leper Valley.

There was little mercy in the thought of him beingwith the Russians; and yet such a service might haveappealed to a man who desired to remain apart from theEnglish. If he were in Liaoyang or Mukden, there wasno hope of reaching him, until winter closed the campaign,at least. Only a few hundred miles away, as thecrow flies, and yet Mukden and Liaoyang could beapproached only from around the world. The valleybetween two armies is impassable, indeed—unwired, untracked,and watched so that a beetle cannot cross unseen....The general receives a dispatch at dawn containingthe probable movements of the enemy for this day.One of his spies in the hostile camp which faces him,less than two miles away, has secured the informationand sent it in—not across the impassable valley, butaround the world.... If Routledge had knownthat the curse had been lifted from him, would he nothave rushed back to her? It seemed so, but with theRussians, he would have been last to learn what hadbefallen.

Just once—and it marked the blackest hour of thatblack summer in Japan—the thought flooded upon herthat Routledge knew, but purposely remained apart; thathe was big enough to make the great sacrifice for her,but not to return to the woman whose heritage, in turn,was the Hate of London. That hour became a life-long[252]memory, even though the thought was whipped andshamed and beaten away.

It was late in July when certain sentences in anAmerican newspaper rose with a thrilling welcome to hereyes. There was an intimate familiarity, even in theheading, which he might not have written, but whichreflected the movement and color of his work. It was inthe World-News of New York, and signed “A. V.Weed.”... A rather long feature cable dated atChifu shortly after the battle of Nanshan. A numberof Russian prisoners had been taken by the Japanese,and with them was a certain Major Volbars, said to bethe premier swordsman of the Russian Empire. TheJapanese heard of his fame; and, as it appears, became atonce eager to learn if Russian civilization producedsword-arms equal to those of her own Samurai. Theprisoner was asked to meet one Watanabe, a young infantrycaptain, and of that meeting the World-News publishedthe following:

“A. V. Weed”—what blessings fell upon the namethat moment!... He was not with the Russians!Not in the Leper Valley! A cable to the World-Newsthat night brought a reply the next day, to the effectthat “A. V. Weed” had never been in touch with theoffice; that he was the freest of free lances, and broughthis messages from time to time to one of the free cablesoutside the war-zone.... The free cable nearest toLiaoyang—already granted to be the next scene of conflict—wasat Shanhaikwan, at the end of the Great Wall.Noreen arranged for mail and dispatches to follow her,and went down the Tokaido, overtaking at Nagasaki aship which had sailed from Yokohama three days beforeshe left.

Noreen breathed sweeter with the shores of Japanbehind. The Pacific liner, Manchu, was crossing theYellow Sea for Shanghai. An evening in early August,and the tropic breeze came over the moon-flecked water,from the spicy archipelagoes below. It was late, and shewas sitting alone, forward on the promenade-deck. Thethought thralled, possessed her completely, that she wasdrawing nearer, nearer her soul’s mate. Might it notbe given to her to keep the covenant—to find him, thoughall others had failed?... There was a high lightover Asia for her inner eye, this memorable night of herromance. The crush of Japan was gone, and in thegreat hour of emancipation her love for Routledge,hardiest of perennials, burst into a delicate glory ofblossoming—countless blooms of devotion, pure white;and in all honor she could not deny—rare fragrantflowerings of passional crimson....

At Shanghai she sought the office of the North ChinaNews, to learn what the war had done during her threedays at sea. The Japanese armies were panting—insidethe passes which had recently protected Liaoyang. Anyday might begin the battle with which Japan intendedforever to end Russia’s hold in Liaotung peninsula. TheNews stated blithely that there was no doubt of the war[256]being over by September.... There was anotherstory in the files of early August, and in the silent officethe woman bent long over the sheet, huge as a luncheon-cover.This was an Indian exchange with a Simla mark.An English correspondent, wandering somewhere in theHills, had run across a white man travelling with an oldHindu lama. A weird mad pair, the story said, half-starving,but they asked no alms. Whither they weregoing, they would not say, nor from whence they hadcome. The natives seemed to understand the wanderers,and possibly filled the lama’s bowl. The feet of thewhite man were bare and travel-bruised, his clothing amotley of Hindu and Chinese garments. The articleintimated that he was a “gone-wrong missionary,” but itswhole purport and excuse was to point out the menaceto British India from unattached white men, mad orapparently mad, moving where they willed, in and outof restless States, especially at such a time as now, whenthe activity of foreign agents, etc., etc....

The article was rock-tight and bitter with the DeadSea bitterness. The pressure of the whole senile Eastwas in it. The woman quivered from a pain the printshad given her, and moved out of the darkened officeinto the strange road, thick and yellow with heat....Could this be Rawder and his Hindu master?...It occurred to her suddenly that the men of thenewspaper might be able to tell her of the Leper Valley.She turned back to the office, was admitted to theeditor.... No, he had not heard of the LeperValley. There were leper colonies scattered variouslythroughout the interior. It might be one of them....She thanked him and went away, leaving a problem to[257]mystify many sleepy, sultry days.... That night,Noreen engaged passage in a coasting steamer forTongu, and on the morning of the third day thereafterboarded the Peking-Shanhaikwan train on the ChineseEastern.

Alone in a first-class compartment, she watched thesnaky furrows of maize throughout seven eternities ofdaylight, until her eyes stung and her brain revolted atthe desolate, fenceless levels of sun-deadened brown.Out of a pent and restless doze, at last she found thata twilight film had cooled the distance; she beheld thesea on her right hand, and before her the Great Wall—thatgray welt on the Eastern world, conceived centuriesbefore the Christ, rising into the dim mountains andjutting down into the sea. In an inexplicable moment ofmental abstraction, as the train drew up to Shanhaikwan,the soul of the weary woman whispered to her that shehad seen it all before.

At the Rest House, Noreen ventured to inquire ofa certain agent of a big British trading company if heknew any of the English or American war-correspondentswho had come recently to Shanhaikwan to file theirwork on the uncensored cable. This man was an unlovelyEnglishman poisoned by China and drink....Oh, yes, some of the men had come in from the fieldor from Wangcheng with big stories, but had troublegetting back to their lines, it was said.

“Have you heard—or do you know—if Mr. Routledgehas been here?”

His face filled with an added inflammation, and hemumbled something which had to do with Routledgeand the treachery in India.

[258]“Do you mean to say,” she demanded hopelessly,“that you—that Shanhaikwan has not heard that Mr.Routledge had nothing to do with the treachery in India—thatanother, Cardinegh of the Witness, confessed thecrime on his death-bed?”

The Englishman had not heard. He bent toward herwith a quick, aroused look and wanted to know all, butshe fled to her room.... It was not strange ifRoutledge failed to hear of his vindication, when thisBritish agent had not.... By the open windowshe sat for hours staring at the Great Wall in the moonlight.She saw it climb through the white sheen whichlay upon the mountains, and saw it dip into the twinklingsea, like a monster that has crawled down to drink.There were intervals when Shanhaikwan was still asthe depths of the ocean. The whole landscape frightenedher with its intimate reality. The thought came againthat this had once been her country, that she had seen theMongol builders murdered by the lash and the toil.

The purest substance of tragedy evolved in her brain.There had been something abhorrent in contact with theEnglishman below. She had seen a hate for Routledgelike that before—at the Army and Navy reception!And then, the sinister narrative of the white man inIndia, as it had been set down by the English correspondent!...Could this be “their bravest man”?Was he, too, attracting hatred and suspicion in India,as a result of the excitement into which her father’swork had thrown the English? Could not poor Rawder,barefoot, travel-bruised, and wearing a motley of nativegarments, be free from this world-havoc which was herheritage?... That instant in the supremacy of[259]pain she could not feel in her heart that Routledgewanted her—or that he was in the world!... Couldhe be dead, or in the Leper Valley? Had his mind goneback to dust—burned out by these terrible currents ofhatred?...

The pictured thought drew forth a stifled scream.The lamp in her room was turned low, and the still,windless night was a pitiless oppression. Crossing theroom to open the door, in agony for air, she passed themirror and saw a dim reflection—white arms, whitethroat, white face. She turned the knob.

The clink of glasses on a tin-tray reached her frombelow, with the soft tread of a native servant; then fromfarther, the clink of billiard-balls and a man’s voice, lowbut insinuating, its very repression an added vileness:

“Dam’ me, but she was a stunning woman, a rippingwoman—and out after——”

She crashed the door shut and bolted it against thepestilence.... Had the powers of evil this nightconsummated a heinous mockery to test her soul, becauseher soul was strong?... In terror and agony, sheknelt by the open window. The Wall was still there,sleeping in the moonlight—the biggest man-made thingin the world, and the quietest. It steadied her, and thestuff of martyrs came back.

The man in charge of the cable-office in Shanhaikwantold her the next morning that a correspondent whosigned himself “A. V. Weed” had brought in a longmessage for New York, just after the Yalu battle, buthad not tarried even a night in town. “A tall, haggardstranger with a low voice,” the man described him....[260]There was little more to be learned, but thiswas life to her, and the first tangible word, that he lived,since her father’s death. Noreen spent the day walkingalone on the beaches and through the foreign concession.

