I was ready! My heart was racing. The tiny motor at my wrist was racing. I could feel the hum of the current, the prickling of it under the forehead band, its tiny stabbing throb at the electrodes pressing my temples. There was power within me.
I had flung off my cloak. I stood in the white silk shirt, dark, short, tight trousers, and high, heavy black stockings of my earth costume, stood with outflung arms for an instant and exulted in the wave of triumph which swept me. Against the people the power of my weapon would be invincible.
Furtive no longer, I advanced with bold, open strides to the gate of the castle grounds. A few men were there, evidently about to enter. They stared at me. Before the strangeness of my aspect, the boldness of my flashing glance, they quailed, cried with fear and scattered before me.
I did not heed them. Beyond the gate, back from the water there was a rise of ground. I mounted it, and from the thicket of flowers that ornamented its top, gazed out at the moonlit scene.
Between the mound on which I stood, and the foot of the broad staircase leading up the broad terrace to the castle entrance, a throng of men were standing.
Spectators, standing idle. Occasionally a group of them would surge forward in one direction or the other, milling about some individual who seemed abruptly determined upon a course of action. A mob without a leader. Excited, aimless, striving for points of vantage to see what was taking place in front.
The girls were massed at the foot of the castle steps. Evidently, just before I arrived, the girls had tried to mount them. The guards were gathered in a group on top. Half way down, a girl’s body was lying. It writhed, rolled down the steps. From the crowd of men a murmur rose.
The scene was clear in the yellow moon-glow. The throng of girls at the staircase bottom, were gathering their leaders, preparing again to mount. The tense guards on top seemed confused, not knowing how to deal with this unarmed attack.
On the castle balcony, at the head of the steep metal stairway, a few other guards were standing. And on the rooftop, I could make out the doddering figures of old men, gazing down in confused terror.
There was, momentarily, a pause over the scene: a silence, expectant.