The soldier contemptuously thrust the revolver into his pocket. “As you see,” he said coldly, “and in a moment, they”––indicating the door––“will be here!”
“You think to turn me over to them!” exclaimed the other violently. “But you do not know me! This is 181 no quarrel of yours. Give me my weapon, and let me fight it out with them!”
The soldier’s glance rested for a moment on the young girl and his face grew stern and menacing.
“By heaven, I am half-minded to take you at your word! But you shall have one chance––a slender one! There is the window; it opens on the portico!”
“And if I refuse?”
“They have brought a rope with them. Go, or hang!”
The heir hesitated, but as he pondered, the anti-renters were effectually shattering the heavy door, regaling themselves with threats taught them by the politicians who had advocated their cause on the stump, preached it in the legislature, or grown eloquent over it in the constitutional assembly.
“The serfs are here! The drawers of water and hewers of wood have arisen! Hang the land baron! Hang the feudal lord!”
A braver man than Mauville might have been cowed by that chorus. But after pausing irresolutely, weighing the chances of life and death, gazing jealously upon the face of the apprehensive girl, and venomously at the intruder, the heir finally made a virtue of necessity and strode to the window. With conflicting emotions struggling in his mind––fury toward the lease-holders, hatred for the impassive mediator––he yet regained, in a measure, an outwardly calm bearing.