s question, say
to him, 'Where are the--'

"And if he cry out, 'You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say.
What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government?
It is all a lie!' Then question him no further. But say: 'There was a
rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went
out--and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.

"'And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse,
that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might
see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.

"'And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way
and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared
altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept
their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, 'We are
safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.' And on
dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the
midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.

"'What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight;
in that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted
it? Shall it not be put out?'

"And if he shall answer, saying, 'What are men to me? they are fools,
all fools! Let them die!'--tell him again this story: 'There was a
streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain's
crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and
clear as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then
it came to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by
which it might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and
stones, and down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a
chasm. And the stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this
way and went that. It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its
way past rocks and ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for
itself where no path had been; the banks would have grown green, and the
mountain daisy would have grown beside it; and all night the stars would
have looked at their faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun
would have played on it by day; and the wood dove would have built her
nest in the trees beside it; and singing, singing, always singing, it
would have made its way at last to the great sea, whose far-off call all
water