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.
Although he does ultimately take responsibility for not having the strength to pull off the ritual before the British could get there, he does emphasize the role an "alien race" played in the whole affair. If they hadn't been around, Elesin couldn't have convinced himself that their intervention was perhaps the result of the gods' intervention. Or so Elesin's telling himself here.