whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Still
there was no movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men on
guard there shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to one
another; changed their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as if
day would come and find the affair no further advanced....

Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doors
wheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn up
under the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer at
their head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; a
great roaring howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant the
whole lane was in confusion. Robin felt himself pushed this way and
that; he struggled violently, driving his elbows right and left; was
lifted for a moment clean from his feet by the pressure about him;
slipped down again; gained a yard or two; lost them; gained three or
four in a sudden swirl; and immediately found his feet on wood instead
of earth; and himself racing desperately as a loose group of runners,
across the bridge; and beneath the arch of the castle-gate.

II

When he was able to take breath again, and to substitute thought for
blind instinct, he found himself tramping in a kind of stream of men
into what appeared an impenetrably packed crowd. He was going between
ropes, however, which formed a lane up which it was possible to move.
This lane, after crossing half the court, wheeled suddenly to one side
and doubled on itself, conducting the newcomers behind the crowd of
privileged persons that had come into the castle overnight, or had been
admitted three or four hours ago. These persons were all people of
quality; many of them, out of a kind of sympathy for what was to happen,
were in black. They stood there in rows, scarcely moving, scarcely
speaking, some even bare-headed, filling up now, so far as the priest
could see, the entire court, except in that quarter in which he
presently found himself--the furthest corner away from where rose up the
tall carved and traceried windows of the banqueting-hall. Yet, though no
man spoke above an undertone, a steady low murmur filled the court from
side to side, like the sound of a wagon rolling over a paved road.

He reached his place at last, actually against the wall of the soldiers'
lodgings, and found, presently, that a low row of projecting stones
enabled him to raise himself a few inches,