DR. HAMMOND.

     We beg to inform your Excellency that the Vigilance
     Committee’s guard at the county jail has been withdrawn.

     33, SECRETARY.

CHAPTER XLV

THE COMMITTEE STRIKES

On Sunday morning, May 18th, all of San Francisco was astir at dawn.  There was none of the usual late breakfasting, the leisurely perusal of a morning paper.

In some mysterious fashion word had gone abroad that history would be made this morning.  The odd and feverish expectancy which rides, an unseen herald in the van of large events, was everywhere.

A part of this undue activity resulted from the summoning of male members out of nearly three thousand households for military duty to begin at 9 o’clock.  Long before that hour the general headquarters of the Vigilantes swarmed with members.

* * * * *

As a neighboring clock struck noon, the Vigilantes debouched into the street, an advance guard of riders clearing that thoroughfare of crowding spectators.  First came Captain James N. Olney commanding the Citizens’ Guard of sixty picked men, so soldierly in appearance that their coming evoked a cheer.

Company 11, officered by Captain Donnelly and Lieutenant Frank Eastman came next, and after them a company of French citizens, very straight and gallant in appearance; then a German company.  Followed at precise and military intervals a score or more of companies, with their gleaming bayonets, each standing at attention until the entire host had been assembled.  Now and then some bystander cried a greeting.  On the roofs were now a fringe of colored parasols, a fluttering of handkerchiefs.  One might have deemed it a parade save for a certain grimness, the absence of bands.  There was a hush as Marshal Doane rode all along the line and paused at the head to review his troops.  One could hear him clearly as he raised his sabre and commanded, “Forward, march!” At the sidelines the lieutenants chanted: 

“Hup!  Hup!  Hup-hup-hup!”

Legs began to move in an impressive clock-work unison.  Gradually the thousands of bayonets took motion, seemed to flow along like some strange stream of scintillating lights.

* * * * *

On the roof of the International Hotel the Governor, the Mayor, Major-General Sherman of the State Militia, Volney Howard and a little group of others watched the Vigilantes as they marched up Sacramento street.  The Governor seemed calm enough; only the spasmodic puffs from his cigar betrayed agitation.  Van Ness walked back and forth, cramming his hands into his breeches pockets and withdrawing them every ten seconds.  Volney looked down with his usual sardonic smile but his eyes were bitter with hate.  Sherman alone displayed the placidity of a soldier.

“Look at the damned rabble!” exclaimed Howard.  “They’re dividing.  Some are going up Pacific street to Kearney, some to Dupont and ... yes, a part of them on Stockton.”