From the top of the Wall in the afternoon, she stareddown at the little walled city which grew out of thegreat masonry. There she could see a bit of livingChina—all its drones and workers and sections and galleries,as in a glass bee-hive. Big thoughts took thebreath from her. Europe seemed young and tawdrybeside this. She picked up one of the loose stones—touchedthe hem of the Wall’s garment, as it were—andagain she had but to close her eyes and look backcenturies into the youth of time, when the Wall wasbuilding, to see the Mongols swarming like ants overthe raw, half-done thing.... There was a littleFrench garrison in the town; and the Sikh infantry, attarget-practice on the beach, brought India back. Theday was not without fascination to her relieved mind.

The evening train from Peking brought a white manwho added to the stability of Shanhaikwan—Talliaferroof the Commonwealth. The dry little man was greatlydisturbed in heart. He had deliberately given up hisplace with Oku’s second army, choosing to miss the smokyback-thresh of future actions in the field, in order toget what he could out on the free cable. Peter Pellen’s“Excalibur,” credited with acumen, flying and submarine,had broken under the Japanese pressure.

“Have you seen or heard of Mr. Routledge?” shewhispered at dinner.

“No,” he replied. “In the field we never got awhisper from him. The Pan-Anglo man in Shanghai[261]told me, however, that he thought Routledge was playingthe Chinese end—that is, living just outside the war-zoneand making sallies in, from time to time, when thingsare piping hot. The reason he thought Routledge wasworking this game was the fact that New York hassprung three or four great stories which London hasmissed entirely. It’s all a guess, Miss Cardinegh, butsomebody is doing it, and it’s his kind of service—theperilous, hard-riding kind. Nobody but a man on theInside of Asia would attempt it. There was an American,named Butzel, shot by the Chinese on the Liao Riverten days ago. He was not an accredited correspondent,as I understand it, but was using the war for a living.Butzel’s death was wired in from the interior somewhere,and they had it back from New York in Shanghaiwhen I was there. Did you hear?”

“No.”

“It appears that Butzel planned to get into Liaoyangfor the battle,” Talliaferro went on, “whether the Japaneseliked it or not. About the place where the Taitseflows into the Liao, the river-pirates murdered him——”

Talliaferro stopped, startled by the look in the faceof the woman. Her eyes were wide, almost electric withsuffering, her face colorless. The lamp-light heightenedthe effects; also her dress, which was of black entire.Talliaferro noted such things. He always rememberedher hand that moment, as it was raised to check him,white, fragile, emotional.

“What is it, Miss Cardinegh?” he asked quickly.

“I was thinking,” she replied steadily, “that Mr.Routledge is there in all likelihood—‘playing the Chineseend,’ as you call it. I was thinking that he might not[262]have heard that he is vindicated—that he might be murderedbefore he learned that my father had confessed.”

She hurried away before the dinner was half through,and Talliaferro was left to dislike himself, for a shortperiod, for bringing up the Butzel murder....Noreen sat again by the window in her room. Thestory had frightened her, so that she felt the need ofbeing alone to think. The dreadfulness of the nightbefore did not return, however.... The moonrose high to find the Wall again—every part of it, windingin the mountains.... Was it not possible thatTalliaferro was over-conscious of the dangers of theChinese end? Routledge had been up there, possiblysince the Yalu battle, and he had proved a master inthese single-handed services of his.... She hadheard of Talliaferro’s capacity to command the highestprice, heard of him as an editorial dictator and of hisfine grasp on international affairs, but her father hadonce remarked that the Excalibur “did not relish danglinghis body in the dirty area between two firing lines.”...There was hope in her heart, and she slept.

“Please don’t apologize, Mr. Talliaferro,” she saidthe next morning, when he met her sorrowfully. “It isI who should apologize. For a moment you made mesee vividly the dangers up yonder, but I put it all awayand had a real rest. Tell me about the field and Oku.”

Talliaferro was inclined to talk very little, as a rule,but he had brooded deeply upon his failure in this service,and it was rather a relief to speak—with Noreen Cardineghto listen.

“At least, we have added to the gaiety of nationswith our silence in the field,” he said. “It has been the[263]silence of the Great Wall yonder. We knew nothingeven of the main strategy, which was familiar to all outsidewho cared to follow the war. Japanese officers wereassigned to overhear what we said to one another. Theyeven opened our personal mail. The field-telegraph washot day and night with the war-business, so that ourmessages were hung up for days, even with the life cutout of them. And then when Oku drove into action wewere always back with the reserves—not that I think acorrespondent can do a battle classic for his cable-editor,simply because he mingles first hand with shrapnel; butwe had only the sun and stars to go by as to which wasnorth and south. Think of it, and the man who writesa war-classic must have a conception of the whole landand sea array, and an inner force of his own, to makehis sentences shine——”

She smiled a little and straightened her shoulders tobreathe deeply the good sea air. They were walkingout toward the Wall.

“But suppose he has the big conception, as you say,and then goes into the heart of the thing”—her voicebecame tense—“where the poor brave brutes are comingtogether to die?”

“He’ll unquestionably do it better,” said Talliaferro,regarding her blowing hair with satisfaction to the artisticsense he cultivated. “Physical heroism is cheap—thecheapest utility of the nations—but it is not withoutinspiration to watch.... We had neither—neitherfacts nor blood with Oku.”

Long and weary were those August days in Shanhaikwan.Noreen lived for the end of the battle, and[264]with a prayer that it would end the war and bring in—allthe correspondents. Over and over she mapped thewar-country in her mind, with a lone horseman shuttingout her view of armies. There were moments at night inwhich she felt that Routledge-san was not far away—evenLiaoyang was less than three hundred miles away....Those last days of the month—only a womancan bear such terrors of tension. Each night-train nowbrought vagrant sentences from the field, bearing uponthe unparalleled sacrifices of men by the Japanese.Throughout August thirty-first, Shanhaikwan waitedexpectantly for a decision from the battle, but when thenight-train was in the Russians were still holding. Latein the afternoon of September first, Talliaferro soughtMiss Cardinegh bringing an exciting rumor that theJapanese had won the battle and the city.

“There’s another thing,” he added. “The Englishagent of the trading company here—the man of whomyou don’t approve—has heard from Bingley. He willbe in from Wangcheng to-night, and something big isup. Bingley has called for a horse to meet him at thetrain—a fast horse. I’ll wager there’s an American correspondenton the train, Miss Cardinegh, and that the‘Horse-killer’ plans to beat him to the cable-office inthe half-mile from the station. He wouldn’t wire for ahorse if he were alone. Another matter. Borden, theAmerican Combined Press man here, looks to have somethingbig under cover. Altogether, I think there’ll begreat stuff on the cable to-night. The chief trouble is,there won’t be any core—to Bingley’s apple.... I’llcall for you in a half-hour—if I may—and we’ll walkdown to the train together.”

[265]“Thank you. Of course,” she answered....That half-hour pulled a big tribute of nervous energy.Noreen did not know what to think, but she fought backhope with all the strength which months of self-war hadgiven....

The train appeared at last through the gap in theGreat Wall—cleared torturingly slow in the twilight.Talliaferro directed her eyes to two saddle-horses on theplatform. Borden, the American, was in touch with aChina-boy who held a black stallion of notorious prowess....She hardly noted. The train held her eyes. Herthroat was dry—her heart stormed with emotion....She did not scream. Routledge hung far out from theplatform—searching to locate his mount. She coveredher face in her parasol.... This was the end of arace from the field with Bingley.... She chokedback her heart’s cry, lest it complicate.

Routledge sped past her—leaped with a laugh intothe saddle of the black stallion. His eye swept thecrowd—but the yellow silk of the parasol shielded herface. He spurred off toward the cable-office—withBingley thundering behind on a gray mount....Not till then did she dare to scream:

“Win! Ride to win, Routledge-san!”

Out of the shouting crowd, she ran after the horsem*n—pastthe Rest House, through the mud-huts of thenative quarter.... On she sped, the night filledwith glory for her eyes.... Suddenly there wasa shot—then four more—from ahead. Fear bound herlimbs, and she struggled on—as in the horrid weights ofan evil dream.

Parting from Noreen Cardinegh on the Bund atShanghai, Routledge walked back through the darknessto the German Inn far out on the Hankow road. Hewas not conscious of the streets, nor of time passed. Nota word he had spoken to the woman could he remember,but all that she had said recurred again and again. Hewas torn within. The wound was too deep for heavypain at first—that would come later with the drawing-together—buthe was dazed, weakened. He turned intothe door of the hostelry and recalled that he had nothingto do there. He had engaged passage on the Sungkiangfor Chifu that afternoon. His baggage was aboard,and the ship lying on the water-front which he had left.He turned back, without any particular emotion at hisabsentmindedness, but he charged himself with an evilrecklessness for tarrying on the Bund in the afternoon....Finacune had seen him, and Noreen....

Jerry Cardinegh was still alive—lost to wars, lost tofriends, but still alive. He was close to death, his brainprobably already dead to big things, and he had not told!Noreen would never know. Routledge tried to be glad.All his praying, hiding, and suffering had been to saveher from knowing. His lips formed a meaninglessdeclarative sentence to the effect that he was glad;[267]meaningless, because there was no sanction in his heart.He was ill and very weary. He wished it were time forthe prophesied wound, and for Noreen to come to him.He was not powerful enough that moment, walking backto the Bund, to face the future, and hold the thought thathe was to remain an outcast....

“She will come to me when Jerry is dead,” he repeated,and for the time he could not fight it....He went aboard, forgetting dinner, and dropped upon hisberth. The Sungkiang put off, out into the river, andlong afterward lifted to the big swell in the offing. Thesewere but faint touches of consciousness. His mind heldgreater matters—the strength of her hand, the breath,the fragrance, the vehemence, the glory of the womanin the wintry dusk, as she rushed back to her work—thetearing tragedy of parting; again the pitiless mountainsof separation....

