Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/479

Rh "Hell's broke loose down there, Mr. Halket," he said. "Come—take a look." He drew Floyd up to the window, which commanded a view of the roadway leading from the bridge to the river-bank. Lights were swinging and darting back and forth and across—lights green and red as well as yellow, for the trainmen's lanterns had been seized—and in the erratic illumination from all these it seemed to Floyd as if the whole population of New Rome must be massed down among the miUs. He could see the motion, the agitation in the crowd—people running far off to the left and right, solitary lantern-bearers making their way in the distance toward the river to be suddenly blotted out by some shed; and through the open window he could hear more distinctly than in the street the undertone of sound, the intermittent cries, the desultory rifle shots, once the staccato of a revolver.

"What's happened?" Floyd said, turning sharply away.

"They poured into the works all of a sudden at about half-past nine," Gregg answered. "I sent word down to the ferry below the bridge to intercept the Emerald Isle and the barges. But she was ahead of her schedule; and by the time my message reached the ferry, she'd passed under the bridge. There was no way of sending word out to her; the men had the bank all patrolled, and nobody could get out in a boat—or even yell an alarm. They let the Emerald Isle push the barges aground at the landing and cut loose; and then they began shooting when the watchmen showed their heads. The Emerald Isle tried to tow them off again when she saw what trouble they were in; and then the fire was turned on her; from what I hear, the pilot was wounded if not killed; anyhow, the Emerald Isle gave up trying to rescue anybody but herself, and got away as fast as she could. And ever since, those poor devils have been cooped up between decks of the barges, potted at by anybody in town that