that they were forming a body-guard to protect Mr. Augustus Sheppard. She could now see Sheppard's face distinctly. It was pale, and full of surprise and wrath; but there did not seem much of fear about it. On the contrary, Mr. Sheppard seemed to be a sort of prisoner among his protectors and guardians. Apparently they were forcing him away from a scene where they believed there was danger for him, and he was endeavouring to argue against them, and almost to resist their friendly pressure. All this Minola, having tolerably quick powers of observation, took in, or believed she took in, at a glance.

The policemen and some of the civilians with them were knocking at the door of the hotel, and apparently expostulating with some of the people within. At first Minola could not understand the meaning of this. Mr. Blanchet was quicker. He guessed what was going on, and by leaning as far as his long form allowed him over the balcony he was able to hear some of the words of parley.

"I say," he said, drawing back his head, "this is rather too good. This fellow-what's-his-name? Sheppard-is the unpopular candidate now, and the mob is after him, and these policemen are asking the people to take him in here, and bring all the row on us. I do hope they won't do that. What do we care about the fellow? Why should we run any risks if the police themselves can't protect him ?” Mr. Blanchet was very pale.

"For shame, Mr. Blanchet!" Minola said indignantly. "Would you leave him to be killed?”

"Oh, they won't kill him! you may be sure

"No, not if we can save him," Minola said. "These people shall take him in! Lucy, these rooms belong to your father now— run to them and insist on their letting him in. I'll go down myself and open the doors, and bring him in."

They shall let him in," Lucy exclaimed, and ran downstairs. Minola was about to follow her.

"This is very generous," said Blanchet, with a sickly effort at composure, "but it is very unwise, Miss Grey. I don't know that in the absence of Mr. Money I ought to allow you to expose yourselves to such risks."

"Try if you can hinder us, Mr. Blanchet! For shame! Yes, I am ashamed of you. Oh, no, don't talk to me! I am sorry to find that you are a coward."

With this hard word she left him and ran downstairs. Just at this moment he heard the doors opened, in compliance with the insistance of Lucy. He heard her say with a certain firm dignity,

which he had hardly expected to find in the little maid, that if any harm were done to the hotel because of Mr. Sheppard being taken in her father would make it good to the owner. Then, in a moment, the two girls returned, doing the honours as hostesses to Mr. Sheppard.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ALL THE RIVALS AT ONCE.

MR. SHEPPARD made what he must have felt to be a sort of triumphal entrance. Perhaps he might have said with perfect truth, in the language appropriate to election contests, that that was the proudest moment of his life. He was almost dragged into the room by the two breathless girls, who, in the generous delight of having saved him from danger, seemed as if they could not make too much of him. He felt Minola's hand on his, as she forced him into the room. She would not let him go until she had fairly brought him into the room and closed the door behind him. For Mr. Sheppard had really resisted with some earnestness the attempt to make him prisoner for his own safety. The genial constraint of Minola's hand was a delight. There was, less perceptibly to himself, another sensation of delight in his heart also. He had for the first time in his life been in serious danger, and he knew that he had not been afraid. It is no wonder if he felt a little like a hero now.

He came in a good deal flushed, and even, if we may say so, rumpled; but he made a gallant effort to keep up his composure. The first sight he met in the room was the pale, pitiful, angry, and scowling face of the insulted Blanchet. "Are they going to embrace the fellow?" the embittered poet asked of his indignant soul, as he saw the unpopular candidate thus led forward by the eager girls.

Blanchet fell back into a corner, not deigning to say a word of welcome to the rescued Sheppard. Mr. Sheppard, however, hardly noticed him.

"I am sorry to disturb you, ladies," he said; "and I am obliged beyond measure for your kindness. I am not afraid myself of any danger in Keeton, but the police thought some disturbance might happen, and they insisted on my going out of the streets; but I shall be able to relieve you of this intrusion in a few minutes, I feel quite certain."

"You shan't stir from this place, Mr. Sheppard, until everything is perfectly safe and quiet," Minola said. "If necessary, Lucy-Miss

Money-and I will hold you prisoner until all danger is over. We are not afraid either."

At this moment there was such a renewal of the clamour that Minola could not restrain her curiosity, but, having begged Mr. Sheppard to remain where he was, and not show himself, she ran into the balcony again.

so unusual, that

The sight she saw was so turbulent, and to her for a second or two she could make nothing of it. She saw only a confusion of heads and faces, and whirling arms and lights, and men falling, and furious blows interchanged, and the confusion was made almost bewildering by the shouting, the screaming, and the curses and yells of triumph which seemed to her excited ears to fill all the air. At last she got to understand, as if by a kind of inspiration, that a fierce mob were trying to break into the hotel, and that the police were doing their best to defend it. The poor police were getting the worst of it. At the same time she was aware of a certain commotion in the room behind her, which she felt somehow was occasioned by the efforts of Mr. Sheppard to get out at any risk to' himself, and the attempts of Lucy and some of the servants to dissuade him. To this, however, Minola now could pay but slight attention. She felt herself growing sick and faint with horror as she saw one policeman struck down, and saw the blood streaming from his face. She could not keep from a wild cry. Suddenly her attention was drawn away even from this; for in a moment, she could not tell how, a diversion seemed to be effected in the struggle, and Minola saw that Heron and Mr. Money were in the thick of it.

