"Give up, Jack Mount!" cried the stout man with the red neck-cloth—"give up, in the King's name! It's all over with you now! I've run you from Johnstown on a broad trail, God wot! and I want your brush and pads, old fox!"
Mount displayed his broad knife coolly. The sunlight played over the blade of the murderous weapon; the crowd around us broke into a swelling roar.
Suddenly a soldier struck heavily at Mount with his hanger, but Mount sent the sword whirling with the broad, short blade in his hand.
"If you'll let this gentleman go, I'll give up," said Mount, sullenly. "Answer me, Billy Bishop!"
"Come, come," said Bishop, in a bantering voice, "we know all about this gentleman, Jack. Don't you worry; we'll take care he has a view of the Roxbury Cross-road as well as you!"
The taunt of the cross-roads gallows transformed Mount into a demon. He hurled his huge bulk at the solid mass of people; I followed, making what play I could with my small-sword, but in a moment I was down in the dust, blood pouring from my face, groping blindly for the enemies who were already clapping the irons on my other wrist.
Through the roar and tumult of frantic voices I was dragged into a stony street, crushed into the pit of a crowd, which hurried me on resistlessly. White, excited faces looked into mine; hundreds of clinched fists tossed above the dense masses on either side. Again and again I plunged at those who drove me, but they thrust me onward. Far ahead in the throng I saw the head and shoulders of Jack Mount overtopping them all.
The mob halted at a cross-street to allow a cavalcade of horsemen to pass. Above the heads of the people I could see the cavalry riding, sabres bared, the riders glancing curiously down at the rabble and its prisoners. A coach passed, escorted by dragoons; a gentleman looked out to seek the reason of the uproar. From his coach window his head leaned so close to me that I could have touched it. The gentleman was Walter Butler.
"A thief, sir," cried a bailiff; "taken by Bishop on the Mall. Would your lordship be pleased to see his comrade, the notorious Jack Mount?"
"Drive on," said Butler, impassively. Then the crowd began to hoot and jeer as the bailiffs pushed me forward once more through the dust of Cornhill up Queen Street.