No sooner had she gone than I slipped the flute in my pocket and prepared to take a hand in the defence. As I had no other weapons I had to employ my hands. Had the conditions been equal I could have wished no better. But they were little likely to prevail against superior numbers, armed with staves. Indeed, from the first, submission would have been the wiser course for us all, as the gypsies were at such a disadvantage that they had no chance. Yet blows were dealt with mighty goodwill on both sides; sometimes the upholders of the law went down, but more often the breakers of it. Presently two fellows with cudgels in their hands made to seize me by the collar, whereon I dealt the most assiduous of the twain so shrewd a crack on the point of the jawbone as laid him low. The other fellow came at me furiously with his stave, and I had barely time to whisk my head aside and so get it clear of the blow that was aimed at it. I was hastening to follow up this delicate attention with a few of my own, when a third adversary unseen came behind me, and gave me such a tap at the side of the head as brought me to the ground bleeding and half insensible. Before I could make any attempt to gather myself again, a pair of knees were in the middle of my chest, and a strong hand half choked the life out of my throat. I was in no condition to kick or struggle much; but whatever the philosophy of my temper in the piping times of peace, devil a bit did I exercise of it now. Bleeding and breathless as I was, I resisted with what was in the circumstances an absurd tenacity; and it was some little time, after a great display of energy on both sides that two or three of my enemies ultimately secured me, bound my hands and raised me to my feet. And I hope the reader will observe that I again insist that it took two or three persons to conclude this unfortunate business, as it did to inaugurate it. I know not what vain glory it is in a man that makes him so punctilious in matters of this sort. By the time I had been overcome and raised on to my feet in fetters, the affair was almost decided. There could be but one ending; and very soon the unfortunate gypsies were all of them captive too, with cords round their wrists, and most of them bloody of bearing. No time was lost in marching us away to the nearest magistrate. There seemed about a score of armed men to take the custody of us. In the haste with which everything was carried out, in the uncertain moonlight, and in the dull vague condition of mind that the shock of events, to name only one cause, had induced, I had not the smallest opportunity of taking farewell of Cynthia. Nor had she any means of approaching me, seeing how sedulously we were guarded, and how promptly we were marched away.