again, and a
sound of a commotion as though there too the enemy held the gate, but
found farther progress closed against them. On the Treille to his right,
the most westerly of the three inner gates, and the nearest to the Town
Hall, the enemy seemed to be preparing an attack, for as he ceased to
shout, muskets exploded in that direction; and as far as he could judge
the shots were aimed outwards.

With such alarms at three inner points--to say nothing of the noise at
the more distant Porte Neuve--it seemed impossible that any part of the
city could remain in ignorance of the attack. In truth, as he stood
peering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy tramp
of unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose from
unseen throats--even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cry
from Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear.

One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all of
Geneva that still slept awoke and stood upright. Men ran half naked from
their houses. Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth. White
faces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; and
across narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged huge
chains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudest
and the risk most pressing. In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lights
gleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voices
shouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousand
houses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied piles
and in the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up one
wail of horror and despair. Men who had dreamed of this night for years,
and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a
fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening. While women left
alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped
to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or
why their mothers looked strangely on them.

Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, and
of the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that the
enemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew not
which way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and at
the thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her--for about the
house in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest--hi