Within twenty years, or ten, or mayhap even one, what would this present victory or defeat mean to him?
Nothing so far as he was concerned; that is, nothing so far as his life of to-day was concerned.

Yet, if he had another life, it might mean everything.

There was another life; he knew it, who had dragged back from its borders the spirits of the dead, though what might be the state and occupations of those dead he did not know.

Yet he believed--why he could not tell--that they were affected vitally by their acts and behaviour here; and his intelligence warned him that good must always flow from good, and evil from evil.

To kill this man was evil, and of it only evil could come.
What did he care whether Hafela ruled the nation or Nodwengo, and whether it worshipped the God of the Christians or the god of Fire--who, by the way, had proved himself so singularly inefficient in the hour of trial.