us, it was with no selfish thought, no personal
dread, that he grew, as said, mightily disturbed at what he knew of
India whenever he saw signs of the extra imminence of the Great European
Armageddon that looms upon the horizon, now near, now nearer still, now
less near, but inevitably there, plain to the eyes of all observant,
informed and thoughtful men.[50]

[50] Written in 1912.--AUTHOR.

What really astounded and appalled him was the mental attitude, the
mental condition, of British "statesmen," who (while a mighty and
ever-growing neighbour, openly, methodically, implacably prepared for
the war that was to win her place in the sun) laboured to reap votes by
sowing class-hatred and devoted to national "insurance" moneys sorely
needed to insure national _existence_.

To him it was as though hens cackled of introducing
time-and-labour-saving incubators while the fox pressed against the
unfastened door, smiling to think that their cackle smothered all other
sounds ere they reached them or the watch-dog.

Yes--while England was at peace, all was well with India; but let
England find herself at war, fighting for her very existence ... and
India might, in certain parts, be an uncomfortable place for any but the
strong man armed, as soon as the British troops were withdrawn--as they,
sooner or later, most certainly would be. Then, feared Captain John
Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers, the British Flag would,
for a terrible breathless period of stress and horror, fly, assailed but
triumphant, wherever existed a staunch well-handled Volunteer Corps, and
would flutter down into smoke, flames, ruin and blood, where there did
not. He was convinced that, for a period, the lives of English women,
children and men; English prosperity, prestige, law and order; English
rule and supremacy, would in some parts of India depend for a time upon
the Volunteers of India. At times he was persuaded that the very
continuance of the British Empire might depend upon the Volunteers of
India. If, during some Black Week (or Black Month or Year) of England's
death-struggle with her great rival she lost India (defenceless India,
denuded of British troops), she would lose her Empire,--be the result of
her European war what it might. And knowing all that he knew, he feared
for England, he feared for India, he feared for the Empire. Also he
determined that, so far as it lay in the power of one war-trained man,
the flag should be kept