"Ingleston and Tring, do you keep the door." The moment the six men had closed round Mark, one of them, taking out his knife, cut the cords, removed the bandage from his mouth, and extricated the gag.

The name of the two prize fighters had created something like a panic among the crowd, which had increased when one of them shouted, "It is Charley Gibbons." Flash and Emerson sprang to their feet with the rest, and the latter shouted, "Go at them, men; there are only eight of them, and we are twenty.

Knife them, or you will all hang for this job." The knowledge of their danger was evident to all the men, and, nerved by desperation, they rushed at the prize fighters; but the eight were now nine, and each of them in a fray of this kind was equal to half a dozen ordinary men.

Scarce a word was spoken, but the sound of crushing blows and scuffling, and an occasional, oath, made a confused din in the half lighted room.

Mark burst his way through his assailants to the spot where Flash and Emerson were standing, somewhat in the rear of the crowd, for they had been sitting at the other end of the room.