'Here is another of them!' a voice cried. 'Have him out! To the churchyard with him! The trees will have a fine crop!'
'Halloa! he is tied up already!' a second chimed in.
I gazed round stupidly, meeting everywhere vengeful looks and savage faces.
A butcher, with his axe on his shoulder, hauled at me. 'Bring him along!' he shouted. 'This way, friends! Hurry him. To the churchyard!'
My wits were still wool-gathering, and I should have gone quietly; but a man pushed his way to the front and looked at me. 'Stop! stop!' he cried in a voice of authority. 'This is a friend. This is the man who got in by the roof. Cut the ropes, will you? See how his hands are swollen. That is better. Bring him out into the air. He will revive.'
The speaker was Herr Krapp. In a moment a dozen friendly arms lifted me up and carried me through the crowd, and set me down in the little court. The cool night air swept my brow. I looked up and saw the stars shining in the quiet heaven, and I leant against the wall, sobbing like a woman.
CHAPTER XXX.
[THE END OF THE DAY.]
Ludwig was found dead in the hall, slain on the spot by the explosion of the petard which had driven in the door. His two comrades, less fortunate, were taken alive, and, with the hag who kept the house, were hanged within the hour on the elms in St. Austin's churchyard. The Waldgrave and Neumann, both wounded, the former by the explosion and the latter in his desperate resistance, were captured and held for trial. But Tzerclas, the chief of all, arch-tempter and arch-traitor, vanished in the confusion of the assault, and made his escape, no one knew how. Some said that he went by way of a secret passage known only to himself; some, that he had a compact with the devil, and vanished by his aid; some, that he had friends in the crowd who sheltered him. For my part, I set down his disappearance to his own cool wits and iron nerves, and asked no further explanation.
For an hour the little dark court behind the ill-omened house seethed with a furious mob. No sooner were one party satisfied than another swept in with links and torches and ransacked the house, tore down the panels, groped through the cellars, and probed the chimneys; all with so much rage, and with gestures so wild and extravagant, that an indifferent spectator might have thought them mad. Nor were those who did these things of the lowest class; on the contrary, they were mostly burghers and traders, solid townsfolk and their apprentices, men who, with wives and daughters and sweethearts, could not sleep at night for thoughts of storm and sack, and in whom the bare idea that they had amongst them wretches ready to open the gates, was enough to kindle every fierce and cruel passion.