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Chapter X. The Prince in the toils.
We left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, with a
noisy and delighted mob at his heels. There was but one person in it who
offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; he was
hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. The Prince continued to
struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he was suffering,
until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him, and raised
his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince's head. The single
pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and the blow descended
upon his own wrist. Canty roared out--
"Thou'lt meddle, wilt thou? Then have thy reward."
His cudgel crashed down upon the meddler's head: there was a groan, a
dim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the next
moment it lay there in the dark alone. The mob pressed on, their
enjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.
Presently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with the door
closed against the outsiders. By the vague light of a tallow candle
which was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of the
loathsome den, and also the occupants of it. Two frowsy girls and a
middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with the aspect
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