Loose articles were banging about the floor; thependent oil-lamp creaked with the pitching of the ship.It was after midnight. Routledge caught up the greatfrieze coat and went out on the main-deck. It was acold ruffian of a night, but it restored his strength.

She would keep her promise and come to him, whenher father was dead. He faced the thought now that shewould never know the truth; that Jerry Cardinegh wouldhave spoken long since, if he could.... In somedeep dark place of the earth, she would find him; andsome British eye, ever keen, would see them together—thelady and the outcast.... He would send her away—puton a martyrdom of frost and steel—and send heraway.... If he lied, saying that he wanted nowoman—she would go back.... But Noreen was[268]to find him wounded, fallen. Might he not, in delirium,utter the truth that her father failed to confess? No,the human will could prevent that! He would go downclose to the very Gates with his lips locked.

“... I shall take care of your life for you—evenin the Leper Valley!” Routledge thought he mustbe mad to imagine those words. Her face—as the wordscame to him—had been blotted out in the snow and thedark; yet it was her voice, and the words rang throughhis soul. She could not have seen Rawder nor theHindu. They were lost in Northern India. He knewnothing of Jasper having passed the hut in Rydamphurthat night, nor of his meeting with Noreen on ship-board.The Leper Valley, hidden in the great mountainsof Southern China, was scarcely a name to theworld. Could Noreen have heard the name, and usedit merely as a symbol of speech for the uttermost partsof the earth? This was the only adjustment of themystery upon a material basis.

He fought it all out that night in the icy gale on themain-deck of the Sungkiang, and entered upon the loneliest,harshest campaign and the bleakest season of hislife.... Often it came to him with a great, almostan overpowering surge—the passion to look into theeyes of Noreen Cardinegh again and to stand amongmen, but he fought it with the grim, immutable fact thathe had taken her father’s crime and must keep it, standby it, with his dearest efforts until the end. If fatedestined some time to lift the burden—that was resistless....Except in bringing in his stories to thecables, he passed the spring and summer in the deepestseclusion.

[269]This he knew: if he were seen by any of his oldfriends among the English, the word would be carried toJerry Cardinegh, who, if still alive, might be stirred toconfession. To save Noreen from this was the firstpoint of his sacrifice. If her father were dead, unconfessed,and word reached her that the outcast had beenseen in a certain part of Manchuria, she would come toshare his hell-haunted-life—a thought which his wholemanhood shunned. Moreover, if he were seen by theBritish, the sinister powerful fingers of the secret servicewould stretch toward him; in which case, if nothingworse happened, he would be driven from the terrainof war. Work was his only boon—furious, unabating,world-rousing work. God so loved the world that hegave unto poor forlorn man his work.... Nomore loitering on Bunds or Foreign Concessions forCosmo Routledge.

From various Chinese bases, he made flying incursionsinto the war-belt for the World-News—a lonely,perilous, hard-shipping, and hard-riding service, butastonishingly successful. It was his flash from Chifuwhich told New York that the war was on before thedeclaration. This was on the night of February eighth.A strong but not a roaring west wind brought Togo’sfiring across the gulf. He chanced a message and verifiedit before dawn by an incoming German ship, whichhad steamed past the fortress when the Russian fleet wasattacked.

Again, he was with the Russians at Wangcheng beforethe port was closed, and got the story of the Yalu fight.This through John Milner, the American consul atWangcheng, in whom he made a staunch and valued[270]friend, regretting that it was necessary to do so underthe name of “A. V. Weed.” Milner was an old World-Newseditor, a man of stirring energy, and strong inthe graces of the Russians at his post. He was ardentto serve all American interests, and the World-News inparticular. He presented Routledge to General Borodoffsky,who told the story of the battle; and there wasa fine touch in the fact that the general wept as herelated the Russian defeat. The story proved more completeand accurate than any which the correspondentswith Kuroki managed to get through the Japanese censor.Kuroki’s great losses by drowning were for the first timebrought out. Borodoffsky declared with tears that thefuture of the war must not be judged by this battle, asthe Russian defeat was due entirely to an error of judgment.Routledge was leaving Wangcheng with the storywhen two British correspondents arrived. This preventedhis return. The Borodoffsky story was filed inShanhaikwan.

In a sea-going junk, the third week of May, Routledgecrossed the Liaotung Gulf, hoping to get intoPort Arthur, which was not yet invested. Instead, hestumbled onto the Nanshan story. From the northernpromontory of Kinchow he caught a big and valuableconception of this literatesque engagement of the landand sea forces, and returned with it to Chifu for filing.

Back to lower Liaotung again, in early June. In spiteof every precaution, one of Togo’s gunboats ran himdown in Society Bay, and he was sent ashore under aguard. Great luck served him, inasmuch as there wereno English with the Japanese at this place, Pulatien,where he was held for ten days, while the officers debated[271]upon his credentials. It was here that Routledge encounteredthe prettiest feature-story of the war—the duel ofWatanabe and Major Volbars, a prisoner from Nanshan.The Japanese escorted him to his junk at last, and heput off with orders from one of Togo’s ensigns to returnno more to Kwantung waters. The battle of Telissuwas fought on this day at sea, and he missed it entirely.With English now in Wangcheng and Chifu, Routledgeordered his Chinese to sail north, and to put him ashoreat Yuenchen, a little port twenty miles to the west ofthe Liao’s mouth.

It was only by a squeak that the order was carriedout. That was a night of furies on the yellow gulf.Bent in the hold, thigh-deep in tossing water, Routledgerecalled the hovel in Rydamphur with a sorry smile. Itdid not seem at that moment that the storm would everpermit him to be maimed on land—or a woman to cometo him. The old craft was beaten about under barepoles in a roaring black that seemed to drop from chaos.The Chinese fought for life, but the gray of death-fearwas upon them. Bruised, almost strangled, Routledgecrouched in the musty hold, until his mind fell at lastinto a strange abstraction, from which he aroused afteran unknown time. His physical weariness was extreme,but it did not seem possible that he could have slept,standing in black, foaming water, and with a demoniacalgale screeching outside. Yet certainly something hadgone from him and had taken his consciousness, or thebetter part of it.... It was this night that NoreenCardinegh had entered at dusk her little house in Minimasacuma-choand met by the easel the visible thought-formof her lover.

[272]Day broke with the wind lulled, and the old craftriding monster seas, her poles still to the sky. The daylightsail brought him to Yuenchen; from whence hemade his way northward by land to Pingyang. Thistown was but an hour’s saddle to the east of the railroadand telegraph at Koupangtze—twenty miles west of thejunction of the Taitse and the Liao river, and fifty mileswest of Liaoyang. Here he established headquarterscompletely out of the white man’s world, rested andwrote mail stories for several weeks. Toward the endof July, he set out on a ten days’ saddle trip towardLiaoyang, with the idea of becoming familiar with thetopography of the country, in preparation for the battle,already in sight. It was on this trip that he was hailedone afternoon by an American, named Butzel. Thisyoung man was sitting on the aft-gunnel of a river-junk,rolling a cigarette, when Routledge turned his horse uponthe Taitse river-road, four or five miles to the east of theLiao. Routledge would have avoided the meeting hadhe been given a chance, but Butzel gaily ordered hisChinese to put ashore. The voice was that of a manfrom the Middle States—and Routledge filled with yearningto take a white hand. His only friend since he hadleft Rawder in India was Consul Milner at Wangcheng.

Butzel had journeyed thus deep into the elder world—asnatural an explorer as ever left behind his nerves andhis saving portion of fear. He hadn’t any particularcredentials, he said, and hadn’t played the newspapergame very strongly up to now. The Japanese had refusedto permit him to go out with any of the armies;and he had tried to get into Port Arthur with a junk,but Togo had driven him off. He had very little money,[273]and was tackling China to get to the Russian lines. Itwas his idea for the Russians to capture him, and, incidentally,to show him how they could defend Liaoyang.In a word, he was eluding Japan, bluffing his way throughthe interior of China, and about to enforce certain hospitalityfrom the Russians. A great soul—in this littleman, Butzel.

Routledge delighted in him, but feared for his life.He himself was playing a similar lone-hand, but hecarried Red-beard insignia, purchased at a big price;and when he had ventured into a river or sea-junk, hehad taken pains to arrange that his receipt for a certainextortion was hung high on the foremast. Thus washe ever approved by the fascinating brotherhood of junkpirates. These were details entirely above the Butzelpurse and inclination. The two men parted in fine spiritafter an hour, the adventurer urging his Chinese up theTaitse toward the Russian lines. He was not so pooras he had been, and he yelled back joyously to Routledgethat there wasn’t enough trails in this little piker of aplanet to keep them from meeting again.

His words proved true. Poor Butzel rode back instate that afternoon, his head fallen against the tillerand a bullet hole in his breast. Even his clothing hadbeen taken. The junk was empty except for the body.With a heavy heart, Routledge attended to the burialand marked the spot. That night he rode to Koupangtze,and, by paying the charges, succeeded in arranging for abrief message to be cabled to the World-News; also atelegram to the American consul at Shanghai.

