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Then she heard Lanstron's voice, broken and hoarse: "Marta, Marta, he is dead! Partow is dead!" Recovering himself, Lanstron told the story of Partow's going, which was in keeping with his life and his prayers. As the doctor put it, the light of his mind, turned on full voltage to the last, went out without a flicker.
They're actually discussing disarmament and an international peace pact for twenty years," she continued, "that nothing can break. Partow's statue in our capital is to have not victory, but peace on the fourth face of the plinth. They're even talking of putting up a statue to him in the Gray capital. Why not?
We cannot fail!" "Then it will be war, if the people want it!" said the premier. "I shall not resist their desire!" he added in his official manner, at peace with his conscience. Partow was a great brain set on an enormous body. Partow's eyes had the fire of youth at sixty-five, but the pendulous flesh of his cheeks was pasty.
It's from the grave!" exclaimed the premier as he read the first paragraphs of Partow's message. "Of all the concealed dynamite ever!" he gasped as he grasped the full meaning of the document, that piece of news, as staggering as the victory itself, that had lain in the staff vaults for years.
If not in Partow's then in the staff's message they found the mirror that set their own ethical professions staring at them. Before they had made up their minds the correspondents at the front had set the wires singing to the evening editions; for Lanstron had directed that they be given the ran of the army's lines at daybreak.
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 Grays would find themselves in the trap of Partow's and Lanny's planning. Turning her back to the range for the moment, she saw the twinkle of the lights of the town and the threads of light of the wagon-trains and the sweep of the lights of the railroad trains on the plain; while in the foreground every window of the house was ablaze, like some factory on a busy night shift.
It was the most natural conception to a military tactician, though any man who made it his own might have builded a reputation on it if he knew how to get the ear of the press. Their faces were close to Lanstron as they leaned toward him eagerly. He seemed not to see them but to be looking at Partow's chair.
We're going to have the children from both La Tir and South La Tir!... The only trouble is that if Lanny keeps on giving Partow all the credit for the good work he will succeed in making everybody think that every time he winked after Partow's death it was according to Partow's directions for the conduct of the war!"
Lanstron replied. "Or, I, too, if you prefer. It little matters. The thing is that I am under a promise to both, which I shall respect. He organized and labored for the same purpose that she played the spy. When we sent the troops forward in a counter-attack and pursuit to clear our soil of the Grays; when I stopped them at the frontier both were according to Partow's plan.
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