Slevski was haranguing the mob and his eye caught that of the priest while he was in the midst of an impassioned period, but a look of hate alone showed that he had seen him. Only a few of the people in the rear of the crowd noticed the priest's presence at all. He was glad enough of that, for suspicion was in the air and he knew it. Right in his way was Calvalho, who had been one of his trustees and his very best friend when he first came to the parish. It looked now as if he had no longer a friend in all the mud-spattered, bare and coal-grimed town. Calvalho returned his salute with a curt nod. The priest caught a few words of Slevski's burning appeal to hatred and walked faster, with that peculiar nervous feeling of danger behind him. He quickened his steps even more for it.
"Company—oppressors of the poor—traitors"; even these few words, which followed him, gave the priest the gist of the whole tirade.
The women were in the crowd or hanging about the edges of it. A crash of glass behind him made the priest turn for an instant, and he saw that Maria Allish had flung a stone through the bank window. She had a shawl quite filled with large stones. With the crash came a cheer from the crowd around Slevski, who could see the bank from their position in front of the livery stable.
A soldier almost bumped into the priest, as he came running down the street, gun in hand, followed by half a dozen others. One of them saluted. "Bad business, Father," he said. "Will the lieutenant live?"
"I am afraid he will not," answered the priest.
"They will surely burn down the company's buildings," said the soldier. "God! There they go now." And the soldier hurried on.
Later the priest watched the red glow from his window. It reminded him of blood, and he shuddered.
His old housekeeper called him to his frugal supper.
"I can not go out much now," he said to her. "I am a Pole. What could a Pole do with these Huns who have no sympathy with him, or the Italians whose language he can not speak?"
He wondered if he were a coward. Why should he discuss this with his servant?