"They've got the safes," he said in perplexity. "This is more treachery, I suppose."
"Shoot 'em," said Lane furiously. "Don't trust the brutes."
"Wait a bit," said I hurriedly. "Don't let's be rash. We had better call Mr. Morland. There's something behind this. Tell them that we will answer presently."
Barraclough shouted the necessary statement, and I hurried off to the Prince's cabin. I knocked, and entered abruptly. Mademoiselle sat in a chair with a face suffused with tears, her pretty head bowed in her hands. She looked up.
"What are we to do, doctor? The Prince says we must fight. But there is another way, is there not?" she said in French. "Surely, we can make peace. I will make peace myself. This agitates my nerves, this fighting and the dead; and oh, Frederic! you must make peace with this 'Olgate."
The Prince sat awkwardly silent, his eyes blinking and his mouth twitching. What he had said I know not, but, despite the heaviness of his appearance, he looked abjectly miserable.
"It is not possible, Yvonne," he said hoarsely. "These men must be handed over to justice."
I confess I had some sympathy with Mademoiselle at the moment, so obstinately stupid was this obsession of his. To talk of handing the mutineers over to justice when we were within an ace of our end and death knocking veritably on the door!
"The men, sir, wish to parley with you," I said somewhat brusquely. "They are without and offer terms."
He got up. "Ah, they are being defeated!" he said, and nodded. "Our resistance is too much for them." I could not have contradicted him just then, for it would probably have led to an explosion on the lady's part. But it came upon me to wonder if the Prince knew anything of the contents of the safes. They were his, and he had a right to remove them. Had he done so? I couldn't blame him if he had. He walked out with a ceremonious bow to Mademoiselle, and I followed. She had dried her eyes, and was looking at me eagerly. She passed into the corridor in front of me, and pressed forward to where Barraclough and Lane stood.