'Good people,' he shouted, so that all could hear, 'I beg of you to retire. You see for yourselves that we are able to oppose you, and already numbers of your brothers have fallen. Let that suffice. Go now before worse happens.'
For one whole minute, perhaps, there was silence outside, while not a man moved. No doubt the opposition had taken the mob by surprise, for elsewhere they had been able to rob and murder without danger or difficulty. The sight of wounded and fallen men unnerved a few, and made them wish that the stairway were not so crammed and that retreat were possible. But deep embedded in the hearts of the majority was the knowledge that they were hungry, and that failure here meant starvation. It needed, therefore, but a tiny spark to kindle their courage once more. The rascally fellow who had so nearly hit the Professor on two occasions was still at hand, and he it was who quickly had them once more racing for the barrier.
'It is a dodge,' he shouted. 'Believe not the foreign devil. Pull the barricade aside and you have every bag of food that belongs to these people. Hesitate now, and go on your way. What will happen? You will starve. You will leave your bones by the road. The dogs and the wolves will come and feed off your carcases. Forward, then. There is food, and plenty of it behind that barricade.'
He led a silent host at once against the defenders, a host frantic with its woes, rendered as fierce as any pack of wolves by its privations. And in a trice it seemed that it must succeed. Even the lusty blows of the two Chinamen and the shots of those at the loopholes failed to keep it back. Already a foot or more of the barricade had toppled over, while a dozen of the men outside had again seized the battering-ram. And then, so fickle and so changing is fortune in such matters, a small affair turned the scale in favour of the defenders. The excitement of those who were unable, because of their position on the stairway, to join in the contest was so intense that they struggled and pushed their way downward in spite of all difficulties till the covered way was crammed. But still they came till even those struck by the bullets from the loopholes could not fall on account of the press. Then someone above bellowed a warning.