



Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Josephine
Paolucci, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders











LO, MICHAEL!

BY

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL







  "But, lo, Michael, one of the
  chief princes, came to help me."

  --DANIEL, 10:13.




CHAPTER I


"Hi, there! Mikky! Look out!"

It was an alert voice that called from a huddled group of urchins in
the forefront of the crowd, but the child flashed past without heeding,
straight up the stone steps where stood a beautiful baby smiling on the
crowd. With his bundle of papers held high, and the late morning sunlight
catching his tangle of golden hair, Mikky flung himself toward the little
one. The sharp crack of a revolver from the opposite curbstone was
simultaneous with their fall. Then all was confusion.

It was a great stone house on Madison Avenue where the crowd had gathered.
An automobile stood before the door, having but just come quietly up, and
the baby girl three years old, in white velvet, and ermines, with her dark
curls framed by an ermine-trimmed hood, and a bunch of silk rosebuds poised
coquettishly over the brow vying with the soft roses of her cheeks came out
the door with her nurse for her afternoon ride. Just an instant the nurse
stepped back to the hall for the wrap she had dropped, leaving the baby
alone, her dark eyes shining like stars under the straight dark brows, as
she looked gleefully out in the world. It was just at that instant, as if
by magic, that the crowd assembled.

Perhaps it would be better to say that it was just at that minute that the
crowd focused itself upon the particular house where the baby daughter
of the president of a great defaulting bank lived. More or less all the
morning, men had been gathering, passing the house, looking up with
troubled or threatening faces toward the richly laced windows, shaking
menacing heads, muttering imprecations, but there had been no disturbance,
and no concerted crowd until the instant the baby appeared.

The police had been more or less vigilant all the morning but had seen
nothing to disturb them. The inevitable small boy had also been in
evidence, with his natural instinct for excitement. Mikky with his papers
often found himself in that quarter of a bright morning, and the starry
eyes and dark curls of the little child were a vision for which he often
searched the great windows as he passed this particular house: but the man
with the evil face on the other side of the street, resting a shaking hand
against the lamp post, and sighting the baby with a vindictive eye, had
never been seen there before. It was Mikky who noticed him first: Mikky,
who circling around him innocently had heard his imprecations against the
rich, who caught the low-breathed oath as the baby appeared, and saw the
ugly look on the man's face. With instant alarm he had gone to the other
side of the street, his eye upon the offender, and had been the first to
see the covert motion, the flash of the hidden weapon and to fear the
worst.

But a second behind him his street companions saw his danger and cried out,
too late. Mikky had flung himself in front of the beautiful baby, covering
her with his great bundle of papers, and his own ragged, neglected little
body; and receiving the bullet intended for her, went down with her as she
fell.

Instantly all was confusion.

A child's cry--a woman's scream--the whistle of the police--the angry roar
of the crowd who were like a pack of wild animals that had tasted blood.
Stones flew, flung by men whose wrongs had smothered in their breasts and
bred a fury of hate and murder. Women were trampled upon. Two of the great
plate glass windows crashed as the flying missiles entered the magnificent
home, regardless of costly lace and velvet hangings.

The chauffeur attempted to run his car around the corner but was held up at
once, and discreetly took himself out of the way, leaving the car in the
hands of the mob who swarmed into it and over it, ruthlessly disfiguring it
in their wrath. There was the loud report of exploding tires, the ripping
of costly leather cushions, the groaning of fine machinery put to torture
as the fury of the mob took vengeance on the car to show what they would
like to do to its owner.

Gone into bankruptcy! He! With a great electric car like that, and servants
to serve him! With his baby attired in the trappings of a queen and
his house swathed in lace that had taken the eyesight from many a poor
lace-maker! He! Gone into bankruptcy, and slipping away scot free, while
the men he had robbed stood helpless on his sidewalk, hungry and shabby and
hopeless because the pittances they had put away in his bank, the result of
slavery and sacrifice,