“Here! here’s what’ll do it! pass ’em on!” and the alarmed doctor saw immediately the portentous gleam of fire-axes, which were being passed over the heads of the crowd towards the door, and in another instant the crash of the cutting would commence. The doctor, as we have seen, was a very prompt man. He thrust his head out of the window, and in a loud, commanding voice, shouted—
“Stop!”
The man at the door, who had just received the axe, and was in the act of wielding it, paused for an instant, to look up, while the whole sea of faces was raised toward the window, amidst a moment’s silence, of which the doctor instantly availed himself—
“Gentlemen, do you war upon women? I have a female patient here, in this room, at the point of death! If you proceed, you will kill her!”
“Who is she?” shouted some one, while another voice, in a derisive tone, yelled out amidst screams of laughter—
“Is she Rose? Rose? de coal-brack Rose? I wish I may be shot if I don’t lub Rose!”
Amidst the thunders which followed, some one shouted from a distant part of the mob, to the man with the axe—
“Go on, Jim! It’s all pretence with their sick women!”
“Down with the door—they don’t escape us that way! Look out for your bones, old covey, when we catch you!”
The axe was again swung back, but the doughty doctor still persisted—