"Do you want to hear the details ?" They talked for an hour, and, in the telling, even Plank's stolidity gave way sufficient to make his heavy voice ring at moments, and the glimmer of excitement edge his eyes.

Yet, in the telling, he scarcely mentioned himself, never hinted of the personal part--the inspiration which was his alone; the brunt of the battle which centred in him; the tireless vigilance; the loneliness of the nights when he lay awake, perplexed with doubt and nobody to counsel him--because men who wage such wars are lonely men and must work out their own salvation.

No, nobody but his peers could advise him; and he had thought that his enemy was his peer, until that enemy surrendered.
The narrative exchanged by Plank in return for Siward's intensely interested questions was a simple, limpid review of a short but terrific campaign that only yesterday had threatened to rage through court after court, year after year.

In the sudden shock of the cessation from battle, Plank himself was a little dazed.

Yet he himself had expected the treason that ended all; he himself had foreseen it.