ll their lies. I saw supper plates and an
empty flagon come down from the stair that leads to the little chamber
above the kitchen."

CHAPTER VIII

I

Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of dark
steel, glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. In
front towered the twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward to
its fall. Lights shone here and there in the windows, vanished and
appeared again, flashing themselves back from the invisible water
beneath. About, behind and on either side, there swayed and murmured
this huge crowd--invisible in the darkness--peasants, gentlemen,
clerks, grooms--all on an equality at last, awed by a common tragedy
into silence, except for words exchanged here and there in an undertone,
or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden murmured prayers to a God
who hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from beyond the veiling walls
came the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk notes blown on a horn;
once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when the silence grew
profound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that the murmur
rose into a groan and drowned it again....

So the minutes passed.... Since soon after midnight the folks had been
gathering here. Many had not slept all night, ever since the report had
run like fire through the little town last evening, that the sentence
had been delivered to the prisoner. From that time onwards the road that
led down past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on to
dawn, the late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew more
distinct. It was possible for those pushed against the wall, or against
the chains of the bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to look
down into the chilly water of the moat; to see not the silhouette only
of the huge fortress, but the battlements of the wall, and now and again
a steel cap and a pike-point pass beyond it as the sentry went to and
fro. Noises within the Castle grew more frequent. The voice of an
officer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of pike-butts, the
clash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran up a minor
scale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was thrown
back in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses was
heard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street and
was forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd--some country
squire, maybe, to