“Yes, yes!” they cried. “Bring them face to face with it. Show them their wickedness.”
The student gave the ministers no alternative. Forgetting or ignoring Benningsen’s threat to shoot, he took hold of the horses by the bridle, turned their heads in the direction of the asylum, and motioned the bystanders aside with his hand, crying, “Way there for Pahlen and Benningsen.”
The voice and gesture of the student caused the crowd to open a path, and thus the ministers passed slowly through a lane of people, who received them with a running fire of threats.
“Down with the regicides!”
“Death to the murderers of the Czar!”
“The liars who told us that Paul died of apoplexy!”
“Pull Benningsen from the car!”
“Stamp on his mouth, as he stamped on Paul’s!”
And but for the dissuasive words of the student the crowd would have made good their threats.
The student, having arrived at the railings that guarded the front of the Orphan Asylum, halted and cried—