140 GENTLENESS IS POWER. 
stung them into the mad bravery of despair. Groups of the poor ci- 
tizens were seen conversing in under tones. Their movements, with 
the various expressions that had been suffered to escape, were reported 
to the king, who, with the confidence arising from an unchecked 
sway, determined to crush in the egg this rising popularity of his 
queen. For this purpose he ordered that the troops always stationed 
about the court should divide into parties, and, patrolling the streets, 
disperse by force every company of citizens conversing together. 
The mercenaries of a tyrant are usually faithful to their employer, for 
his existence depends upon making it their interest to be so; fortu- 
nately, however, they are as rarely actuated by the stubborn bravery 
which springs from devotedness. This was the case with the troops 
of Aborzuf. They executed their commands with the punctuality and 
unfeelingness of mechanism ; but they had not committed a second 
act of barbarity before (as if by the firing of a train) every quarter of 
the city burst into a blaze of open rebellion. The soldiers were over- 
whelmed, and borne away in the fiery torrent. They might with 
equal chance of success have stormed a volcano. They who formed 
the rears of the corps, and could effect their retreat, precipitately 
withdrew to their fortification, the palace. The news of their reverse 
(an event upon which the king never even dreamed of calculating) 
struck him, for the instant, motionless as a stone. But the next 
moment placed him in full possession of the command of his faculties. 
He saw that every chance of success must now depend upon his per- 
sonal energy. Accordingly, putting himself at the head of the re- 
treated troops, he was quickly in the heat ofthe fray. The presence © 
of Aborzuf, for a time, checked the confidence of the multitude ; his 
known personal valour and unwearied good fortune had invested with 
a charm whatever he undertook. The tide, therefore, began to ebb ; 
the populace staggered, and gave ground. The king, perceiving his 
advantage, availed himself of it with promptitude and fury. His 
charge was terrific ; he was seen in all quarters, animating his sol- 
diers, his voice rising above the storm, and piercing the air like a 
trumpet-charge. In a better cause he would have been deified ; as it 
was, he inspired admiration and awe. If everything, however, de- 
pended upon himself whether he should remain conqueror, or become 
less than a cipher—an outcast, a corpse, or at best a prisoner ; his 
opposing subjects had risked their all upon a no less tremendous 
stake. Witha simultaneous impulse, therefore, they rallied, and once 
more threw their enemies into confusion. Still the king remained in 
the rear of his routed soldiers, exerting an almost miraculous energy, 
