"So this is their day. It comes once every four years. The day that gives them the illusion that they have some control over us, the day of Mob Rule. This is the day they can express all their locked-up frustrations, all their fury at the State which feeds and clothes them and watches over them. They can batter down and smash and burn." Duckpath stared at Glen and seemed to sober a little. "Yes, they can even kill. They cannot bring guns or knives here, but they can use fire and fists and stones. And that is even better for boiling away their hostilities. The hotheads among the People will go so far as to kill, and that will cool them. But they will get only the fumble-fingered and feeble-witted. The rest will take care of themselves." He paused for a moment, breathless. "Do you realize we haven't had even the sniff of a revolution in four hundred years? No civil strife at all. No change of any kind." He laughed. "This is Sheep's Day ... their day to be wolves."
"Glen, you'd better watch the stairs," Joan said, her face taut.
Glen started. Duckpath's harangue had distracted him, and somehow chilled him too. He peered down the stairwell. There were People at the end of the lower corridor, milling around and shouting.
"We've got to get to shelter," he said, hurrying toward Joan.
Duckpath began to talk again. "This is nothing new. The Romans had a word for it, and a day for it, too. A day when the laws were abandoned and society was turned upside down. A day when the people cast off the bonds of civilization and order. A day of Misrule. They even had a King of Misrule. I rather like that. I might be such a King." He struck a pose. "King of Misrule!" He turned with a grand gesture to Joan. "And you are my...."
A rock crashed against the side of his head. Another exploded on the wall next to Glen.
"The secret passageways, Glen!" Joan screamed. "They've come up the other way. The maps must have been accurate this time."
There was a knot of men at the far bend of the corridor. They carried torches, and clumps of stones in sacks at their waists. Obviously they were not the dilettantes of People's Day. They were after more than the crash of furniture.
"Get the dame, boys!" one of them yelled. They charged forward. Duckpath was lying across the entrance to the shelter, and the mob was almost on him.
"We've got to take the stairway, Joan!" Glen cried, fumbling at her arm.