So they intended to mutiny! His suspicions had not been ill founded.
He tore his sabre from the scabbard. "Halt!" he commanded.
There was a murmur of dissent. Two or three stepped out of the ranks, and Lieutenant Merckel, with an abusive epithet, drew his sabre and rushed at Boleslav.
This was a moment in which hesitation would have been fatal. A flash of steel, a whiz, and Lieutenant Merckel sank howling on the sandy earth.
The ranks broke their line, made as if they would spring on him: but surprise and terror petrified them.
"Halt!" The command came forth for the second time in a voice of thunder; and no one dared move an eyelash.
Boleslav drew a pistol from the saddle-pocket, and, holding it with the trigger cocked in his left hand, he let the reins slip into his armed right.
"Men of the Landwehr!" he shouted in a voice that reverberated through the square, "you know that during the last six hours you are bound in obedience by a war-decree, and that the slightest attempt at insubordination will cost you your lives. What has taken place up to this moment I will overlook, but whoever does not instantly comply with my commands without grumbling will find that I shall not scruple to send a bullet through his brain on the spot."
Felix Merckel, who was bleeding copiously from a wound in his head, regained consciousness, and tried to raise himself. But the blood that streamed over his face blinded him.
"Take away his sabre and bind him!" were Boleslav's instructions.