Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1914 — Page 2

The Last Shot

BY FREDERICK PALMER

SYNOPSIS. At their home on the frontier between the Browns fend Orays Marta Gall&nd and her mother, entertaining Colonel Westerling of the Grays, see Captain Lanstron of the Browns injured by a fall In his aeroplane. Ten years later. Westerling, nominal vice but real chief of staff, re-en-forces South La Tir and meditates on war. He calls on Marta, who is visiting in the Gray capital. She tells him of her teaching children the follies of war and martial patriotism, and begs him to prevent war while he Is chief of staff. On the march with the 63d of the Browns Private Stransky, anarchist, is placed under arrest. Colonel Lanstron begs him off. Lanßtron calls on Marta at her home. He talks with Feller, the gardener. Marta tells Lanstron that she believes Feller to be a spy. Lanstron confesses it is true. Lanstron shows Marta a telephone which Feller has concealed in a secret passage under the tower for use to benefit the Browns in war emergencies. Lanstron declares his love for Marta. Westerling and the Gray premier plan to use a trivial international affair to foment warlike, patriotism In army and people and strike before declaring war. Partow', Brown chief of staff, and Lanstron, made vice, discuss the trouble, and the Brown defenses. Part*w reveals his plans to Lanstron. The Gray army crosses the border line and attacks. The Browns check them. Artillery, Infantry, aeroplanes and dirigibles engage. Stransky. rising to make the anarchist speech of his life, draws the Gray grtillery fire. Nicked by a shrapnel splinter he goes Berserk and fights—“all a man.” Marta has her first glimpse of war in Its modern, cold, scientific, murderous brutality. The Browns fall back to the Galland house. Stransky forages. Marta sees a night attack. The, Grays attack in force. ) - _ CHAPTER XlW^Continued.

But she hurried on, Impelled by she knew not what,, through the diningroom, and, coming ' l %o the veranda, stopped short, with dilating eyes and a cry of grievous shock. Two of his men were carrying Dellarme back from the breastwork, where they had caught him in their arms as he fell. They laid him + gently on the sward with a knapeack under his head. His face grew whiter with the flow of blood from the red hole in the right breast of his blouse. Then he opened his lips and whimpered to the doctor: “How is it?” Something in his eyes, in the tone of that faint question, required the grace of a" soldier’s truth in answer. _ “Bad!” said the doctor. “Then, good-by!” And his head fell to one side, his lips set in his cheery, smile. - His company was a company With his smile out of its heart and in its place blank despair. Many of the men had stopped firing. Some had even rub back -to look at him and stood, caps off, backs to the enemy, miserable in their grief. Others leaned against the parapet, rifles out of haiyl, staring and dazed. “They have killed our captain!”

"They’ve killed our captain!”—still a captain to them. A general’s stars could not have raised him a cubit in their estimation. “And once we called him ‘Baby Deb larme,’ he was so young and bashful! Him a baby? He was a king!” “Men, get to your places!” cried the surviving lieutenant rather hopelessly, with no Dellarme to show him what to do; and Marta saw that few paid Any attention to him. In that minute of demoralization the Grays had their chance, but only for a minute. A voice that seemed to speak some uncontrollable thought of her own broke in, and it rang with the authority and leadership of a mature officer’s command, even though coming from a gardener in blue blouse and crownless straw hat. “Your rifles, your rifles, quick!” called Feller. “We’re only beginning to fight!” And then another voice in a bull roar, Stransky’s: “Avenge his death! They’ve got-to kill the last man of us for killing him! Revenge! Revenge!” That cry brought back to the company all the fighting spirit of the cheery smile and with it another spirit —for Dellarme’s sake!—which he had never taught them. Straneky picked up one of several cylindrical objects that were lying at his feet

