light from the lanterns glancing on their
weapons, and with lighted matches glowing redly in the linstocks, a few
of the bolder inhabitants summoned up courage enough to shout an inquiry
as to what was amiss. And when at length the more persistent ones were
told, in good Castilian, that yet had in it the suspicion of an alien
twang, that nothing was amiss, and were advised to return to their beds
and resume their interrupted slumber, suspicion at last began to awake,
and instead of returning to bed the citizens proceeded to arouse their
households, and to hurriedly dress. Then a few of the more courageous
ones--but these were very few--ventured to sally forth into the square
to investigate more closely, only to find that each approach was guarded
by a small band of sturdy, bushy-bearded men clad in foreign-looking
garments, armed to the teeth with most formidable and business-like
weapons, and speaking some uncouth and incomprehensible tongue, who
gently but firmly refused to allow them passage. At which those
citizens returned somewhat precipitately to their houses and, retiring
to their back premises, proceeded to discuss the matter with their
neighbours out of adjacent windows, or over garden fences, some of them
hazarding the opinion that _El Draque_ had returned and, profiting by
his previous experience, had surprised the city in the dead of night and
secured possession of it. Then, as the opinion spread and, in process
of spreading became announced as a certainty, lanterns were lit, spades
and mattocks were routed out, and those who had jewels or money to
conceal proceeded to conceal them with frantic haste by burying them
either in secluded corners of their gardens or beneath the floors of
their cellars, while those who had nothing to conceal busied themselves
in hastening through the city by its back ways and byways, knocking up
their relatives and acquaintances and frightening them out of their wits
by informing them that a hostile army had entered the city, the saints
knew how, and coming from the saints knew where, and were encamped in
the Grand Plaza. At which intelligence the city awoke to life with
amazing rapidity, men turned out into the streets and shouted the news
to others, or others shouted it to them, women rushed out of their
houses weeping, dragging their frightened and screaming children after
them, ran aimlessly hither and thither, still further frightening
themselves and others as they did