The two men outside the gate, hearing the shot, looked in, saw, and ran swiftly back to their comrades, while the garrison, feeling that they must now abandon all hope, returned to their posts slowly and sullenly. The report of a truce had drawn the President from his room, with a fresh prospect of life, and perhaps of vengeance, opening on his imagination. As he came down the steps into the courtyard, the shot, in such close proximity, startled him; when he saw the condition of the bearer of terms, he staggered. "Good God!" he said to Sorrento, "what have you done?" "I have shot a rebel, Sir," replied the War-Minister, his heart full of misgivings, but trying to brazen it out, "for inciting the troops to mutiny and desertion, after due warning that his flag would no longer protect him." Molara quivered from head to foot; he felt the last retreat cut off. "You have condemned us all to death," he said. Then he stooped and drew a paper which protruded from the dead man's coat. It ran as follows: _I authorise you to accept the surrender of Antonio Molara, ex-President of the Republic, and of such officers, soldiers, and adherents as may be holding the Presidential Palace. Their lives are to be spared, and they shall be protected pending the decision of the Government. For the Council of Public Safety_,--SAVROLA. And Sorrento had killed him,--the only man who could save them from the fury of the crowd. Too sick at heart to speak Molara turned away, and as he did so the firing from the houses of the square recommenced with savage vigour. The besiegers knew now how their messenger had fared. And all the while Moret lay very still out there in the courtyard. All his ambitions, his enthusiasms, his hopes had come to a full stop; his share in the world's affairs was over; he had sunk into the ocean of the past, and left scarcely a bubble behind. In all the contriving of the plot against the Lauranian Government Savrola's personality had dwarfed his. Yet this was a man of heart and brain and nerve, one who might have accomplished much; and he had a mother and two young sisters who loved the soil he trod on, and thought him the finest fellow in the world. Sorrento stood viewing his handiwork for a long time, with a growing sense of dissatisfaction at his deed. His sour, hard nature was incapable of genuine remorse, but he had known Molara for many years and was shocked to see his pain, and annoyed to think that he was the cause. He had not realised that the President wished to surrender; otherwise, he said to himself, he might have been more lenient. Was there no possible way of repairing the harm? The man who had authorised Moret to accept their surrender had power with the crowd; he would be at the Mayoralty,--he must be sent for,--but how?