wn! Get away at once or I will call
our men. As long as I am here you shall not touch the uak."

"So you take his part?" cried the biggest one of the invaders. He raised
a stick to strike her.

"Lay down your club, you dirty ear of corn," replied the maiden, "or you
will fare badly." With this she drew from under her wrap a heavy
war-club; it was the same weapon which Tyope had used the night
previous.

The boy's arm remained uplifted, but still the attitude of the girl, her
threatening look and resolute appearance, checked the assailants. Mitsha
stood with apparent composure, but her eyes sparkled and the expression
of her face denoted the utmost determination. Besides she was fully as
tall as most of her opponents, and the weapon she was holding in
readiness looked quite formidable. But the superior number of her
assailants exercised a certain pressure on these assailants themselves,
and the Indian under such circumstances has no thought of chivalrous
feeling. A dozen boys stood before the solitary maiden on the roof, and
they were not to be intimidated by her. For an instant only neither said
a word; then a threatening murmur arose. One of the lads called out to
the tallest of the crowd,--

"Strike her down, Shohona!"

A stone was thrown at her but missed its aim. At this moment the boys
nearest the brink of the roof were suddenly thrust aside right and left,
the one who had threatened Mitsha with his stick was pulled back and
jerked to one side violently, and before the astonished girl stood
Okoya. Pale with emotion, breathless, with heaving chest, and quivering
from excitement, he gasped to her,--

"Go down into the room; I will protect my brother." Then he turned to
face the assailants.

The scene on the roof had attracted a large number of spectators, who
had gathered below and were exchanging surmises and advice on the merits
of a case about which none of them really knew anything. Now a woman's
voice rose from amid this gaping and chattering crowd,--the sharp and
screechy voice of an angry woman. She shouted to those who were on the
roof,--

"Get down from my house! Get down, you scoundrels! If you want to kill
each other do it elsewhere, and not on my home!" With this the woman
climbed on to the roof. She seized the boy nearest to her by the hair
and pulled him fairly to the ground, so that the poor fellow howled
from pain. With the other hand she dealt blows and cuffs, and scratched
and punched ind