"Where is Merckel?" one of them exclaimed in astonishment, expecting to hear the lieutenant's word of command. "Where is Merckel?" was echoed in consternation from all sides.
But the feeling that he must be coming, and had only gone to arm himself, allayed any momentary suspicion of his having shirked the business at the last. The lurid glow drew nearer and nearer. Soon the eye could distinguish something black and square, framed as it were in flames.
"The coffin--the coffin!" the crowd exclaimed, and involuntarily shuddered. Then, suddenly--who began it no one knew--it was as if it had flashed across every brain at the same instant, in a booming chorus the mob set up the weird chorale--
"Our noble Baron and Lord
Of Schrandener's souls abhorred;
For the shame he has brought on our head,
O God, let the plague strike him dead."
And the coffin advanced. Already the light from the torches shone on the faces of the singing mob, and women and children retreated screaming.
The crowd opened wide enough for the procession to pass on, and closed again behind it. Six men carried the coffin on their shoulders and swung flaming pine-branches in their disengaged hands, which scared the throng and made it draw to one side. Six others followed with loaded muskets. At their head Boleslav, with his pistols cocked in his hand, his military cap on the back of his head, piercing his antagonists with his burning gaze, cleared a road for his father's corpse. Deeper became the rent in the human vortex, thinner the space that divided the procession from the armed Schrandeners, who looked uneasily from side to side, conscious that they were leaderless.
When Boleslav stood face to face with them they were about to make a forward dash, but a short military "Halt!" such as they had often heard in the campaign, compelled them to take a step backwards instead, for in spite of themselves, their limbs insisted on complying with the old habit of obedience. Boleslav, who had intended the order for the bearers, saw its effect on the armed line in front of him, and suddenly a new idea occurred to him.
"As you were!" he commanded again. No one moved a hair. His manner, his voice mastered them. "Which of you have been soldiers? Which of you has helped his king to make his country free?"
An indistinct, half-resentful murmur went through the ranks, but there was no answer.
"The king sent you home," he continued, "because he is now at peace with his enemies. Do you suppose that he would be pleased to hear you had taken it upon yourselves to break the peace once more in his realm? Bah! he wouldn't believe it of you! He might believe it of Poles, but not of Prussians! So make room, my good people. Let us pass!"