"You'll tell me right now!"
Pudgy remained sullenly silent. Then, of a sudden, the single high screeching voice out in the diamond ended, on a frenzied note.
Boom-boom, crashed out the drums again. The Brotherhood roared, as with the single voice of a mighty beast. The men with torches began to mill, to split off from the main mass, to run into the four main cross streets, shaking their firebrands and shouting.
One yelling woman applied her torch to the faded canvas awning in front of the Electric Shoe Repair Parlor. The canvas blazed up, and the drums rolled again.
"Jay!" cried Martha.
Wales forced Pudgy to his feet, faced him toward the front windows, and the torch-blazing chaos out beyond them.
"Martha and I are going, out the back way," Wales said. "We're leaving you here tied and helpless—unless you tell!"
CHAPTER VII
A throbbing, lurid light beat in through the front windows of the store, as the flames across the Diamond swept up the fronts of old buildings. The hoarse hallelujah-chorus of the Brotherhood, the quickened booming of the drums, was louder. And the fiery light illumined the bloodless, distorted face of their prisoner as he stared up at Wales and Martha.