to aid them, and the stout gate bent under their efforts.  It was fastened within by an iron bar lying in sockets across it; with an interest that was almost idle she saw how these sockets, one by one, were yielding and let the bar go loose.  One broke off with a sharp crack, and sent the rest of the Jews racing to the dark doorways.  Truda loosened her cloak and let it fall about her feet, and stood up alone, vivid in the dancing light of the burning house, in saffron and white.  She moved deliberate hands over her hair and patted a loose strand into its place.  Another rending crash; she set her hand on her hip and stood still.  The door yielded and sprang back.  There was a raw yell, and the mob was in.

Prince Sarasin was again in his box when Monsieur Vaucher, broken in spirit and looking bleak and old, came before the curtain to announce that owing to circumstances—­unforeseen circumstances—­of a—­a peculiar nature, Madame Schottelius would be unable to appear that night, and her place would be taken, etc.  The announcement was not well received, and nobody was less pleased than the Prince.  He knit his heavy brows in a scowl as poor Vaucher sidled back to obscurity, and thought rapidly.  His thoughts, and what he knew of the night’s programme in the Jewish quarter of his city, carried him round to the stage door, with his surprised aide-de-camp at his heels.

Monsieur Vaucher, tearful and impotent, was at his service.

“Never before has she played me such a trick,” he lamented.  “Ill!  Why, I have known her go on and make a success when she was ill enough to keep another woman in bed.  It is a trick; she is not even at the hotel.  No one knows where she is.”

The Governor, his last interview with Truda fresh in his recollection, asked curt questions.  He was a man of direct mind.  In less time than one might have supposed from the condition of poor Vaucher, he had elicited some outstanding facts—­the note which Truda had sent to the Jewish quarter among them.  The keeper of the stage-door added the little he knew.  Prince Sarasin turned to his aide.

“Dragoons,” he ordered.  “Half a squadron.  I shall be at the barracks in ten minutes, when they must be ready.  Go at once.”

The aide-de-camp, who knew the Prince, recognized that this was an occasion for speed.  When the Prince, mounted, arrived at the barracks, the dragoons were drawn up-awaiting him.  He moved them off towards the Jewish quarter at the trot.  The streets echoed their hoof-beats, and little time elapsed before they were on the skirts of the mob.  The Prince spurred alongside a watching police-officer.

“A lady!” repeated the officer, in amazement.  “I have seen no lady, your Excellency.  But the principal—­er—­disorder is in the street behind the church.  The Jews are making no resistance at all.”

The Prince pushed on, and came with his dragoons at the rear of the mob.  With a fine Russian callousness he thrust into it, his horses clearing a way for themselves and bowling men to right and left.  The street was in darkness and resounded with violence.  Standing in his stirrups and peering ahead, the Prince realized that he might ride Truda down without ever seeing her.