"Yes. He was all tempered with suffering—so absolute in fortitude.... They murdered him at my feet in the cell."
"He has done well. Perhaps you can see that we too love a servant like that—"
"Yes—but to put him out of the way—"
"The cause is greater than the man."
"I do not mean to argue. I can either take it or leave it." Romney could not say more. There was an encompassing understanding in the Hunchback's eye.
"We are glad to discuss this with you. The East regards these things differently. Tell us how you overtook him and what happened before the arrest—"
"He fell from fatigue. His hands were held up to me from the ground. I knew that you wanted him dead, knew what you expected of me, but I sat down on a doorstep to think it out. He expected death. He was trained your way. He asked me afterward why I had not killed him then. I knew you could not rest while his thoughts held together in that gritty head. Presently the police came along. It occurred to me if he were a trained spy, he would know English, and it was so. We arranged our story on the way to the lock-up—arranged it so as to keep out the name of Minglapo.... When I saw him trying to take care of that dry kneecap right here in this room—why, the stuff of me went out to him."
"Europe has gone mad," the Hunchback said wearily. "France, England, Italy, Austria, Russia, Germany, all goring each other—America threatened—Japan standing ready to take up the murderous confession of her material-mindedness. Mother China can stop all that forever."
Except for the presence of the Hunchback, Romney would have assumed a Western point of view fully at this time and explained that life had taught him to do most of his dreaming at night. Instead, he said:
"Of course, I should be very glad to hear about China's power of mastering Japan without arms and ending war forever from the hard-pressed earth—"