every point!
You are the general, you the maker of victories!"

"Yes, the general of still more killing!" she cried in indignation. "Why
have you gone on with the slaughter? I did not help you for this. Why?"

No reply came. She poured out more questions, and still no reply. She
pressed the button and tried again, but she might as well have been
talking over a dead wire.

* * * * *

Though the morning was chill, Mrs. Galland, in a heavy coat, was seated
outside the tower door, beatifically calm and smiling; for she would
miss rejoicing over no detail of the spectacle. The battle's sounds were
sweet music--symphony of retribution. Oh, if her husband and her father
could only be with her to see the ancient enemy in flight! Her cheeks
were rosy with the happy thrumming of her heart; a delirious beat was in
her temples. She wanted to sing and cheer and give thanks to the
Almighty. The advancing bursts of billowy shrapnel down the slopes were
a heavenly nimbus to her eyes. She breathed a silent blessing on a
manoeuvring Brown dirigible. They were coming! The soldiers of her
people were coming to take back their own from the robber hosts and
restore her hearth to her. Soon she would be seated on the veranda
watching the folds of her flag floating over La Tir.

"Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it like some good story?" she said to Marta.
"Yes, like a miracle--and there has been a Galland in every war of the
Browns and you were in this!"

Having no son, she had given her daughter in sacrifice on the altar of
her country's gods, who had answered with victory. Her old-fashioned
patriotism, true to the "all-is-fair-in-war" precept, delighted in the
hour of success in every trick of Marta's double-dealing, though in
private life she could have been guilty of no deceit.

"Marta, Marta, I shall never tease you again about your advanced ideas
or about journeying all the way around the world without a chaperon.
Your father and my father would have approved!" She squeezed Marta's
hands and pressed them to her cheek. Marta smiled absently.

"Yes, mother," she said, but in such a fashion that Mrs. Galland was
reminded again that Marta had always been peculiar. Probably it was
because she was peculiar that she had been able to outwit the head of an
army.

"Oh, that mighty Westerling who was going to conquer the whole world!
How does he feel now?" mused Mrs. Galland "Westerling and his boasted
power of fi