nes of
communication of the rebels were blocked and they themselves threatened
on all sides.

Otherwise the republicans had complete control of the city: the police
were confined to barracks, civilians were on all sides at the mercy of a
perfectly organized and armed body of revolutionaries all in touch with
a headquarter staff, and the military, somewhere beyond the outskirts of
the city, were--nobody knew exactly where, and the whole population on
all sides hushed in expectation of the inevitable battle.

For it had ceased to be a mere riot: it had become a revolution.

CHAPTER THE SECOND

JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE

Those who went through that period of anxious expectancy between Monday
afternoon and Wednesday morning, knowing themselves absolutely at the
mercy of what appeared to be a "secret society suddenly gone mad and in
possession of the reins of government," will never forget the
experience.

The whole thing was so sudden, so unprecedented, so inexplicable that
the intelligence simply refused to perform the ordinary functions of
thought.

Everywhere civilians were being bullied into obedience at the point of
the bayonet: young boys in their teens brandished revolvers in the high
roads: rough, brawny dockers walked about endowed apparently with
unlimited authority, and in the dark recesses of the General Post
Office, beyond the reach of law or argument, the mysterious Republican
Brotherhood--omnipotent.

All the while stories were coming in of hairbreadth escapes, of stray
shots, apparently from the sky, picking off unfortunate wayfarers, and
of whole parties of officers on their way back from the races in their
cars being captured and held up by the Volunteers--and every story went
one further than the one before it, till one was ready to believe almost
anything.

Personally, I kept within the "Metropole," expecting every minute that
the "climax" of the situation would be reached, but still the soldiery
did not arrive, and we began to come to the belief that in all
probability the authorities were only waiting until dusk.

I could not tear myself from the windows. That instinct of expectation
gripped me like a vice, and continued to do so for twenty-four solid
hours--and if I quote my own experience it is only as an example of what
others all around me went through.

It was now about four o'clock, and still I looked out into the street
below--the people were beginning to go wild with excitem