"Back, I say! Are you gentlemen of Spain, or are you executioners yourselves that you would take this man's blood?
Stand back!" "Sangre! Sangre!" echoed the hall.
"Then take mine first!" shouted the brave old Prince, spreading his short cloak out behind him with his hands to cover Mendoza more completely.
But still the crowd of splendid young nobles surged up to him, and back a little, out of sheer respect for his station and his old age, and forwards again, dagger in hand, with blazing eyes.
"Sangre! Sangre! Sangre!" they cried, blind with fury.
But meanwhile, the guards filed in, for the prudent Perez had hastened to throw wide the doors and summon them.

Weapons in hand and ready, they formed a square round the King and Mendoza and Ruy Gomez, and at the sight of their steel caps and breastplates and long-tasselled halberds, the yells of the courtiers subsided a little and turned to deep curses and execrations and oaths of vengeance.

A high voice pierced the low roar, keen and cutting as a knife, but no one knew whose it was, and Philip almost reeled as he heard the words.
"Remember Don Carlos! Don John of Austria is gone to join Don Carlos and Queen Isabel!" Again a deadly silence fell upon the multitude, and the King leaned on Perez' arm.

Some woman's hate had bared the truth in a flash, and there were hundreds of hands in the hall that were ready to take his life instead of Mendoza's; and he knew it, and was afraid.
* * * * *.