“<H® wouldn’t use this—he was too soft-hearted—but I will!" he cried, and flung a hand-grenade, and then a second, over the breastwork. The explosions were followed by agonized groans from the Grays hugging the lower side of the terrace. For this they had crawled across the road in the bight—to find themselves unable • to move either way and directly under the flashes of the Browns' rifles. Feller’s and Stransky’s shouts rose together in a peculiar unity of direction and full of the fellowship they had found in their first exchange of glances. “You engineers, make ready!* “Hand-grenades to the men under the tree! That's where they’re going to try for it—no wall to climb over therein 1 "You engineers, take your rifles—and bayonet into anything that wears gray!” . “Get back, you men by the tree, to avoid their hand-grenades! Form up behind them, everybody!” "No matter if they do get in at first! Back, you men, from under the tree!” There was not a single rifle-shot. In a silence like" that before the word to Are in a duel, all orders were heard

(Copyright. 1914. by Charles Scribner's Sons)

and the more readily obeyed because Dellarme’s foresight had impressed their sense upon the men in his quiet way. The sand-bags by the tree Vere blown up by the Grays. Then, before the dust had hardly fettledr- came a half score of hand-grenades thrown by the first men of a Gray Wedge, scrambling as they were pushed through the breach by the pressure of the mass behind. In that final struggle of one set of men to gain and another to hold a; position, guns or automatics or long-range bullets played no part. It was the grapple of cold dteel with cold stjeel and muscle with muscle, in the billowing, twisting mob of wrestlers, with no sound from throats but straining breaths; with no quarter, no distinction of person, and bloodshot eyes and faces hot with the effort of brute strength striving, in primitive desperation, to kill in order not to be killed. The cloud of rocking, writhing arms and shoulders was neither going forward nor backward. Its movement was that of a vortex, while the gray stream kept on pouring through the breach as if it were ofily the first flood from some gray lake on the other side of the breastwork.

Marta had come to the edge of the veranda, at once drawn and repelled, feeling the fearful suspense of the combat,- the savage horror of it, and herself uttering sounds like the straining breaths of the men. What a place for her to be! But she did not think of that. She was there. The dreadful alchemy of war had made her a stranger to herself. She was mad; they were mad; all the world was mad!

One minute two, perhaps not three—and the thing was over. She saw the Grays being crushed back and realized that the Browns had won, while the last details of the lessening tumult fixed her attention with their gladiatorial simplicity. Here, indeed, it was a case of man to man with the weapons nature gave him. “I thought so!” cried Feller. “Attacks on frontal positions by daylight are going out of fashion!” It was he who Mercifully arrested the shower of hand-grenades that followed the exit of the enemy. Two of the guns of the castle batteries, having changed their position, were making havoc enough at pointblank range, with a choice of targets between the Grays huddled on the other side of the breastwork ahd those in retreat.

One of the Grays, his cheek bearing the mark of a boot heel, raised himself, and, in defiance and the satisfac-

“You, There, in Your Straw Hat and Blue Blouse.”

tion of the thought to his bruises and humiliation, pointing his finger at Feller, Marta heard him say: "You there, in your straw hat and blue blouse, they’ve seen you—a man fighting and not in uniform! If they catch you it will be a, drumhead and a firing squad at dawn!’ “ “That’s qo!" replied Feller gravely. “But they’ll have to make a better job of it than you fellows did if they’re going to —” . A He turned away abruptly but did not move far. His shoulders relaxed into the gardener’s stoop, and be pulled his hat down over his eyes and lowered his head as if to hide his face. He was thus standing, inert, when a division etaff-efficer galloped into the grounds. ' “Where is Major Dellarme?’* When he saw Dellanne’s still body he dismounted and in fa tide of feeling which, for the moment, submerged all thought of the machine, stood, head bowed and cap off, looking down at Dellapne’s face.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

“I was very fond of him! He was at school when I was teaching there. But a feood death —a soldier’s death!*? he said. “I’ll write to hie mother myself.” Then the voice of the machine spoke. “Who is in command?” “I am, sir!” said the callow lieutenant, coming up. But the men of the company spoke. “Bert Stransky!” they roared. It was ifßt according to military, etiquette, but military etiquette meant nothing to them now. They were above it in veteran superiority. “Where’s Stransky?” demanded the staff-officer. “You’re looking at him!” replied Stransky with a benign grin. Seeing that Stransky was only a private, the officer, frowned at the anomaly when a lieutenant was present, then emiled in a way that accorded the company parliamentary rights, which he thought that-they had fully earned. .

