e of her present peril than of this; he had moved from the stairhead.
A swell in the volume of sound which rose from the Corraterie had drawn
him to that side of the tower, where shaking off the exhaustion which
for a time had overcome him, he was straining his eyes to learn what was
passing in the babel below.

The sight was a singular one. The Monnaye Gate far to the left, the
Tertasse immediately before him, and the Treille on his right, were the
centres of separate conflagrations. In one place a house, fired by the
petard employed to force the door, was actually alight. In other places
so great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and
the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire
blazing up in the night. Behind the Porte Tertasse, in the narrow
streets of the Tertasse and the Cite--immediately, therefore, behind the
Royaumes' house--the conflict seemed to rage most hotly, the shots to be
most frequent, the uproar greatest, even the light strongest; for the
reflection of the combat below bathed the Tertasse tower in a lurid
glow. Claude could distinguish the roof of the Royaumes' house; and to
see so much yet to be cut off as completely as if he stood a hundred
miles away, to be so near yet so hopelessly divided, stung him to a new
impatience and a greater daring.

He returned to Marcadel. "Are we going to stay on this tower?" he cried.
"Shut up here, while this goes forward and we may be of use?"

"I think we have done our part," the other answered soberly. "If any man
has saved Geneva, it is you! There, man, I give you the credit," he
continued, in a burst of generosity, "and it is no small thing! For it
might make my fortune. But I have done some little too!"

"Ay! But cannot we----"

"What would you have us do more?" the man continued, and with reason.
"Leave the roof to them? 'Tis all they want! Leave them to raise the old
iron grate, and let in--what I hear yonder?" He indicated the darker
outer plain below the wall, whence rose the murmur of halted battalions,
waiting baffled, and uncertain, the opening of the gate.

"Ay, but if we descend?"

"May we not win the gate from a score?" Marcadel answered, between
contempt and admiration. "Is that what you mean? And when we have won
it, hold it? No, not if each of us were Gaston of Foix, Bayard, and M.
de Crillon rolled into one! But what is this? We are winning or we are
losing! Which is it?"

From the Trei