asive thrill--he had saved so many of his followers. Since then the
temptation had come upon him often when trouble weighed or difficulties
surrounded him--accompanied always by recurrence of fever--to resort to
the insidious medicine. Though he had fought the temptation with every
inch of his strength, he could too well understand those who sought for
"surcease of pain".

"Seeking for surcease of pain,
Pilgrim to Lethe I came;
Drank not, for pride was too keen,
Stung by the sound of a name!"

As the plough of action had gone deep into his life and laid bare his
nature to the light, there had been exposed things which struggled for
life and power in him, with the fiery strength which only evil has.

The western heavens were aglow. On every hand the gorse and the may were
in bloom, the lilacs were coming to their end, but wild rhododendrons
were glowing in the bracken, as he stepped along the road towards the
place where he was born. Though every tree and roadmark was familiar,
yet he was conscious of a new outlook. He had left these quiet scenes
inexperienced and untravelled, to be thrust suddenly into the thick of
a struggle of nations over a sick land. He had worked in a vortex of
debilitating local intrigue. All who had to do with Egypt gained except
herself, and if she moved in revolt or agony, they threatened her.
Once when resisting the pressure and the threats of war of a foreign
diplomatist, he had, after a trying hour, written to Faith in a burst of
passionate complaint, and his letter had ended with these words.

"In your onward march, O men,
White of face, in promise whiter,
You unsheath the sword, and then
Blame the wronged as the fighter.

"Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o'er
All these foetid fields of evil,
While hard at the nation's core
Eats the burning rust and weevill

"Nathless, out beyond the stars
Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
Seeing in all strifes and wars
Who the wronged, who the wronger."

Privately he had spoken thus, but before the world he had given way to
no impulse, in silence finding safety from the temptation to diplomatic
evasion. Looking back over five years, he felt now that the sum of his
accomplishment had been small.

He did not realise the truth. When his hand was almost upon the object
for which he had toiled