“Yes, and he gets one of those iron crosses!” put in Tom Fragini. “Yes—the first cross for Bert of the Reds!”

“And we’ll let him make a dozen anarchist speeches a day!” “Yes, yes!” roared the company. “The ayee have it!” the officer announced cheerfully. He lifted his cap to Marta. With tender regard and grave reverence for that company, he took extreme care with-his next remark lest a set of men of such dynamic spirit might repulse him as an invader. “The lieutenant is in command for the present, according to regulations," he proceeded. “You will retire immediately to positions 48 and 49 A —J by the castle road. You have done your part. Tonight you sleep and tomorrow you rest.”

Sleep! Rest! Where had they 4ieard those words before? Oh, yes, in a distant day before they went to war! Sleep and rest! Better far than an irpn cross for every man in the company! They could go now with something warmer in their hearts than consciousness of duty well done; but this time they need not go until their dead as well as their wounded were removed. '

Feller started to pass around the corner of the house; he was confronted by Marta, who had come to the end of the veranda. There, Within hearing of the soldiers, the dialogue that followed was low-toned, and it was swift and palpitant with repressed emotion. “Mr. Feller, I saw you at the automatic. I heard what the wounded private of the Grays said to you. and realized how true it was."

“He is a prisoner. He cannot tell.” “I feel that I have no right to let you go to your death by a firing squad,” she interrupted hurriedly, “and I shall not! For I decide now not to allow the telephone to remain!”

“I”—he looked around at the automatic ravenously and fearsomely <<J »

“It is all simply arranged. There is time for me to use the telephone before the Grays arrive. I shall tell Lanny why.you took charge of the gun."

“I’ve changed my mind! Exit gardener! Enter gunner! I’m going with you!” he cried in a jubilant voice that arrested the attention of every one on the grounds.

CHAPTER XIII.

From Brown to Gray. “You, Marta —you are still there!” Lanstron exclaimed in alarm when he heard her voice over the tunnel telephone. “But safe!” he added in relief. “Thank God for that!, It’s a mighty load off my mind. And your mother?” “Safe, too.” “Well, you’re through the worst of it. There won’t be any more fighting around the house, and certainly Westerling will be courteous. But where is Gustave?” “Gone!” “Gone!” he repeated dismally. “Wait uiytil you hear how he went,” Marta said. With all the vividness of her impressions, a partisan for the moment of him and' Dellarme, she sketched Feller’s part with the automatic. As he listened, Lanstron’s spirit was twenty again. “I can see him,” he said. “It was a full breath of fresh air to the lungs of a suffocating man. I —’’ Marta was off in interruption in the full tide of an appeal. “You must—l promised—you must let him have the uniform again!” she begged. “You must let him keep his automatic. To take/ It away would be like separating mother and child; like separating Minna from Clarissa Eileen.”

“Better, *• than an automatic—a battery of guns!” replied Lanstron. “This is where I will ÜBe any influence ! have with Partow for all it is worth. Yes, and he shall have the iron cross. It is for such deeds as hlB that the iron crops was meant”

"Thank you,” she said. "It’s worth something to make a man as happy as you will make him. Yes* you are real ‘-flesh and blood to do this, Lanny,” Her point won with surprising ease, when she had feared that military form and law could not be circumvented, she leaned against the wall in reaction. For twenty-four hours she had been Without sleep. The interest of her appeal for Feller bad kept up her strength after the excitement of the fight for the redoubt was over. Now there Beemed nothing left to do.

“That’s fine of you, Lanny!" she said. "You’ve taken it like a good stoic, this lops of your thousandth chance. You really believed in it, didn’t you?"

