Men who had dreamed of this night for years, and feared it as they feared God's day, awoke to find their dream a fact, and never while they lived forgot that awakening.

While women left alone in their homes bolted and barred and fell to prayers; or clasped to their breasts babes who prattled, not understanding the turmoil, or why their mothers looked strangely on them.
Something of this, something of the horror of that sudden awakening, and of the confusion in the narrow streets, where voices cried that the enemy were here or there or in a third place, and the bravest knew not which way to turn, penetrated to Claude on the roof of the tower; and at the thought of Anne and the perils that encircled her--for about the house in the Corraterie the uproar rose loudest--his heart melted.

But he had not long to dwell on her peril; not long to dwell on anything.
Before the great bell had hurled its warning abroad three times he had to go.

Marcadel's voice, urgent, insistent, summoned him to the stairhead.
"They are mustering at the bottom!" the man whispered over his shoulder.
He was on his knees, his head in the hood of the staircase.

The wounded man, breathing stertorously, still cumbered the upper steps.