The answering voices were those of men--strident, stern, distinctly threatening, and mingled with oaths. Then the woman spoke again; repeating her protest in angry tones; but her voice was now vibrant with rising alarm. “Silence!” The command broke her sentence in two, and her words died away in muffled indistinctness, suggesting that force had been used to secure obedience. Then a light was kindled; there was some scuffling along the passage; and they all appeared to enter a room. I paused, undecided what to do. The thing had a very ugly look; but I had had quite enough trouble to satisfy me for one night. I didn’t want to go blundering into an affair which might be no more than a family quarrel; especially as I was trespassing in the house. A few seconds later, however, came the sound of trouble; a blow, a groan, and the thud of a fall. I caught my breath in fear that the woman had been struck down. But the next instant a shrill piercing cry for help rang out in her voice, and this also was stifled as if a hand had been clapped on her mouth. That decided things for me. Whatever the consequences, I could not stop to think of them while a woman was in such danger as that cry for help had signalled. CHAPTER II DEVELOPMENTS My view of the trouble was that it was a case of robbery. The disordered condition of the city was sure to be used by the roughs as a cover for their operations; and I jumped to the conclusion that the woman whose cry I was answering had been decoyed to the house to be robbed. But as I ran down the stairs I heard enough to show me that it was in reality a sort of by-product of the riot in the streets. The woman was a prisoner in the hands of some of the mob, and they were threatening her with violence because she was, in their jargon, an enemy of the cause of the people. To my surprise it was against this that she was protesting so vehemently. Her speech, in strong contrast to that of the men, was proof of refinement and culture, while the little note of authority which I had observed at first suggested rank. It was almost inconceivable, therefore, that she could have anything in common with such fellows as her captors. The door of the room in which they all were stood slightly ajar, and as I reached it she reiterated her protest with passionate vehemence. “You are mad. I am your friend, not your enemy. I swear that. One of you must know Dr. Barosa. Find him and bring him here and he will bear out every word I have said.” [Illustration: “Holding my revolver in readiness, I entered.”] “That’s enough of that. Lies won’t help you,” came the reply in the same gruff bullying tone I had heard before. “Now, Henriques,” he added, as if ordering a comrade to finish the grim work. Holding my revolver in readiness, I entered. There were three of the rascals. Two had hold of the woman who knelt between them with her back to me, while the third, also with his back to me, was just raising a club to strike her.