“Because there is no certainty of the re-enforcements.” “Two classes of reserves, you say, have been summoned. Will they not respond?” “Some of them tried to respond, but they were halted by the rioters and turned back. A thousand started this morning from Piacenza. Men and women threw themselves in front of the train to prevent them from proceeding. The city’s southern gates are held by the rioters, and they are reinforced hourly by agricultural labourers bent on making common cause with them. I tell you, signore, the situation is critical.” “What do you think will happen?” “The rioters will be masters of the city before another sunrise.” Tarsis sprang up and began to pace the floor, but stopped suddenly, and, with a smile intended to be taken as one of amusement, said, “I think you are over-counting their strength.” “I hope so, signore; but General Bellori told me that he thought every available man would be needed to hold the gates.” As if to bear out his words, the roll of drums fell upon their ears. Looking out, Tarsis beheld the regiment whose nearness had given him no slight sense of security wheeling out of the Public Gardens and moving toward Cathedral Square. With fists clinched, he stared after the retreating bayonets until the last one had disappeared behind the bend of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, while the superintendent, standing by, had eyes only for the face of his employer. He saw the tide of Tarsis’s helpless anger mount and strain the veins of his neck and crimson his cheeks and temples. “Maledictions upon the weak-backed Government!” he burst out, turning from the window. “If they shot down the anarchists wherever they found them, killed them by the thousand, they would put a stop to this nonsense.” “You are right, signore,” chimed in the Austrian. “They have been too easy with them, particularly with the women, who are ten times worse than the men.” Signor Ulrich had not overdrawn the danger. The insurgents were nearer to a mastery of the city than he or any one else supposed. At one point they had cut off a large body of troops by entrapping them into a ring of barricades. At least half an army corps was needed if the Government was to retain control of the situation. “The palace is wholly without defence,” Tarsis said, after a moment of silence. “Something must be done. I shall call up the Questura and demand a force sufficient to protect my property.” He went into the library and caught up the receiver of the telephone; for some minutes he stood with it pressed to his ear, but there came no response from the central station. “I think communication is broken,” Signor Ulrich ventured to tell him. “I saw rioters cutting down wires and stringing them across Via Torino to impede cavalry charges.” “Then we must get a message to them some other way,” Tarsis said. “Probably it would not be--advisable for me to go out.” The other uttered an emphatic negative. “I think it would be exceedingly unwise, Signor Tarsis.”