Beaumanoir, discreetly peeping through the window over Poluski's shoulder, saw something that perplexed him.
"I say, Alec," he exclaimed, "I thought you told me that Stampoff's man Bosko was a thoroughly reliable sort of chap."
"I have always found him so."
"Well, just at present he looks jolly like a deserter. He is making a speech to the mob and tearing off his uniform obligato. The other joker is scared to death."
"Bosko making a speech! Why, he never says anything but 'Oui, monsieur,' or 'Non, monsieur,' which is all the French he knows. Well, this is a day of wonders, anyhow."
Neglecting the precautions he had insisted on a minute earlier, Alec himself went to the window and drew Joan with him. There were two other windows in the room; but the four clustered in the one deep recess, for the thick walls of this old building were meant to defy extremes of heat and cold. By this time one of the two orderlies had dismounted and was stamping on his smart cavalry jacket and plumed shako, thus announcing by eloquent pantomime, that he was discarding forever the livery of a tyrant.
The mob in the street was now swollen to unrecognizable dimensions, and Alec's charger, which Bosko was holding, resented the uproar by lashing out viciously with his heels. A man who had narrowly escaped being kicked drew a revolver, fired, and the spirited Arab fell with a bullet in its brain. The dastardly act was cheered; for the Seventh Regiment remembered that this same white horse had stumbled and thrown King Theodore on the day of his murder.
"Oh, the coward, the hateful coward!" wailed Joan, and two of the men muttered expressions of opinion that must be passed over in silence.
But Felix happened to be watching Bosko, and noted the black rage that convulsed his face when the Arab dropped dead at his feet. The Albanian's feelings mastered him only for an instant.