“That’s a good idea,” replied Brown. “Mr. Harrington, come and help me to stand the rush.”
He moved to the door accompanied by Harrington.
“Hallo, there!” roared Brown. “Stand back. I’m going to open the door.”
There was a sudden retrograde rush, with a swarming clamor of voices, and sliding back the bolt, Brown flung the door open, and with Harrington by his side, sprang upon the threshold.
“Back, now!” he shouted. “See here, I want some of you in here. Come in as I call you. The rest wait.”
With his eye roving over the crowd, he called about thirty names in succession, the men passing in between him and Harrington, as they were summoned. Toward the end of the roll-call, Tugmutton appeared, and darted into the room between the legs of Harrington, who tried to stop him.
“Now, then, gentlemen,” said Brown, in his grandiose way, addressing the gaping crowd of negroes and mulattoes outside, “you wait there, and we’ll be out soon.”
With that, he and Harrington withdrew, bolting the door again. The first thing Harrington saw, was the infuriated Tugmutton lightly prancing around the wincing and crouching slaveholder, and punching and butting him without mercy, and in perfect silence. Nothing could have more completely indicated Lafitte’s utter prostration of spirit than his submission to the pummelling he was receiving. Muriel was in the inner room, bending over Roux, and the body of negroes, all grinning, were the only witnesses, besides Harrington and Brown, of this extraordinary transaction.
“Hallo there, Charles!” cried Harrington, “stop that!”
Tugmutton, who had just lifted his short, knurly leg for a kick, which would have been like the kick of a Shetland pony, let his foot fall, and stood, his broad limbs all dispread, and his blobber-cheeks puffed out with rage under his shocks of wool. Harrington’s eye was on him, or he would have given the enemy of his race a parting thump of one sort or another; but as it was, he slunk off in the sulks to the adjoining room.