“It is false!” said Marmor, “the only ammunition I ever brought to this town is republican newspapers.”
“Dat make no odds. Dat pad ’nough, dey tink, and dey pe hunt you; dey co tru mine house shust now. Dey find Shimmy’ (Jimmy, Marmor’s servant) in yo’ yard, and dey vip ’im to tell vo you ist; but he know notting.”
The hunted man fled to the house top, where he lay long, listening to the crashing of his printing presses and furniture, and the shrieks and cries of colored women and children whom he saw violently dragged from their houses by fiendish men athirst for the blood of their husbands and fathers for whom they sought; and wondering if his own mother was suffering similar indignities, he blamed himself for hiding.
He saw houses fired, in various directions, but the flames were soon extinguished by the less reckless of the assailants, or by the occupants, some of whom were thus captured.
About two o’clock in the morning the tumult in his own house was renewed and increased; and, driven from their hiding place there, two colored men leaped from a window of the second story, upon a roof beneath it, and with almost superhuman effort, climbed upon that of a higher part of the building, and scarcely less miraculously escaped death by the pistol of their friend Marmor, who mistook them for foes.
“For mercy’s sake don’t shoot!” cried one, just in time to arrest a second discharge.
The three men lay flat upon the roof to avoid discovery, but the sound of the pistol and the voice had betrayed them, and several of the rioters attempted to follow the young men.
Meanwhile the three men slipped down through the scuttle into Lemfield’s house.
Obliged to abandon pursuit in that direction, the ruffians re-entered the window, descended to the street, and pouring into the next house, rushed to the stairs.