ere's a riot in front of
the house--a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!"

At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang
through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe--pipe and stone falling
to the floor with a rumble and rattle--and from the mob rose murderous
yells.

So Joe was able to add:

"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn
fast."

"Right off!" snapped Headquarters.

Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out
into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a
frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief
glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but
human--wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the
air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing
civilized--but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over
with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than
anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the
fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under.

Joe tried to shout:

"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!"

But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him,
surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for
his throat--seized and shook the little beast.

"Get back!" he cried.

Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his
head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible
force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his
nostrils. He heard confused cries of: "Kill him! That's him! We've got
him!" Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then
something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him
and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the
troublous noise of life, far, far--into an engulfing blackness.

The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which
Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools.

Rann shouted.

"I'll break the head of any one who comes!"

The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their
heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went
the wrench--the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke
loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool.
Some one opened