The men on the porch watched that sinister mass with apprehension. The effect was far more suggestive than that of the noisier portion of the camp.
Suddenly the mass of men by the hospital stirred, heaved, and moved. From a hundred throats came a dull roar.
“Rigas is dead,” said Loring, shutting his watch with a snap.
The crowd of men by the hospital began to roll towards the mess. As a huge swell rolls in from the sea, so the black mass, swaying, rising, falling, swept on. As it drew nearer, the white of the men’s faces stood out in the glare of the electric lights even as the foam upon that wave.
“Put out the porch lights!” yelled Knowlton.
“I am manager here, and they stay lit,” shouted Loring back to him.
Even as the surf curls before breaking and sweeping up the beach, so the wave of men seemed to rise and draw itself together, before surging up the steps.
Stephen had stepped forward to the edge of the steps in front of Knowlton. He raised his fist for silence, and such was the compelling force in his eyes that for a moment he was obeyed. But as he started to speak, a great hiss arose from the crowd, like the sound of escaping steam from some giant locomotive. Loring gripped the railing of the porch hard, and again shouted something.
“God, he’s crazy!” yelled Knowlton to McKay. “He is going to try and argue.” Knowlton’s hand lay tightly on the gun in his belt.
“Steve has lost his head again,” thought McKay bitterly. “I might have known that he didn’t have the stuff in him.”