“Forgotten already, like the many other thousandth chances that have failed,” he replied “One of the virtues of Partow’s steel-'au-tomatons is that, being tearless as well as passionless, they never cry over spilt milk. And now,” he went on soberly, “we must be saying goodby,” “Good-by, Lenny? Why, what do you mean?” She was startled. “Till the war is over,” he said, “and longer than that, perhaps, if La Tir remains in Gray territory." “You speak as if you thought you were going to lose!” “Not while many of our epldlers are alive, if they continue to show the spirit that they have shown so far; not unless two men can crush ope man in the automatic-gun-recoll age. But La Tir is in a tangent and already ip the Grays’ possession, while we act on the defensive. So I should hardly be flying over your garden again.” “But there’s the telephone, Lanny, and here we are talking over it this very minute!” she expostulated. “You must remove it,” he said. "If the Grays should discover it they might form a suspicion that would put you in an unpleasant position.” The telephone had become almost a familiar institution in her thoughts. Its secret'had something of the fascination for her of magic.

“Nonsense!" she exclaimed. "I am going to be very lonely. I want to learn how Feller is doing—l want- to chat with you. So I decide not to let it be taken out. And, you see, I have the tactical situation, as you soldiers call it, all in my favor. The work of removal- must be done at my end of the line. You’re quite. helpless to enforce your wishes. And, Lanny, if I ring the bell you’ll answer, won’t you?” “I couldn’t help it!” he replied. •' “Until then! You’ve been fine about everything today! ” - “Until then!” When Marta left the tower she knew only that she was weary .with the mind-weariness, the body-weariness, the nerve-weariness of a spectator who has shared the emotion of every actor in a drama of death and finds the excitement that has kept her tense no longer a sustaining force. As she went along the path, steps uncertain from sheer fatigue, her sensibilities livened again at the sight of .a picture. War, personal war, in the form of the giant Stransky, was knocking at the kitchen door. His old beard was matted with dust and there were dried red spatters on his cheek. War’s furnace flames seemed to have tanned him; war seemed to be breathing from-his deep chest; his big nose -was war’s promontory. But the unexposed space of his forehead seemed singularly white when he took off his cap as Minna came in answer to his knock. ’Her yielding lips were parted, her eyes were bright with inquiry and suspicion, her chin was firmly set.

“I came to see if you would let me kiss your hand again,” said Stransky, squinting through his brows wistfully.

“I see your noee has been broken once. You don’t want it broken a second time. I’m stronger than you think!” Minna retorted, and held out her hand carelessly as if it pleased her to humor him.

He was rather graceful, despite his size, as he touched his lips to her fingers. Just as he -raised his head a burst of cheering rose from the yard. “So you’ve found that we have gone, you brilliant intellects! ” he shouted, and glared at the wall of the house in the direction of the cheers.

“Quick! You have no time to lose!” Minna warned him.

“Quick! quick!” cried Marta. Stransky paid no attention to the urgings. He had something more to say to Minna. “I’m going to keep thinking of you and seeing your sac face of a good woman —while I fight And when the war irover, may I come to call?” he asked.

His feet were so resolutely planted on the flags that apparently the only way to move them was to consent.. “Yes, yee!” Bald Minna. “Now, hurry!”

“Say, but you make me happy! Watch me poke it into the Grays for you!” he cried and bolted. Within the kitchen Mrs. Galland was already slumbering soundly in her chair. Overhead Marta heard the exclamations of uqale voices and the tread of what was literally the heel of the conqueror—guests that had come without asking! Intruders that had entered without any process of law! Would they overrun the house, her mother’s room, her own room?

Indignation brought fresh strength ae she started up the stairs. The head of the flight gave on to a dark part of the hall. There she paused, held by the scene that a score or paore Gray soldiers, who had riotously crowded into the dining-room. Were enacting. They were members of Fracasse’P company of the Grays whom Marta had seen from her window the night before rushing across the road into the garden.

