A party of about twenty men crowded into the room. The bell had summoned them from the gaming-table.
"Gentlemen," cried Augustus Horton, "I call upon you as citizens of New Orleans to secure the persons of these three men who have this moment made a murderous attack upon my life, and endeavored to carry away this lady, who is here under my protection. One of them is an escaped felon from the jail of this city."
The gamblers, who were almost all in some degree intoxicated, made a rush at Paul and his companions, but they were many of them unarmed, and those who had knives flourished them without aim or purpose.
"Prendergills—Joe!" exclaimed Lisimon, "follow me. Remember, it is for life or death."
Then flinging the slender form of Camillia across his shoulder, the young Mexican flung himself in the midst of the infuriated crowd, and, pistol in hand, boldly made for the door.
This point gained, he stood upon the threshold with his back to the passage, defending the ground inch by inch, until joined by Prendergills and Joe.
The rest was comparatively easy. The three men fought their way backward along the passage, down the winding staircase to the street door. Here they were for a moment baffled by the mystery of the spring which closed the entrance.
But they were not to be so easily foiled; the Captain of the Amazon flung his gigantic frame against the door, the wooden panels cracked as if they had been made of glass, and the spring was burst asunder.
The door—which was used all the night through for the entrance and egress of the gamblers who frequented the house—was only fastened by this spring, and therefore yielded to force more easily than an ordinary barrier.
Once in the street, Paul and his friends were safe.