As one great, high-pitched voice, the crowd shouted its merciless demand; and eyes eager with the hunt as those of soldiers in pursuit gleamed through the windows out of the darkness.  Bouchard, hawk-eyed, stern, was standing by the street door.  His mediaeval spirit revolted at the thought of any kind of a mob.  For such demonstrations he had a single simple prescription—­cold lead.

“We cannot strike the overwhelming spirit which we would forge into the nation’s defence,” said Turcas.

The door was flung open and Bouchard drew back abruptly at the sight; he drew back in fear of his own nature.  If any one should so much as lay hands on him when he was in uniform, a sword thrust would resent the insult to his officer’s honor; and even he did not want to strike grandfathers and children and mothers.

Two figures were in the doorway:  a heavy-set market woman with a fringe of down on her lip and a cadaverous, tidily dressed old man, who might have been a superannuated schoolmaster, with a bronze cross won in the war of forty years ago on his breast and his eyes burning with the youthful fire of Grandfather Fragini’s.

“They got the premier in the capital.  We’ve come for Westerling!  We want to know what he did with our sons!  We want to know why he was beaten!” cried the market woman.

“Yes,” said the veteran.  “We want him to explain his lies.  Why did he keep the truth from us?  We were ready to fight, but not to be treated like babies.  This is the twentieth century!”

“We want Westerling!  Tell Westerling to come out!” rose the impatient shouts behind the two figures in the doorway.

“You are sure that he has one?” whispered Turcas to Westerling’s aide.

“Yes,” was the choking answer—­“yes.  It is better than that”—­with a glance toward the mob.  “I left my own on the table.”

“We can’t save him!  We shall have to let them—­”

Turcas’s voice was drowned by a great roar of cries, with no word except “Westerling” distinguishable, that pierced every crack of the house.  A wave of movement starting from the rear drove the veteran and the market woman and a dozen others through the doorway toward the stairs.  Then the sound of a shot was heard overhead.

“The man you seek is dead!” said Turcas, stepping in front of the crowd, his features unrelenting in authority.  “Now, go back to your work and leave us to ours.”

“I understand, sir,” said the veteran.  “We’ve no argument with you.”

“Yes!” agreed the market woman.  “But if you ever leave this range alive we shall have one.  So, you stay!”

Looking at the bronze cross on the veteran’s faded coat, the staff saluted; for the cross, though it were hung on rag’s, wherever it went was entitled by custom to the salute of officers and “present arms” by sentries.