and nodded; and three or four men appeared
behind him.

Then out of the darkness of the archway at the other end of the court
appeared a similar group. Once a man slipped on the frozen stones and
cursed under his breath, and the leader turned on him with a fierce
indrawing of his breath; but no word was spoken.

Then through both entrances streamed dark figures, each with a steely
glitter on head and breast, and with something that shone in their hands;
till the little court seemed half full of armed men; but the silence was
still formidable in its depth.

The two leaders came together to the door of the third house, and their
heads were together; and a few sibilant consonants escaped them. The
breath of the men that stood out under the starlight went up like smoke
in the air. It was now a quarter-past five.

Three notes of a hand-bell sounded behind the house; and then, without
any further attempt at silence, the man who had entered the court first
advanced to the door and struck three or four thundering blows on it with
a mace, and shouted in a resonant voice:

"Open in the Queen's Name."

The men relaxed their cautious attitudes, and some grounded their
weapons; others began to talk in low voices; a small party advanced
nearer their leaders with weapons, axes and halberds, uplifted.

By now the blows were thundering on the door; and the same shattering
voice cried again and again:

"Open in the Queen's name; open in the Queen's name!"

The middle house of the three was unoccupied; but the windows of the
house next the stable, and the windows in the loft over the archway,
where the stable-boys slept, suddenly were illuminated; latches were
lifted, the windows thrust open and heads out of them.

Then one or two more pursuivants came up the dark passage bearing flaming
torches with them. A figure appeared on the top of the blank wall at the
end, and pointed and shouted. The stable-boys in a moment more appeared
in their archway, and one or two persons came out of the house next the
stable, queerly habited in cloaks and hats over their night-attire.

* * * *

The din was now tremendous; the questions and answers shouted to and fro
were scarcely audible under the thunder that pealed from the battered
door; a party had advanced to it and were raining blows upon the lock and
hinges. The court was full of a ruddy glare that blazed on the
half-armour and pikes of the