From somewhere toward the heart of the city came a faint murmur.
"It is the rumble of a wagon on the next street," gasped Oliveta.
The sound died away. The girls stood frozen at attention with their senses strained. Then it rose again, louder. Soon there was no mistaking it. A whisper came upon the breeze, it mounted into a long-drawn humming, which in turn grew to a steady drone of voices broken by waves of cheering. It gathered volume rapidly, and straggling figures came running into view, followed by knots and groups of fleet-footed youths. The driver of the carriage rose on his box, looked over his shoulder, then whipped his horses into a gallop and fled. As he did so a slowly moving wagon laden with timbers turned in from a side street. It was driven by a somnolent negro, who finally halted his team and stared in dull lack of comprehension at what he saw approaching.
By now the street beneath the girls was half filled with people; it echoed to a babble of voices, to the shuffle and tread of a coming multitude, and an instant later out of every thoroughfare which fronted upon the grim old prison structure streamed the people of New Orleans.
"See! They are unarmed!" Oliveta's fingers sank into her sister's wrist.
Then through the press came a body of silent men, four abreast and shoulder to shoulder. The crowd opened to let them through, cheering frenziedly. They wore an air of sober responsibility; they carried guns, and looked to neither right nor left. Directly beneath the waiting women they passed, and at their head marched Norvin Blake and Bernie Dreux together with two men unknown to the girls.
Vittoria leaned forward horror-stricken, and although she tried to call she did not hear her voice above the confusion; Oliveta clutched her, murmuring distractedly.
The avenues were jammed from curb to curb; telegraph-poles, lamp-posts, trees held a burden of human forms; windows and house-tops were filling in every direction; a continuous roar beat thunderously against the prison walls.
The army of vigilantes drew up before the main gate, and a man smote it with the butt of his shotgun, demanding entrance. The crowd, anticipating a volley from within, surged back, leaving them isolated. A dozen bluecoats struggled to clear the sidewalks next the structure, but they might as well have tried to stem a rising tide with their naked hands; they were buffeted briefly, then swallowed up.
In answer to a command, the armed men scattered, surrounding the building with a cordon of steel; then the main body renewed its assault. But the oaken barrier, stoutly reinforced, withstood them gallantly, and a brief colloquy occurred, after which they made their way to a small side door which directly faced the two women across the street. This was not so heavily constructed as the front gate and promised an easier entrance; but it was likewise locked and barred. Then some one spied the wagon and its load of timbers, now hopelessly wedged into the press, and a rush was made toward it. A beam was raised upon willing shoulders, and with this as a battering-ram a breach was begun.