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Rifle-fire began to smack into the cotton. Mallory ducked down again.
"Fine emplacements, cotton-bales," said Brian with satisfaction, patting the
burlapped floor.
"Hickory Jackson hid behind 'em in New Orleans, and gave us a toweling, too."
"What happened in the office-room, Brian?" Tom asked.
"Fellow rolled himself a sort of papirosi," Brian said. "Know those? Turkish
baccy-wraps.
'Cept the bugger took an eye-dropper from a little medical vial, dribbled it
about on the paper first, then wrapped some queer leaf from a candy jar. I'd a
proper look at his face when he lit his smoke from the candle, and he'd a very
absent look, deluded you might say, rather like brother
Ned here with one of his scholarly problems!" Brian laughed drily, meaning no
harm. "Scarcely seemed right to disturb his fancy then, so I took a rifle and
a box or two real quiet-like, and left!"
Tom laughed.
"You'd a good look, eh?" Mallory asked.
"Surely."
"Fellow had a bump on his forehead, right here?"
"Damme if he didn't!"
"That was Captain Swing," Mallory said.
"Then I'm a chuckleheaded fool!" Brian cried. "Didn't seem right to shoot a
man in the back, but if I'd knowed it was him I'd have blowed his lumpy
headpiece off!"
"Doctor Edward Mallory!" a voice cried, from the darkened floor below.
Mallory rose, peered around a bale. The Marquess of Hastings stood below them,
his head bandaged and a lantern in one hand. He waved a white kerchief on a
stick.
"Leviathan Mallory, a parley with you!" the Marquess shouted.
"Speak up then," Mallory said, careful not to show his head.
"You're trapped here, Dr. Mallory! But we've an offer for you. If you'll tell
us where you've hidden a certain object of value, which you stole, then we'll
let you and your brothers go free.
But your police-spy from the Special Bureau must stay. We have questions for
him."
Mallory laughed him to scorn. "Hear me, Hastings, and all the rest of you!
Send us that maniac
Swing and his murdering tart, with their hands bound! Then we'll let the rest
of you creep out of here before the Army comes!"
"A show of insolence avails you nothing," the Marquess said. "We shall fire
that cotton, and you'll roast like a brace of rabbits!"
Mallory turned. "Can he do that?"
"Cotton won't burn worth a hang when it's packed tight as this," Brian
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theorized.
"Surely, burn it!" Mallory shouted. "Burn down the whole godown and smother to
death in the smoke."
"You've been very bold. Dr. Mallory, and very lucky. But our choicest men
patrol the streets of Limehouse now, liquidating the police! Soon they shall
return, hardened soldiers, veterans of
Manhattan! They'll take your little hideaway by storm, at the point of the
bayonet! Come out now, while you've yet a chance to live!"
"We fear no Yankee rabble! Bring 'em on, for a taste of grapeshot!"
"We've made our offer! Reason it through, like a proper savant!"
"Go to hell," Mallory said. "Send me Swing; I want to talk to Swing! I've had
my fill of you, you poncey little traitor."
The Marquess retreated. After some moments, a desultory firing began. Mallory
expended half a box of cartridges, returning fire at the muzzle-flashes.
The anarchists then commenced the painful work of advancing a siege-engine. It
was an improvised phalanx of three heavy dolly-carts, their fronts lashed with
a sloping armor of marbled table-tops. The rolling armor was too wide to fit
down the crooked alley to the cotton-bales, so the rebels dug their way
through the heaps of goods, piling them up by the flanks of the freight-
dollies. Mallory wounded two of them at their work, but they grew wiser with
experience, and soon had erected a covered walkway behind the advancing
siege-works.
There seemed to be far more men in the warehouse now. It had grown darker yet,
but lantern-
light showed here and there and the iron beams were full of snipers. There was
loud talk --
argument it seemed -- to add to the groans of the wounded.
The siege-works crept closer yet. They were now below Mallory's best
line-of-fire. If he exposed himself in an attempt to lean over the ramparts,
without doubt the snipers would hit him.
The siege-works reached the base of the cotton-bales. There was a sound of
shredding at the base of the wall.
A warped and muffled voice -- assisted perhaps by a megaphone -- sounded from
within the siege-
works. "Dr. Mallory!"
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"Yes?"
"You asked for me -- here I am! We are toppling the wall of your palace, Dr.
Mallory. Soon you will be quite exposed."
"Hard work for a professional gambler. Captain Swing! Don't blister your
delicate hands!"
Tom and Fraser, who had been working in tandem, toppled a heavy cotton-bale
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