“Come along, boys! we must rescue him,” exclaimed Bracy; and suiting the action to the word, he bounded forward, and hitting right and left, reached the scene of conflict. Lewis and the others, abandoning the steps, followed his example, and the row became general. For some minutes the uproar was terrific; blows were given and received; blood began to flow from sundry noses; and certain eyes that had begun the evening blue, brown, or grey, as the case might be, assumed a hue dark as Erebus. As for Lewis, he knocked down one of the fellows who had hold of Grandeville; then he picked up the Irishman, who of course had singled out and attacked the biggest man in the crowd (none other indeed than the rough-coated patriot, who appeared a sort of leader among them), and been immediately felled by him to the ground; then he assisted Frere in extricating the pale-faced youth from three individuals of questionable honesty, who were availing themselves of the confusion to empty his pockets; as he did so he felt himself seized with a grasp of iron, and turning his head, found he was collared by the gigantic leader. A violent but ineffectual effort to free himself only served to convince him that in point of strength he was no match for his antagonist, who, regarding him with a smile of gratified malice, exclaimed, “Now then, young feller, I’ve been a-waiting to get hold of you. How about a black eye now?” As he spoke he drew him forward with one hand and struck at him savagely with the other. Avoiding the blow by suddenly dodging aside, Lewis closed with his adversary, and inserting his knuckles within the folds of his neckcloth, tightened it, until in self-defence, and in order to avoid strangulation, the fellow was forced to loosen his grasp of Lewis’s collar. The instant he felt himself free, Lewis, giving the neckcloth a final twist, and at the same time pressing his knuckles into the man’s throat, so as for the moment almost to throttle him, stepped back a couple of paces, and springing forward again before the other had time to recover himself, hit up under his guard and succeeded in planting a stinging and well-directed blow exactly between his eyes; this, followed by a similar application rather lower on the face, settled the matter. Reeling backwards, his antagonist lost his footing and fell heavily to the ground, dragging one of his companions down with him in a futile attempt to save himself. The fall of their leader threw a damp on the spirits of the others; and although those in the rear were still clamorous with threats and vociferations, the members of the crowd in more immediate proximity to the little party showed small inclination to renew the attack.
“Now’s our time for getting away,” said Bracy. “Make a bold push for the door.”
“Ar—I should say,” rejoined Grandeville, one of whose eyes was completely closed from the effects of a blow, and whose coat was hanging about him in ribands, “let us despatch one of our party for the police and military, and stand firm and maintain our ground till they come up, then capture the ringleaders and clear the room.”
“Nonsense,” said Leicester, who, despite his regard for his wardrobe, had behaved most spiritedly during the skirmish. “We shall all be murdered before they appear; besides” (he added aside to Bracy), “it will be making much too serious a business of it; we should get into some tremendous scrape.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Bracy; then turning to Grandeville, he added, “I don’t think my instructions would bear us out if we were to go any further. Remember, we were only to make a pacific demonstration.”
“And faith, if breaking heads, and getting a return in kind, comes under that same denomination, it’s a pretty decent one we’ve made already, ’pon me conscience,” put in McDermott, wiping away the blood that was still trickling from a cut in his forehead.
While these remarks were bandied from one to another, the party had contrived to make their way from the platform, and were now in the body of the room, striving to push through the crowd towards the side door. This at every step became more and more difficult, till at length they were so completely hemmed in that further progression became impossible, and it was evident that a fresh attack upon them was meditated. Fortunately, however, they were not far from the point of egress, and Bracy, having caught the eye of his ally the doorkeeper, who was on the alert, exclaimed, “Now, Grandeville, we must fight our way through these fellows and gain the door; there’s nothing for it but a spirited charge. You and I, Frere and his friend, and Paddy had better go first as a sort of wedge.”