“Doomed?  No!” I replied fiercely, for my courage seemed to rise again on the wave of sound and excitement as if rebounding from the momentary shock.  “Never!  We wear the devil’s livery, and he will look after his own.  Draw, man, and let him that stops us look to himself.  You know the way.  Lead on!” I cried savagely.

He caught the infection and drew his sword.  So we started boldly, and the result justified my confidence.  We looked, no doubt, as like murderers as any who were abroad that night.  Moving in this desperate guise we hastened up that street and into another—­still pursued by the din and clangour of the bell —­and then a short distance along a third.  We were not stopped or addressed by anyone, though numbers, increasing each moment as door after door opened, and we drew nearer to the heart of the commotion, were hurrying in the same direction, side by side with us; and though in front, where now and again lights gleamed on a mass of weapons, or on white eager faces, filling some alley from wall to wall, we heard the roar of voices rising and falling like the murmur of an angry sea.

All was blur, hurry, confusion, tumult.  Yet I remember, as we pressed onwards with the stream and part of it, certain sharp outlines.  I caught here and there a glimpse of a pale scared face at a window, a half-clad form at a door, of the big, wondering eyes of a child held up to see us pass, of a Christ at a corner ruddy in the smoky glare of a link, of a woman armed, and in man’s clothes, who walked some distance side by side with us, and led off a ribald song.  I retain a memory of these things:  of brief bursts of light and long intervals of darkness, and always, as we tramped forwards, my hand on Pavannes’ sleeve, of an ever-growing tumult in front—­an ever-rising flood of noise.

At last we came to a standstill where a side street ran out of ours.  Into this the hurrying throng tried to wheel, and, unable to do so, halted, and pressed about the head of the street, which was already full to overflowing; and so sought with hungry eyes for places whence they might look down it.  Pavannes and I struggled only to get through the crowd—­to get on; but the efforts of those behind partly aiding and partly thwarting our own, presently forced us to a position whence we could not avoid seeing what was afoot.

The street—­this side street was ablaze with light.  From end to end every gable, every hatchment was glowing, every window was flickering in the glare of torches.  It was paved too with faces —­human faces, yet scarcely human—­all looking one way, all looking upward; and the noise, as from time to time this immense crowd groaned or howled in unison, like a wild beast in its fury, was so appalling, that I clutched Pavannes’ arm and clung to him in momentary terror.  I do not wonder now that I quailed, though sometimes I have heard that sound since.  For there is nothing in the world so dreadful as that brute beast we call the CANAILLE, when the chain is off and its cowardly soul is roused.