"Shoulder arms! March!"
"Hurrah!" cried the men, rushing with charged bayonets upon the barricade.
"Hurrah!" cried Oldenburg, still standing on the barricade and waving his hat.
And the rifles of the little garrison gave fire, and the stones came down rattling from the roofs upon the heads of the unlucky soldiers; and when the smoke and the dust slowly blew away, the company which had come up in military regularity was seen running away in wild flight, and before them a riderless horse, and between them little groups of three or four men who carried dead or wounded men on litters beyond the reach of the barricade.
Of the men of the people only one had been wounded, and not by a hostile ball; the old, rusty flint-lock had burst at the first discharge, and a piece of it had struck the head of one of the marksmen. This accident only increased the good humor of the company. They cried hurrah! they congratulated each other, they laughed, they joked, and everybody was in the best of humor.
There was perhaps but one man behind the barricade who did not share the general joy, and this man was Oldenburg. He was as fully convinced as any one that fight they must, but he doubted a happy issue. He had been in Paris during the month of February; he had fought there; and he could not but see the difference. There he had seen a people fully conscious of the weakness of the government against which they rose, and clearly understanding the whole situation; here he found nothing but uncertainty, divided opinions, and doubts. But the genius of mankind does not always require a clear, perfect understanding in its defenders; a vague impulse, a dim perception even, leads often to glorious deeds. These harmless men, knowing little of politics, and quite willing to rest content with very small concessions, might be fighting only against the brutal rule of a single caste, and not for the free republic of the future; but great effects could not fail to be obtained even here, and he who cuts off a diseased limb may by it save the whole body.
Thus Oldenburg tried to console himself for the fears with which the appearance of this revolution had inspired him. He had been on the square near the palace when the fatal two shots fell which were destined to be the signal for the explosion, and when the troops had made their first attack en masse against the unarmed multitude. He and other good men had in vain tried to stop the shedding of blood; they had pushed their way through the soldiers at the risk of their lives in order to explain to the commanding officer the madness of such a butchery. But all they had heard in reply was open scorn, and at best rude orders to mind their own business. When Oldenburg saw that he could not be of any use in this way, and that matters had come to a crisis, he had tried to reach Melitta's lodgings in Broad street to place her and the children in safety. But he had been compelled to make a wide circuit, for the troops had already taken possession of all the approaches from the side of the palace, and he barely escaped more than once being arrested. Thus it happened that he reached the hotel only at the moment when the people were deliberating whether they should offer resistance or not Oldenburg took only time to inquire at the hotel after Melitta, where he heard to his delight that she and the children had already gone early in the morning to Doctor Braun's, who lived in a remote suburb, to which the émeute was not likely to extend. Then he had thrown himself heart and soul into the torrent of the revolution.
And now he stood, after the first attack had been successfully repulsed, with crossed arms on the barricade, in a sheltered position, from which he could overlook at once the movements of the enemy and the space behind the barricade, anxiously awaiting the return of Berger, whom he had sent out with a patrol to procure if possible more ammunition, and to establish a communication with the nearest barricades. For so far the rising was without any organization; no concerted plan to produce united efforts; every barricade was fighting by itself. Besides, day-light began to fade away, and night, although it might leave the troops in doubt as to the strength of the enemy, also tended to increase the confusion on the side of the people, which is always an element of weakness in popular risings. Berger returned soon afterwards, bringing a few more guns but no comfort. The adjoining streets, he reported, were also barricaded; but the barricades were badly constructed, and held by too few men, especially the nearest one, in Brother street.
"I do not think they can hold it long," he added, "and then we are lost, because the troops can flank us here through this narrow alley"--and he pointed to Gertrude street, which passed by the hotel and led from Broad street into Brother street. "We must necessarily stop up that street also and occupy it, which can easily be done. I have directed Oswald and Schmenckel to do it at once."
"Whom?" inquired Oldenburg, who had no suspicion that Oswald could be here, and thought he had misunderstood Berger.