"Give the order!" he commanded. He hated this boy.
In a shrill, hysterical voice that cut the rising noise of the mob, Facciolati gave the preliminary order, and the rows of lads in khaki, standing on the curb, raised their black-blue rifles to their shoulders.
"We won't shoot!" he called into Luke's ear. "We'll only frighten 'em!"
"Burn it——" From the street the cries were merged into a wordless roar. There was the wild rush of two thousand feet, and into the light burst the mob again: a long trotting column with the Red Flag swaying overhead, and in the midst five or six men bearing the wagon-tongue leveled like a lance.
A veil of crimson seemed to flutter before Luke's eyes—the eyes of the man that had counseled caution and the use of only the butts of rifles. He did not think, he could only feel—only feel that here at last was the chance, here the unavoidable need of action that had the splendid conclusiveness of brutality. This was man's work. This was no rescuing of a girl: it was war. The world had meshed him in a net of intellectual doubts and quibbles: here was his moment to cut the net, and to cut his way to freedom, to take vengeance on the world.
That and something more. Betty was in danger and the property that was partly his, that in part he owned and had bought. But above all this, riding it all, goading it, spurning it, mad with its mastery, the blood-lust, the Sense of Power, the dizzy knowledge that he could kill.
The mob was almost upon them. It was a tidal wave.
"Now!" shouted Luke to the Italian.
But the Captain caught his hand. He gabbled the nothings of panic. Luke threw the boy to the pavement. With all the breath in his body he vociferated:
"Fire!"