The door opened and the minister stood on the threshold. He was a pale
young man, very thin, with watery blue eyes and a face disfigured by a
rash. He shouted at the boys. The wild beasts ceased fighting. He
began talking of the precious blood of Christ and the power of the
Evil One over the human heart. After a little while he succeeded in
inducing the hundred boys to sit down on the forms and chairs. But now
he was quite out of breath and the atmosphere was thick with dust. He
glanced at the window and said in a faint voice: "Open the sash!" This
request re-awakened the only half-subdued passions. Twenty-five boys
made a rush for the window and tried to seize the window cord.
"Go to your places at once!" screamed the minister, stretching out his
hand for his cane.
There was a momentary silence during which the minister tried to think
of a way of having the sash raised without a fight.
"You," he said at last to a timid little fellow, "go and open the
window!"
The small boy went to the window and tried to disentangle the window
cord. The others looked on in breathless silence, when suddenly a big
lad, in sailor's clothes, who had just come home on the brig _Carl
Johan_, lost patience.
"The devil take me if I don't show you what a lad can do," he shouted,
throwing off his coat and jumping on the window sill; there was a
flash from his cutlass and the rope was cut.
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