“The dean went back to Ireland just before we came out here this trip,” growled old Feeney, of the _Pan-Anglo News Service_. “It seems he couldn’t start an insurrection there, so he rushed back to the _Witness_ office and haunted the cable-editor’s room until the Bhurpalese took 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 of war-painters; and in spirit the high priests of elder service trooped back to listen among the low-hanging Indian stars.... It was knee-deep in the morning hours when Routledge and Cardinegh drew apart at last. They walked out between the snoring lines, whispering: “Jerry, what has this narrow-gauge campaign done to you? Fever or famine? You look drawn and blown and bleached.” “I am going into the lair after this,” Cardinegh said. “The boys won’t believe it, but this is absolutely my last fling at the field. I am going home to Noreen, son, and London and the _Witness_ may go to hell.” There was unnatural venom in the old man’s words. His tightened hands stirred restlessly; his eyes, seen in the flare of a match as he lit a cigarette, were unquiet, alive with some torture of tension. Routledge gripped the vehement arm. “You are oxidizing a bit too much tissue, old war-horse,” he said quietly. “You’ll want to go into the meadows for a while when you get back--but you won’t stay there. This stuff--the smell of it, as now in the dawn-dew, and the muttering formations presently”--Routledge waved his arm over the bivouac--“things like this won’t let you run long in the pasture. When the war-headings begin to grow on the front pages of the _Witness_, and the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand grows 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,” said the old man. “It isn’t that I’m out of strength, but I’m too full of hate to go on. I’ve always hated this smug English people, and I’m not mellowing with years. I feel it hotter and hotter--sometimes I feel it like a running incandescence inside. It leaves my brain charred and noxious--that’s the way it seems to me.... Yet, I have been one of England’s first aggrandizers. I have rejoiced in print at her victories. I have cheered with the low-browed mob, ‘God save the Queen!’ I have 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 the Fenians, Jerry.” “I know to whom I am talking,” was whispered queerly. “The Fenians are not dead yet--not all the Fenians.” “When did you hear from Miss Noreen last?”