"Employ the enthusiasm of others, repress our own. Von Hügelweiler, who hates Trafford and loves Gloria,--and therefore would like to destroy them both,--is waiting in Drechler's farm at the top of Sanatorium Hill with a park of howitzers. When he gets the order the mortars will talk. The distances have been carefully measured, and the Marienkastel may already be numbered among the disappearing relics of old Grimland." "And the Princess Gloria?" asked Karl. "Will cease to be an effective factor in Grimland politics." Karl frowned. He had been ruthless enough in 1904, but then he was fighting against men. He was no sentimentalist, and he meant holding his own, though regiments were decimated in the process, and the snows of his beloved Weissheim were stained scarlet with good blood. But he had ever had a soft corner in his heart for the laughter-loving Princess, and his spirits sank at the prospect of her bright young life being sacrificed to the brutal, senseless Moloch of civil strife. The rough, fierce men who held the uplands for him were fair game for powder and shot, the levies of the plain were _chair a cannon_, maybe; but Gloria von Schattenberg was a creature of too delicate flesh to be maimed by live shell or splintering masonry, and his manhood revolted at the gruesome prospect. "We must try and save the Princess," he said after a minute's silence. Meyer said nothing. The nearer they advanced to the scene of action the lower his spirits fell. The sun was high in the cloudless heavens, and the distant mountains reared their snowy crests against a blue that was astounding in its intensity. A purple haze swam in the hollows of the hills; the buntings twittered in cheerful chorus amidst the dripping pine trees, now that their song was broken no longer by the crude music of the cannons' roar. For the moment Nature spoke of peace, but Meyer knew that there was no peace. There was a pause in the struggle, a lull before the storm, a moment when, by mutual consent, the hand-grip was relaxed, preparatory to the final struggle when one combatant or the other would be forced ruthlessly to his knees. And Meyer in his room, directing movements from a distance, was a very different person from Meyer within striking distance of a mobile foe. The man had no stomach for fighting. His mouth was dry and his pulses drumming a craven melody in his ears. He was afraid, and he was painfully conscious of his fear; but although his suffering was acute his brain was working tolerably well behind the half-shut eyes. There is a kind of cowardice that never loses its self-control at a crisis, just as there is a kind of bravery that never keeps it.