“I asked you before to tell me all you knew,” he said.  “You refused.  Will you do it now?”

Etta met his glance for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, and turned her back on him.  Paul was standing in the open door-way with his back turned toward them—­alone.  The palace had never looked so vast as it did at that moment—­brilliantly lighted, gorgeous, empty.

Through the hail of blows on the stout doors, the rattle of stones at the windows, the prince could hear yells of execration and the wild laughter that is bred of destruction.  He turned and entered the room.  His face was gray and terrible.

“They have no chance,” he said, “of effecting an entrance by force; the lower windows are barred.  They have no ladders, Steinmetz and I have seen to that.  We have been expecting this for some days.”

He turned toward Steinmetz as if seeking confirmation.  The din was increasing.  When the German spoke he had to shout.

“We can beat them back if we like.  We can shoot them down from the windows.  But”—­he paused, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed—­“what will you!  This prince will not shoot his father’s serfs.”

“We must leave you,” went on Paul.  “We must beware of treachery.  Whatever happens, we shall not leave the house.  If the worst comes, we make our last stand in this room.  Whatever happens, stay here till we come.”

He left the room, followed by Steinmetz.  There were only three doors in the impregnable stone walls; the great entrance, a side door for use in times of deep snow, and the small concealed entrance by which the starosta was in the habit of reaching his masters.

For a moment the two men stood at the head of the stairs listening to the wild commotion.  They were turning to descend the state stairs when a piercing shriek, immediately drowned by a yell of triumph, broke the silence of the interior of the castle.  There was a momentary stillness, followed by another shriek.

“They are in!” said Steinmetz.  “The side door.”

And the two men looked at each other with wide eyes full of knowledge.

As they ran to the foot of the broad staircase the tramp of scuffling feet, the roar of angry voices, came through the passages from the back of curtained doorways.  The servants’ quarters seemed to be pandemonium.  The sounds approached.

“Half-way up!” said Paul, and they ran half-way up the broad staircase side by side.  There they stood and waited.

In a moment the baize doors were burst open, and a scuffling mass of men and women poured into the hall—­a very sewer of humanity.

A yell of execration signalized their recognition of the prince.

“They are mad!” said Steinmetz, as the crowd surged forward toward the stairs with waving arms and the dull gleam of steel; with wild faces turned upward, wild mouths bellowing hatred and murder.

“It is a chance—­it may stop them!” said Steinmetz.