Like two spirits the forms of the women flitted across the bastions. In Azrael's hand was the key of the castle garden; in a few moments they reached the subterranean staircase, and when Azrael had locked the door behind her she turned to Mariska and said:
"Now thou canst pray, for thou art saved."
The report had already spread through the two towns that early at dawn someone would be executed, and here and there people whispered that it would be the Princess of Moldavia.
The population living outside the town were able to give full reins to their imagination, for the gates of the fortress, by Hassan Pasha's command, were already locked fast at six o'clock in the evening, and after that time nobody was allowed to enter out or in except the sentinels outside, and these only by the Szombat gate.
The later grew the hour the more numerous became the crowd assembled in front of the gates thus unwontedly bolted and barred, consisting for the most part of people who lived inside the town of every rank, who thus waited patiently for the chance of reaching their houses again. Knocking at the gates was useless, the guards had been ordered to take no notice of such demonstrations.
The darker grew the night, the more numerous became the throng before the gate, and the more closely they pressed together the plainer it became to them all that they would have to sleep outside.
The largest concourse was in front of the Fejérvár gate, for that was the chief entrance.
It was already close upon midnight, when some dozen horsemen, in the uniforms of Spahis, arrived at the gate, forcing their way through the throng, led, apparently, by a handsome youth (it was too dark to distinguish very clearly), who thundered at the gate with the butt-end of his lance.
"You may bang away at it till morning," said a cobbler of Buda, who was lying prone, chawing bacon at his ease, "they won't let you in."