nspired by the
leprous Chinese. We have earned all this hatred and scorn and opposition
from England, because in fighting with her we have observed the laws of
humanity, when we should have wiped her people off the face of the earth
as Saul smote Agag and his corrupt people, as Cromwell treated us. Do
you wonder that I hate this England far more than I hate sin, or the
devil, or any monstrous creature which feeds upon man."

"I do not wonder," said Arthur. "With you there is always an increasing
hatred of England?"

"Until death," cried Ledwith, leaping from his seat, as if the fire of
hate tortured him, and striding about the room. "To fight every minute
against this monster, to fight in every fashion, to irritate her, to
destroy a grain of her influence, in a single mind, in a little
community, to expose her pretense, her sham virtues, her splendid
hypocrisy, these are the breath of my life. That hate will never perish
until----"

He paused as if in painful thought, and passed his hand over his
forehead.

"Until the wrongs of centuries have been avenged," said Arthur. Ledwith
sat down with a scornful laugh.

"That's a sentence from the orations of our patriotic orators," he
sneered. "What have we to do with the past? It is dead. The oppressed
and injured are dead. God has settled their cause long ago. It would be
a pretty and consoling sight to look at the present difference between
the English Dives and the Irish Lazarus! The vengeance of God is a
terrible thing. No! my hate is of the present. It will not die until we
have shaken the hold of this vampire, until we have humiliated and
disgraced it, and finally destroyed it. I don't speak of retaliation.
The sufferings of the innocent and oppressed are not atoned for by the
sufferings of other innocents and other oppressed. The people are
blameless. The leaders, the accursed aristocracy of blood, of place, of
money, these make the corporate vampire, which battens upon the weak and
ignorant poor; only in England they give them a trifle more, flatter
them with skill, while the Irish are kicked out like beggars."

He looked at Dillon with haggard eyes. Honora sat like a statue, as if
waiting for the storm to pass.

"I have not sworn an oath like Hannibal," he said, "because God cannot
be called as a witness to hate. But the great foe of Rome never observed
his oath more faithfully than I shall that compact which I have made
with myself and the powers of my nature