'Deliver up our friends,' said Hugh, 'and you may keep the rest.'
'It's my duty to keep them all. I shall do my duty.'
'If you don't throw the doors open, we shall break 'em down,' said Hugh;
'for we will have the rioters out.'
'All I can do, good people,' Akerman replied, 'is to exhort you to
disperse; and to remind you that the consequences of any disturbance in
this place, will be very severe, and bitterly repented by most of you,
when it is too late.'
He made as though he would retire when he said these words, but he was
checked by the voice of the locksmith.
'Mr Akerman,' cried Gabriel, 'Mr Akerman.'
'I will hear no more from any of you,' replied the governor, turning
towards the speaker, and waving his hand.
'But I am not one of them,' said Gabriel. 'I am an honest man, Mr
Akerman; a respectable tradesman--Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. You
know me?'
'You among the crowd!' cried the governor in an altered voice.
'Brought here by force--brought here to pick the lock of the great door
for them,' rejoined the locksmith. 'Bear witness for me, Mr Akerman,
that I refuse to do it; and that I will not do it, come what may of my
refusal. If any violence is done to me, please to remember this.
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