SEVENTH BOOK
THE RESURRECTION
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE WAY OF THE CROSS
There had been wild doings in Douglas since the Chief Constable's visit to Government House. Stones had been thrown and windows broken. At length the Mayor, not without personal risk, had read the Riot Act from the steps of the Town Hall.
The result had been the reverse of what the Governor expected. The police, a small force, had charged the mob with their batons, but they had soon been overpowered. Then the soldiers from Castletown, a little company of eighty, had attempted to intimidate the crowd with their rifles, but twice as many stalwart fishermen, coming up behind, had disarmed them. After that the people had surged through the streets in delirious triumph.
At ten o'clock the throng was densest outside Government Office, which stands midway on the steep declivity of the Prospect Hill. The police and the soldiers had as much as they could do to guard the doors of the building. The space in front of it was packed with people of both sexes and all ages. They were squirming about like worms on an upturned sod. There were loud shouts and derisive cries.
"Down with the Governor!"
"Tell him the steamer leaves for England at nine in the morning."
Suddenly, with the rapidity of a desert wind, word went through the crowd that mounted soldiers from England had just been landed at the pier, and were riding up the principal thoroughfares, driving everything before them.
A cold fear came, culminating in terror. Presently the cavalry were seen to turn the bottom of the hill. They were swinging the flats of their swords to scatter the crowd. The people screamed and ran in frantic haste to the parapets on either side of the street. In a moment the broad space in front of Government Office was clear.
Clear, save for one tiny object. It was a child, a little girl of four, who had been clinging to her mother's skirts and in the scramble had lost her hold of them.