Before they had repeated their summons many times, a man
appeared upon the roof of the governor's house, and asked what it was
they wanted.
Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It
being now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throng
were not aware that any one had come to answer them, and continued their
clamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole
concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could be
heard with tolerable distinctness; during which interval the figure
remained perched alone, against the summer-evening sky, looking down
into the troubled street.
'Are you,' said Hugh at length, 'Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?'
'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding
him, took his answer from the man himself.
'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'
'You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master.'
'I have a good many people in my custody.' He glanced downward, as
he spoke, into the jail: and the feeling that he could see into the
different yards, and that he overlooked everything which was hidden from
their view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded the mob, that they
howled like wolves.
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