tween two fires."

The pressure was now terrible, the crowd yielding to the attack from
both directions, and yells, wild cries, and groans rose in one horrible
mingling, as for a few minutes the seething mass of people were driven
together in the centre formed by the carriages; and from where he sat,
gazing wildly at the chaos of tossing arms and wild faces, whose owners
seemed now to be thinking of nothing but struggling for their lives,
Frank could see men climbing over their fellows' heads, dashing in
windows, and seeking safety by climbing into the houses, whose occupants
in many cases reached down to drag people up out of the writhing mass
beneath. In half a dozen places streams could be seen setting into the
side streets; and mingled with the attacking party, dragoons of the
escort, perfectly helpless, were pressed slowly along, and in every
instance with one, sometimes with two men mounted behind them.

Frank caught these things at a glance, while his and the captain's
mounts were being slowly forced farther away from the carriages, which
were once more stationary, jammed in by the densest portion of the
crowd.

And now, without a thought of his own safety, the boy's heart began to
beat high, for not a single dragoon was near the prisoners, and some
strange movement was evidently taking place there, but what, it was some
moments before he could see.

It seemed to him that several people there had been injured, and that
those between him and the first carriage had been crushed to death,
while the crowd were passing the bodies over their heads face upward
toward the narrow side street up which an effort had been made to drag
the carriages.

As far as he could make out by the lamplight, that was it evidently, and
so strangely interested was the lad, so fascinated by the sight, that he
paid no heed to a couple more volleys fired to right and left. For the
moment he hardly knew why he was watching this. Then it came home to
him as he twice over saw a gleam as of metal on one of the bodies which
floated as it were over a forest of hands and glided onward toward and
up the side street.

"Look, boy! Do you see?" said Captain Murray, with his lips close to
the lad's ear. "They have dragged the prisoners out, and are passing
them over the heads of the crowd."

Frank nodded his head sharply without turning to the speaker, for he
could not remove his eyes from the scene till the last fettered figure
had passed