Once more they had become for him the world's Great People,
the giants of his boyhood's imagination, the heroes of his man's
ideal. At the point of the sword they had proved the truth of
Nicholson's proud boast, and hour by hour the man who had turned from
them in a moment of bitter disillusion saw the temple he had once
built to their honor rise from its ashes in new and greater splendor.
Thus two weeks had passed, and to-night was to see the end. Nehal knew
that, brave though they were, they could do no more. They had no
water, and his forces hugged them in on every side. One last attack
and it would be over--Marut would be cleared from the enemy, his
victory complete. His victory! It was his own ruin he was preparing,
the certain destruction of that which seemed linked invisibly but
surely to his own fate. And, knowing that, he knew also that there was
no turning back for him, no retreat. His word was given. His people,
the people who claimed him by the right of blood, clamored for him to
lead them as he had sworn. It made no difference if on the path he had
chosen he trampled on every hope, every wish, every rooted instinct.
There was no turning back. He knew it--the knowledge that his own
words bound him came to him with pitiless finality as he stood there
watching the silent, lightless stretch which was soon to be the scene
of a last tragic struggle; and if indeed there are such things as
tears of blood, they rose to his eyes now.
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