CONTENTS

[I.][A SPECK IN THE SKY]
[II.][TEN YEARS LATER]
[III.][OURS AND THEIRS]
[IV.][THE DIVIDENDS OF POWER]
[V.][OFF TO THE FRONTIER]
[VI.][THE SECOND PROPHECY]
[VII.][TIMES HAVE CHANGED]
[VIII.][THANKS TO A BUMBLEBEE]
[IX.][A SUNDAY MORNING CALL]
[X.][A LUNCHEON AT THE GALLANDS']
[XI.][MARTA HEARS FELLER'S STORY]
[XII.][A CRISIS WITHIN A CRISIS]
[XIII.][BREAKING A PAPER-KNIFE]
[XIV.][IN PARTOW'S OFFICE]
[XV.][CLOSE TO THE WHITE POSTS]
[XVI.][DELLARME'S MEN GET A MASCOT]
[XVII.][A SUNDAY MORNING IN TOWN]
[XVIII.][THE BAPTISM OF FIRE]
[XIX.][RECEIVING THE CHARGE]
[XX.][MARTA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF WAR]
[XXI.][SHE CHANGES HER MIND]
[XXII.][FLOWERS FOR THE WOUNDED]
[XXIII.][STRANSKY FIGHTS ALONE]
[XXIV.][THE MAKING OF A HERO]
[XXV.][THE TERRIBLE NIGHT]
[XXVI.][FELLER IS TEMPTED]
[XXVII.][HAND TO HAND]
[XXVIII.][AN APPEAL TO PARTOW]
[XXIX.][THROUGH THE VENEER]
[XXX.][MARTA MEETS HUGO]
[XXXI.][UNTO CÆSAR]
[XXXII.][TEA ON THE VERANDA AGAIN]
[XXXIII.][IN FELLER'S PLACE]
[XXXIV.][THREE VOICES]
[XXXV.][MRS. GALLAND INSISTS]
[XXXVI.][MARKING TIME]
[XXXVII.][THUMBS DOWN FOR BOUCHARD]
[XXXVIII.][HUNTING GHOSTS]
[XXXIX.][A CHANGE OF PLAN]
[XL.][WITH FRACASSE'S MEN]
[XLI.][WITH FELLER AND STRANSKY]
[XLII.][THE RAM]
[XLIII.][JOVE'S ISOLATION]
[XLIV.][TURNING THE TABLES]
[XLV.][THE RETREAT]
[XLVI.][THE LAST SHOT]
[XLVII.][THE PEACE OF WISDOMDOM]

THE LAST SHOT

I

A SPECK IN THE SKY

It was Marta who first saw the speck in the sky. Her outcry and her bound from her seat at the tea-table brought her mother and Colonel Westerling after her onto the lawn, where they became motionless figures, screening their eyes with their hands. The newest and most wonderful thing in the world at the time was this speck appearing above the irregular horizon of the Brown range, in view of a landscape that centuries of civilization had fertilized and cultivated and formed.

At the base of the range ran a line of white stone posts, placed by international commissions of surveyors to the nicety of an inch's variation. In the very direction of the speck's flight a spur of foot-hills extended into the plain that stretched away to the Gray range, distinct at the distance of thirty miles in the bright afternoon light. Faithful to their part in refusing to climb, the white posts circled around the spur, hugging the levels.

In the lap of the spur was La Tir, the old town, and on the other side of the boundary lay South La Tir, the new town. Through both ran the dusty ribbon of a road, drawn straight across the plain and over the glistening thread of a river. On its way to the pass of the Brown range it skirted the garden of the Gallands, which rose in terraces to a seventeenth-century house overlooking the old town from its outskirts. They were such a town, such a road, such a landscape as you may see on many European frontiers. The Christian people who lived in the region were like the Christian people you know if you look for the realities of human nature under the surface differences of language and habits.