Martin and Foy saw him and shrank back.  Could this be Adrian, they thought, or was it an evil vision?

“Fly!” he gasped.  “Hide yourselves!  The officers of the Inquisition are after you!” Then another thought struck him, and he stammered, “My father and mother.  I must warn them!” and before they could speak he had turned and was gone, as he went crying, “Fly!  Fly!”

Foy stood astonished till Martin struck him on the shoulder, and said roughly: 

“Come, let us get out of this.  Either he is mad, or he knows something.  Have you your sword and dagger?  Quick, then.”

They passed through the door, which Martin paused to lock, and into the courtyard.  Foy reached the gate first, and looked through its open bars.  Then very deliberately he shot the bolts and turned the great key.

“Are you brain-sick,” asked Martin, “that you lock the gate on us?”

“I think not,” replied Foy, as he came back to him.  “It is too late to escape.  Soldiers are marching down the street.”

Martin ran and looked through the bars.  It was true enough.  There they came, fifty men or more, a whole company, headed straight for the factory, which it was thought might be garrisoned for defence.

“Now I can see no help but to fight for it,” Martin said cheerfully, as he hid the keys in the bucket of the well, which he let run down to the water.

“What can two men do against fifty?” asked Foy, lifting his steel-lined cap to scratch his head.

“Not much, still, with good luck, something.  At least, as nothing but a cat can climb the walls, and the gateway is stopped, I think we may as well die fighting as in the torture-chamber of the Gevangenhuis, for that is where they mean to lodge us.”

“I think so too,” answered Foy, taking courage.  “Now how can we hurt them most before they quiet us?”

Martin looked round reflectively.  In the centre of the courtyard stood a building not unlike a pigeon-house, or the shelter that is sometimes set up in the middle of a market beneath which merchants gather.  In fact it was a shot tower, where leaden bullets of different sizes were cast and dropped through an opening in the floor into a shallow tank below to cool, for this was part of the trade of the foundry.

“That would be a good place to hold,” he said; “and crossbows hang upon the walls.”

Foy nodded, and they ran to the tower, but not without being seen, for as they set foot upon its stair, the officer in command of the soldiers called upon them to surrender in the name of the King.  They made no answer, and as they passed through the doorway, a bullet from an arquebus struck its woodwork.

The shot tower stood upon oaken piles, and the chamber above, which was round, and about twenty feet in diameter, was reached by a broad ladder of fifteen steps, such as is often used in stables.  This ladder ended in a little landing of about six feet square, and to the left of the landing opened the door of the chamber where the shot were cast.  They went up into the place.