Then he turned to the other men, crying, in broken French:
“Down with the spy! Don’t let him escape! I have told you who he is! Down with him!”
And they sprang, like famished tigers, at Frank!
Frank Merriwell felt that it was to be a fight for life against terrible odds. He leaped aside, caught up a chair, swung it over his head, and splintered it with a blow that stretched one of his assailants on the floor.
Then Frank laughed! It was the old-time, reckless laugh that broke from his lips in moments of great danger. It sounded weird and uncanny now, and, for a single instant, it seemed to check the assault of his many foes.
“At him!” screamed Brattle. “Capture him! Down with him!”
Merry flung the broken chair at the man who was urging the others on. It struck him, and sent him sprawling and spluttering.
“Come on, my fine fellows!” invited Frank. “Or, if you won’t come on, I’ll come to you!”
He did! With a leap, he was among them. Never had the young Yale athlete used his hard fists to better advantage. He was fresh and unhampered, and he cracked about him at the heads of those men, leaping, darting, ducking, diving, striking all the time. One man he smashed on the ear, another he hit in the eye, a third he struck fair and full in the pit of the stomach, having dodged a blow himself. And Frank laughed again, exulting in the fury of the fight.
Those Frenchmen were astonished, for they had not conceived that one lone Yankee could make such a fight. They had fancied it would be the easiest thing in the world to leap on the American, crush him down, bind him, make him captive. But he was like a whirlwind among them, and he sent them flying in all directions.