“I have come for the body of Carl Metz,” shouts Foreman O’Neil, from the foot of the terrace; his voice ringing with a tone of defiance.

“I have come for the body, and if you do not bring it out we will go in after it.”

This ultimatum is addressed to the private detective who stands on the piazza of the Coal Magnate’s palace, as a sentinel.

He does not seem disconcerted at the sight of so great a number of people.  On the contrary his mouth curls in a derisive smile.

“O, you had better all go back to the breakers,” he retorts.  “We will see that Metz’s body is buried.”

Then he pauses, waiting to see the effect his words will produce.  On and on comes the tidal wave of humanity.  If it is not checked soon it will deluge the palace.

“I will shoot the first man who sets a foot on this piazza,” defiantly cries the detective, at the same time drawing his revolver.  “Get back to your breakers.  If the superintendent sees you on this side of the river, you’ll all get sacked,” he adds as a threat more terrible than the shooting of one of them.

“We don’t want to make trouble,” explains O’Neil.  “All that we ask is that we may take the body of Metz and give it decent burial.  Has the superintendent said we could not have it?”

Mr. Judson, the superintendent of the Giant Breakers, appears at the door.  He steps out on the piazza.

A sullen roar greets him.

“Until the coroner has disposed of the case,” he begins, “no one will be permitted to touch the body.  You have heard my decision.  Now go back to your work.”

The recollection of the treachery practiced on them in the riot of 1900, when their dead fellow-workmen were put in crates and buried by the police at night, without religious rites, comes to the minds of all.  They have sworn then that never again would they be cheated of the right to bury their martyred brothers.

“Give us the body,” cry a hundred voices in chorus.

“Go on, go on,” shout the pressing thousands.  “Go in and get it.”

The forces for a storm have been gathering since the first tidings of the tragedy reached the people.

When they heard that Carl Metz, the foreman of the Keystone furnace, had killed Gorman Purdy and had then ended his own life, they were dumbfounded.  Then as a lightning flash the information had spread that Metz had left a note explaining that he had killed the tyrannical Coal Magnate for the good of mankind.  This word of explanation had clarified the confused thoughts in the minds of all.  They read in that message their emancipation.  The hour to strike a blow for their long lost rights had come.

The opposition offered by the detective and Judson, proves to be the shock needed to precipitate the storm.

By a single impulse the crowd rushes up the terrace.  Its advance is irresistible.  Both Judson and his hireling see the futility of attempting to resist the mob.  They, therefore, withdraw within the house.  As they enter they close the massive oak doors.  Even as the doors swing to, the weight of a dozen powerful shoulders is thrown against them.