"If it was the Prince of Orange now!" smiled Duprès, "but who will stir for him?"
The presence of the Margrave and the senators seemed, however, to have some effect; many of the people left the church, the others became more tranquil.
So the day wore on; Duprès, tired of the little chapel but willing to see events to a finish, yawned and wearied and presently fell asleep on the red damask cloth which covered the altar steps. He was roused to the sound of the renewed tumult of a surging crowd refusing to leave, declaring they would wait for vespers.
The Margrave, speaking from the High Altar, said there would be no vespers that night; the people then pointed out that the senators should quit first, leaving them to follow, and the magistrates, weary with their long vigil, departed, closing after them all the doors save one.
Duprès now crept out of his hiding and stretched his stiff limbs.
He noticed the Margrave was still there, standing by the High Altar—a small brilliant figure beneath the colossal marble ones of Christ and the thieves.
He held his cap with a heron's feather in his ungloved hand and kept his eyes on the crowd. Though the magistrates had some while since left the building, no one followed them, but a considerable number began to stream in steadily through the one door left open for egress.
The Margrave, seeing this, sprang quickly on to the altar steps and, raising his voice, commanded, and then besought, the people to disperse.
No sooner was his voice heard than a party of men, as if in answer to a given signal, rushed on him and drove him and his attendants towards the door.
There was but a brief struggle; Duprès saw the nobleman's sword wrenched from his hand and sent whirling and glittering into dusky air, then he was forced into the street.