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Hedworth Westerling, the new vice-chief of staff, was content with this arrangement. His years would not permit him the supreme honor. This was for a figurehead, while he had the power. His appointment to the staff ten years ago had given him the fields he wanted, the capital itself, for the play of his abilities.
General Tanaka, Vice-Chief of the Japanese General Staff, who had been on an extensive tour of inspection in China, so planned as to include every arsenal north of the Yangtsze had arrived at the psychological moment in Peking and was now deeply engaged through Japanese field-officers in the employ of the Chinese Government, in pulling every string and in trying to commit the leaders of this unedifying plot in such a way as to make them puppets of Japan.
"You couldn't reach there before the 53d Regiment anyway!" declared the vice-chief, having in mind the fact that the staff was fifteen miles to the rear, where it could be at the wire focus. "You will find the roads blocked with the advance. You'll have to ride, you can't go all the way in a car." "Terrible hardship!" replied Lanstron. "Still, I'm going. Things are well in hand.
"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!"
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.
"We're all in pretty good humor," remarked the vice-chief. He seemed to have a pleasant taste in his mouth that would last him for life. Then Marta saw their faces grow businesslike and keen, as they gathered around the table, with Lanstron at the head. They were oblivious of her presence, immured in a man's world of war. "Your orders were obeyed.
"Miss Galland," said the vice-chief, "Westerling's fate, whatever it is, would have been the same. He could never have taken our range. He would have only more lives to answer for, and Partow's dream could not have come true." "You think that you all of you?" she asked. "All! All!" they said together.
I will take a look at the pool alone to-morrow." But when day dawned the vice-chief was summoned to hear a message from Muata, who had reported that Hassan had discovered the dark river leading up to the tabooed pool, and was sending up a strong fleet of canoes, while still more canoes were gathering on the other river by which he had made his first attack.
Lanstron referred in unmistakable apprehension to the vice-chief of staff, whom all the army knew had no real ability or decision underneath his pleasing, confident exterior. "No, not Goerwitz," said Partow, with a shrug. "Some one who will go on with the weaving, not by knotting threads but with the same threads in a smooth fabric."
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.