第23章 CHAPTER VI THE GRIP OF BRITISH LAW(5)

"Well done!" cried the Sergeant, in cheerful approval, "you are the lad! We will just be teaching these chaps a fery good lesson, whateffer," continued the Sergeant, lapsing in his excitement into his native dialect. "Here you," he cried to the big Dalmatian who was struggling and kicking in a frenzy of fear and rage, "will you not keep quiet? Take that then." And he laid no gentle tap with his baton across the head of his captive.

The Dalmatian staggered to the wall and collapsed. There was a flash of steel and a click, and he lay handcuffed and senseless at the Sergeant's side.

"I hate to do that," said the Sergeant apologetically, "but on this occasion it cannot be helped. That was a good one, Doctor," he continued, as the doctor planted his left upon an opposing Galician chin, thereby causing a sudden subsidence of its owner. "These men have not got used to us yet, and we will just have to be patient with them," said the Sergeant, laying about with his baton as opportunity offered, not in any slashing wholesale manner, but making selection, and delivering his blows with the eye and hand of an artist. He was handling the situation gently and with discretion. Still the crowd kept pressing hard upon the two men at the door.

"We must put a stop to this," said the Sergeant seriously. "Here you!" he called to Jacob above the uproar.

Jacob pushed nearer to him.

"Tell these fellows that I am not wanting to hurt any of them, but if they do not get quiet soon, I will attack them and will not spare them, and that if they quit their fighting, none of them will be hurt except the guilty party."

At once Jacob sprang upon a beer keg and waving his arms wildly, he secured a partial silence, and translated for them the Sergeant's words.

"And tell them, too," said the doctor in a high, clear voice, "there is a man dying over there that I have got to attend to right now, and I haven't time for this foolishness."

As he spoke, he once more bored his way through the crowd to the side of Rosenblatt, who was continuing to gasp painfully and spit blood. The moment of danger was past. The excited crowd settled down again into an appearance of stupid anxiety, awaiting they knew not what.

"Now then," said the Sergeant, turning to the Dalmatian who had recovered consciousness and was standing sullen and passive. He had made his attempt for liberty, he had failed, and now he was ready to accept his fate. "Ask him what is his name," said the Sergeant.

"He say his name John Jarema."

"And what has he got to say for himself?"

At this the Dalmatian began to speak with eager gesticulation.

"What is he saying?" enquired the Sergeant.

"Dis man say he no hurt no man. Dis man," pointing to the dead Polak, "play cards, fight, stab knife into his arm," said Jacob, pulling up the Dalmatian's coat sleeve to show an ugly gash in the forearm. "Jarema bit him on head, shake him bad, and trow him in corner on noder man."

Again the Dalmatian broke forth.

"He say he got no knife at all. He cannot make hole like dat wit' his finger."

"Well, we shall see about that," said the Sergeant. "Now where is that other man?" He turned toward the corner. The corner was empty. "Where has he gone?" said the Sergeant, peering through the crowd for a black-whiskered face.

The man was nowhere to be seen. The Sergeant was puzzled and angered. He lined the men up around the walls, but the man was not to be found. As each man uttered his name, there were always some to recognize and to corroborate the information. One man alone seemed a stranger to all in the company. He was clean shaven, but for a moustache with ends turned up in military manner, and with an appearance of higher intelligence than the average Galician.

"Ask him his name," said the Sergeant.

The man replied volubly, and Jacob interpreted.