All at once Dan Davis made a discovery.
He caught the glint of a brass button.
"Cease firing!" he roared.
"Not on your life! Not till I've licked this heathen——"
"Sam! Sam! Stop! It's the police we are fighting! Stop, I tell you!"
Hickey's ready fists dropped to his sides. He stepped back, half inclined to run.
"Well, well! What do you think of that?" he growled.
Dan, too, had stopped fighting the instant he made the discovery that it was the police whom they had assaulted. He sprang back, gazing almost in awe at the rest of the squad of gendarmes who were bearing down upon them.
"This is the time we have put our foot in it. Gentlemen, I beg——"
He did not finish the sentence.