estore order in the city at any cost, cared not a straw what
the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the
revolver, the whip--here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of
suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man
or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it
came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to
which all classes had contributed. The milliner's assistant crouched
side by side with the Countess, though she still feared to touch her
robe. There were professors' daughters and dockers' wives, ladies from
the avenue and ladies from the hovels. And just as in the great arena
beyond the walls, so here Pride was the staff of the well-born,
Prejudice of the weak.

Amid this trembling company, in the second of the stables, the gloom
shrouding her from suspicious observation, none noticing so humble a
creature, Alban found Lois and made himself known to her. The amiable
civilian with his two or three hundred words of English seemed as
guileless as a child when he announced Master Zaniloff's message and
dwelt upon his honorable master's beneficence.

"You are to see this lady, sir, and to tell her that if she is honest
with us we shall do our best to clear her of the charge. She knows what
that will mean to name the others to us and then for herself the
liberty. That is his excellency my master's decision."

"Much obliged to him," said Alban, dryly, and perhaps it was as well
that Herr Amiability did not catch the tone of it.

"We have much prisoner," the good man went on, "much prisoner and not so
much prison. That is as you say a perplexity. But it will be better;
later in the time after. Here is the girl, this is the place."

He bent his head to enter the stable and Alban followed him, silently
for very fear of his own excitement. There was so little light in the
place that he could scarcely distinguish anything at first, nothing,
indeed, but great beds of straw and black figures huddled upon them. By
and by these took shape and became figures of women of all ages and
types. Many, he perceived, were Jewesses, dark as night and as
mysterious. Their clothes were poor, their attitude courageous and
quiet. A Circassian, whose hair was the very color of the straw with
which it mingled, stood out in contrast with the others. She had lately
been flogged and the clothes, torn from her bleeding shoulders, had not
been