er.

All night the men stood and watched.

Sentinels from the town guard were stationed at the gates, but these
might prove inattentive or insufficient, they had not the same price
at stake, so the entire able-bodied population of Boulogne watched the
gloomy prison that night, lest anyone escaped by wall or window.

They were guarding the precious hostage whose safety was the stipulation
for their own.

There was dead silence among them, and dead silence all around, save for
that monotonous tok-tok-tok of the parchment flapping in the breeze. The
moon, who all along had been capricious and chary of her light, made
a final retreat behind a gathering bank of clouds, and the crowd, the
soldiers and the great grim walls were all equally wrapped in gloom.

Only the little lantern on the gateway now made a ruddy patch of light,
and tinged that fluttering parchment with the colour of blood. Every now
and then an isolated figure would detach itself from out the watching
throng, and go up to the heavy, oaken door, in order to gaze at the
proclamation. Then the light of the lantern illumined a dark head or a
grey one, for a moment or two: black or white locks were stirred gently
in the wind, and a sigh of puzzlement and disappointment would be
distinctly heard.

At times a group of three or four would stand there for awhile, not
speaking, only sighing and casting eager questioning glances at one
another, whilst trying vainly to find some hopeful word, some turn of
phrase of meaning that would be less direful, in that grim and ferocious
proclamation. Then a rough word from the sentinel, a push from the
butt-end of a bayonet would disperse the little group and send the men,
sullen and silent, back into the crowd.

Thus they watched for hours whilst the bell of the Beffroi tolled all
the hours of that tedious night. A thin rain began to fall in the small
hours of the morning, a wetting, soaking drizzle which chilled the weary
watchers to the bone.

But they did not care.

"We must not sleep, for the woman might escape."

Some of them squatted down in the muddy road, the luckier ones managed
to lean their backs against the slimy walls.

Twice before the hour of midnight they heard that same quaint and merry
laugh proceeding from the lighted room, through the open window. Once it
sounded very low and very prolonged, as if in response to a delightful
joke.

Anon the heavy gateway of Gayole was opened from within, and hal