woman who had promised to lead Wilfrid and Jenna to the citadel, feared
no longer either for herself or them, and passed them on up the Corso
Francesco past the Contrada del Monte. Jenna pointed out the Duchess of
Graatli's house, saying, "By the way, the Lenkensteins are here; they
left Venice last week. Of course you know, or don't you?--and there they
must stop, I suppose." Wilfrid nodded an immediate good-bye to him, and
crossed to the house-door. His eccentric fashion of acting had given him
fame in the army, but Jenna stormed at it now, and begged him to come on
and present himself to General Schoneck, if not to General Pierson.
Wilfrid refused even to look behind him. In fact, it was a part of the
gallant fellow's coxcombry (or nationality) to play the Englishman. He
remained fixed by the housedoor till midnight, when a body of men in the
garb of citizens, volubly and violently Italian in their talk, struck
thrice at the door. Wilfrid perceived Count Lenkenstein among them.
The ladies Bianca, Anna, and Lena issued mantled and hooded between the
lights of two barricade watchfires. Wilfrid stepped after them. They
had the password, for the barricades were crossed. The captain of the
head-barricade in the Corso demurred, requiring a counter-sign.
Straightway he was cut down. He blew an alarm-call, when up sprang a
hundred torches. The band of Germans dashed at the barricade as at the
tusks of a boar. They were picked men, most of them officers, but a
scanty number in the thick of an armed populace. Wilfrid saw the lighted
passage into the great house, and thither, throwing out his arms, he bore
the affrighted group of ladies, as a careful shepherd might do.
Returning to Count Lenkenstein's side, "Where are they?" the count said,
in mortal dread. "Safe," Wilfrid replied. The count frowned at him
inquisitively. "Cut your way through, and on!" he cried to three or four
who hung near him; and these went to the slaughter.

"Why do you stand by me, sir?" said the count. Interior barricades were