ion crowded forward and filled the street in a mass
below. All the rest of the street was empty and shut up. And still hung
the showy rag, red and white and green, up aloft.

Suddenly there was a lull--then shouts, half-encouraging, half-derisive.
And Aaron saw a smallish-black figure of a youth, fair-haired, not more
than seventeen years old, clinging like a monkey to the front of the
house, and by the help of the heavy drain-pipe and the stone-work
ornamentation climbing up to the stone ledge that ran under ground-floor
windows, up like a sudden cat on to the projecting footing. He did not
stop there, but continued his race like some frantic lizard running up
the great wall-front, working away from the noise below, as if in sheer
fright. It was one unending wriggling movement, sheer up the front of
the impassive, heavy stone house.

The flag hung from a pole under one of the windows of the top
storey--the third floor. Up went the wriggling figure of the possessed
youth. The cries of the crowd below were now wild, ragged ejaculations
of excitement and encouragement. The youth seemed to be lifted up,
almost magically on the intense upreaching excitement of the massed men
below. He passed the ledge of the first floor, like a lizard he wriggled
up and passed the ledge or coping of the second floor, and there he was,
like an upward-climbing shadow, scrambling on to the coping of the third
floor. The crowd was for a second electrically still as the boy rose
there erect, cleaving to the wall with the tips of his fingers.

But he did not hesitate for one breath. He was on his feet and running
along the narrow coping that went across the house under the third floor
windows, running there on that narrow footing away above the street,
straight to the flag. He had got it--he had clutched it in his hand, a
handful of it. Exactly like a great flame rose the simultaneous yell of
the crowd as the boy jerked and got the flag loose. He had torn it
down. A tremendous prolonged yell, touched with a snarl of triumph, and
searing like a puff of flame, sounded as the boy remained for one moment
with the flag in his hand looking down at the crowd below. His face was
odd and elated and still. Then with the slightest gesture he threw the
flag from him, and Aaron watched the gaudy remnant falling towards the
many faces, whilst the noise of yelling rose up unheard.

There was a great clutch and hiss in the crowd. The boy still stood
unmoved,