The pugilistic activities of the mob in the presence of the police, however, appeared to be purely vocal. So far as I was able to observe, the head-knocking business was wholly on the other side.
At the warning cry there was a sudden slackening of activity among the invaders of the terrace. Then they began to drop over the wall to rejoin the retreating main body, and in a minute, with a panic rush, they were all gone. And while I caught my breath once more I had the satisfaction of seeing the mob driven like sheep before a company of some twenty-five policemen, who were savagely rapping with their clubs at every head they could reach. The crowd was flying from a body of men that it could have swallowed up, smothered, annihilated, by sheer force of numbers, awed less by the physical force represented by the clubs than by the moral force of law that lay behind them.
I hailed the police captain as a brother and a preserver, and hastily explained the state of affairs.
"It's a bad night for us all," he said. "We're fighting 'em from North Beach to Tar Flat. They've killed a dozen Chinamen, an' I'll bet my straps there isn't a Chinese wash-house left with a window in the whole city."
"I'm afraid we aren't much better off here," I said, with a rueful look at the vacant sashes of Wharton Kendrick's windows.
"It's bad--it's bad," said the officer. "We got word they were coming here, and the chief sent us up to clear the avenue. Then we heard that they were settin' fire to Stanford's and Crocker's so we rushed over to Nob Hill. It was only a small crowd there, though, and after chasin' them out, we hurried up here."
"You were just in time," I said. "We were hard pressed."
"I'm sorry I can't leave you a few men," said the captain, "but we've got too much work ahead of us. I don't think they'll try it again. But we'll look around this way again in an hour or two."
CHAPTER XXII
I BECOME A MAN OF BUSINESS