When Boleslav stood face to face with them they were about to make a forward dash, but a short military "Halt!" such as they had often heard in the campaign, compelled them to take a step backwards instead, for in spite of themselves, their limbs insisted on complying with the old habit of obedience. Boleslav, who had intended the order for the bearers, saw its effect on the armed line in front of him, and suddenly a new idea occurred to him.
"As you were!" he commanded again. No one moved a hair. His manner, his voice mastered them. "Which of you have been soldiers? Which of you has helped his king to make his country free?"
An indistinct, half-resentful murmur went through the ranks, but there was no answer.
"The king sent you home," he continued, "because he is now at peace with his enemies. Do you suppose that he would be pleased to hear you had taken it upon yourselves to break the peace once more in his realm? Bah! he wouldn't believe it of you! He might believe it of Poles, but not of Prussians! So make room, my good people. Let us pass!"
The line wavered and began to break in places. For one moment the churchyard gate lay clear before Boleslav's eyes, but the next, fresh figures had moved up from behind and filled the breach.
Again the clamour arose, and mingling with it a loud, gurgling laugh of derision. In another instant something round, black, and polished was levelled at Boleslav's head, and behind it sparkled a pair of malignant eyes. He had only a second in which to realise what was going to happen, before a figure, supple as a panther's, shot past him and plunged into the midst of the Schrandeners' troops, which again showed signs of giving way. In the hiatus thus made, Boleslav saw two forms wrestling on the ground, one that of a woman, the other a man's. The woman overpowered her antagonist, and wrested from his hand the gleaming bore of a gun.
It was the carpenter Hackelberg and his daughter. She must, stealthily and unobserved, have followed the funeral cortege, for since her disappearance on the other side of the stable ruins Boleslav had seen nothing of her. The crowd pushed forward, curious to find out who was struggling on the ground, and Boleslav, promptly taking advantage of the general confusion, passed the combatants and gained the churchyard gate, the coffin following close at his heels.