by the weak-minded apostles of peace as chauvinistic.  Let that pass, I am proud to call myself a chauvinist in the sense that I do not desire peace at any price, but peace only for England’s welfare.  The patriotic tendencies of our people have been directed into their proper channel by my predecessor Chamberlain.  And has not the Government for the last thirty years hearkened to these patriotic feelings, in that, whether led by Disraeli or Gladstone, it has brought about an enormous strengthening of our defensive forces both on land and sea?  These military preparations, whilst not only redounding to the advantage of the motherland, but also to that of the colonies (which they shall ever continue to do) have saddled the mother country with the entire burden of expenditure.  But how shall the enormous cost of this war be met for the future?  How shall the commerce of the English world-empire be increased in the future and protected from competition, if the colonies do not share in the expense?  I vote for a just distribution of the burdens, and maintain that not England alone but that the colonies also should share in bearing them.  The plan of Imperial Federation, a policy which we are pursuing, is the remedy for our chronic disease, and will strengthen the colonies and the mother country in economic, political, and military respects.  Certainly, my lords, such utterances will appear to you to be somewhat impertinent, at a time when a Russian army has invaded India and our army has suffered a severe defeat, but I should wish to remind you that every war that England has yet waged has begun with defeats.  But England has never waged other than victorious wars since William the Conqueror infused Romanic blood into England’s political life and thus gave it a constitution of such soundness and tenacity that no other body politic has ever been able permanently to resist England.  We shall again, as in days of yore, drive the Russians out of India, shall force the fleets of France, Germany, and Russia who are now hiding in their harbours into the open, annihilate them, and thwart all the insolent plans of our enemies, and finally raise the Union Jack as a standard of a world-power that no one will for evermore be able to attack.”

XVIII

THE YOUNG RUSSIAN CAPTAIN OF DRAGOONS

The news of Edith’s kidnapping—­for, in Heideck’s opinion, this was the only explanation, because she would otherwise have left a message for him—­fell upon Heideck as a crushing blow.

He remembered the terrible cruelties narrated of the period of the Sepoy mutiny.  And he only needed to remember his own experiences in Lahore to be convinced that all those horrible stories were no exaggeration, but, rather, well within the actual truth of the facts.

But if it was not a like fate that awaited Edith Irwin, yet perhaps another ignominious lot would be hers, and this could not fail to appear, to the man who loved her, more terrible even than death itself.