"Come, Jack," I repeated, turning around to summon him. "What are you staring at, man?"
As I spoke a roughly clad man pushed in between me and Mount, swinging a knobbed stick; another man followed, then another. Mount had leaped to his feet and backed up to my side.
"It's Billy Bishop's gang!" he said, thickly. "Leave me, lad, or they'll take us both!"
Before I could comprehend what was on foot, half a dozen men suddenly surrounded Mount, and silently began to close in on him.
"Go!" muttered Mount, fiercely, pushing me violently from him.
"No, you don't!" said a cool voice at my elbow; "we want the Weasel, too, for all his fine clothes!"
The next instant a man in a red neck-cloth had seized my hands in a grip of iron, and, ere I knew what had happened, he clapped the gyves on one of my wrists. With a cry of rage and amazement I tore at my manacled hand, and, partly helpless as I was, I sprang at the fellow. He struck me a fierce blow with his cudgel, and ran around the edge of the swaying knot of human figures which was slowly bearing Mount to the ground.
Then Mount rose, hurling the pack from him, and striking right and left with his huge arms. I saw the nosegay fly into a shower of blossoms, and the silken ribbons flutter down under the trampling feet.
For a moment I caught Mount's eye, as he stood like a deeply breathing bull at bay, then swinging the steel manacle which was locked on my right wrist, I beat my way to Mount's side, and faced the thief-taker and his bailiffs.
They rushed us against the fence of the burying-ground, bruising us with their heavy cudgels, and knocking the war-hatchet from Mount's fist. I had my sword out, but could not use it, the manacles on my wrist clogging the guard and confusing me. In the uproar around us I heard cries of: "Death to the highwaymen!" "Kill the rogues!" A vast crowd was surging up on all sides; soldiers drew their hangers and pushed their way to the side of the baffled bailiffs.