The sun was now blazing hot and dry on the dusty square, and Duprès started to see what an enormous number of people had collected. In the church porch a fight had begun round the ancient pedlar, whose goods had been flung on the ground, and who was defending herself with sticks and stones.
Pistol shots were fired, sticks brandished; blood began to flow, and the temper of the people was fast rising with fury.
Duprès quickly withdrew into the church again, and slipped into the first chapel inside the door which was empty, and where he could observe unmolested.
People began to throng into the cathedral; they surged to and fro, muttering together; the priests had all disappeared.
Duprès was becoming stiff and tired, the marble step of the chapel altar was hard; the air became stifling hot with the increase of the sun without. But the skryer seldom went unprovided against bodily needs; he drew from his wallet a substantial meal of bread and meat and fruit, and devoured it gravely, blinking up at the mosaic and paintings that lined the chapel.
The crowd was meanwhile increasing; their shouts and cries, their threatening looks, promised no peaceful dispersal this time.
Duprès gently closed the gilt gates of the chapel on himself, and grinned through them at the swarming throngs.
He wondered why the authorities made no effort to check the tumult, and even as he was scorning them for their cowardice, the great doors of the church were thrown open, and a pale finely-dressed gentleman entered, attended by the two burgomasters and all the senators in their robes of office.
Duprès knew this gentleman for Jan van Immerzeel, Margrave of Antwerp, who had evidently come in person to endeavour to quell the riot.
Peering through the gilt bars Duprès watched him as he made his way, with dignity and calm, into the centre of the church, watched his gestures as he entreated the people to disperse.