or the love of gain, but for a nation's glory that they had risked limb
and life beneath an African sun. Then, as I looked, I caught a distant hum
of voices--a far-off sound, such as I have heard amid Pacific isles when
wind and waves were beating upon coral crags, and foam-topped rollers
thrashed the surf into the magic music of the storm-tossed sea. It was the
roar of London's multitudes welcoming home her own; and what a sound it
was! I have heard the music of the guns when our nation spoke in the stern
tones of battle to a nation in arms; I have heard the crash of tempests on
Southern coasts when ships were reeling in the breath of the blast, and
souls to their God were going; I have crouched low in my saddle when the
tornado has swept trees from the forest as a boy brushes flowers with his
footsteps. But never had I heard a sound like that. It was the voice of
millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome
and a warning--a welcome to the descendants of the 'prentice lads of Old
London, a warning to the world. I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged
them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they
told: "Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of
conscious might. Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but
beware the day we turn in our strength. We have sent forth a few of our
children, but they were but as a drop in the ocean. All Britain sent two
hundred and fifty thousand strong men to Africa; London, if need be, can
send five hundred thousand more to the uttermost parts of the earth. Aye,
and when they have died, as these would have died if need be, we can open
our hearts and send five hundred thousand more, and yet be strong for our
home fighting." It was a nation speaking to the nations, and that is the
tale it told. Let the nations take heed and beware, for the language was
the language of truth.

I listened; and lo! through the storm of cheering, through the cries of
women and the strong shouting of men in their prime, I caught another
sound, a sound I knew and loved--the sound of marching men. Music hath
charms to stir the blood and make men mad, but there is no music in all the
earth like the trained tread of men who have marched to battle. I knew the
rhythm of that tread; I knew that the "boys" of Old London were coming, and
my nostrils seemed filled with the fumes of fighting. I looked again, and,
saw them, hard fac