or those nearest them was complete. With
the flash of the pikes before their eyes, with the cold steel in fancy
between their ribs, they fled every way, uncertain how many pursued, or
if any pursuit there was. For a moment the mob, which a few minutes
before had seemed so formidable that a regiment might have quailed before
it, bade fair to be routed by a dozen pikes.

And so, had all in the crowd been what he termed them, the rabble and
sweepings of the streets, it would have been. But in the heart of it,
and felt rather than seen, were a handful of another kidney; Sorbonne
students and fierce-eyed priests, with three or four mounted archers, the
nucleus that, moving through the streets, had drawn together this
concourse. And these with threats and curse and gleaming eyes stood
fast, even Tavannes' dare-devils recoiling before the tonsure. The check
thus caused allowed those who had budged a breathing space. They rallied
behind the black robes, and began to stone the pikes; who in their turn
withdrew until they formed two groups, standing on their defence, the one
before the window, the other before the door.

Count Hannibal had watched the attack and the check, as a man watches a
play; with smiling interest. In the panic, the torches had been dropped
or extinguished, and now between the house and the sullen crowd which
hung back, yet grew moment by moment more dangerous, the daylight fell
cold on the littered street and the cripple's huddled form prone in the
gutter. A priest raised on the shoulders of the lean man in black began
to harangue the mob, and the dull roar of assent, the brandished arms
which greeted his appeal, had their effect on Tavannes' men. They looked
to the window, and muttered among themselves. It was plain that they had
no stomach for a fight with the Church, and were anxious for the order to
withdraw.

But Count Hannibal gave no order, and, much as his people feared the
cowls, they feared him more. Meanwhile the speaker's eloquence rose
higher; he pointed with frenzied gestures to the house. The mob groaned,
and suddenly a volley of stones fell among the pikemen, whose corselets
rattled under the shower. The priest seized that moment. He sprang to
the ground, and to the front. He caught up his robe and waved his hand,
and the rabble, as if impelled by a single will, rolled forward in a huge
one-fronted thundering wave, before which the two handfuls of
pikemen--afraid to strike,