"There is no such word in Grimland," he said. "We either win victory or we drain the cup of defeat to its dregs. Are we to return to the good loyal town of Weidenbruck and say, 'We have lost three hundred men and a dozen guns; we have not captured Weissheim, nor taken Karl, but we have made a draw of it? Strew garlands in our path and deck your houses with bunting, for we have escaped total destruction!'
"I was not suggesting returning to Weidenbruck," said Trafford.
"Can we stay here? What are we to eat? Where are we to sleep? The nights are far from warm at these altitudes. To sleep out of doors at Weissheim; is to sleep the sleep that knows no waking. If we cannot go forward we must fall back on our communications at Wallen. The hospitality of Major Flannel's curling-rink is not one to be accepted permanently."
Trafford was silenced. Events had landed them in an impasse, and to curse the whole folly of the expedition was alike ignoble and unprofitable.
It might have been wiser,—as he had advocated at Wallen,—to have abandoned the scheme of conquest, to have sought the joys of life in quiet retirement from the scene of clashing ambitions and frenzied upheavals; but the expedition had gone on to its fate and he had gone, consenting, with it. And things being as they were, Bernhardt's logic was relentlessly true. To go back with their purpose unfulfilled was to test the brittle fabric of the sullen Weidenbruckers' allegiance with too shrewd a strain. And if they could not go forward they must go back. In grim perplexity he called to Gloria.
"Is it worth while trying to force the road to Weidenbruck?" he asked her.
"If you had been tending wounded men, you would not ask such a question," she replied quietly.
"I thought the Schattenbergs rose to great heights in great difficulties," sneered Bernhardt. "If we are shirk our butcher's bill——"
"We have made our mistakes," she interrupted. "Our only chance is for them to make theirs. If we stay here they may attack us."
"Meyer doesn't make mistakes," said the ex-priest, "and if he did it would not be a mistake of that kind. If we stay here the only foes that will attack us will be General Frost and Brigadier Hunger; against such we have no defence."