A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York
Copyright, 1910
By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published March, 1910
TO THE LADY OF COURAGE
WHOM I MARRIED
Contents
| PROLOGUE | |
|---|---|
| In Cheer Street, London | [ 9] |
| FIRST CHAPTER | |
| Mother India Is Said to be Quivering with Hatred for Her White Child, the British Foundling | [ 30] |
| SECOND CHAPTER | |
| The Baffling Indian Mystery Is Discussed by Four Men Who Should Have Been First to Solve it | [ 42] |
| THIRD CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Relates How a Master Came Down from the Goodly Mountains to Find His Chela in the Burning Plains | [ 51] |
| FOURTH CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Contemplates the Past in the Midst of a Shadow Forecast by Large Events | [ 65] |
| FIFTH CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Steps Out Spiritedly in the Fog to Find His Friends, and Encounters the Hate of London | [ 74] |
| SIXTH CHAPTER | |
| A Grim and Terrible Tradition Is Touched Upon for the Relation it Bears to the Treachery in India | [ 85] |
| SEVENTH CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Begs for a Stimulant—the Stuff that Sings in the Veins of Kings | [ 104] |
| EIGHTH CHAPTER | |
| The Superlative Woman Empties Her Heart of Its Treasures for the Outcast, and They Part at Charing Cross | [ 110] |
| NINTH CHAPTER | |
| Mr. Jasper is Informed that Mother India Caused Napoleon’s Defeat, and that Famines Are Not Without Virtue | [ 124] |
| TENTH CHAPTER | |
| A Singular Power Is Manifest in the Little Hut at Rydamphur, and Routledge Perceives His Work in Another War | [ 139] |
| ELEVENTH CHAPTER | |
| A Hand Touches the Sleeve of the Great Frieze Coat in the Wintry Twilight on the Bund at Shanghai | [ 148] |
| TWELFTH CHAPTER | |
| Johnny Brodie of Bookstalls is Invited to Cheer Street, and Bolts, Perceiving a Conspiracy Formed Against Him | [ 164] |
| THIRTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Jerry Cardinegh Offers a Toast to the Outcast and Is Compelled to Drink Alone | [ 175] |
| FOURTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Routledge is Assured of a Woman’s Love—though He Should Lead the Armies of the World to burn London | [ 187] |
| FIFTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Noreen Cardinegh Appears After Midnight in the Billiard-room of the Imperial—an Ineffable Remembrance | [ 200] |
| SIXTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Certain Civilians Sit Tight with Kuroki, while the Blood-Flower Puts Forth her Bright Little Buds | [ 211] |
| SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Feeney and Finacune are Privileged to “Read the Fiery Gospel Writ in Burnished Rows of Steel.” | [ 222] |
| EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Bingley Breaks Away from the Camp of the Civilians to Watch “the Lean-Locked Ranks Go Roaring Down to Die.” | [ 232] |
| NINETEENTH CHAPTER | |
| Noreen Cardinegh, Entering a Japanese House at Eventide, is Confronted by the Visible Thought-Form of Her Lover | [ 243] |
| TWENTIETH CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Is Seen by Noreen Cardinegh at an Exciting Moment in Which She Dare not Call His Name | [ 255] |
| TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER | |
| Routledge, Brooding upon the Mighty Spectacle of a Japanese Bivouac, Traces a World-War to the Leak in One Man’s Brain | [ 266] |
| TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Strikes a Contrast Between the Japanese Emperor and the Japanese Fighting-man, while Oku Charges into a Blizzard of Steel | [ 277] |
| TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER | |
| Routledge Encounters the “Horse-killer” on the Field of Liaoyang, and They Race for the Uncensored Cable at Shanhaikwan | [ 285] |
| TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER | |
| The Great Frieze Coat and the Woman Journey Down the Coast Together, and Cross India to the Leper Valley | [ 303] |
Routledge Rides Alone
PROLOGUE
IN CHEER STREET, LONDON
Jerry Cardinegh, dean of the British word-painters of war, was just home from China, where he had caught the Allies in the act of relieving Peking. It had been a goodly and enticing service, both to watch and to portray, calling out much of glorious color and tension and peril, and not enough slaughter to chill the world’s appreciation. Cardinegh sat by the fire in his little house in Cheer Street, London, and was ministered to by his daughter, Noreen, a heavenly dispensation which the old campaigner believed he had earned. A dinner together, just the two, truly a feast after lean months crossing the mountains of separation. Then whiskey, glasses, soda, pipes, tobacco, papers of the afternoon—all served by the dearest of hands. The gray, hard veteran lived, indeed, the maiden filling his eyes.
Twenty he had left her, and she was twenty still, but the added fraction of an inch made her look very tall, and startled him. There was a mysterious bloom under the luminous pallor of her skin; fathoms more added to the depth of her eyes, and a suggestion of volume to her voice. Nature and heritage had retouched the girlish lips in color and curve, widened the tender Irish eyes, added glow and amplitude to the red-gold hair.... There had only been two women in the world for Jerry Cardinegh, and the other was a memory—the mother.
“And who do you suppose is coming to-night, deere?” he asked. There was a silver lining of the Tyrone tongue to all that Jerry said, but it was so subtle and elusive as wholly to defy English letters, save possibly that one word “deere” which he rolled fondly for Noreen, and here and there in the structure of a sentence.