“It’s a thing worth living long to hear--wild and mournful as a Siberian winter.... This reserve roared its song as it bored into Tientsin--a song of snow-bound hills and ice-bound hearts--poor _muzhiks_! And a British battery, tons of charging steel and brass, thundered the bass!” So between them, the two correspondents covered the story of that one fight in the night--on the way to lift the lid from the legations at Peking. A messenger from the _Witness_ office at this point brought certain cable copies for Cardinegh to comment upon for an editorial paragraph or two. He went into his study. “Routledge-san, do you mind if I ask you to talk more?” Noreen edged her chair closer like a little girl anticipating a story. “Such listening as yours,” he laughed, “would make a Napoleon disclose his plans for the next morning’s battle. It would bring out the best of any man’s tales. Ask me anything that I know and it is yours.” “Always when the other correspondents come here to Cheer Street--and nearly all of them call to see father--I have made them all tell me about the bravest deed--the bravest man--they have ever seen or known in all their services. I think I know them all but yours.” “And what do you think my bravest man will be like, you collector of heroisms?” “That’s just the point, Routledge-san. I think yours won’t be a man of merely brute courage. That’s why I am so anxious to hear.” “In this case I am like one of the messengers to Job--I alone remain to tell you. I have never told any one, but sometimes it occurs to me to write the story of Rawder for the few who care to understand. He is my property, Miss Noreen, a humble martyr with a mighty soul like Saint Paul’s. “He is a man born to suffer, as all the great are, who crucify themselves in various ways to lessen the sufferings of commoner men. I have never felt the same about any other man. There is something quite miraculous about our relation. Accidentally, as it appears, I have met him somewhere every second year for a double decade--the last time in Hong Kong this trip home. I surely shall see him again? Does it sound foolish to you--this idea of being destined to meet a certain some one from time to time somewhere--until the End?” “No. I want to hear it all, just as it comes to you, with all your thoughts about it--please. Father will be busy for a half-hour in his study. I think I shall understand.”