“No, I’m all right.  Who’s left with Miss Brewster?”

“Nobody.  We must get back.”

Sherwen’s cool voice cut in:—­

“Close together, now.  Keep well up.  Herr von Plaanden, will you cover us at the end?”

“It is the post of honor,” said the Hochwaldian.

“You’ve earned it.  But for you, they’d have got our colors.”

The foreigner bowed, and swung his horse toward a Caracunan who had pressed forward a little too near.  But, for the moment the fight had oozed out of the mob.

Without mishap the group got across the street, Perkins still clinging to the flag.

Suddenly, from the rear rank, came a shower of stones, followed by the final rush.  Galpy and Perkins went down.  Von Plaanden tottered in his saddle, but quickly recovered.  Instantly Perkins was up again, the blood streaming from the side of his head.  He was conscious of brown hands clutching at the cricketer, to drag him away.  He himself seized the cockney’s legs and braced for that absurd and deadly tug of war.  Then Von Plaanden’s saber descended, and he was able to haul Galpy back into safety.

The situation was desperate now.  Mr. Brewster was pinned against the wall and disarmed, but still fighting with fist and foot.  Half a dozen peons were struggling with Cluff across the bodies of as many more whom he had knocked down.  Sherwen, almost under the cavalryman’s mount, was protecting his rear with the fallen Galpy’s cricket bat, and the two other cricketers were fighting back to back on the other side.  Carroll was clubbing his way toward Mr. Brewster, but his weapon was now in his left hand.  Matters looked dark indeed, when there shrilled fiercely from above them the whirring peal of a silver whistle.

Polly Brewster had remembered Raimonda.  It seemed a futile signal, for as she ran to the railing and gazed across at the Club Amicitia, she saw all its windows and doors tight closed, as befits an aristocratic club that has no concern with the affairs of the rabble.  But there is no way of closing a patio from the top, and sounds can enter readily that way, when all other apertures are shut.  Long and loud Miss Polly blew the signal on the silver hunting-whistle.

In the club patio, Raimonda was chafing and wondering, and a score of his friends were drinking and waiting.  That signal released their activities and terminated the battle of the American Legation most ingloriously for the forces of Urgante.  For the gilded youth of Caracuna bears a heavy cane of fashion, and carries a ready revolver, also, although not so admittedly as a matter of fashion.  Furthermore, he has a profound contempt for the peon class; a contempt extending to life and limb.  Therefore, when some two dozen young patricians sallied abruptly forth with their canes, and the mob caught sight, here and there, of a glint of nickel against the black, it gave back promptly.  Some desultory stones rattled against the walls.  There were answering reports a few, and sundry yells of pain.  The army of Urgante broke and fled down the side streets, leaving behind its broken and its wounded.  Most of the bullet casualties were below the knee.  The Caracunan aristocrat always fires low—­the first time.