Page:Roger Casement - The crime against Ireland and how the war may right it.djvu/98

92 dead trunk moulders away its own end approaches; its support is gone and itself also falls.”	

The analogy is almost the most perfect in literature, and if we would not see it made perfect in history we must get rid of the parasite grip before we are quite strangled. If we would not share the coming darkness we must shake off the murderer's hold, before murderer and victim fall together. That fall is close at hand. A brave hand may yet cut the “Sipo Matador,” and the slayer be slain before he has quite stifled his victim.

If that hand be not a European one, then may it come, bronzed, keen and supple from the tropic calm! The birds of the forest are on the wing.

Regions Cæsar never knew, including Hibernia, have come, under the eagles, nay, the vultures, of imperial Britain. But the Lion's maw is full.

At length the overgorged Beast of Prey, with all the diseases in his veins that overeating brings, finds that his claws are not so sharp as they were, that his belly is much heavier when he tries to leap, and that it is now chiefly by his Voice he still scares his enemies.

The Empire of England dates from Tudor times. Henry VIII was the first John Bull. With the conquered Irish and the wealth derived from their rich country England set out to lay low every free people that had a country worth invading and who, by reason of their non-imperial instincts, were not prepared to meet her on equal terms. India she overran by the same methods as had given her Ireland.

Wholesale plunder, treachery and deceit met at her Council Board under a succession of Governors and Viceroys, whose policy was that of Captain Kidd, and whose anteroom of State led every native prince to the slippery plank. The thing became the most colossal success upon earth. No people were found able to