Odo was still watching Fulvia.  She had received the applause of the audience with a deep reverence, and was now in the act of withdrawing to the inner room at the back of the dais.  Her eyes met Odo’s; she smiled and the door closed on her.  He turned to the equerry.

“There is no need of an escort,” he said.  “I trust my people if they do not trust me.”

“But, your Highness, the streets are full of demagogues who have been haranguing the people since morning.  The crowd is shouting against the constitution and against the Signorina Vivaldi.”

A flame of anger passed over the Duke’s face; but he subdued it instantly.

“Go to the Signorina Vivaldi,” he said, pointing to the door by which Fulvia had left the hall.  “Assure her that there is no danger, but ask her to remain where she is till the crowd disperses, and request the faculty in my name to remain with her.”

The equerry bowed, and hurried up the steps of the dais, while the Duke signed to his other companions to precede him to the door of the hall.  As they walked down the long room, between the close-packed ranks of the audience, the outer tumult surged threateningly toward them.  Near the doorway, another of the gentlemen-in-waiting was seen to speak with the Duke.

“Your Highness,” he said, “there is a private way at the back by which you may yet leave the building unobserved.”

“You appear to forget that I entered it publicly,” said Odo.

“But, your Highness, we cannot answer for the consequences—­”

The Duke signed to the ushers to throw open the doors.  They obeyed, and he stepped out into the stone vestibule preceding the porch.  The iron-barred outer doors of this vestibule were securely bolted, and the porter hung back in affright at the order to unlock them.

“Your Highness, the people are raving mad,” he said, flinging himself on his knees.

Odo turned impatiently to his escort.  “Unbar the doors, gentlemen,” he said.  The blood was drumming in his ears, but his eye was clear and steady, and he noted with curious detachment the comic agony of the fat porter’s face, and the strain and swell of the equerry’s muscles as he dragged back the ponderous bolts.

The doors swung open, and the Duke emerged.  Below him, still with that unimpaired distinctness of vision which seemed a part of his heightened vitality, he saw a great gesticulating mass of people.  They packed the square so closely that their own numbers held them immovable, save for their swaying arms and heads; and those whom the square could not contain had climbed to porticoes, balconies and cornices, and massed themselves in the neck of the adjoining streets.  The handful of light-horse who had escorted the Duke’s carriage formed a single line at the foot of the steps, so that the approach to the porch was still clear; but it was plain that the crowd, with its next movement, would break through this slender barrier and hem in the Duke.