La Gironiere saves the life of Captain Drouant.
Page [22].
It was now time for me to get out of the dangerous situation in which I was involved. Four hundred Indians surrounded me; the only way of dealing with them was by audacity. I said in Tagaloc to the Indian who had attempted to stab the captain: “You are a scoundrel.” The Indian sprang towards me; he raised his arm: I struck him on the head with a cane which I held in my hand; he waited in astonishment for a moment, and then returned towards his companions to excite them. Daggers were drawn on every side; the crowd formed a circle around me, which gradually concentrated. Mysterious influence of the white man over his coloured brother! Of all these four hundred Indians, not one dared attack me the first; they all wished to strike together. Suddenly a native soldier, armed with a musket, broke through the crowd; he struck down my adversary, took away his dagger, and holding his musket by the bayonet end, he swung it round and round his head, thus enlarging the circle at first, and then dispersing a portion of my enemies. “Fly, sir!” said my liberator; “now that I am here, no one will touch a hair of your head.” In fact the crowd divided, and left me a free passage. I was saved, without knowing by whom, or for what reason, until the native soldier called after me: “You attended my wife who was sick, and you never asked payment of me. I now settle my debt.”
As Captain Drouant had doubtless gone off in the cutter, it was impossible for me to return on board the Cultivateur. I directed my steps towards my lodgings, creeping along the walls, and taking advantage of the obscurity, when, on turning the corner of a street, I fell into the midst of a band of dockyard workmen, armed with axes, and about to proceed to the attack of the French vessels then in harbour. Here again I owed my preservation to an acquaintance, to whom I had rendered some service in the practice of my profession. A Métis, or half-breed, who had quickly pushed me into the entry of a house, and covered me with his body, said: “Stir not, Doctor Pablo!”[1] When the crowd had dispersed, my protector advised me to conceal myself, and, above all, not to go on board; he then started off to rejoin his comrades. But all was not yet over. I had scarcely entered my lodgings when I heard a knocking at the door.
“Doctor Pablo,” said a voice, which was not unknown to me.
I opened, and I saw, as pale as death, a Chinese, who kept a tea-store on the ground-floor of the same house.
“What’s the matter, Yang-Po?”
“Save yourself, Doctor!”
“And wherefore?”