'Silence. You have read the recent order. Orlando may have his Durindarda
bare; but you may not. Grasp that fact. The Government wish to make
Christians of you, my children. One cheek being smitten, what should you
do?'

'Shall I show you, General?' cried a quick little subaltern.

'The order, my children, as received a fortnight since from our old Wien,
commands you to offer the other cheek to the smiter.'

'So that a proper balance may be restored to both sides of the face,'
General Pierson appended.

'And mark me,' he resumed. 'There may be doubts about the policy of
anything, though I shouldn't counsel you to cherish them: but there's no
mortal doubt about the punishment for this thing.' The General spoke
sternly; and then relaxing the severity of his tone, he said, 'The desire
of the Government is to make an army of Christians.'

'And a precious way of doing it!' interjected two or three of the younger
officers. They perfectly understood how hateful the Viennese domination
was to their chiefs, and that they would meet sympathy and tolerance for
any extreme of irony, provided that they showed a disposition to be
subordinate. For the bureaucratic order, whatever it was, had to be
obeyed. The army might, and of course did, know best: nevertheless it was
bound to be nothing better than a machine in the hands of the dull
closeted men in Vienna, who judged of difficulties and plans of action
from a calculation of numbers, or from foreign journals--from heaven
knows what!

General Schoneck and General Pierson walked away laughing, and the
younger officers were left to themselves. Half-a-dozen of them interlaced
arms, striding up toward the Porta Nuova, near which, at the corner of
the Via Trinita, they had the pleasant excitement of beholding a
riderless horse suddenly in mid gallop sink on its knees and roll over. A
crowd came pouring after it, and from the midst the voice of a comrade
hailed them. 'It's Pierson,' cried Lieutenant Jenna. The officers drew
their swords, and hailed the guard from the gates. Lieutenant Pierson
dropped in among their shoulders, dead from want of breath. They held him
up, and finding him sound, thumped his back. The blade of his sword was
red. He coughed with their thumpings, and sang out to them to cease; the
idle mob which had been at his heels drew back before the guard could
come up with them. Lieutenant Pierson gave no explanation except that he
had been attacked near Juliet's tomb