The Dark Star

A captain, superbly mounted, rode ahead of the advancing line of

horses, warning the throng back into the rue Vilna, up which the mob

now recoiled, sullenly protesting.

Neeland and Sengoun and the two women were forced back with the crowd

as a double rank of steel-helmeted horsemen advanced, sweeping

everybody into the rue Vilna.

Up the street, through the vague morning light, they retired between

ranks of closed and silent houses, past narrow, evil-looking streets

and stony alleys still dark with the shadows of the night.

Into one of these Neeland started with Ilse Dumont, but Sengoun drew

him back with a sharp exclamation of warning. At the same time the

crowd all around them became aware of what was going on in the maze of

dusky lanes and alleys past which they were being driven by the

cavalry; and the people broke and scattered like rabbits, darting

through the cavalry, dodging, scuttling under the very legs of the

horses.

The troop, thrown into disorder, tried to check the panic-stricken

flight; a brigadier, spurring forward to learn the cause of the

hysterical stampede, drew bridle sharply, then whipped his pistol out

of the saddle-holster, and galloped into an impasse.

The troop captain, pushing his horse, caught sight of Sengoun and

Neeland in the remains of their evening dress; and he glanced

curiously at them, and at the two young women clad in the rags of

evening gowns.

"Nom de Dieu!" he cried. "What are such people as you doing here? Go

back! This is no quarter for honest folk!"

"What are those police doing in the alleys?" demanded Sengoun; but the

captain cantered his horse up the street, pistol lifted; and they saw

him fire from his saddle at a man who darted out of an alley and who

started to run across the street.

The captain missed every shot, but a trooper, whose horse had come up

on the sidewalk beside Neeland, fired twice more after the running

man, and dropped him at the second shot.

"A good business, too," he said calmly, winking at Neeland. "You

bourgeois ought to be glad that we're ordered to clean up Paris for

you. And now is the time to do it," he added, reloading his weapon.

Sengoun said in a low voice to Neeland: "They're ridding the city of apaches. It's plain enough that they have

orders to kill them where they find them! Look!" he added, pointing to

the dead wall across the street; "It's here at last, and Paris is

cleaning house and getting ready for it! This is war, Neeland--war at

last!"

Neeland looked across the street where, under a gas lamp on a rusty

iron bracket, was pasted the order for general mobilisation. And on

the sidewalk at the base of the wall lay a man, face downward, his

dusty shoes crossed under the wide flaring trousers, the greasy

casquet still crowding out his lop ears; his hand clenched beside a

stiletto which lay on the stone flagging beside him.