Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/211

Rh ye call? Yer's fifty men; the returns are agin ye, and two precincts yet to hear from." (This was a double thrust: at Hall's former career as a gambler, and the closeness of his late election vote.) "All right, send 'em up by express—mark 'em C.O.D." (The previous speaker was the expressman.) "Blank you! Git!"

"Blank you! Come on!"

Here there was a rush at the door, the accidental discharge of a pistol, and the window was slammed down. Words ceased, deeds began.

A few hours before, Hall had removed his prisoner from the uncertain tenure and accessible position of the cells below to the open court-room of the second floor, inaccessible by windows, and lit by a skylight in the roof, above the reach of the crowd, whose massive doors were barricaded by benches and desks. A smaller door at the side, easily secured, was left open for reconnoitering. The approach to the court-room was by a narrow stairway, half-way down whose length Gabriel had thrust the long court-room table as a barricade to the besiegers. The lower outer door, secured by the sheriff, after the desertion of his underlings, soon began to show signs of weakening under the vigorous battery from without. From the landing the two men watched it eagerly. As it slowly yielded, the sheriff drew back toward the side door and beckoned Gabriel to follow; but with a hasty sign Gabriel suddenly sprang forward, and dropped beneath the table as the door with a crash fell inward, beaten from its hinges. There was a rush of trampling feet to the stairway, a cry of baffled rage over the impeding table, a sudden scramble up and upon it, and then, as if on its own volition, the long table suddenly reared itself on end, and, staggering a moment, toppled backward with its clinging human burden, on the heads of the thronging mass below. There was a cry, a sudden stampede of the Philistines to the street, and Samson, rising to his feet, slowly walked to the side door, and re-entered the court -room. But at the same instant an agile besieger, who, unnoticed, had crossed the Rubicon, darted from his concealment, and dashed by Gabriel into the room. There was' a shout from the sheriff, the door was closed hastily, a shot and the intruder fell. But the next moment he staggered to his knees, with outstretched hands, "Hold up! I'm yer to help ye!"

It was Jack Hamlin! haggard, dusty, grimy; his gay feathers bedraggled, his tall hat battered, his spotless shirt torn open at the throat, his eyes and cheeks burning with fever, the blood dripping from the bullet wound in his leg, but still Jack Hamlin, strong and audacious. By a common instinct both men dropped their weapons, ran and lifted him in their arms.

"There, shove that chair under me! that'll do," said Hamlin, coolly. "We're even now, Joe Hall; that shot wiped out old scores, even if it has crippled me, and lost ye my valuable aid! Dry up! and listen to me, and then leave me here! There's but one way of escape. It's up there!" (he pointed to the skylight); "the rear wall hangs over the Wingdam ditch and gully. Once on the roof, you can drop over with this rope, which you must unwind from my body, for I'm blanked if I can do it myself. Can you reach the skylight?"

"There's a step-ladder from the gallery," said the sheriff, joyously; "but won't they see us, and be prepared?"

"Before they can reach the gully by going round, you'll be half a mile away in the woods. But what in blank are you waitin' for? Go! You can hold on here for ten minutes more if they attack the same point; but if they think of the skylight and fetch ladders, you're gone in! Go!"

There was another rush on the staircase without; the surging of an immense wave against the heavy folding doors, the blows of pick and crowbar, the gradual yielding of the barricade a few inches, and the splintering of benches by a few pistol-shots fired through the springing crevices of the doors. And yet the sheriff hesitated. Suddenly Gabriel stooped down, lifted the wounded man to his shoulder as if he had been an infant, and, beckoning to the sheriff, started for the gallery. But he had not taken two steps before he staggered and lapsed heavily against Hall, who, in his turn, stopped and clutched the railing. At the same moment the thunder of the besiegers seemed to increase: not only the door, but the windows rattled, the heavy chandelier fell with a crash, carrying a part of the plaster and the elaborate cornice with it; a shower of bricks fell through the skylight, and a cry, quite distinct from anything heard before, rose from without. There was a pause in the hall, and then the sudden rush of feet down the staircase, and all was still again. The three men gazed in each other's whitened faces.

"An earthquake," said the sheriff.