"This is my place, reverend sir," he said, and planted himself in the doorway. He stretched out his arms above him, as the old man had done, and offered his breast as a target for the pointed weapons. His eye penetrated unflinchingly into the heart of the struggling and ramping mob before him. He felt the foam from their mouths bespatter him, and their hot, foul breath fan his face. "Here I stand!" he cried. "I have left my pistols at home; so you can make short work of me. Any of you who have the courage." But no one had the courage, for his back was not turned to them now. Sabres were lowered, pikes dropped. "I see--you don't wish to assassinate me after all," he said, holding them with his eyes. "You are going to behave yourselves like men, and not like wild beasts. Very well, then, I will speak to you as to reasonable men. Move backwards and keep quiet." The crowd wavered; the next moment he had the threshold to himself. "And now--speak! Tell me what you want with me?" There was no answer, no sound in the room except the laboured breathing of excited lungs. "You hate me. You would like to take my life. Tell me why? Here in the presence of a representative of the King whom we all serve and fear, in the presence of a representative of the God in whom I believe and you too--tell me what I have done? I submit myself to their judgment. Now is your opportunity of charging me." But the silence continued. Only one spluttering voice arose for a moment and died away in a gurgle, as if it were being stifled by force. "You are dumb. You cannot say what my offence has been,--and you, gentlemen! Won't you come to the assistance of these poor, speechless people? There on the ground lies a cross, the mark of honour our nation cherishes more highly than any other, which some one threw away, because through my possessing one like it, he considered it contaminated. Some one else declined to shake hands with me just now, a common act of courtesy which no man of honour refuses another unless he be a blackguard. It does not matter, _Herr Landrath_, if in this instance judges and accusers unite in a common cause. Accuse me of what you like, condemn me! I am prepared." Another long pause. The Landrath twisted his whiskers in embarrassment. "And you, _Herr Pastor_--it is hardly fitting that I should call the instructor of my youth to account--but some months ago you showed me the door in your own house. Could you not be spokesman now for your parishioners?" The old man's jaws worked, his lips moved, but no sound issued from them. He appeared to have exhausted his strength, but the wild, fiery glance he darted from beneath his bushy brows boded no good to Boleslav.