So much is merely a suggestion of the work thattold for his paper that summer. For weeks at a time he[274]was in the saddle, or junking it by sea and river. Exceptwhen driven to the telegraph, he avoided every port townand every main-travelled road. He was lean, light butprodigiously strong. A trencherman of ordinary valorwould have dragged out a hateful existence of semi-starvationupon the rations that sufficed for Routledge;and none but a man in whom a giant’s strength was concentratedcould have followed his travels. The old Manchuriantrails burned under his ponies; and, queerlyenough, he never ruined a mount. He had left Shanghaion the first of February, ill from confinement, the crowds,and his long sojourn in the great heat of India. Thehard physical life at sea in the Liao gulf and afield inManchuria, and, possibly more than anything, his lifeapart from the English, restored him to a health of thefinest and toughest texture.

China challenged him. He never could feel the tendernessof regard for the Yellow Empire that India inspired,but it held an almost equal fascination. Chinadwelt in a duller, more alien light to his eyes; the peoplewere more complicated, less placable and lovable, thanHindus, but the same mysterious stillness, the samedust of ages, he found in both interiors; and in bothpeoples the same imperturbable patience and unfathomablecapacity to suffer and be silent. Routledge movedin towns almost as unknown to the world as the Martiansurfaces; learned enough of the confusion of tongues toprocure necessities; supplied himself with documents,bearing the seals of certain dark fraternities, whichappeared to pass him from place to place without harm:and, with a luck that balanced the handicap of an outcast,and an energy, mental and physical, utterly impossible[275]to a man with peace in his heart, he pushed through, upto Liaoyang, an almost incredible season’s work.

More and more the thought was borne upon him duringJuly and August that the coming big battle wouldbring to him a change of fortune—if only a change fromone desolation to another. He felt that his war-servicewas nearing its end. He did not believe that Liaoyangwas to end the war, but he thought it would close thecampaign for the year; and he planned to conclude hisown campaign with a vivid intimate portrait of thebattle. Meanwhile he hung afar from the Russian andJapanese lines, and little Pingyang had a fire lit forhim and a table spread when he rode in from hisreconnoissance.

Late in August, when the artillery began, Routledgecrossed to the south bank of the Taitse with a pair ofgood horses, and left them about two miles to the west ofthe city with a Pingyang servant who had proven trustworthy.On the dawn of the thirtieth he made a widedetour behind Oku, nearly to Nodzu’s lines, and watchedthe battle from Sha peak—one of the highest points of therange. He had studied Liaoyang long through theintricate Chinese maps; and as the heights had clearedthe fighting-field for Bingley, so now did Routledgegrasp the topography from his eyrie during that first dayof the real battle. Similarly also, he hit upon Kuroki’sflank movement as the likeliest strategy of the Japaneseaggression, and he came to regard it as a fact beforestarting for the free cable at Wangcheng the followingnight.

This day netted nothing in so far as the real battlecolor was considered. That night he closed up on Oku’s[276]rear, crossing a big valley and climbing a lesser range.Daylight found him in a densely thicketed slope overlookingthe city and the Japanese command. In thathot red dawn, he beheld the bivouac of the Islanders—acrowded valley stretching away miles to the east in thefast lifting gloom; leagues of stirring men, the faintsmell of wood-smoke and trampled turf, the gray, silentcity over the reddened hills, the slaty coil of the riverbehind.

The mighty spectacle gripped the heart of thewatcher; and there came to him, with an awful but thrillingintensity, the whole story of the years which hadprepared this amphitheatre for blood on this sweet lastsummer day.... Oppression in Tyrone; treacheryin India; the Anglo-Japanese alliance; the Russo-Japanesewar—a logical line of cause and effect running trueas destiny, straight as a sunbeam through all these hugeand scattered events—holding all Asia in the palm ofhistory! Farther back, to the Kabul massacre, was tobe traced the red history of this day—the mad Britishcolonel; Shubar Khan!... And what did thefuture hold? If Russia called the French and Germans toher aid, England, by treaty, was called to the aid ofJapan. America might be drawn by the needs of England,or for the protection of her softening cluster ofPhilippine grapes. Famine in a Tyrone town; a leakin one Tyrone patriot’s brain—and a world-war!...

The click of a rifle jerked Routledge out of hismusings. A Japanese lieutenant and a non-commissionedofficer were standing twenty paces away. The enlistedman had him covered.

Queerly enough, Routledge’s first thought was thatthe moment of the wound had come, but this was out ofthe question. These men would not fire at him. Theywould send him to the rear under a guard; or, worse,escort him to the command where the other correspondentswere held. The Englishmen would then suggestto the Japanese that their captive had once proved atraitor to England, and that it would be well to lookdeep into his present business, lest he repeat....He would miss the battle, be detained for a Russian spy—andNoreen would hear.

Routledge was ordered to approach, and obeyed,swallowing Failure. The lieutenant spoke English, butdisdained to look at proffered credentials. The sergeantgripped Routledge’s arm, and his superior led the waydown the slope through the lines of troops. Many of thelittle soldiers of Oku were eating rice and drinking teafrom bowls; some were bathing their bodies, otherscleansing their teeth with great zeal, using soaps andpointed sticks. These meant to be gathered unto theirfathers that day with clean mouths. Down and forward,the American was led, no word being spoken until theywere in the midst of Oku’s front. Here was the field[278]headquarters of some high officer of the left wing. Routledgebreathed a hope that action would be joined beforehe was ordered back. The unknown commander stoodin the centre of a thick protecting cordon of men. Evidentlyhe was too rushed at present to attend the caseof the detained civilian. Aides and orderlies spurredout with dispatches, and others riding in took theirplaces.

Three or four minutes had passed when certain commandswent ripping down the unformed lines and actionwas indeed joined. The lieutenant was brushed away inthe torrent of infantry which just now swept over them,but the sergeant held grimly to his prisoner’s arm. Okuhad ordered the first charge of the day. This was thereeking red splash on the map of all the world.

The soldiers leaped over Routledge and his captor.Shielding his head from their boots and rifle-butts, theAmerican looked deep into the sweating brown facesthat rushed past—red, squinting eyes, upper lips twistedwith a fury they could not have explained, the snarlingmuscles drawn tight—and not a zephyr of fear in thecommand! Some of the men still had their eating-sticksand bowls and paper napkins. One stuffed the contentsof a dish of rice into his mouth as he ran—an eight-poundrifle clapped between his elbow and ribs.

The correspondent warmed to the human atomshurtling by and to the sergeant who stuck so fast to hisarm. There was something tremendous in the delusionof these poor pawns who were doing their cruel work sowell. There was an infernal majesty in the huge gamblefor the old gray walls of Liaoyang on this gorgeousmorning.... War is immense and final—for the[279]big devil-clutched souls who make it—an achievement,indeed, to gather and energize and hurl this great forceagainst an enemy, but what a rotten imposition upon thepoor little obscure men who fight, not a tithe the richerif they take all Asia! So the thoughts of Routledgesurged. Into the havoc, from time to time, he threw asentence, wrung from the depths of his understanding:

“... Once a father threw his children out ofthe sleigh to hold back a wolf-pack—as he whipped hishorse to the village. Would you call such a man‘father’?... Yet you call a nation ‘fatherland’that hurls you now to the wolves!... Oh, ye ofmighty faith!... Pawns—poor pawns—of plague,famine, war around the world—God, tell us why themany are consumed to ashes at the pleasure of the few!...Oh, glorious Patriotism—what sins are committedin thy name!”

The great system of Russian fortifications now openedfire upon the Japanese charge. Men were falling. Thebulk of the infantry avalanche had passed, and smokewas crowding out the distances. The long p-n-n-n-g ofthe high bullets, and the instant b-zrp of the close ones,were stimulus for that fast, clear thinking which so oftencomes close to death. Routledge’s brain seemed to holditself aloof from his body, the better to grasp and synthesizethe startling actions of the present.

The smoke blurred all but a finger-bone of thevalley; yet from that part he could reconstruct the wholehorrid skeleton of a Twentieth-century crime....The brown line of Japanese rolled up against the firstRussian trench. Routledge thought of toy soldiers,heads bent forward, legs working, and guns of papier[280]maché in bayonet charge. The works wore a white ruffof smoke, and its lace was swept by stray winds downover the fallen....

The grip upon his arm relaxed. For a moment Routledgethought he was hit, when the blood rushed downthe veins of his arm where the tightened fingers hadbeen. He was free—and at what a cost! The littlesergeant was down—his legs wriggling and beatingagainst the American’s, the “red badge of courage”widening on his breast. Routledge bent over him andlooked long into the dying face—forgetting the worldand the war, forgetting all but the spirit behind the hour.

The face was brown, oriental. In the corner of themouth was a flake of rice, and the coarse-grained dustof Manchuria was over all. The eyes were turned back,and the ears were bad. Evolution was young in theshape of the head and the cut of those ears—small,thick, close to the skull, criminal ears. But the mouthwas beautiful! It was carved as if some God had doneit—and on a fine morning when joy was abroad in theworld—and the perfection of the human mouth wasthe theme of the day.

Routledge had not even water to give, but he said,“Hello.”

Deep understanding came to him from the dyingface. He saw what it meant to this little soldier togo out for his Emperor—saw the faith and pity of it all.It was the smiling face of a man who comes home afteryears of travail to the marvel of a loved woman’s arms.

“Sayonara!” the fine lips muttered. One of thesweetest and saddest words of human speech—thisJapanese farewell.

[281]“Sayonara!” Routledge repeated.... The bodyjerked itself out, but the smile remained. The wholestory of the Japanese conquest stirred in Routledge’sbrain. It was all in the smile upon the face of theguard—all in that one perishable portrait of joy.

