Police officers pushed them back through a warren of narrow, sunless alleys, firing tear gas, whipping cane batons and infuriating the protesters even more. ''Dogs!'' they screamed, eyes red from the tear gas, as paramedics rushed in to pick up the injured.
A boy who looked no older than 15 lay bleeding from the head. A young woman stumbled blankly into an ambulance, blood streaming down the side of her face. The alley was strewn with hundreds of sandals, the detritus of demonstrators trying to flee the police charge.
For the second day in a row, more than 100,000 protesters had flooded the streets, as police officers, backed by the Royal Nepalese army, for the most part stood by and let a sea of protesters pass through what was, even a day before, the heavily fortified Ring Road encircling the city center. The clampdown came only when they neared the palace.
By midafternoon, the coalition of Nepal's seven largest political parties, which began the demonstrations more than two weeks ago, formally rejected the king's offer, made in a televised offer on Friday night, to return control of the government to a prime minister of the parties' choosing. In a statement, the seven-party alliance vowed to carry on with the agitation.
''It has undermined the sentiments of the people,'' the statement said of the king's offer.
The king addressed neither of the coalitions' two principal demands: the restoration of the elected Parliament, suspended nearly four years ago, and a referendum to rewrite the constitution and allow Nepalese citizens to decide the future of the monarchy.
In rejecting the king's bid, the seven-party alliance - which is also under strong pressure from the protesters - rejected the urging of two of its most important backers, India and the United States. Party leaders were literally corralled by the Nepali street riot Saturday morning.
As they huddled inside the home of Girija Prasad Koirala, a former prime minister and head of the Nepali Congress Party, the country's largest political party, protesters jammed the lanes leading to the house with a message meant to both uplift and cow the leaders.
''Don't get weak in the knees!'' they yelled. ''Don't ditch the people!''
''We don't give a damn about anything else,'' another group of protesters shouted nearby. ''We don't want the monarchy.''