Her first impulse was to spring back into the room and tell Lucy of her father's danger. Luckily, however, she had sense enough to restrain this mad impulse, and not to set Lucy wild with alarm to no possible purpose. She saw that Heron, at the head of a small, resolute body of followers, had fought his way in a moment into the very heart of the crowd, and was by the side of the policemen. He dragged to his feet the fallen policeman; he seized with vehement strength one after another of those who were pressing most fiercely on the poor fellow; she could see two or three of these in succession flung backwards in the crowd; she could see that Heron had some shining thing in his hand which she assumed to be a revolver; and she put her hands to her ears with a woman's instinctive horror of the sound which she expected to follow; and, when no sound came, she wondered why Heron did not use his weapon and defend the police. She could see Mr. Money engaged now in furious remonstrance and now in furious blows with some of the mob, whom he appeared to

drag, and push, and drive about, as if there were no such thing in the world as the possibility of harm to himself, or of his getting the worst of it. For a while the resolute energy of the attempt at rescue made by Heron and Money appeared to carry all before it; but after a moment or two the mob saw how small was the number of those who were trying to effect the diversion. As Minola came to know afterwards, Heron and Money had only heard in another part of the town that a riot was going on near the hotel, and hurried on with half a dozen friends, arriving just at a very critical moment. They came by the same way as the police and Sheppard had come, and, falling on the mob unexpectedly, made for a moment a very successful diversion. But they were soon surrounded by the rallying crowd, and Minola saw her two friends receive many savage blows, and she wondered in all her wild alarm how they seemed to make so little of them, but went on struggling, striking, knocking down, just as before. Above all she wondered why Victor Heron did not use his revolver to defend his friends and himself, not knowing, as Victor did, that the weapon was good for nothing. At least, it was good for nothing. just then but inarticulate dumb show. He had not loaded it, never thinking that there was the least chance of his having to use it ; and, indeed, it was only by the merest chance that he happened to have it in his pocket. Such as it was, however, it had done him some service thus far; for more than one sturdy rioter had fallen back in sudden dismay, and given Victor a chance to knock his heels from under him when he found the muzzle of the revolver close to his forehead. This could not last long. The mob began to understand both the numbers and the weapons of their enemies. The police fought with redoubled pluck and energy for a while, but the combatants were all too crowded together to allow coolness and discipline to tell, as they might have done otherwise; and the numbers were overwhelming against our friends. Just as Minola saw Victor Heron struck with a stone on the head, and saw the red blood come streaming, she heard some one beside her in the balcony.

"Go back, Lucy," she cried; "go back!--this is no place for you."

"Is it a place for you, Miss Grey?" a melancholy voice asked. "It is not Lucy; it is I. You said I was a coward, Miss Grey; I'll show you that you have wronged me."

The poet, for all his excitement, was as grandly theatric as was his wont. He looked calmly over the exciting scene, and tried to keep his lips from quivering at its decidedly unpleasant aspect. That fierce savage, unromantic, and even vulgar struggle was in truth a hideous

whirlpool for a picturesque poet to plunge into. Yet was Mr. Blanchet's mind made up.

"Oh, Mr. Blanchet, they will be killed!"

"Who?—who?" the poet cried, peering wildly down into the horrible mob-caldron below.

"Oh, don't you see?-Mr. Heron, Mr. Heron-and Lucy's father! Oh, merciful heaven, he is down-they will kill him!"

"I'll save him," the poet wildly exclaimed; "I'll save him, Miss Grey, or perish with him!" He was armed with a poker, which he flourished madly round his head.

Even at that moment Minola was startled to see Blanchet preparing to scramble over the balcony, and fling himself that way into the thick of the fight.

"Oh, don't, don't!" she cried to him; "you will be killed." He smiled back a wild smile.

"At least you shall say I am no coward," he exclaimed; and in another moment he had scrambled over the balcony and dropped himself, floundering, poker in hand, on the moving mass of heads below.

At any other moment Minola might have thought of the prayer in "Firmilian" for a poet to be sent down from above, and the unexpected and literal manner in which the prayer is answered. At any other moment, perhaps, she might have found it hard to restrain her laughter at the manner in which Mr. Blanchet came crashing down on the heads of some of the combatants, and the consternation which his descent created among them. At his first coming down he carried a dozen or so of combatants tumbling on the ground along with him, and Minola in her Rebecca-post of observation could see nothing but a confused mass of struggling legs and arms. But Mr. Blanchet somehow scrambled to his feet again, and he laid about him with his poker in such insane fashion, and with such advantage of long arms, that his single and wholly untutored prowess did really for the moment effect an unexpected diversion in favour of those he came to rescue. In a moment Minola saw Victor Heron on his feet again; and she saw him amid all the thick of the affray give Blanchet an encouraging and grateful clap on the back; and then she thought she saw Blanchet down again; and then confusion inextricable seemed to swallow up all.

All this, it will be understood, occupied but a few minutes. Suddenly the trampling of horses was heard, and a cry was raised that the cavalry were coming.

"Oh, thank God!" Minola said to herself and to the night air; "if it be not too late."