When, finally, they burst into the redoubt after it was found that the Browne had gone, all. even the judge’s Bon, were the war demon’s own. The veneer had been warped and twisted and burned off down to the raw animal flesh. Their brains had the fever itch of callouses forming.. Not a sign of brown there in the yard; not a sign of any tribute after all they had endured! They had not been able to lay handß on the murderous throwers of hand-grenades. Far away now was barrack-room geniality; in oblivion were the eibics of an inherited civilization taught by mothers, teachers and church.

i* - But here wax c honeo—% house of the Browns; a big, fine rouse! They would, see what they Tiad won —this was the privilege of baffled victory. What they had won was theirs! To the victor the spoils! Pell-mell they crowded Into the dining-room, Hugo with the rest, feeling himself a straw on the crest of a wave, and Pilzer, most bitter, most ugly of all, his short, strong teeth and gums'showing find his liver patch red,' lumpy, and trembling. In crossing. the threshold of privacy they committed the act that leaves the deepest wound of war’s in-, heritance, to go on from generation to generation in the history of families. “A swell dining-room! I like the chandeliers!" roared Pilzer. With his bayonet he smashed the only globe left intact by the shell fire. There was a laugh’ as a shower-o,f glass fell on the floor. Even the judge’s son, the son of toe tribune of

They Saw Pilzer Go Down.

law, joined in. JPilzer then ripped up the leather seat of a.chair. This Introductory havoc whetted his appetite for other worlds of conquest, as the self-chosen leader of the increasing' crowd that poured through the doorway.

“Maybe there’s food!" he shouted. "Maybe there’s wine!” “Food and wine!”

“Yes, wine! We’re thirsty!” “And maybe women! I’d like to kiss a pretty maid servant!” Pilzer added, starting toward the hall. “Stop!” cried Hugo, forcing his way in front of Pilzer.

- He was like no one of the Hugos of the many parts that his comrades had seen him play. His blue eyes had be-come-an inflexible gray. He was standing half on tiptoe, his quivering muscles in tune with the quivering pitch of his voice: “We have no right in here! This is a private bouse!” “Out of the way, you white-livered little rat!” cried Pilzer, “or I’ll prick the tummy of mamma’s darling!" What happened then was so sudden and unexpected that all were vague about details. They saw Hugo In a catapultic lunge, mesmeric in its swiftness, and they saw Pilzer go down, his leg twisted under him and his head banging the floor. Hugo stood, half ashamed, half frightened, yet ready for another encounter.

Fracasse, entering at this moment, was too intent on his mission to consider the rights of a i personal 'difference between two of his company. ’ “There’s work to dod Out of here, quick! We are losing valuable time!” he announced, rounding his men toward the door with commanding gestures. “We are going in pursuit!"

Marta, who had observed the latter part of the scene frpm the shadows of the hall, knew that she should never forget Hugo’s face as he turned on Pfizer, while his voice of protest struck a singing chord in her jangling nerves. It was the voice of civilization, of one who could think out of the orbit of a' whirlpool of passlonateT barbarism. She could see that he was about to spring and her prayer went with his leap. She. gloried in the Impact that felled the great brute with the liver patch on his cheek, which was like a birthmark of war. y (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Seeing vs. Photographing.

The relative sensitiveness of the photographic plate and the human eye has been the subject of recent interesting experiments by Professor P. G. Nutting, of Rochester. An extra rapid plate was used for the tests. A source of light that could be "dimmed” at will nnd to any degree was placed twenty feet away from the -plate and from the eye. The professor found that a light so dim that it required three hours to produce a just perceptible image on the extremely senstlve plate was easily visible to the human eye after resting the latter for three minutes in total darkness. “In other words.” adds Professor Nutting, “an image on the retina just visible after partial adaptation to darkness would just produce an image on a photograptc plate after an exposure of one hour. The retina fully adapted to darkness is still a thousand times more sensitive than this.” v

What Is Sin?

By REV. PARLEY E. ZARTMANN. D. D.