Routledge had once seen the Emperor for whom thissoldier died with a smile. Though it was forenoon, hehad been forced to put on evening-clothes for the Presence.Mutsuhito came back to his mind as he bent overthe fresh corpse....

“He has no such mouth as yours, little sergeant,” hesaid in a swift, strange fashion. “His head is not sogood as your hard, bad head, though his ears are better.He was dazed with champagne, as you have never been.He had the look of an epileptic, and they had to bringhim a red-blooded woman of the people to get a sonfrom him—and that son a defective!... A soft,inbred pulp of a man, without strength of will or hand orbrain, and God only knows what rudiment of a soul—suchis the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, whom you diefor with a smile. You are greater than the Empire youserve, little sergeant—greater than the Emperor you diefor; since he is not even a clean abstraction....God pity you—God pity you all!”

The sun sent streamers into the white smoke draperyupon the Russian bank. The Island Empire men werethrashing against it. They met with their breasts thefire that spurted continuously from the ledges. Oneman of a Japanese company lived to gain the top of thetrench. He was skewered on Russian bayonets andshaken down among his writhing fellow-soldiers, as thewing of a chicken is served upon a waiting plate. Running,[282]crawling, Routledge made his way down andforward.

The Japanese hope lives high above the loss of companies.It was a glad morning for the Island Empiremen, a bright task they were given to do. Other companies,full quota, were shot forward to tread upon thedead and beat themselves to death against the entrenchment.A third torrent was rolled against the Russiansbefore the second had suffered a complete blood-letting....Routledge saw one five-foot demon wieldinghis rifle-butt upon the rim of the trench, in the midst ofgray Russian giants. For an instant he was a humantornado, filled with the idea to kill—that Brownie—thenhe was sucked down and stilled. Routledge wonderedif they completely wiped out the little man’s smile atthe last.

He was ill from the butchery, and his mind was proneto grope away from the bleeding heart of things; still,he missed little of the great tragedy which unfolded inthe smoke. And always Oku, unparalleled profligate ofmen, coiled up his companies and sprung them against aposition which Napoleon would have called impregnable—Oku,whose voice was quiet as a mystic’s prayer. Thethought came to Routledge that the women of Americawould tear down the capitol at Washington with theirhands, if the walls contained a monster who had spentthe blood of their sons and lovers as Oku was doingnow.

A new tumult in the air! It was like an instanthorrid crash of drums in the midst of a violin solo.Artillery now roared down upon Oyama’s left wing....The wildest dream of hell was on. Routledge,[283]crawling westward through the pit of fire, saw a platoonof infantry smashed as a cue-ball shatters a fifteen blockin pool.... Westward under the Russian guns, hecrawled through the sun-shot, smoke-charged shambles,miraculously continuing alive in that thick, steady, annihilatingblizzard of steel—his brain desperate with therush of images and the shock of sounds. Over a blood-wetturf he crawled, among the quivering parts ofmen....

Silence. Oku stopped to breathe and pick up thefragments.... From far up on the Russian works—itwas like the celestial singing in the ears of thedying—began a distant, thrilling music. Some regimentor brigade, swinging into the intrenchments to relieve aweary command, had burst into song.... Oncebefore Routledge had caught a touch of this enchantment,during the Boxer Rebellion. He had never beenable to forget Jerry Cardinegh’s telling of the Russianbattle-hymns at Plevna.... Great emotions bowedhim now. Another terrace of defense caught up thesong, and the winds that cleared the reeking valley ofsmoke carried along the vibrant inspiration. Every Russianheart gripped the grand contagion. From terraceto terrace, from trench to trench, from pit to emplacement,that glorious thunder stalked, a company, a battery,a brigade, at a stride. Each voice was a raw,dust-bitten shout—the whole a majestic harmony, fromthe cannon-meat of Liaoyang! Sons of the North, gray,sodden, sorrow-stunted men of pent misery and unlitsouls—Finlander, Siberian, Caspian, Caucasian—hurlingforth their heart-hunger in a tumult of song thatshook the continent. The spirit of All the Russias giving[284]tongue—the tragedy of Poland, the clank of chains, themockery of palaces, the iron pressure of frost, the wailof the wolf-pack on frozen tundras, the cry of thecrushed, the blind groping of the human to God—itwas all in that rhythmic roar, all the dreadful annals ofa decadent people.

As it was born, so it died,—that music,—from terraceto terrace, the last wavering chant from out the citywalls. The little Japanese made no answer. Routledgecould not help but see the mark of the beast in contrast.It wasn’t the Russians that bothered Oku, but the Russianposition. Kuroki would pull them out of that....Song or steel, they would take Liaoyang. Theyprepared to charge again.

In the disorder of the next charge Routledge crossedthe railroad and passed out of the Japanese lines. Lateafternoon, as he hurried westward for his horses, hemet the eyes of Bingley. He was not given a chance topass another way. The race for the cable was on.

To each man the intention of the other was clear asthe purpose of a fire-department’s run. One of themwould file the first uncensored story of the great battle.Bingley had given up his chance to follow the Japanesearmy, and had set his stony face to freedom for thisend—and England could not have horsed a man moreunwhippable. Routledge, striding into the sunset, towardthe place he had left his mounts, discovered with a smilethat his pace was quickening, quickening. The characterof the man just passed was an inspiration to rivalry.Moreover, from a newspaper standpoint, the issue athand was big among dreams. The Great God, News, isa marvellous master. Would England or America befirst to connect with Manchuria by wire? World-Newsor Thames? If New York beat London, Dartmore wouldtrace the story.... Dartmore had been a savage.Bingley had been a savage.

Routledge laughed aloud. He had long since putaway any resentment toward either of these men, butthere was vim, and glow, in getting into the struggleagain. He felt that he had earned his entry to this race.He had counted upon taking the chances of discovery.Already Bingley had seen him, and the word would go[286]back; but the result of it would require time. He had longplanned to close his own campaign for the year, even ifthe Japanese pushed on to Mukden. He would godeeper, past following, into China—even to the LeperValley.

It was a momentous incident to Routledge—thismeeting with the “Horse-killer.” The quick, startled,sullen look on the face of Bingley—not a flicker of asmile, not even a scornful smile, to answer his own—hadmeant that Cardinegh, dead or alive, had not told.

Bingley found the highway two miles west of therailroad, and spurred south in the darkness at the rateof about seven miles an hour. He meant to do six orseven hours of this before resting his mount....Between twelve and one in the morning—and at mosttwenty miles to go! If there was anything left in hishorse, after an hour’s rest, so much the better. Otherwisehe could do it on foot, crossing the river above Fengmarongby six in the morning. This would leave two hoursfor the last two or three miles into Wangcheng. As forthe other, without a mount, Bingley did not concede it tobe within human possibility for him to reach the ChineseEastern at any point to-morrow morning. EvidentlyRoutledge had not planned to get away so soon. Itwould take eighteen hours at least to reach Wangchengby the river, and Routledge, aiming westward, seemedto have this route in view.... With all his conjecturing,Bingley could find no peace of mind. Evenif Routledge had not planned to reach travelled-linesto-morrow, would not the sight of a rival, with his speedsignals out and whistling for right of way, stir him tocompetition? Such was his respect for the man who had[287]passed on, that Bingley could not find serenity in judgingthe actions and acumen of Routledge by ordinaryweights and measures.

Any other British correspondent would have hailedthe outcast with the old welcome, notwithstanding therace-challenge which his appearance involved. On themorning he left Tokyo, five months before, Bingley hadalso promised Miss Cardinegh to carry the news of herfather’s confession and death to Routledge, if he shouldbe the first to find him. It did not occur to Bingley now,isolated as he had been so long, that this was the firsttime Routledge had been seen. Moreover, in their lastmeeting, at the Army and Navy ball, there had been abrief but bitter passage of words. Bingley was not theman to make an overture when there was a chance of itsbeing repelled. Finally, the sudden discovery of atrained man, with carnage behind and the cable ahead,was a juggernaut which crushed the life from everyother thought in his brain.

Routledge found his horses in excellent condition.The Chinese whom he had brought from Pingyang hadproved faithful before, but with all the natives, notalone the banditti and river-thieves, emboldened by thewar, the safe holding of his property was a joy indeed.At seven in the evening, the sky black with gatheringstorm, he left his servant, rich in taels and blessings,and turned westward along the Taitse river-road. Thiswas neither the best nor the shortest way, but Routledgepreferred to be impeded by ruts, even by chasms, thanby Japanese sentries. With Bingley’s full panoply ofcredentials it would have been different.

Sixty-five miles to ride, a river to cross, an audience[288]with Consul Milner, a train to catch, to say nothingof enforced delays by the possible interest of the Japanesein his movements—all in fourteen hours.

As Bingley conjectured, the chance meeting hadhastened the plan of Routledge. He had intended toreach Wangcheng the following day, but by no meansin time for the morning train; in fact, he had determinedto tarry at the American consulate until the decisionfrom the battle should come in. Wangcheng hadchanged hands since his last call at the port, but hecounted on the wise and winning American to be as finelyappreciated by the Japanese as he had been by the Russians.Milner would get the returns from the battlealmost as soon as the Japanese commander at the base.The one word victory or defeat, and a line covering theincidental strategic cause, was all that Routledge neededfor a startling story. He had mastered the field, andOku had supplied a rainbow of pigments.

