All eyes were turned upon the accused, whose inscrutable countenance underwent no shadow of a change, no fear of death was there, no regret for infamy. If the expression had altered at all, it was to display a shade more of triumphant insolence. The Duchess turned sternly to him.
"Is this true?" she asked, loathing the necessity of speaking to him. Yet there was no passion in her voice; the situation was too grave for that.
He smiled his hateful, unchanging smile, as he bowed a taunting assent.
"You shall die," she said, in the same level tones. She was not cruel, had not lost an iota of her womanliness. The crushing magnitude of his falsity to her country made her forget that she was aught else than the regent for these people and that here was a matter of primitive, vindictive justice which must be settled by her hand.
"When?" Josef's tone ridiculed the sentence imposed.
"At dawn," she answered, her scornful glance sweeping his colorless face.
For the first time, his aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake with high-held head—about to strike.
"In about one hour," he boldly asserted, "the troops of His Imperial Majesty will have surrounded, yes, and entered this place. If harm comes to me, you all shall swing. Schallberg, Lore, Bagos are already ours. What," he continued with a comprehensive sneer, including all present, "did you think that you had conquered the Bear so handily?"
They felt it was the unwelcome truth he was speaking. All day the distant booming of guns had sounded in their ears as the "death bells" ring for the superstitious gude-wife.
"All last night as you laughed and danced," Josef continued, "a Russian army, unchallenged, passed your gates, and could have taken you all. Knowing that it had you safe when needed, it pushed on to the bigger game, the capture of your capital. At daybreak it began battering down those walls you thought you held so firmly."