The street below was packed with people howling round a carriage that seemed blocked by the press. The stout coachman, gorgeous in splendid livery, had some ado to restrain the spirited horses, maddened and prancing with the interference and the outcry. Cudgels were shaken aloft in the air, and there were shouts of “Traitor!”
“Tyrant!” and other epithets so degrading that Frances put her hands to her ears in horrified dismay.
“Whom are they threatening so fiendishly?” she whispered.
“That is your father’s carriage,” answered De Courcy.
Before she could make further inquiry there came up to them the cold, dominating tones of her father’s voice, clear above that tumult,—
“Strike through!”
The stout coachman laid about him with his whip, and the curses for the moment abandoned the head of Strafford to alight on that of the driver. The horses plunged fiercely into the crowd. The cruel progress changed the tenor of the cries, as if a wailing stop of a great organ had suddenly taken the place of the open diapason. The press was so great that those in front could not make for safety, and the disappearing coach was greeted with screams of terror and was followed by groans of agony. Men went down before it like ripe grain before a sickle.
“Oh! oh! oh!” moaned the girl, all color leaving her face.
“It serves the dogs right,” said De Courcy. “How dare they block the way of a noble, and the chief Minister of State.”
“I—I cannot look on this,” lamented Frances, shrinking back to the table, and leaning against it as one about to faint, forgetting her desire to avoid further demonstration from her companion, in the trepidation which followed the scene she had witnessed.