Bingley, having left the field, would not loiter onthe road to the cable, nor would he halt before reachingan uncensored cable—therefore Shanhaikwan to-morrownight! Routledge did not care to accept second place,if hard-riding would win first. He faced the longerjourney, and also set apart an hour before train-timefor an interview with the Consul. It was eminently plainto him that this day had marked the crisis of the greatbattle, even if it had not already ended with nightfall.The unparalleled fury of Oku’s assaults was significantto this effect. To-morrow would doubtless bring theverdict; and all day to-morrow he would be on train toShanhaikwan, in touch with Milner by wire at everystation. Even if he reached the cable with the battle[289]still raging, he could file the story of the great conflict,as it was synthesized in one man’s brain—up to the pointof the historic last sentence.... Even as he rode,the lines and sentences fused in his mind, a colorful,dashing, galvanic conception that burned for expression.

On and on, hours and miles; cloud-bursts and flashesof lightning to show the trail ahead—until he came todoubt his watch, even the dawn of a new day, in thepressure of the illusion formed of dragging hours anddarkened distances.

The rains helped to keep his mounts fresh. Everytwo hours he changed. The beasts had been longtogether, and either led with a slackened thong. He ranthem very little, and it was after midnight before hedulled the fine edge of their fettle. They were tough,low-geared Tartar beasts, heavy-breasted, short in thepasterns, and quartered like hunters—built for roughtrails and rough wear. Routledge slapped and praisedthem, riding light. It would take more than one gruellingnight under such a horseman to break their hearts.

Two hours after midnight the rain ceased, and thewrung clouds parted for the moon. The hill countrywas passed. Routledge moved swiftly along the river-flats.It was the second night he had not slept, and hisfatigue was no trifle, but he was drilled to endure. Itwas not in him to make a strongly reckonable matter outof muscular stiffness and cuticle abrasions. True, rainsoftens the glaze of a saddle, and long riding on thesticky leather tears the limbs, but Routledge had a bodythat would obey so long as consciousness lasted. Heused it that night.

Five-thirty in the morning; daylight; sixty miles[290]put behind. Ahead far in the new day he discerned theJapanese outposts of Fengmarong; and on the right handwas the big, mottled Liao, swollen with flood. If he wereto be detained by the Japanese, he preferred it to be onthe opposite bank—the Wangcheng side. Routledge rodeup to the ferry-scow and called for service. Yellowbabies were playing like cinnamon-cubs on the shore; twowomen were cooking rice and fish; two men were asleepin the sail-tackle. These he aroused. They helped himwith the horses, half-lifting the weary, trembling beastsaboard. Cups of tea; rice with black dressing, as thescow made the opposite landing at a forty-five degreeangle! A quick and safe crossing; and two hours forthe Japanese lines, the American Consul, and the ChineseEastern!... A distant call through the morninglight! Bingley, horseless, imperiously demands thereturn of the craft to the Fengmorang bank.

Routledge had hoped to be missed by the other, atleast until train-time. He smiled at the compelling incidentsof the race thus far, and at the surpassing prospects—eventhough he chilled at the thought that the Japanesein Wangcheng would have big excuse to detain him ifBingley intimated that his rival had once betrayed Englandto the Russian spies on the Indian border. ConsulMilner would sweat, indeed, to free him againstthat....

Yet Routledge had a feeling that he would winagainst Bingley. Work had always favored him. So farhe had borne out the prophecy that he would not bewounded in battle, in a manner past astonishment. Itwas no less than a miracle—his escape from the firingof both armies at Liaoyang. Often during the night-ride[291]he had thought of the wound that was to come to him—thoughtwith a chill of dread of the lawless country hepassed through. Now, with Wangcheng ahead, andin touch with the safe-lines of foreign-travel—thechance seemed minimized once more. There must besignificance in this.... He looked back and sawthe Chinese beating up against the river to the Fengmaronglanding, where Bingley waited, doubtless frothinghis curb.

At the edge of the town Routledge was arrested bya five-foot Japanese sentry, and was locked with hisworld tidings in a garrison, lately Russian, which overlookedWangcheng’s little square. He wrote “A. V.Weed” on a slip of paper and asked to have it taken toConsul Milner; then sat down by the barred window towatch the Consulate across the Square. It was now seveno’clock. The train left in an hour, and the station was amile away. Minutes dragged by.

An enlivening spectacle from the window. The“Horse-killer” is being borne across the Square undera Japanese guard! The little sentries at the edge oftown have been busy, this sweet-smelling morning afterthe rain! Even at the distance, Routledge perceives thatthe Englishman’s face is warmed with a lust for murder,and he hears the Englishman’s voice demanding hisConsul. Bingley is borne into the garrison, and hisvoice and step are heard throughout the halls. Thevoice continues—as he is locked in the apartment next toRoutledge’s.

Fifteen dreadful minutes. Bingley is a noisy, unlovelydevil in the next room, beating against his bars.Routledge remembers what Hans Breittmann said of the[292]caged orang-outang: “There is too much ego in hiscosmos.” The “Horse-killer” does not know that hisrival is so near—as he cries unto his heaven of martiallaw, for artillery to shoot his way out of this town ofbeastly, pig-headed Japanese coolies!... A Consulappears in the Square. It is not the natty Milner, butan elderly Briton, with a cane and a presence, who justnow asks to be shown to Mr. Bingley.... Thetwo talk softly for several minutes—a harsh interval forRoutledge.

“I shall do what I can as promptly as possible, Mr.Bingley—trust me,” concludes the Consul, and his canesounds upon the flags once more—diminuendo.

“Remember, I must be on my way at once,” the“Horse-killer” shouts after him.

Seven-twenty. Where was Milner?... Routledgewondered bitterly if the Gods of War had turnedtheir faces from him at last. A low laugh from Bingley.Milner was crossing the Square hastily, but did notapproach the garrison—instead was admitted to the bigbuilding occupied by the Japanese headquarters.

“God, I’d hate to have to depend upon an AmericanConsul at a time like this,” is heard from the “Horse-killer.”

Routledge’s nerve was taxed to smile at this....Seven-thirty. Consul Milner reappears in the Square,this time followed by two Japanese officers of rank....Routledge’s door is unlocked, and he is calledout into the hall.

“This is the gentleman—and I’ll vouch for him.”Milner observes, holding out his hand to Routledge.“Weed, my boy, how are you? Missed the train last[293]night at Yopanga, I suppose, and came down the river.Didn’t you know we’re a closed port down here?”

“Yes, but I knew you were here, Consul. Thebattle’s on at Liaoyang, I understand.”

The eyes of the men managed to meet. The Japaneseofficers bowed politely, and the two Americans left thegarrison.... Bingley’s voice is loudly upraised.The Japanese officers politely inform him that the orderfor his release has not yet reached them.

“Milner,” said Routledge, “would it complicatematters if I fell upon your neck and wept?”

“Wait till we catch the train, Weed. That’s whatyou want, isn’t it?” the Consul whispered.

“Badly.”

“So I concluded when I got the slip from you.That’s why I went to headquarters to fix things beforecoming here—saved a few minutes. Also I told myChino to get up the carriage. It’ll be ready....Our British friend will have to get his business transactedat once or he won’t get off for Shanhaikwan thismorning.... Great God, Weed, did you get thebattle—any of it?”

“I was with the left wing all day yesterday, Consul—itseems like a month ago. Oku was beating his brainsout against the Russian intrenchments.”

They were crossing the Square. Bingley’s voicereached them: “Oh, I say, American Consul, prod upmy man a bit—won’t you?”

The agonized face behind the bars took the edge offhis own success to Routledge. He knew what thesemoments meant to the “Horse-killer.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not on speaking terms with the[294]British Consul,” Milner observed lightly to Routledge,as they hurried to the carriage.

“I take it that Kuroki has crossed the Taitse—whathave you heard?” Routledge inquired quickly.

“Just that much,” Milner replied. “The Japanesehere say that Oyama will enter the city to-day. Kurokipontooned the river two days ago. What you saw wasthe terrific effort of the Japanese to hold the bulk of theRussian army in the city and below while Kurokiflanked.”

“Exactly. I’m doing the story on those lines. I’llbe in Shanhaikwan to-night. You’ll get the decisionto-day probably—wire me anywhere along the route,Consul?”

“Of course.”

“The World-News will get you Tokyo for your nextpost,” Routledge said with a laugh. “All I need is thesingle sentence—‘Oyama wins’ or ‘Oyama loses.’By the way, the Japanese have got two good horses ofmine——”

“I’ll see to them.”

The carriage reached the station at two minutes beforeeight.

“It looks as if you had it all your own way, Weed,”Milner observed with a laugh. “God! you’ve got theworld at your feet—the greatest newspaper chance inyears. You’ll give ’em a story that will rip up theStates. Show ’em pictures—never mind the featurelessskeleton—show ’em pictures, Weed!”

“I’ll try, Consul,” said Routledge, with feeling.

The station-boys were clanging their bells. The eyes[295]of both men were fixed upon a clot of dust far down theroad.

“Weed, my boy,” said Milner excitedly, “the raceisn’t won yet. Your rival is going to make the train.”

The huge figure of the “Horse-killer” was sprintingtoward them, less than two hundred yards away.

