A dozen men were on their feet in an instant, their teeth set, their fists clenched, their faces purple with rage.

Oaths, curses, maledictions exploded like the firing of successive mines.

Voices quivered with wrath, hands flung upward, the fingers hooked, prehensile, trembled with anger.

The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly culminated and found voice in a raucous howl of execration.
For a second there was nothing articulate in that cry of savage exasperation, nothing even intelligent.

It was the human animal hounded to its corner, exploited, harried to its last stand, at bay, ferocious, terrible, turning at last with bared teeth and upraised claws to meet the death grapple.