“You just bet we will, Jack,” assented Josh.
“I should say yes,” Buster hastily added.
“It’s a risky thing to do, Jack,” remarked George, “but seems that we haven’t got much of a choice. We’re between the devil and the deep sea. Go ahead, then, and let’s see how our luck holds good.”
Jack waited no longer. Indeed, it would have been dangerous to have held the clamorous crowd in waiting much longer, for their pounding on the door had assumed a more threatening phase, several having taken it upon themselves to pick up heavy stones, with which they started to beat the woodwork furiously, while all manner of loud cries arose.
Suddenly the double doors were swung wide open. The outcries ceased as if by magic. Jack, looking out, saw that fully fifty people stood in the moonlit street. Most of them were men and boys, though a sprinkling of women could also be seen.
They were typical Hungarians, just such people as one would expect to meet in a river town along the lower Danube. Some were flourishing what appeared to be clubs, and the whole aspect of the mob looked threatening indeed.
It required considerable nerve to calmly face this crowd, but Jack actually smiled, and waved his hand in friendly greeting, while Buster held his breath in very awe, and the other two trembled a little between excitement and alarm.
One burly man in the front of the mob called out harshly. Jack could not for a certainty know what he said, but it was easy to guess he must be demanding who they were, where they came from, and what they were doing in this part of the country in these perilous times.
So Jack, waving his hand to entreat silence, called out:
“Is there any one here who can talk English!”