“So I observe,” said Routledge. “You’ll have togive me one more lift, Consul. A man who can runlike that will be rather hard to beat over the half-milecourse from the train to the cable-office in Shanhaikwanat seven to-night. Wire Borden, the American CombinedPress man there, to arrange for me at the cable-office,and to meet me when the train pulls in to-night, with thefastest saddle-horse in Shanhaikwan—none but the fastestwill do. I’ll win the half-mile!”

The train was leaving the station. Bingley caught therailing of the first-class coach, swung on, and staggeredby Routledge into the car. Milner signified with a finalgesture that he would look after the rights of Americaand the World-News. Bingley, panting hoarsely, wasstretched out in his compartment when the Americanentered. He did not look up, and no word passedbetween them. For a moment Routledge hoped it mightbe different—that day might bring to him something ofthe life or death of Jerry Cardinegh. As the allegedauthor of the Indian treachery, he could not bring himselfto seek the other’s notice. He wondered if Bingleyhad used the crime charged against him, to hold him inWangcheng. This would have been natural; certainlyhe had whispered to the British Consul in the garrison.At all events, the swiftness of Milner’s efforts in his[296]behalf had killed the result of such an intent. Routledgefell asleep. It was after ten when he awoke.

The “Horse-killer” was writing steadily, swiftly,fighting sleep, his eyes co*cked open like a stuffed bird’s,and referring often to a carefully crowded note-book, thelike of which he had carried in India.... Routledgestarted on his story. An hour’s sleep had quietedhis brain a trifle. Before, his thoughts had darted about,like tumbler pigeons at play—in that queer light fashionof extreme fatigue. With the structure placed, he beganto spend the great coiled chronicle at a swift, steadypressure. For the first time in his life he turned loose allthat he had for a newspaper. The hurl of power glorifiedhim for the time—work’s chaste and lofty joy—untilhe was beyond misery or any earthly evil. Withoutthinking, he turned to Bingley at last:

“We both want the free cable at Shanhaikwan,” hesaid briefly. “One of us will reach it first. It mightbe well to arrange for the winner to turn over the wire—atthe end of, say, two hours—then both London andNew York would have the story in the morning.”

“No,” said the “Horse-killer” coldly. “I shall puton whole story at once, and there will be five columns ormore of it.”

Routledge laughed inwardly, surprised at himself forspeaking, and just a little appalled at the grim nerve ofthe other. In the great glow from his work, he hadfollowed a generous impulse to give Bingley and theThames a chance that night—on the basis of his meetinga man at Shanhaikwan, with the best horse in the town.In the emancipation of high expression, the sense ofrivalry had been lost, and he saw that Bingley was[297]entitled to no little consideration, even if he were beatenby a nose to the cable-door. Routledge went on with hiswork, his compunctions eased.

At Koupangtze, the half-way station, there was astop for ten minutes. Bingley improved the time by closeconversation with an Englishman on the station platform.Routledge, who remained in his compartment, wonderedwith animation, as Bingley passed the other a sum ofmoney, if he were arranging with the Englishman totelegraph for a horse to meet him at the train in Shanhaikwan.Could there be two fastest horses at the endof the run?

All that afternoon, as they crossed the brownest, mostlevel and ancient country on earth, two correspondentstoiled with words and a battle. At the little town ofShenkau, Routledge heard the name of “Weed” calledin a laughable intonation by a Chinese boy on the platform.He reached out and took the telegram. Milnerhad not allowed a single sentence to suffice. Here is themessage:

Oyama entered Liaoyang to-day. Russians in flight toMukden. Russian rear-guard still fighting. Flanking movementsuccessful. Show ’em pictures.

The gods of war had been good to him, indeed. Heran the telegram entire, at the head of his story. Anhour later the Great Wall appeared to his tired eyes.His capacity to express or thrill at a thought was utterlygone. Every film of the battle which his brain hadcaught, all that he had desired to say, had been re-donein pencil. He folded the sheets and put them away withhis credentials and cable-frank. The early twilight was[298]soft and warm. The Great Wall cast a long shadow asthe train passed through its single break. The sea wasgilded and crimson-touched with the sunset. Shanhaikwanstation is but a half-mile from the Wall. Alreadyhuts and burial-mounds were passed—dull brown in thedusk.... They were in a free land now; the zoneof war and censorship lay behind. It was a dramaticmoment.

Each correspondent arose. Each correspondentglanced at the heels of the other and found spurs!

Bingley made his way toward the rear-platform;Routledge took the other. Leaning far out, as the trainpulled into the station, Routledge saw Borden and theblack stallion—hopped off and ran to him. A China-boyholding the nervous, prick-eared mount stood besidethe Combined Press man. Routledge leaped into thesaddle. With the tail of his eye he saw Bingley rushingalong the platform toward a gray mount.

“They’re looking for you at the cable-office,” Bordenyelled. “Don’t burn out the wire!”

Half of Europe and a touch of Asia were representedin the faces on the platform. Meeting the night-trainwas the chief of the day’s social obligations in Shanhaikwan.To-night everybody was down to get the lastfresh word from the field. The crowd sensed distantlythat rival correspondents had come in, and that a greatnewspaper race was on, from the platform to the cable-office....Spurring across the sandy station-yard,the heart of Routledge lifted to the splendid spirit of thegame. He glanced around at the beating hoofs behind.Bingley was straining forward in the saddle, furiouslyrowelling his gray.... Above the cheering, Routledge[299]heard his name called, and the face of Talliaferroappeared in the crowd, blurred as in a dream. Then camea voice that incited all his senses.... He did notsee her. He thought it was in his soul.

“Routledge-san! Win—ride to win!” Then a trailing“Routledge ... san!”

The Hate of London was not in the face of Talliaferro....As he rode, the heavenly lifting of the momentalmost pulled him out of the race at hand....“Win—ride to win!... Routledge-san!”...He spurred. The black answered. Veritably, he was anight-streak whirring cableward.... Routledgeknew every step of the way. The day would have beenlost, were he forced to halt for direction.... Pastthe Rest House, through the mud-hut quarter, breakinga detachment of Sikh infantry, he led the race—Bingley,unable to gain, back in the shadows, shouting, rowelling!

There was some meaning to his words, but Routledgedid not think of them, until the gun-talk.... Oneshot stood out by itself—and four followed....The black sprawled.... Routledge found himselfcoughing, but cleared grandly from the fallen mount, andcrossed the threshold of the cable-office. He realized thathe had fallen with the mount, but it made no impression.His hands were bleeding. He met the dust full-length.He knew that he staggered a bit as the operator leapedover the counter and caught him in his arms....

“I’m Weed of the World-News.... Bordenarranged for me. Here’s the copy, credentials, cable-permit.”

“I’ve been waiting for you, Weed.... You’reshot—my God!”

[300]Bingley entered, his face terrible but frightened. Heglanced at the man who had beaten him—from head tofoot.... Routledge was leaning against the counter,his clothing caked with dust, a laugh on his face,dripping blood from a wound under his coat.

“I didn’t mean to hit you—I tried to get your horse!”Bingley gasped.

“You did. Go out and finish him.... You’renot much of a shot from the saddle—or perhaps you lostyour nerve, Bingley.... Any way, I am longover-due for a wound.... Get a surgeon. I’mhard-hit. Hurry!”

Routledge dropped forward on the counter, closinghis eyes. Bingley disappeared. The operator was unfasteninghis clothes.

“Don’t mind me—until the doctor comes—but startmy stuff going.... By the way, in a couple ofhours, if it goes steadily, break in on my stuff and giveBingley a head-line in the Thames to-morrow. He onlymeant to get my horse—I see that. A man takes libertyin shooting a horse from under another—but never mind.There’s always room for two at the top!”

“He was shot from behind—a bad wound, but notnecessarily a fatal one.... It hit him under theright-shoulder-blade,” the doctor was saying.

Routledge felt choky and very tired. His consciousnesswavered back and forth like the throw of wind undera punkah when the coolies are fresh.... Therewas a light running step outside.... He was togo down close to the Gates with a lock on his lips....His lips were tightened. First of all, there was[301]a sweet breath of wind, like one of the best memories ofearly life.... He wanted to rub his eyes, but thesurgeon held his hands.... Noreen’s voice wasquick and tragic. The word “die” was uttered.

“No,” the doctor repeated; “not necessarily a fatalwound. I’ve ordered a carriage. We’ll take him to theRest House.”

Noreen—the Leper Valley—the Russian music—theShanghai Bund—Charing Cross—the carriage—the hovelin Rydamphur—the night in Bookstalls—Noreen—thathe must be silent in delirium—these were the waves ofconsciousness.... He felt her hand, her lips, uponhis brow. Even if it were just a vision, he wanted towelcome her with a smile, but his lips were locked.

“Oh, you martyr—you blessed martyr!...Don’t you know me, Routledge-san?”

“Is it true, Noreen? Are you here?”

“With you always, beloved.”

A frown fell upon his face. “I just came in fromLiaoyang for the cable. It isn’t good for you to be withme.”

“My Master—don’t you know Father is dead, andthat he was sane to confess at the last?... Feeneyand Finacune were there.”

The eyes of Routledge found her.

“Just a minute, doctor,—I must say this....Noreen, don’t speak of it again—the others need notknow! Your father was the best and bravest of ourbreed——”

“Strongheart!... London knows; Tokyoknows; every British correspondent cabled it to his paper[302]that night, months ago; there are crowns of vine-leavesfor you in the heart of every friend of yours; the SecretService knows——”

“But your good name, Noreen——” he faltered.

“My name is Routledge for eternity,” she answered,and the famous eyes bent to lull him.... “Sleep,my lover, sleep.... I shall always be with younow!”

