were heard, hissed and whispered at the first, but rising into louder denunciations against the whole heathen brotherhood as it ran along the line. Fire was proposed to burn them out; but fear of general conflagrations brought forward those whose property would be endangered, and the plan was abandoned. Good citizens interposed their cooler counsel, but without avail. The opportunity for blood and plunder was too good to be lost. Revenge upon a weak and helpless race, upon those who had never injured them, upon those whose only crime was a too plodding industry, was likewise uppermost in the minds of many.
Presently one of the besieged attempted escape. With a hatchet in his hand he issued from one of the houses, and running along the front a short distance endeavored to cross the street, when he was captured by an officer, and led away toward the jail. The crowd followed crying "Hang him!" "Take him from Harris!" "Hang him!" One of the mob tried to plunge a knife into his back. He was a little Chinaman for such big revenge. Finally when half way or more to the prison he was taken from the not unwilling officer's hands and hanged, hanged to the crossbeam of a gateway convenient, bungingly hanged until the little fellow was very dead.
The dance of death was now fairly opened. Like the flames of a city burning, the conflagration of fiendish passion roared and surged round the hapless inmates of the Chinese block, as the crowd with brutal ferocity fell afresh to their sanguinary task. The sheriff with all his assistants sought now to divert the fury of the fiends. The citizens likewise lent their aid. But all in vain. Satan himself was piping for his own to dance.
With yells of savage blasphemy in answer to the cry for more blood, another rush was made upon the buildings. Mounting the roofs, they tore away the tiles and fired upon the inmates, an exultant yell following each successful shot. Wherever it was possible about
