"What then do you propose?" said the Duke, getting as near the door as possible.
"Let us bring in hither the officers and what soldiers you can trust—that is not my business," answered the President. "Then we will go through the castle, and after we have secured the prisoners and made sure of sufficient pieces of justificative evidence, of which we have infinite supply in these sacks, we may e'en permit the people to work their will."
As it was Sholto who had first entered, so it was Sholto who first left the Tower of Death. He it was also who, at the head of a strong band, surprised the marshal's sleepy inner guard, and helped to bind them with his own hands. It was Sholto who, at the foot of the stairs of the great keep, stood listening that he might know the right moment to lead the besiegers upward.
But even as he stood thus, down the stairway there came pealing a terrible cry, the shriek of a woman in the final agony, shrill, desperate, unavailing.
And at the sound Sholto flew up the stone steps in the direction of the cry, not knowing what he did, save that he went to kill.
And scarce a foot behind him followed the woodman, Louis Verger, and as they fled upward the red gloom grew brighter till they seemed to be rushing headlong into a furnace mouth.