A chaos of waving arms and of high-flung hats, a deafening crash of voices again answered.
"Then our speakers shall lead us. Judge Blackmar shall be the first in command; Mr. Slade, who spoke after him, shall be second, and I shall be the third in authority. Arm yourselves quickly, gentlemen, and may God have mercy upon the souls of those eleven murderers."
He leaped lightly down, and the great assemblage burst into motion, streaming out Canal Street like a storming army. It boiled into side streets and through every avenue which led in the direction of the prison. At each corner it gathered strength; every thoroughfare belched forth reinforcements; hundreds who had entertained no faintest notion of taking part fell in, were swallowed up in the seething tide, and went shouting to the very gates of the jail.
Once that tossing river of humanity had been given force and direction its character changed; it became a mailed dragon, it suddenly blossomed with steel. Peaceful, middle-aged men who had stood beside the monument buttoned up in peculiarly bulky overcoats were now marching silently with weapons at their shoulders.
Strangest of all, perhaps, was the greeting this army received on every side. The flotsam and jetsam which swirled along in its eddies or followed in its wake cheered, howled, and danced deliriously; men, women, and children from doorways and galleries raised their voices lustily, and applauded as if at some favorite carnival parade. In notable contrast was the bearing of the armed men themselves; they marched through the echoing streets like a regiment of mutes.
XXV
THE APPEAL
On the iron balcony of a house in the vicinity of the parish prison the two Sicilian girls were standing. Across from them loomed the great decaying structure with its little iron-barred windows and its steel-ribbed doors behind which lay their countrymen. From inside came the echo of a great hammering, as if a gallows were being erected; but the square and the streets outside were quiet.
"What time is it now?" Oliveta had repeated this question already a dozen times.
"It is after ten."