At this quiet hint every one of the Americans, including even the Boston clergyman, drew forth his revolver, holding it carelessly, yet in such a very handy fashion that the captain of the dragoons looked aghast.
"I will have no resistance," said he. "Surrender, or you will be shot down."
"Ha, ha!" said the Heidelbergian. "Do you see our revolvers? Do you think that we are the men to surrender?"
"I have fifty dragoons outside," said the officer.
"Very well, we have forty-eight shots to your fifty," said the Heidelbergian, whose Italian, on this occasion, "came out uncommonly strong," as Obed afterward said when the conversation was narrated to him.
"I am commanded to arrest you," said the officer.
"Well, go back and say that you tried, and couldn't do it," said the Heidelbergian.
"Your blood will be on your own heads."
"Pardon me; some of it will be on yours, and some of your own blood also," retorted the Heidelbergian, mildly.
"Advance!" cried the officer to his soldiers. "Arrest these men."