How we cite our quotes: Act.Line
Quote #10
It is when the alien hand pollutes the source of will, when a stranger force of violence shatters the mind's calm resolution, this is when a man is made to commit the awful treachery of relief, commit in his thought the unspeakable blasphemy of seeing the hand of the gods in this alien rupture of the world. I know it was this thought that killed me, sapped my powers and turned me into an infant in the hands of unnamable strangers. I made to utter my spells anew but my tongue merely rattled in my mouth. I fingered hidden charms and the contact was damp; there was no spark left to sever the life-strings that should stretch from every finger-tip. My will was squelched in the spittle of an alien race, and all because I had committed the blasphemy of thought—that there might be the hand of the gods in a stranger's intervention. (5.87)
So, Elesin is kinda-sorta blaming foreign interference for his failure… and also kind of not. In his view, he used it as an excuse, thinking (in a moment of "blasphemy") that the gods might be using the British to intervene and save him. Of course, he now believes that assumption to have been wrong.