While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from her protector’s arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
“Trust her with me; I am a medical man,” said Dr. John.
“If you have no lady with you, be it so,” was the answer. “Hold her, and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air.”
“I have a lady,” said Graham; “but she will be neither hindrance nor incumbrance.”
He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I could not get between or over.
“Fasten on me, and don’t leave go,” he said; and I obeyed him.
Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the flesh-and-blood rock—so solid, hot, and suffocating—and brought us to the fresh, freezing night.
“You are an Englishman!” said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when we got into the street.
“An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?” was the reply.
“Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my carriage.”