Through the open door-way to which Paul pointed peered the ashen faces of other servants huddled together like sheep.

"Leave the room!" repeated Paul, and the man obeyed him, walking to the door unsteadily with quivering chin. On the threshold he paused. Paul stood pointing to the door. He had a poise of the head--some sudden awakening of the blood that had coursed in the veins of hereditary potentates. Maggie looked at him; she had never known him like this. She had known the man, she had never encountered the prince.

The big clock over the castle boomed out the hour, and at the same instant there arose a roar like the voice of the surf on a Malabar shore. There was a crashing of glass almost in the room itself. Already Steinmetz was drawing the curtains closer over the windows in order to prevent the light from filtering through the interstices of the closed shutters.

"Only stones," he said to Paul, with his grim smile; "it might have been bullets."

As if in corroboration of his suggestion the sharp ring of more than one fire-arm rang out above the dull roar of many voices.

Steinmetz crossed the room to where Etta was standing, white-lipped, by the fire. Her clenched hand was gripping Maggie's wrist. She was half hidden behind her cousin. Maggie was looking at Paul. Etta was obviously conscious of Steinmetz's gaze and approach.

"I asked you before to tell me all you knew," he said. "You refused.

Will you do it now?"

Etta met his glance for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, and turned her back on him. Paul was standing in the open door-way with his back turned toward them--alone. The palace had never looked so vast as it did at that moment--brilliantly lighted, gorgeous, empty.

Through the hail of blows on the stout doors, the rattle of stones at the windows, the prince could hear yells of execration and the wild laughter that is bred of destruction. He turned and entered the room.

His face was gray and terrible.

"They have no chance," he said, "of effecting an entrance by force; the lower windows are barred. They have no ladders, Steinmetz and I have seen to that. We have been expecting this for some days."

He turned toward Steinmetz as if seeking confirmation. The din was increasing. When the German spoke he had to shout.

"We can beat them back if we like. We can shoot them down from the windows. But"--he paused, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed--"what will you! This prince will not shoot his father's serfs."

"We must leave you," went on Paul. "We must beware of treachery.

Whatever happens, we shall not leave the house. If the worst comes, we make our last stand in this room. Whatever happens, stay here till we come."

He left the room, followed by Steinmetz. There were only three doors in the impregnable stone walls; the great entrance, a side door for use in times of deep snow, and the small concealed entrance by which the starosta was in the habit of reaching his masters.

For a moment the two men stood at the head of the stairs listening to the wild commotion. They were turning to descend the state stairs when a piercing shriek, immediately drowned by a yell of triumph, broke the silence of the interior of the castle. There was a momentary stillness, followed by another shriek.

"They are in!" said Steinmetz. "The side door."

And the two men looked at each other with wide eyes full of knowledge.

As they ran to the foot of the broad staircase the tramp of scuffling feet, the roar of angry voices, came through the passages from the back of curtained doorways. The servants' quarters seemed to be pandemonium.

The sounds approached.

"Half-way up!" said Paul, and they ran half-way up the broad staircase side by side. There they stood and waited.

In a moment the baize doors were burst open, and a scuffling mass of men and women poured into the hall--a very sewer of humanity.

A yell of execration signalized their recognition of the prince.

"They are mad!" said Steinmetz, as the crowd surged forward toward the stairs with waving arms and the dull gleam of steel; with wild faces turned upward, wild mouths bellowing hatred and murder.

"It is a chance--it may stop them!" said Steinmetz.

His arm was outstretched steadily. A loud report, a little puff of smoke shooting upward to the gilded ceiling, and for one brief moment the crowd stood still, watching one of their ringleaders, who was turning and twisting on his side half a dozen steps from the bottom.

The man writhed in silence with his hand to his breast, and the crowd stood aghast. He held up his hand and gazed at it with a queer stupefaction. The blood dripped from his fingers. Then his chin went up as if some one was gripping the back of his neck. He turned over slowly and rolled to the bottom of the stairs.

Then Paul raised his voice.

"Listen to me!" he said.

But he got no farther, for some one shot at him from the background, over the frantic heads of the others, and missed him. The bullet lodged in the wall at the head of the stairs, in the jamb of the gorgeous door-way. It is there to-day.

There was a yell of hatred, and an ugly charge toward the stairs; but the sight of the two revolvers held them there--motionless for a few moments. Those in front pushed back, while the shouters in the safe background urged them forward by word and gesture.

Two men holding a hundred in check! But one of the two was a prince, which makes all the difference, and will continue to make that difference, despite halfpenny journalism, until the end of the world.

"What do you want?" cried Paul.

"Oh, I will wait!" he shouted, in the next pause. "There is plenty of time--when you are tired of shouting."

Several of them proceeded to tell him what they wanted. An old story, too stale for repetition here. Paul recognized in the din of many voices the tinkling arguments of the professional agitator all the world over--the cry of "Equality! Equality!" when men are obviously created unequal.

"Look out!" said Paul; "I believe they are going to make a rush."

All the while the foremost men were edging toward the stairs, while the densely packed throng at the back were struggling among themselves. In the passages behind, some were yelling and screaming with a wild intonation which Steinmetz recognized. He had been through the Commune.

"Those fellows at the back have been killing some one," he said; "I can tell by their voices. They are drunk with the sight of blood."

Some new orator gained the ears of the rabble at this moment, and the ill-kempt heads swayed from side to side.

"It is useless," he cried, "telling him what you want. He will not give it you. Go and take it! Go and take it, little fathers; that is the only way!"

Steinmetz raised his hand and peered down into the crowd, looking for the man of eloquence, and the voice was hushed.

At this moment, however, the yelling increased, and through the door-way leading to the servants' quarters came a stream of men--bloodstained, ragged, torn. They were waving arms and implements above their heads.

"Down with the aristocrats! kill them--kill them!" they were shrieking.

A little volley of fire-arms further excited them. But vodka is not a good thing to shoot upon, and Paul stood untouched, waiting, as he had said, until they were tired of shouting.

"Now," yelled Steinmetz to him in English, "we must go. We can make a stand at the head of the stairs, then the door-way, then----" He shrugged his shoulders. "Then--the end," he added, as they moved up the stairs step by step, backward. "My very good friend," he went on, "at the door we must begin to shoot them down. It is our only chance. It is, moreover, our duty toward the ladies."

"There is one alternative," answered Paul.

"The Moscow Doctor?"

"Yes."

"They may turn," said Paul; "they are just in that humor."

The new-comers were the most dangerous. They were forcing their way to the front. There was no doubt that, as soon as they could penetrate the densely packed mob, they would charge up the stairs, even in face of a heavy fire. The reek of vodka was borne up in the heated atmosphere, mingled with the nauseating odor of filthy clothing.