In the Name of the People

by Arthur W. Marchmont

Meanwhile the racket kept bringing up reinforcements for the mob, and some of them began to get disagreeably curious about me. Here was a glorious struggle going on against the common foe, and I was standing idly by instead of taking a hand in it.

One or two of them questioned me in a jeering tone, and presently some fool yelled out that I was a spy. From taunts and gibing insults, those near me proceeded to threats, fists and sticks were shaken at me, and matters looked decidedly unpleasant.

I kept on explaining that I was a foreigner; but that was no more than a waste of breath; and I looked about for a chance to get away.

I was very awkwardly placed, however. If I went up the street, I should only run into the thick of the fight with the police; while the constant arrival of freshcomers below me made escape in that direction impossible.

Then came a crisis. One excited idiot struck at me with a stick, and of course I had to defend myself; and for a time I was far too busy to heed what was going on in the big row higher up the street. I tried fists at first and, putting my back to the wall, managed to keep the beggars at bay. Then a chance came to seize a big heavy club with which a little brute was trying to break my head; and with that I soon cleared quite a respectable space by laying about me indiscriminately.

But suddenly the club was knocked out of my hands, and a howl of delight hailed my discomfiture. Then I remembered my revolver. I whipped it out and a rather happy thought occurred to me. Shouting at the top of my lungs that I was an Englishman and had nothing to do with either the mob or the police, I grabbed hold of the ringleader of my assailants, and used him as a sort of hostage. Keeping him between myself and the rest, I shoved the barrel of the revolver against his head and sung out that I would blow out his brains if any other man attempted to harm me.

The ruse served me well. The crowd hung back; and my prisoner, in a holy scare for his life, yelled at his friends to leave me alone.

Whether the trick would have really got me out of the mess I don’t know. There was not time to tell, for another development followed almost immediately. Some fresh arrivals came up yelling that the soldiers were close at hand; and we soon heard them.

The mob were now caught between two fires. The police were still holding their own above us, and the troops were hurrying up from the other direction. Some one had the wit to see that the crowd’s only chance was to carry the street against the police and clear that way for flight. A fierce attack was made upon them, therefore, and they were driven back to one side, leaving half the roadway clear.

The throng about me melted away, and I let my prisoner go, intending to wait for the troops. But I soon abandoned that idea; for I saw they had clubbed their muskets and were knocking down everybody they saw.