With an impetuous shout of joy, Egbert wanted to draw his beloved to him, but his eye fell upon her mourning garb and upon the grave of his old friend, and he only drew her hand silently to his lips; but a bright ray of happiness lit up his face, as he said softly,
"I will think of it--farewell, Cecilia!" With that he rushed off.
That evening the Odensburg works had been the theater of wild and stormy scenes. The moderation and circumspection with which the officers sought to keep down the angry excitement on the part of the mass of the workmen, and to maintain quiet and order among those dismissed, had been in vain; all was wrecked by the aggressive bearing of that party which Landsfeld secretly guided, and at the head of which stood Fallner here at the works.
To-day the Socialist leader had found it altogether necessary to come himself to Odensburg, a thing that he usually avoided; for he knew this time what was at stake.
Most of the workmen had already come to their senses, more than half of them having determined to resume work on the morrow, and to submit to the conditions of the chief. The effect of this example upon the others was to be foreseen. It was of importance, then, to incite to scenes of violence, cost what it would, in order that reconciliation be made impossible. And in this he had already succeeded.
The works were full of waving, noisy masses of men, who, by way of preliminary, were threatening one another. Fallner and his adherents hurled terms of opprobrium against the opposite party: "Cowards! Traitors! Hounds!" they cried, in a confused medley of invective, and those they attacked were not slow in returning the compliment. They threw it up to their comrades that they had been goaded into insurrection, and that a conclusion had been forced upon them which they had not liked. As yet fists played only a secondary part, but it was felt that a bloody encounter might ensue at any moment, and unchain all the fury of the excited multitude.
In the superintendent's building the officers had to sustain a regular siege. From the now closed workshops and bureaux, the younger ones had taken refuge here with their superiors, who were themselves thoroughly nonplused. The measures taken had proved themselves inefficacious. They were just now consulting as to the wisest thing to do.
CHAPTER XXIV.
[A DEED THAT WIPES OUT OLD SCORES.]
"There is no help for it, we must call in the master," said the director. "He was determined, whether or no, to interfere in case of necessity--I am at my wits' end now."