“ALMIGHTY GOD, OF THY GOODNESS, GIVE ME LIFE AND LEAVE ONCE TO SAIL AN ENGLISH SHIP ON YONDER SEA!” _Frontispiece_ _Facing p._ HE DROVE THE GOOD STEEL THROUGH MAIL AND FLESH AND BONE 10 DUKE WILLIAM ROARED OUT THAT HE WAS ALIVE 17 EDWARD GRIPPED THE WOULD-BE MURDERER 30 THEY CARRIED HIM DOWN TO THE BOATS 53 HE SWOOPED WITH HIS CAVALRY ROUND THE REAR OF THE KING’S ARMY 83 HE HALTED HIS ARMY ... AND SANG THE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH PSALM 94 MADE HIM REEL IN HIS SADDLE 112 “MEN OF ENNISKILLEN, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR ME?” HE CRIED 113 MISSED HIM AND KILLED ANOTHER MAN BEHIND HIM 141 INSTEAD OF CHARGING THEY TURNED ROUND AND MADE LANES THROUGH THE ARMY BEHIND THEM 158 HIS ENEMY WENT DOWN WITH A BULLET IN THE RIGHT SIDE 185 NELSON AT COPENHAGEN 214 THE ORDER THAT SENT THE BRITISH LINE STREAMING DOWN FROM THE RISING GROUND 246 THE LONELY MAN WHO STOOD ON THE RAMPARTS OF KHARTOUM 275 THAT HISTORIC INDABA IN THE MATOPPOS 300 FOREWORD The Epic of England has yet to be written. It may be that the fulness of time for writing it has not come yet, or it may be that Britain is still waiting for her Homer and her Virgil. Perhaps the matured genius of a Rudyard Kipling, that strong, sweet Singer of the Seven Seas, may some day address itself to the accomplishment of this most splendid of all possible tasks, and then, again, it may be that it is his only to sound the prelude. That is a matter for the gods to decide in their own good time, but this much is certain--that when this work has been worthily done the world will hear echoing through the ages such a thunder-song as has never stirred human hearts before. It will begin, doubtless, with the battle-cries of the old Sea-Kings of the North, chanted to the music of their churning oars and the rush and roar of the foam swirling away under the bows of their longships, and from them it will go on ringing and thundering through the centuries, ever swelling in depth and volume as more and more of the races of men hear it rolling over the battle-fields of conquered lands, until at last--as every loyal man of English speech must truly hope--the roar of the Last Battle has rolled away into eternal silence, and north and south, east and west, the proclaiming of the Pax Britannica heralds the epoch of “The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.”