As news of the shot travelled among the people the cries dropped into long-drawn breaths of thirst satiated.  Their mission was fulfilled.  The tramp of their feet as they dispersed homeward mingled with the urging of officers to weary men and the rumbling of wagons and guns and the sound of pick and spade on the range, where torches flickered over the heads of the working parties.  But no other shot after the one heard from Westerling’s room was fired.  The Grays were at grip with the fact of disaster.  An angry, wounded animal that had failed of its kill was facing around at the mouth of its lair for its own life.

“We’re tired—­we’re all tired; but keep up—­keep up!” urged the officers.  “We have a new chief of staff and there will be no more purposeless sacrifices.  It’s their turn at the charge; ours to hold.  We’ll give them some of the medicine they’ve been giving us.  God with us!  Our backs against the wall!”

After Lanstron’s announcement to the Brown staff of his decision not to cross the frontier, there was a restless movement in the chairs around the table, and the grimaces on most of the faces were those with which a practical man regards a Utopian proposal.  The vice-chief was drumming on the table edge and looking steadily at a point in front of his fingers.  If Lanstron resigned he became chief.

“Partow might have this dream before he won, but would he now?” asked the vice-chief.  “No.  He would go on!”

“Yes,” said another officer.  “The world will ridicule the suggestion; our people will overwhelm us with their anger.  The Grays will take it for a sign of weakness.”

“Not if we put the situation rightly to them,” answered Lanstron.  “Not if we go to them as brave adversary to brave adversary, in a fair spirit.”

“We can—­we shall take the range!” the vice-chief went on in a burst of rigid conviction when he saw that opinion was with him.  “Nothing can stop this army now!” He struck the table edge with his fist, his shoulders stiffening.

“Please—­please, don’t!” implored Marta softly.  “It sounds so like Westerling!”

The vice-chief started as if he had received a sharp pin-prick.  His shoulders unconsciously relaxed.  He began a fresh study of a certain point on the table top.  Lanstron, looking first at one and then at another, spoke again, his words as measured as they ever had been in military discussion and eloquent.  He began outlining his own message which would go with Partow’s to the premier, to the nation, to every regiment of the Browns, to the Grays, to the world.  He set forth why the Browns, after tasting the courage of the Grays, should realize that they could not take their range.  Partow had not taught him to put himself in other men’s places in vain.  The boy who had kept up his friendship with engine-drivers after he was an officer knew how to sink the plummet into human emotions.  He reminded the Brown soldiers that there had been a providential answer to the call of “God with us!” he reminded the people of the lives that would be lost to no end but to engender hatred; he begged the army and the people not to break faith with that principle of “Not for theirs, but for ours,” which had been their strength.