SeccUrjr c< Fttiwina Department Atflodjr BU( Institute, Oiingf

TEXT—The crown is fallen from our head; woe unto us that we have sinned.— Lam. 6:16. i ' .?■“

these may we see ourselves and seek him who knows the way out—“A Qod on a cross, that U all my;theology* Unrighteousness. L All unrighteousness is sin, I'John 6:7. This is the most comprehensive term, and in .the Bible is placed in ops position to "truth.” (Rom. 2:8.) God Is true, and anything which departs one hair’s breadth from that standard is unrighteousness, or sin. Therefore, in this definition we have to do with sin as a state of the soul, the original purpose of which was to he a visible reflection of the mfnd of God. Man was to glorify God in his body, soul and spirit, but, alas, what a* failure there haß been; and this failure is sin. Man has failed to hit the aim or object of his being.’ His body is sinful, his mind is diseased, his soul is warped by sin. “All have sinned and dome short of the glory of God." Even our “righteousness is as filthy rags.” In this sense sin is “any lack of conformity to the will of God.” Transgression. 2. Sin is the transgression of the law. (I John 3:4.) From the state of the soul we pass to the overt act. In the days of the dispensation of conscience and before the giving of the law, sin was against the character of God. It was unrighteousness, or ungodliness, and not, strictly speaking, transgression; and yet, there was sin, because death came, which is the wages of sin, the result of Adam’B sin* disobedience to a positive command. But when the law has come, when the commandment has been given, then sin passes from the unrighteousness to positive transgression. God has put down a line, and by deliberate choice man steps over the line —transgresses —and becomes .a sinner by commission —or “violation of the will of God.”

- You say you do not sin, you are'doing the best you can. Yes, but you have a very low idea of sin. Bring your crooked life, which seems so good to you, side by side with the/ straight iine of God’s sinless life and his holy law, and you must cry out, “God bamerciful to me the sinner.” Jou majT look good to yourself, you ma} appear good to your neighbors, but in God’s sight you belong to the wicked. Think of your many sins against God —lack of perfect love, some Idol in your heart, neglect of his Sabbath, hateful or angry feelings, lack of forgiveness or apology, misrepresentation, falsehood, deceit, slander, repeated refusal to obey some clear command of Godsay, do you *tot need to cry out, “Unclean, unclean?”

Omission. 3. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it Is sin. (James 4:17.) Many a man defends himself because he is.not an outbreaking sinner, he does not commit any flagrant crime, he is outwardly decent and moral. But what about God’B estimate of you? “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart" Does that man have the love of God in his heart? Does he love the Word and prayer? Does he serve his fellows unselfishly? If not, and he knows all these things, he is a sinner. Refuse to use medicine when you are sick, and you will, die, and that without the use of the knife or poison. When we sit alone with our consciences we find sins of omission to'be a large item in the account against us. Unfalth. 4. Whatsoever is not eg faith is sin. (Rom. 14:23.) Here we enter the domain of questions of conscience, the things which may be right for others but vyhlch would be sin in us; tor there is a difference between things wrong In themselves and things wrong under certain circumstances. This, question of cohscience was raised in Paul's day about the eating of meatt whiqh had been offered to idols and afterwards offered for sale in the markets of the city. Paul says that every l man is to give an account of himself j onto God. and sets forth the principle that if anything seems to you to be sinful and wrong; then f6r you to do such a thing is sin In you. In this category must* be placed questionable* amusements, etc., and Paul says: "Let. not your good be evil spoken of . . happy is he that condemneth not hinn .self in that thing which he sllowethj And he that doubteth Is condemned 1 if he eat, because he cateth not otj faith; for whatsoever Is not cf faith Is Bin.* *

Sin is not a popular word in the modern vocabulary, nor a popular theme in many pulpits, for there are so many sinners in the modem congregation who object to the preacher dealing with t h i n g s a o near home. But let us consider four of the definitions which the Bible gives of sin; in the light of