"Yes. He came disguised as an old market woman, just after daybreak."
"Well, here's his horse," said the other, "but he'll have to change his dress. It isn't a side saddle." The young villain laughed silently.
"Go up now to the square, Peter. Your place is there."
If one had taken the time to observe, he might have seen that the young man wore his hat well forward, and that his face was unnaturally white. We, who suspect him of being Peter Brutus, have reason to believe that there was an ugly cut on the top of his head and that it gave him exceeding pain.
Shortly after half past eleven o'clock certain groups of men usurped the positions in front of certain buildings on the south side of the square. A score here, a half score there, others below them. They favoured the shops operated by the friends of the Committee of Ten; they were the men who were to take possession of the rifles that lay hidden behind counters and walls. Here, there, everywhere, all about the city, other instructed men were waiting for the signal that was to tell them to hustle deadly firearms from the beds of green-laden market wagons. It was all arranged with deadly precision. There could be no blunder. The Iron Count and his deputies had seen to that.
Men were stationed in the proper places to cut all telephone and telegraph wires leading out of the city. Others were designated to hold the gates against fugitives who might seek to reach the troops in the hills.
Marlanx's instructions were plain, unmistakable. Only soldiers and policemen were to be shot; members of the royal household were already doomed, including the ministry and the nobles who rode with the royal carriage.
The Committee of Ten had said that there would not be another ministry, never another Graustark nobility; only the Party of Equals. The Iron Count had smiled to himself and let them believe all that they preached in secret conclave. But he knew that there would be another ministry, a new nobility and a new ruler, and that there would be no Committee of Ten!
Two thousand crafty mercenaries, skilled rioters and fighters from all parts of the world stood ready in the glad streets of Edelweiss to leap as one man to the standard of the Iron Count the instant he appeared in the square after the throwing of the bomb. A well-organised, carefully instructed army of no mean dimensions, in the uniform of the lout and vagabond, would rise like a flash of light before the dazzled, panic-stricken populace, and Marlanx would be master. Without the call of drum or bugle his sinister soldiers of fortune would leap into positions assigned them; in orderly, determined company front, led by chosen officers, they would sweep the square, the Circus and the avenues, up-town to the Castle, down-town to the fortress and the railway station, everywhere establishing the pennant of the man who had been banished.
The present dynasty was to end at one o'clock! So said Marlanx! How could Dangloss or Braze or Quinnox say him nay? They would be dead or in irons before the first shock of disaster had ceased to thrill. The others? Pah! They were as chaff to the Iron Count.