No one hurried a destroyer after this torpedo of aman, the “Horse-killer.” Now and then a Bingleybullet, when it is not aimed too accurately, gives a tiredman a rest which his energy would not permit by anyless drastic measure. Certain heroic temperaments mustneeds receive a jolt every little while to force them tolie down.

There are two kinds of men in the world—those whohave a sense of brotherhood, and those whose everythought is an explosion designed to increase their ownpersonal impetus. The one makes war; the other peace.Perhaps the ultimate relation between the two is suggestedin the race for the cable—and its result.

Routledge healed in a month, and incidentally foundhis first rest in years. Noreen was with him—a tremendousthing. The two had been long apart, pent andhungering.... Meanwhile, the world read andcommented upon the great story of Liaoyang. Bingley’sstory led in London.

On their last day in Shanhaikwan, they walked alongthe Wall—Routledge and Noreen—and that night weretogether in the Yellow Sea. The ship was the TungShing, a little steamer that breasted the waves in herown way, but quite correctly. So clean and clever wasshe, that everyone was refreshed. There were no distractions,[304]nor counter-attractions, and every night-viewwas beautiful. The loom of the Wu Tung light was overthe shoulder of the East, and a cliff to avoid on the starboard.A rising wind decided not to bother, and boomedaway north, before the near sea was aroused to a fit oftemper.

Routledge was so happy that he did not care for utterance.Noreen drank the chill breeze in silence for along time. Once she placed her hand upon the sleeveof the great frieze coat.... Thus they sailed downthe variegated and populous coast of China—a differentbreath from every big and little harbor. Noreen caughtthem all and was glad, divining far at sea the places shehad tarried, but Routledge was Asia and countless continentsto her. One night when only the pilot and theship-lights and themselves were burning, the thoughtcame to embrace—but they refrained.

Presently they were down to Singapore; then acrossto Calcutta, where the Ganges opens her mighty throatsto the sea; then up by devious travels—to catch thebreath of the Hills after the Heats. Morning and nightfall,Routledge looked down into Noreen’s eyes andfound his world. Night-winds of India soothed them,though apart. And they had their thoughts of the day’stravel together.

At length, up over the crest of the world in theirwanderings, they looked, from the amethyst Himalayas,down upon that strange dead civilization of China, avista for eagles. Tight in the heart of it was the LeperValley.

This is reached by one of the lost trails of the world.A few gallant explorers have picked the way, but failed[305]to publish since the people would think such a report afiction, and their reputations for veracity be broken.Traders pass the rim of the gap regularly, but do notknow it.

Routledge had learned it from a Sannyasi. The wayis tortuous and a bit perilous, so he arranged for Noreenand himself to follow a party of traders. Among thesem*n was a Boy. There was cleanness in his gray eye,and you could not think of taint and look at his cheeksso ruddy under the tan. The Boy searched Noreen’sface with the guilelessness of a child and the valor of aman. When he rode beside her, the air that she breathedwas new.

Of course the saddle was torture to her, a cumulativetorture with the hours, but it was only physical, andnight bore down with the sleep of healing, from thetwilight of evening to the twilight of dawn. The journeymelted into a strange composite of cool mountain winds;brief, warm showers which released the fragrance of thevalleys; humans in dim doors and upon the highways,held, as they passed, in tableaux of freezing horror—suffering,sunlight, sleep. And always ancient Chinaunfolded greater vistas of hills, fields, huts, and gloweringyellow faces; and always the Boy walked beside andserved—a ragged chaperon.

Routledge would smile on his way and note the largerelation. The traders, too, were respectful—brave menwhom the Open had kept mainly pure. There is a curseupon a white man in Asia, if he relaxes.

Once the Boy said: “Don’t be afraid, lady. Thisis the sleepiest part of China. Any way, I would takecare of you.”

[306]Routledge bent over from his mount and patted theBoy’s shoulder.

They parted by the wayside with a smile—the Boyand Noreen. She proffered him her purse, but heanswered:

“I don’t want that. But any time I can help you—hailout! What are you going to do—stopping offhere?”

She threw a kiss to him, but did not answer. Thetraders were far ahead, and the Boy turned his back.

“The world has gone,” Noreen said, after they hadwalked long through a tangled way. “Look below.”

“Yes—the Leper Valley—our bravest man!”

It was mid-afternoon. Routledge paused at the vergeof a steep declivity, and they saw a radiant hollow evenlyrimmed by mountains on every side. A lake gleamed atthe bottom of this finger-bowl of the Gods, and moisttropical perfumes were borne softly upward with a farsound of bells—faint as the tinkle of drops of water fallingupon thin metal.

And together they went down into the fragrance.Noreen could feel her heart; she could feel her soul; andtoo there was an enchanting beauty in this delve of theworld. It sustained. It was so wonderful—like a childlaughing alone in paradise! There was a sound ofchimes in the vast silence, and God seemed to speakabove.

The thatches below were trimmed and even. Therewere spaces between them, and from the heights thesespaces had the clean look of a brown polished floor.There was depth and purity in the green of the lake, and[307]the little temple, in the midst of its gardens, was whiteas Truth.

They were in a swept and shaded village. Thewoman was walking swiftly, her lips parted, her eyesfeverishly bright. Routledge laughed quietly at her ardorto see the man whom his heart knew to be there andalways waiting. The huts seemed deserted, except forthose who could not leave.

A voice reached them at last—the voice that hadechoed through the inner consciousness of each so long....His back was toward them. The people uponthe earth before him, they did not see—save as factors ofthe scene. Swiftly they moved forward now.

Rawder’s hand was raised in the sunlight. It wasslender, nervously responsive to his emotion—but whole,whole! A little way off they halted, inspired by aglimpse of his profile.... It was the face of the manwho had climbed to the roof of the world, lived throughice and flame; it was sun-darkened, storm-bitten, gauntfrom suffering under the irons of self-repression, mysticalin its manifestation of a cosmos within. It was the faceof an exile who has felt the hate of man, the absence ofwomen, and the Presence of God. And it was whole,whole.

He turned suddenly and saw the two standing together.There was something beautiful in his bewilderment,and in the expression of sadness which followed—sincethis was to be his last meeting with Routledge.A gesture, and the lowly ones were dismissed; and whenthe temple-court was empty, save for the Three—theyjoined hands.

[308]Whispering, he led them into the temple gardens atthe edge of the lake. The water was glorified in thesunset, and by the stones of his doorway the drowsy liliesdrank the last rays. Magicians of ancient and wondrouspatience had conserved the verdure and mastered theflowerings. There were none but flawless leaves andnone but classic blooms. The pebbles on the shore hadbeen touched into mosaics, and the vines which fixed thecoolness in the stones of his dwelling had seeminglybeen guided into perfection by fingers in the night. Outof love his people served him; out of love they hadcharmed a fountain from the ground near his doorway;placed sounding-shells to lure music from the droppingwater, and forced Emperor roses lavishly to arise andshelter and perfume his bathing-place.

“All these things my people have done for me,blessed friends,” Rawder said, “and all I asked when Icame was to share a hut with the least of them.”

At the arbored doorway, he stepped aside and bowedtheir entrance. Far within a figure moved to and frowithout a sound.

The perfection of the little home in the gardens ofthe temple was like singing in the hearts of the lovers....As they entered, the Name, marvellously intoned,reached them from the figure which had moved but amoment before, but they could not see clearly in the dimtwilight. When the candles were brought, Routledgefound that it was Sekar, the Hindu Master. So ancientand withered was he, that his sitting erect on a mat ofkusa grass seemed a miracle.

Rawder served them with food and drink; and afterward,outside, the Three talked long at the edge of the[309]fountain. Always, from within, they heard the ineffablesyllable, OM, at intervals, like a distant sound of the seaon a rocky beach. From the huts of the afflicted therewas steady silence.

At last the meditation was broken, and they heardquaveringly from Sekar within these words in Tibetan.Rawder translated hastily:

“My son, my chela!... To-morrow we ariseand ascend the goodly mountains to our Long Home.We are very weary, and I have seen that our work isfinished here.”

The Three entered. Sekar beheld them. After amoment, Sekar spoke:

“And this is the friend of my chela; and this, thewoman?”

Rawder bowed.

“To-morrow, in the first light,” the Hindu said fervently,“my chela and I depart for the Hills where theSnows are—where none may follow. And you, manand woman, go back to the world.”

Noreen turned a quick glance from Routledge toRawder. “Ask him,” she said swiftly to the latter, “ifthere is not a great work for us to do here in the LeperValley!”

The face of the bravest man was frightened, ghastly,as he interpreted. The eyes of Routledge were fixedupon the woman as never before.

“No,” the Hindu said. “We have left our discipleshere among the Chinese. The Valley will be sweetenedby them. You, man and woman, have a greater work inthe world, as my chela and I have a greater work—farabove the world!”

[310]Deep into the night the Three listened to the musicof the fountain, in the pure ardor of the lilies; and therewas a moment in which Rawder wept.... In thefull light of morning, the Four were at the parting oftheir ways.

“Remember,” said the bravest man, “always, to youboth, whom I have had the joy to make One, goes outconstantly—the dearest of my heart—from the Hills orfrom the Stars!”

Routledge and Noreen watched, as he helped hisMaster—until the two were lost in the winding, risingtrail. Then they looked down, a last time, upon thesilence and sunrise which brooded upon the LeperValley.

END.