Once more it had broken loose, that bloody and horrible beast mob of anarchy and chaos, but now with hands lifted against our Lady's life. Falling back upon the portico of the Palace, she sent a dozen men to barricade the alabaster stairs, and at all costs we must gain them time to do their work lest the Palace be sacked and thousands of our sick murdered in their beds. Her Majesty stood with her back against the fluted shaft of a column, bullets splashing all round her against the marble, while with an imperious gesture she demanded silence.
"Do you want to die?" she cried to the thieves. "The Russians are slaughtering—they are coming here—they may come at any moment. Will you die with me?"
The leaders of the mob drew back amazed, then thrust their spokesman forward, who touched his cap, asking quite respectfully for the treasure in the Palace lest it fall into the hands of the enemy.
"If there's anything left," cried Margaret, "you're welcome. My Guardsmen will bring whatever there is to you here, for I'd rather you shared it than my enemies—on one condition, that you stay here outside. I will not have my hospital disturbed."
"Who brought us to this pass!" screamed a shrill hag. "Kill her! Kill her!"
"We're the people," shouted a man behind the hag. "We'll 'ave our rights!"
"You shall have your rights," said Branscombe, running him through the body.
Then beastly words were used, the man who first had spoken implored her Majesty to escape, lead spattered against the columns, and the mob charged. Driven back step by step, we fought with clubbed carbines, covering her Majesty's retreat. The leaders were felled, the thieves behind them stumbling and pushed forward, went down under the heavy wave of that attack, which hurled us, whether we liked or no, into the Palace. We made a stand behind the main doors, a second stand behind the beginnings of a barricade; and there we opened fire for the first time. Nothing could live before that fusilade, yet the rush drove in through the open doors a writhing mass of frantic, shrieking men, hurled by the pressure of their fellows, screaming for mercy under the very muzzles of our guns. There could be no mercy.
We hardly knew what happened; supposedly some other gate was breached into the Palace, for suddenly a concentrated fire of rifles poured into us from behind. Looking up the stairs, we saw that the guardroom above us was full of rioters, firing down from the side galleries and the stairhead. To stay was to be butchered at the doors, and so we charged the stairs, cleaved our passage through the guardroom, and on the upper stairway, those who were left of us turned again to fight.
A clergyman led the next onrush of the mob, a poor, gaunt curate, unarmed, screaming like a woman.