“Routledge, it was as if you struck a viper in the spine. British India curled up. I had struck her in the spine. She writhed and curled up!” Cardinegh laughed again. “Ireland will be rid of British garrisons. They will travel oversea to fight the Afghans and the Russians now. The red-necks at Sarjilid won’t have to travel so far! There’ll be a fifty-mile battle-front, as you said--you ‘amateur prophet’! You and the other boys will campaign--but old Jerry won’t be 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. Routledge was pacing up and down the room. Cardinegh reached the door, and, holding to the knob, spoke again: “I know what you think, my son. You think that my plan miscarried. You think that England spoiled my work--that her treaty with Japan was my answer. You think that England will rub away the rest of the insulation between Russia and Japan, and that the Bear will fuse into the Rising-Sun--that all this will pull Russia up from the border of British India. Ah! ... and you think well. I can’t see it all as clear as I did once. I can’t feel the thought of failure as I did once. England has time to strengthen her borders and cover her nakedness if Russia and Japan fight--but the story of Shubar Khan is told and my work done! It’s the initial lesion, Routledge, and the veins of British India are running with the toxin of a disease--sometimes amenable to heroic treatment--like the Anglo-Japanese Alliance--but always incurable!” SEVENTH CHAPTER ROUTLEDGE BEGS FOR A STIMULANT--THE STUFF THAT SINGS IN THE VEINS OF KINGS Rain upon the windows. The atmosphere was heavy in the lodging, heavy from a sleepless night. Tobacco ash upon the floor; white embers in the grate; the finer ash of burned emotions in the eyes of the men. Neither had spoken for several moments.... Whose was to be the desolation of war? Was North China or China South soon to rumble with the tramp of foreign armies? Routledge put the question away among the far concerns of his mind. It was a moment now to mourn the man before him. There never had been an instant of hate for Jerry Cardinegh--perhaps, a full sweep of horror, at first, but that was gone, and in its wake was a pity of permanence. He mourned his friend who was mad, dead. The years had wrought a ghastly trick here. Under many constellations, he had heard Cardinegh whisper his passionate hatred for England and her relation to Ireland and to India. Not a little of it Routledge himself shared. He perceived now that this passion had devoured the reason and sweetness of the old man’s mind. The Cardinegh of old days looked no longer out of these hunted, red-lit eyes. A pestilence had deranged the well-loved face. It was evil now in the fire-light--like a tampered chart. A life of brooding had vanquished the excellent humor at the last. Oppression had nursed a demon to obsess the brain and make a shudder of a good name.