I looked along that swaying mass of human flesh and blood, and saw the best that England owns waiting to welcome, with heart-stirring cheers, the gallant lads whose lion hearts had carried London's name and fame along the rough-hewn tracks of war. I saw the cream of Britain's chivalry and Britain's beauty there. Men and women from the countryside, from Ireland and from Scotland, all eager to pay tribute to the London lads who had so proudly proved to all the world that it was not for a soldier's pay, not for the love of gain, but for a nation's glory that they had risked limb and life beneath an African sun. Then, as I looked, I caught a distant hum of voices--a far-off sound, such as I have heard amid Pacific isles when wind and waves were beating upon coral crags, and foam-topped rollers thrashed the surf into the magic music of the storm-tossed sea. It was the roar of London's multitudes welcoming home her own; and what a sound it was! I have heard the music of the guns when our nation spoke in the stern tones of battle to a nation in arms; I have heard the crash of tempests on Southern coasts when ships were reeling in the breath of the blast, and souls to their God were going; I have crouched low in my saddle when the tornado has swept trees from the forest as a boy brushes flowers with his footsteps. But never had I heard a sound like that. It was the voice of millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome and a warning--a welcome to the descendants of the 'prentice lads of Old London, a warning to the world. I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they told: "Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of conscious might. Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but beware the day we turn in our strength. We have sent forth a few of our children, but they were but as a drop in the ocean. All Britain sent two hundred and fifty thousand strong men to Africa; London, if need be, can send five hundred thousand more to the uttermost parts of the earth. Aye, and when they have died, as these would have died if need be, we can open our hearts and send five hundred thousand more, and yet be strong for our home fighting." It was a nation speaking to the nations, and that is the tale it told. Let the nations take heed and beware, for the language was the language of truth.