"Yes," she answered.
The first man began to shout, "Open this door! Want us to die like rats in a trap! Open this door!" There was a sound of splintering glass and the acrid smell of smoke.
"Fire!" squealed the girl in Michael's hold, fighting to free herself.
"Steady!" he soothed. "Let you be still now, till——"
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" It ran from solo shrieks into a frantic chorus. The middy blouse girl bit and clawed herself out of the Irishman's hands and he turned and faced Jane, his grasp on the rail above them, covering her with his body. "Lay hold of me," he commanded, and she locked her arms about his neck. The smoke-laden air was filled now with the sound of smashing windows, with labored breathing and moans and gasping sobs, with the dull impact of blows, with the grinding, rasping contact of tightly packed bodies. From time to time Michael called out to them to have patience, to have courage, to wait, and other voices echoed his words, but they were drowned out in the red sea of panic. Slowly, for all its insane haste, the crowd, that portion of it still on its feet, began to work its way through the shattered windows and doors into the black passage outside. The pressure against Jane and Michael was greatly lessened and she spoke with her lips close to his ear.
"Are we just to wait here until help comes?"
"We are just to wait here."
Presently she spoke again. "I am not afraid, M.D."
"I know you are not." He added a swift line in Gaelic.
When there was a cleared space about them, they sat down again on the seat, hand in hand, like good children. The air was growing difficult. "We must just wait until they come for us, mustn't we?" She was coughing a little.