The men were waiting for me with the story.
“She has fastened herself into her room, she and her maids, and we could hear them piling things against the door to keep us out. We tried to call your message through the door, but at first she wouldn’t answer; and then she said she was quite safe where she was and would yield to nothing but force. We didn’t like to force the door without your orders.”
I clenched my hands in impotent chagrin. Had we been the soldiers whose part we were playing, there would have been little enough difficulty, of course; and a few minutes would have sufficed to break a way in and take her prisoner.
But force was out of the question for me; and I felt like a flustered fool as the infinitely precious moments slipped away one after another bringing perilously nearer the troops who would come hurrying to the house the instant the man who had escaped got his story to headquarters.
To add to the strain of the situation, cries and calls began to be heard from the crowd in the street. Presently a stone was flung through one of the windows; and the crash of the glass sent a shiver of fear through the clustered servants and was followed by a loud cheer from the crowd and a cry of “Down with the Obrenovics!”
“Shew me the Princess’s room,” I said, and followed by the men I ran upstairs and knocked on the panel of the door.
There was no answer.
I knocked again.
“For God’s sake open the door and come out,” I said, eagerly.
Still there was no reply; and while we waited more stones were flung and more windows broken, followed as before by the shouts and hoarse cries of the mob.