Jope's. It _ought_ to have sounded on board
H.M.S. _Poseidon_.
As the crowd to right and left of him surged to its feet, he saw at
intervals along the gallery, sailor after sailor leap up with drawn
cutlass. He saw some forcing their way to the exits; and as the
packed throng, swaying backwards, bore him to the giddy edge of the
gallery rails, he saw the whole audience rise from their seats with
white upturned faces.
"The Press!" called someone. Half a dozen, then twenty, then a
hundred voices took up the cry:
"The Press! The Press!"
He turned. What had become of Mr. Jope?
What, indeed? Cutlass between teeth, Mr. Jope had heaved himself
over the gallery rail, caught a pillar between his dangling feet, and
slid down it to the Upper Circle; from the Upper Circle to the Dress
Circle; from the Dress Circle to the Pit. A dozen seamen hurrahed
and followed him. To the audience screaming, scattering before them,
they paid no heed at all. Their eyes were on their leader, and in
silence, breathing hard, each man's teeth clenched upon his cutlass,
they hounded after him and across the Pit at his heels.
It may be that this vivid reproduction of his alleged exploit off
Pernambuco for the moment held Mr. Orlando B. Sturge paralysed.
At any rate, he stood by the footlights staring, with a face on which
resentment faded into amaze, amaze into stupefaction.
It is improbable that he dreamed of any personal danger until the
moment when Mr.
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