No places, those, for strong
men to live alone in, where night-breezes whisper through forgotten
passages and dry teak planking recreaks to the memory of dead men's
footsteps.
But strong men are not the only makings of an Empire, nor yet the
only sufferers. Wherever the flag of England flies above a distant
outpost or droops in the stagnant moisture of an Eastern swamp, there
are the graves of England's women. The bones that quarreling jackals
crunch among the tombstones--the peace along the clean-kept borderline--
the pride of race and conquest and the cleaner pride of work well
done, these are not man's only. Man does the work, but he is held
to it and cheered on by the girl who loves him.
And so, above a stone-flagged courtyard, in a room that once had echoed
to the laughter of a sultan's favorite, it happened that an English
girl of twenty-one was pacing back and forth. Through the open curtained
window she had seen her husband lead his command out through the echoing
archway to the plain beyond; she had heard his boyish voice bark
out the command and had listened to the rumble of the gun-wheels dying
in the distance--for the last time possibly.
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