“Look yonder,” cried Darcy's companion, seizing him by the arm,—“look there,—near the corner of the market! See, the troops have not perceived that ladder, and there are two fellows now descending it.”
True enough. At a remote angle of the jail, not concealed from view by the smoke, stood the ladder in question.
“How slowly they move!” cried Darcy, his eyes fixed upon the figures with that strange anxiety so inseparable from the fate of all who are engaged in hazardous enterprise. “They will certainly be taken.”
“They must be wounded,” cried the other; “they seem to creep rather than step—I know the reason, they are in fetters.”
Scarcely was the explanation uttered when the ladder was seen to be violently moved as if from above, and the next moment was hurled back from the wall, on which several soldiers were now perceived firing on those below.
“They are lost!” said the Knight; “they are either captured or cut down by this time.”
“The square is cleared already,” said the other; “how quietly the troops have done their work! And the fire begins to yield to the engines.”
The square was indeed cleared; save the groups beside the fire-engines, and here and there a knot gathered around some wounded man, the space was empty, the troops having drawn off to the sides, around which they stood in double file. A dark cloud rested over the jail itself, but no longer did any smoke issue from the windows; and already the fire, its rage in part expended, in part subdued, showed signs of decline.
“If the wind was from the west,” said the landlord, “there 's no saying where that might have stopped this night!”
“It is a strange occurrence altogether,” said the Knight, musingly.