As the troops pressed on the howling and shrieking died down, and the firing of missiles ceased. The points of sixty bayonets were within two feet of a hundred throats grown tired with shouting. The front rank of rioters looked into the eyes of the men behind the guns and saw their own doom written there. They made a last wild attempt to thrust aside the glittering steel. The effort was futile. They only pierced and lacerated their hands and put their lives in jeopardy. Then valor gave way to discretion. They broke and fell back, crowding, pushing and trampling on their comrades in the rear. The line of bayonets lengthened till it swept the plaza and forced the last man of the riotous host into the street up which the marchers had come a short half hour before. Panic seized upon the throng, a mad desire in the breast of each one to protect himself, regardless of his fellows, against what appeared to be the murderous onslaught of the pitiless troops. There was a wild scramble, shrieks of terror, a futile effort to escape. But it was not until vacant lots, side streets unguarded by police, and at last the open country, had been reached that the defeated, scattered and terrorized invaders found safe asylum and a respite from their fears. So, crushed, humiliated and spiritless, bleeding from many superficial wounds, singly and in groups, the rioters found their way back to the city from which, in the early morning, they had come.
Back, on the north side of the plaza, four persons stood or sat, watching, with vivid interest, the vanishing mob and the backs of the khaki-clad troops as they disappeared in the dust and distance down the main street leading to the south.
First among them was Gabriel the anarchist, who, coming to himself, had struggled into a sitting posture the better to nurse his wounds to which the surgeon who had administered first aid to Manning was now giving his attention. Manning himself, sitting on the curb, a little weak from shock and loss of blood, lifted his feeble voice in enthusiastic acclaim as he saw the riotous army routed from the plaza and driven down the street. Chick, seated at Manning’s side, joined his voice, pathetically tremulous, with the corporal’s outburst of rejoicing; and back of them a multitude of order-loving and law-abiding citizens shouted vociferously their delight at the victory won over the forces of disloyalty and disruption.
Finally, Barriscale stood there, midway between the wounded rioter and the cheering Guardsman, a powerless and pathetic figure. He looked at the marching troops, with bayonets at the “charge,” pressing the mob to its overthrow. He turned his eyes to the big buildings and the spacious yards of his father’s great industrial plant, saved by the firm and wise action of Lieutenant Halpert McCormack from pillage and destruction. He gazed up at the swelling and rolling folds of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” still floating, thanks to the alert patriotism of the same bold officer, in glorious symbolism from the summit of its staff. Finally his eyes fell on Corporal Manning and General Chick still sitting in front of him on the curb. His face was a study. It no longer showed any mark of excitement or anger. The emotions pictured on it were far different; wonder, humiliation, disgust, following each other in quick succession; finally the indication of a transforming force back of his countenance, no less powerful and thorough than that which this very morning had changed the tenor of the life and thought of his comrade in arms, Halpert McCormack. He came a step nearer to Manning.
“Dick,” he said, “I’ve been a fool.”
“I think, myself,” replied the corporal with a wan smile, “that you’ve been rather indiscreet.”
“Indiscreet! I’ve been a consummate idiot. Look at that fellow;” he half turned his head in the direction in which McCormack had disappeared; “getting all the honor and glory of this thing; and deserving it; and me—facing a court martial and the penitentiary—and deserving it.”
He came over and sat down on the curb beside Chick, and dropped his head into his hands.
“Him,” said Chick, gazing also with eyes filled with admiration after the disappearing troops, “he’ll be a major-general some day.”
Barriscale started up again. “I’m under arrest,” he said; “I’ve got to go to the armory. Who’s going?”