Panic seized a great many there; they pushed and scrambled out of the building, running blindly like sheep, and spread the terrible news through the streets, calling loudly to God to save them all: the panic very naturally spread to the women and children who thronged the streets at this hour, and to the silent workers who had quietly continued their work of burial. Soon all the market squares were filled with shrieking men, women and children who ran about aimlessly with wild gestures and cries of lamentation. Those who had kept indoors all to-day--either fearing the crowds or piously preparing for death--came rushing out to see what new calamity was threatening them, or whether the supreme hour had indeed struck for them all.
Inside the cathedral the cries of revenge were stilled; dulled was the lust to kill. The immense danger which had been forgotten for a moment in that frantic thirst for revenge made its deathly presence felt once more. Pallid faces and wide-open, terror-filled eyes were turned toward the one man whose personality seemed still to radiate the one great ray of hope.
But just for a moment Mark van Rycke seemed quite oblivious of that wave of sighs and fears which tended toward him now and swept all thought of mutiny away.
He was supporting Lenora who was gradually regaining strength and consciousness: just for a few seconds he allowed tumult and terror to seethe unheeded around him: just for those few seconds he forgot death and danger, his friends, the world, everything save that Lenora had come to him at the hour when his heart yearned for her more passionately than ever before, and that she was looking up into his face with eyes that told so plainly the whole extent of her love for him.
Only a few seconds, then he handed her over to the gentle care of Father van der Schlicht, but as with infinite gentleness he finally released himself from her clinging arms he murmured in her ear: "God reward you, Madonna! With your love as my shield, I feel that I could conquer the universe."
Then he faced the terror-stricken crowd once more.
V
"Burghers and artisans of Ghent," he called loudly, "we have two hours before us. The perjured tyrant is bringing five thousand fresh troops against us. If by nightfall we have not conquered, our city is doomed and all of us who have survived, and all our women and children will be slaughtered like sheep."
"To arms!" cried the leaders: Jan van Migrode and Lievin van Deynse, Pierre Deynoot and the others.
"To arms!" was echoed by a goodly number of the crowd.