"Or you," the young man added menacingly.
Thomson held out his hands in front of his face.
"You put that up, Mister," he enjoined earnestly. "If you're in a bit of trouble with the cops, you go through with it. Don't you get brandishing those things about. I've known 'em go off sometimes."
The singer's suspicions, if ever he had any, died away. He tossed the revolver to the officer, who had halted a few yards away.
"Better take me out the back away," he advised. "There'll be trouble if the crowd in front gets to know who I am."
The officer clinked a pair of handcuffs on his captive's wrists with a sigh of satisfaction. They moved off down the passage. All the time there had been a queer sort of rumble of voices in front, which might well have been a presage of the gathering storm. I moved back to the wings just in time to see the torch thrown. The girl who had been seated with the young man, suddenly leaped upon a bench. She snatched off her hat and veil as though afraid that they might impede her voice. A coil of black hair hung down her back, her face was as white as marble, but the strength of her voice was wonderful. It rang through the hall so that there could not have been a person there who did not hear it.
"You cowards!" she shouted. "You have let him be taken before your eyes! That was Mountjoy who sang to you—our liberator! Rescue him! Is there any one here from Donegal?"
Never in my life have I looked upon such a scene. The men came streaming like animals across the benches and chairs, which they dashed on one side and destroyed as though they had been paper. I was just in time to seize Rose and draw her back to the farthest corner when the sea of human forms broke across the stage. Nobody took any notice of us. They went for the back way into the street, shouting strange cries, brandishing sticks and clenched fists, fighting even one another in their eagerness to be first. Until they were gone, the tumult was too great for speech. Rose clung to my arm.
"What does it mean, Maurice?" she asked breathlessly. "Who is he?"
"I have no idea," I answered, "but I can tell you one thing. To-night has been our début."