no fear.  Carlo was on her right hand; Luciano on her left.  They kept her from going off to her room.  Montini was despatched to fetch her maid Giacinta with cloak and hood for her mistress.  The young lieutenant of Croats drew his sword, but hesitated.  Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and Major de Pyrmont were at one wing, between the Italian gentlemen and the soldiery.  The operatic company had fallen into the background, or stood crowding the side places of exit.  Vittoria’s name was being shouted with that angry, sea-like, horrid monotony of iteration which is more suggestive of menacing impatience and the positive will of the people, than varied, sharp, imperative calls.  The people had got the lion in their throats.  One shriek from her would bring them, like a torrent, on the boards, as the officers well knew; and every second’s delay in executing the orders of the General added to the difficulty of their position.  The lieutenant of Croats strode up to Weisspriess and Wilfrid, who were discussing a plan of action vehemently; while, amid hubbub and argument, De Pyrmont studied Vittoria’s features through his opera-glass, with an admirable simple languor.

Wilfrid turned back to him, and De Pyrmont, without altering the level of his glass, said, ’She’s as cool as a lemon-ice.  That girl will be a mother of heroes.  To have volcanic fire and the mastery of her nerves at the same time, is something prodigious.  She is magnificent.  Take a peep at her.  I suspect that the rascal at her right is seizing his occasion to plant a trifle or so in her memory—­the animal!  It’s just the moment, and he knows it.’

De Pyrmont looked at Wilfrid’s face.

‘Have I hit you anywhere accidentally?’ he asked, for the face had grown dead-white.

‘Be my friend, for heaven’s sake!’ was the choking answer.  ’Save her!  Get her away!  She is an old acquaintance of mine—­of mine, in England.  Do; or I shall have to break my sword.’

‘You know her? and you don’t go over to her?’ said De Pyrmont.

‘I—­yes, she knows me.’

‘Then, why not present yourself?’

’Get her away.  Talk Weisspriess down.  He is for seizing her at all hazards.  It ’s madness to provoke a conflict.  Just listen to the house!  I may be broken, but save her I will.  De Pyrmont, on my honour, I will stand by you for ever if you will help me to get her away.’

‘To suggest my need in the hour of your own is not a bad notion,’ said the cool Frenchman.  ‘What plan have you?’

Wilfrid struck his forehead miserably.

‘Stop Lieutenant Zettlisch.  Don’t let him go up to her.  Don’t—­’

De Pyrmont beheld in astonishment that a speechlessness such as affects condemned wretches in the supreme last minutes of existence had come upon the Englishman.

‘I’m afraid yours is a bad case,’ he said; ’and the worst of it is, it’s just the case women have no compassion for.  Here comes a parlementaire from the opposite camp.  Let’s hear him.’