CHAPTER X. THE STRAIN BEGINS TO TELL. The truce which followed the visit of Schwartz to Hyder Ali was short lived. While the missionary, not without many misgivings, had returned to complete his church and care for his flock, the storm clouds were already on the horizon. His health he finds is not quite so good, the arduous travelling and exposure, in addition to constant preaching work, has begun to tell on him. He complains in some of his letters of pains in his shoulder and side. He is thankful that he can still go out as usual. “For though I was not confined,” he writes, “my right arm gave me so much pain that I was unfit to write, nay to hold a book with it. But now it is much better by the mercy of God. He is the author and preserver of our lives.” “If He be pleased to let us stand for some time O may He grant us strength to live to His glory and praise! Our time is in His hand.” He is shocked at the luxurious and sinful life which the Europeans are living, careless and corrupt, on the edge of a volcano but blind to consequences. This degeneration in the character of the white men utterly discredited them in the dark watchful eyes of the natives. The tearing up of treaties and breaking of solemn promises had exasperated Hyder Ali and made him resolve to sweep the English with their rotten government into the sea. His ambition was like a roaring furnace; while the enemies were fiddling and dancing he was preparing the immense army of nearly an hundred thousand well trained men, led by French officers and equipped for immediate battle. He swept onward, wasting, burning, killing, behind him a smoking desolation and before him a terror struck and fleeing people. His objective was Madras and then a clean sweep of the enemy all through the Carnatic. It seems inconceivable that the Government could, from sheer apathy, wilful ignorance and vicious living, become so incompetent as to make no provision for defence and take no notice of impending doom until the black clouds of smoke and lurid flames almost reached the City. Here is the comment of Schwartz upon the position: