For this painful necessity Mr. Trimblerigg had good material provided him. Civilization had trained for war far more men than it could now employ in peace; and what, at the call to her children of a country in danger, had been an act of heroic sacrifice had degenerated in course of time into a confirmed habit, wherein fierce craving and dull routine were curiously mixed. And when peace supervened and became in the hands of diplomats a feverish and restless thing, almost as nerve-racking as war, then by many hundreds of warriors unwanted by the State and without employ, the dull routine was forgotten while the fierce craving remained. Thus, here and there, as luck would have it, in a still unsettled world, use was found for them, and governments to which they owed no allegiance and for which they had no affection, and as to whose rights and wrongs they knew nothing and cared less, sent and hired them as experts for the shedding of blood in quarrels not their own. And because governments, good or bad, are organized things, and because men are accustomed to have a government over them justifying them in what they do, therefore, without trouble of conscience, to these foreign governments they gave themselves, and shedding blood to order, on a contract which promised them good pay, were not regarded as murderers at all, but as men still honourably employed in the service of civilization. And some of these having returned home in the nick of time from building castles in Spain, cheated of their pay, and very much disgusted with the camps and the food and the sanitary arrangement which had been provided for them, hearing that there was more employment of a similar kind to be had in Puto-Congo and Ray River Territory, went and offered themselves to the Chartered Company and found grateful acceptance. And when a thousand of them had been collected, they were sent out to the help of Mr. Trimblerigg, well supplied with arms and ammunition, also with spades and tar-brushes. And when they arrived Mr. Trimblerigg gave them their welcome instructions, plenty of work at blacking and tanning, one pound a day, and their keep. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX _Civilized and Simple_