A man came across the plaza from the Barriscale offices, and thrust a written message into the lieutenant’s hands. It was to the effect that the marchers were at the outskirts of the city; that they had sacked provision and liquor stores on their way, were drunk, riotous, boastful and destructive, and would reach the plaza in less than ten minutes.
Even as McCormack finished reading the message he heard in the distance the dull roar that presaged the coming of the mob.
[CHAPTER XVI]
When Lieutenant McCormack, after reading the message announcing the coming of the mob, crossed the plaza and faced his company, he found his men already in ranks and standing at “order arms.” They also had heard the ominous sound of approaching disorder. Already the forefront of the procession was in sight on the street leading up from the south. Inflamed with the liquor which they had seized in the course of their journey, the exuberant and reckless spirit of the marchers was showing itself. Men were singing, shouting, waving clubs, demanding justice for their fellow-workers, and the recognition of the rule of the proletariat. At the junction of every street and alley their members had been swelled by the angry and resentful Industrialists of Fairweather. The cordon of police that had attempted to block their way was swept down as though it had been a rope of straw. Now, five hundred strong, reckless and determined, they were bearing down on the center of the city’s industries.
The waiting hundreds of citizens who, for the last hour, had lined the curbs about the open place, began to withdraw. They did not care to be caught between the clubs of the rioters and the bayonets of the militia.
The mob, filling the main street from wall to wall, entered the plaza like a rushing stream which, confined between barriers at the side, is powerful and resistless, but, spreading out over the broad lowland, loses its momentum and its destructive force. It was so with the marchers. The wide space into which they emptied themselves weakened their physical power, but in no wise altered their purpose or their spirit of aggressiveness. When they caught sight of the American flag waving from the staff before their faces, and saw the silent, khaki-clad ranks of soldiers standing at attention beneath it, they sent up a howl of derision. These were but the visible sign and symbol of the powers of oppression against which they fought. Therefore they wanted the world to know that they despised and defied them.
From somewhere outside, a drayman’s cart was brought and rattled across the pavement to the center of the plaza. A man leaped up into it and began to harangue the crowd. Italian, German, Slavonic words and sentences rolled from his tongue with equal fluency. His hearers applauded him wildly.
Sergeant Barriscale could endure the situation no longer. He brought his rifle to a “shoulder arms,” stepped one pace to the front and saluted his commanding officer.