nd a woman in a yellow robe, who pretended
to be tipsy, sang a horrible and vulgar song full of topical allusions,
which was received with screams of delight by the enormous audience.

"Here the hearers are very many, but those to whom they listen do not
talk well. Let us go," said Oro, and we went.

At a recruiting station we paused a moment to consider posters supposed
to be attractive, the very sight of which sent a thrill of shame through
me. I remember that the inscription under one of them was: "What will
your best girl say?"

"Is that how you gather your soldiers? Later it will be otherwise," said
Oro, and passed on.

We reached Blackfriars and entered a hall at the doors of which stood
women in poke-bonnets, very sweet-faced, earnest-looking women. Their
countenances seemed to strike Oro, and he motioned me to follow him
into the hall. It was quite full of a miserable-looking congregation
of perhaps a thousand people. A man in the blue and red uniform of the
Salvation Army was preaching of duty to God and country, of self-denial,
hope and forgiveness. He seemed a humble person, but his words were
earnest, and love flowed from him. Some of his miserable congregation
wept, others stared at him open-mouthed, a few, who were very weary,
slept. He called them up to receive pardon, and a number, led by the
sweet-faced women, came and knelt before him. He and others whispered to
them, then seemed to bless them, and they rose with their faces changed.

"Let us go," said Oro. "I do not understand these rites, but at last
in your great and wonderful city I have seen something that is pure and
noble."

We went out. In the streets there was great excitement. People ran to
and fro pointing upwards. Searchlights, like huge fingers of flame,
stole across the sky; guns boomed. At last, in the glare of a
searchlight, we saw a long and sinister object floating high above us
and gleaming as though it were made of silver. Flashes came from it
followed by terrible booming reports that grew nearer and nearer. A
house collapsed with a crash just behind us.

"Ah!" said Oro, with a smile. "I know this--it is war, war as it was
when the world was different and yet the same."

As he spoke, a motor-bus rumbled past. Another flash and explosion. A
man, walking with his arms round the waist of a girl just ahead of
us; seemed to be tossed up and to melt. The girl fell in a heap on the
pavement; somehow her head and her feet had come