The noise of that terrific bray, as it sounded out, burst forth close by
Pat. He was on one side of the partition. The donkey was on the other.
He was just about seizing the cord so as to give another pull to the
tongue of the bell, when there arose this unexpected, this tremendous
interruption. Whether Pat had ever heard the bray of a donkey before
mattered not at that moment. He certainly had never before heard a
donkey, and an injured donkey too, at midnight, in a garret,
close beside him, pour forth, so suddenly, and so terribly, and so
deafeningly, such accumulated woes.
Had a cannon suddenly exploded close by Pat’s elbow, he could not have
been more utterly overwhelmed.
He sprang back. For a moment he stood paralyzed. Then he jumped at the
door. He tore it open. He leaped down the stairs. Bart’s room was at
the bottom. He opened the door, burst in, and banged it, and locked it
behind him.
Then he stood against the door, making the pressure of his back an
additional barrier against the entrance of any pursuer.