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In truth, as he stood peering down into the dark Corraterie, and listening to the heavy tramp of unseen feet, now here, now there, and the orders that rose from unseen throats even as he prepared to turn, summoned by a warning cry from Marcadel, the first note of the alarm-bell smote his ear.
That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for others. Before either could rise all was over.
And grovelling on his face on the leads he clung to whatever offered itself. But men who have just passed through a life and death struggle, are hard. "You won't?" Marcadel answered, applying his boot brutally, but without effect. "You will! Or you will feel my pike between your ribs! In! In, my lad!" A scream answered each repetition of the word, and proved that the threat was no empty one.
And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet of flame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashing report filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gone between him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pure amazement, he stood gaping.
In spite of himself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on his vigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone and defenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds were beginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; to the advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had they had it. But, alas, they had no light.
"Was it one of you two who lowered the portcullis?" Blandano gasped, as he leaned an instant on his sword. "He did," Marcadel answered, laying his hand on Claude's shoulder. "And I helped him." "Then he has saved Geneva, and you have helped him!" Blandano rejoined bluntly. "Your name, young man." Claude told him. "Good!" Blandano answered.
The wounded man, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps. Marcadel rested one hand on him. Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thick breathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in the darkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again the faint clang of a weapon against the wall.
Pike in hand he felt his way over the bodies that choked it; by this time he was half-way down the stairs. Marcadel hesitated, waited a moment, listened; then, partly because success begets success, and courage courage, partly because he would not have the triumph taken from him, he too risked all.
The other fell under the blows of the pursuing burghers, and across the two bodies Claude and Marcadel met their allies, the leaders of the assault. Strange to say, the foremost and the midmost of these was a bandy-legged tailor, with a great two-handed sword, red to the hilt; to such a place can valour on such a night raise a man.
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?"
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