in the atmosphere of the peaks, as we do!” The pressure of his strong hands in the unconscious emphasis of his passion became painful; but she did not protest or try to draw away, thinking of his hold in no personal sense but as a part of his self-revelation.  “All—­all is at stake there!” he continued, staring toward the range.  “It’s the Rubicon!  I have put my career on to-night’s cast!  Victory means that the world will be at our feet—­honor, position, power greater than that of any other two human beings!  Do you realize what that means—­the honor and the power that will be ours?  I shall have directed the greatest army the world has ever known to victory!”

“And defeat means—­what does defeat mean?” she asked narrowly, calmly; and the pointed question released her shoulders from the vise.

What had been a shadow in his thoughts became a live monster, striking him with the force of a blow.  He forgot Marta.  Yes, what would defeat mean to him?  Sheer human nature broke through the bonds of mental discipline weakened by sleepless nights.  Convulsively his head dropped as he covered his face.

“Defeat!  Fail!  That I should fail!” he moaned.

Then it was that she saw him in the reality of his littleness, which she had divined; this would-be conqueror.  She saw him as his intimates often see the great man without his front of Jove.  Don’t we know that Napoleon had moments of privacy when he whined and threatened suicide?  She wondered if Lanny, too, were like that—­if it were not the nature of all conquerors who could not have their way.  It seemed to her that Westerling was beneath the humblest private in his army—­beneath even that fellow with the liver patch on his cheek who had broken the chandelier in the sport of brutal passion.  All sense of her own part was submerged in the sight of a chief of staff exhibiting no more stoicism than a petulant, spoiled schoolboy.

While his head was still bent the artillery began its crashing thunders and the sky became light with flashes.  His hands stretched out toward the range, clenched and pulsing with defiance and command.

“Go in!  Go in, as I told you!” he cried.  “Stay in, alive or dead!  Stay till I tell you to come out!  Stay!  I can’t do any more!  You must do it now!”

“Then this may be truly the end,” thought Marta, “if the assault fails.”

And silently she prayed that it would fail; while the flashes lighted Westerling’s set features, imploring success.

No commander was a more prodigal employer of spies than Napoleon.  Did he or any other conqueror ever acknowledge a success due to the despised outcasts who brought him information?  No.  The brilliance of combinations, the stroke of genius of the swift march and the decisive blow in flank, the splendid charges—­these always win in the historian’s narrative and public imagination.  Think of any place in the frieze of the statue of the great leader for that hypocrite, that poor devil in disguise, whose news made the victory possible!