One of the lads called out to the tallest of the crowd,-- "Strike her down, Shohona!" A stone was thrown at her but missed its aim.

At this moment the boys nearest the brink of the roof were suddenly thrust aside right and left, the one who had threatened Mitsha with his stick was pulled back and jerked to one side violently, and before the astonished girl stood Okoya.

Pale with emotion, breathless, with heaving chest, and quivering from excitement, he gasped to her,-- "Go down into the room; I will protect my brother." Then he turned to face the assailants.
The scene on the roof had attracted a large number of spectators, who had gathered below and were exchanging surmises and advice on the merits of a case about which none of them really knew anything.

Now a woman's voice rose from amid this gaping and chattering crowd,--the sharp and screechy voice of an angry woman.

She shouted to those who were on the roof,-- "Get down from my house! Get down, you scoundrels! If you want to kill each other do it elsewhere, and not on my home!" With this the woman climbed on to the roof.