I glanced at the mob, noted the signs that it was gathering courage for another attack, and was calculating on the risk of weakening our defense by ordering the men to carry Wharton Kendrick into the house, when I heard the door open behind me. There was a swift patter of footsteps on the walk, and Laura Kendrick flung herself on her knees beside me with a cry of grief and fear, and lifted her uncle’s head in her arms. "Oh," she cried with a choking voice, "have they killed him?" "No," I replied, "he’s alive. He will be all right in a little while." I hoped I was telling the truth. "We’ll get him into the house, and have a doctor to look after him as soon as we can drive this mob away. Please go in now. You may be hurt yourself if you stay." She had been wiping away the blood with her handkerchief, to the soft accompaniment of a crooning utterance, as though she were quieting a sick child. "Indeed, I shall not go in till he does," she said. "Do you think I shall leave him out here to be killed by those dreadful creatures?" "Please go," I said. "You can do nothing here, and the mob may begin firing at any minute." At the apparition of the girlish figure the rioters had hushed something of their wrathful cries, but I felt none the less apprehensive of their next act. As I spoke, with something of peremptoriness in my voice, Laura Kendrick started to her feet, but instead of returning to the house she walked hurriedly to the wall, and stood resolutely facing the crowd. "Come back!" I cried with dismay, and restrained my impulse to rush before her with the thought that I should be much more likely to incite than to prevent an attack. But instead of heeding my summons she began an indignant appeal to the men before her, trying to shame them at their errand. As her piquant voice rose on the air a terror gripped my throat at the thought of the response that her call might bring, but at her first words the crowd hushed to stillness, and I saw a man cuff a young hoodlum who uttered a catcall. The appeal of the slender figure facing the mob in the glare of the torches that had been brought to burn her house was a better protection for the moment than the revolvers of my men. "Do you think it manly to strike at the sick or at women? Do you think it right to try to murder your friends? You have struck down a man who never had an unkind word for you--who has done more than all of you put together to keep the Chinese out of the country. Do you think that is the way to help your cause? I don’t." The mob preserved an admirable silence, and she turned to me and said in low, excited tones, "Carry him into the house while they are behaving themselves." I had already given the order, and four of my men bore the stricken magnate up the steps and through the doors, while Laura spoke once more to the mob.