From that time onwards the road that
led down past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on to
dawn, the late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew more
distinct. It was possible for those pushed against the wall, or against
the chains of the bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to look
down into the chilly water of the moat; to see not the silhouette only
of the huge fortress, but the battlements of the wall, and now and again
a steel cap and a pike-point pass beyond it as the sentry went to and
fro. Noises within the Castle grew more frequent. The voice of an
officer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of pike-butts, the
clash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran up a minor
scale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was thrown
back in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses was
heard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street and
was forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd--some country
squire, maybe, to whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Still
there was no movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men on
guard there shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to one
another; changed their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as if
day would come and find the affair no further advanced....
Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doors
wheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn up
under the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer at
their head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; a
great roaring howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant the
whole lane was in confusion.
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