Bingley must not be misunderstood. He was a very important war-man, a mental and physical athlete, afraid of few things--least of all, work. Such men are interesting, sometimes dangerous. Bingley was honest in material things; on occasion, hatefully so. He was the least loved of the English war-correspondents, and one of the most famous. He envied the genial love which the name of Routledge so generally inspired; envied the 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 of his contemporaries. The careless manner with which Routledge achieved high results was altogether beyond Bingley, as well as the capacity of seeming to forget the big things he had done. It was necessary for Bingley to be visibly triumphant over his _coups_; indeed, penetratingly so. This failure of manner, and a certain genius for finding his level on the unpopular side of a question, challenged the dislike of his kind. Routledge settled himself for the long voyage with much to think about and Carlyle’s “French Revolution”--already read on many seas. Ordinarily, a mystery such as he had left in India would have furnished material for deep contemplation, but he chose to put it away from him and to live in full the delights of a returning exile. Bombay was agog with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but Routledge did not give the subject more than one of his days out of the last Indian port. He missed nothing of the significance of this great move by England, which had so entranced Feeney, but when he undertook to delve for the first cause his faculties became lame and tired, and he had learned too well the therapeutics of sea-travel to continue an aimless grind. An accomplished traveller, he put aside all wastes of hurry and anxiety and allowed his days and nights to roll together without the slightest wear. Consequently, big volumes of tissue were renovated and rebound. With Routledge, it was not “To-morrow we will be at Port Said,” but a possible reflection to-day that “we are somewhere in the Red Sea.” Frequently, he read entire nights away; or dozed 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 a rather imperious ruler of crises; a producer of piled words which developed, in war’s own pigments, the countless garish and ghastly films which his eye had caught. The month at sea smoothed the hard lines of service from his face, as it softened the calluses of his bridle-hand.