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.
One moment and the air hummed with its heavy challenge, and all of Geneva that still slept awoke and stood upright.

Men ran half naked from their houses.

Boys in their teens snatched arms and sallied forth.

White faces looked into the night from barred windows or lofty dormers; and across narrow wynds and under dark Gothic entries men dragged huge chains and hooked them, and hurried on to where the alarm seemed loudest and the risk most pressing.

In an instant in pitch-dark alleys lights gleamed and steel jarred on stone; out of the darkness deep voices shouted questions, or answered or gave orders, and from a thousand houses, alike in the wealthy Bourg du Four with its three-storied piles and in the sordid lanes about the water and the bridges, went up one wail of horror and despair.