rand, rose up from
his knees, and running forth of the chamber, hasted down the dark and
narrow stair.

CHAPTER XXXVI

HOW THE FOLK OF BELSAYE TOWN MADE THEM AN END OF TYRANNY

The market-place was full of the stir and hum of jostling crowds; here
were pale-faced townsfolk, men and women and children who, cowed by
suffering and bitter wrong, spake little, and that little below their
breath; here were country folk from village and farmstead near and far,
a motley company that talked amain, loud-voiced and eager, as they
pushed and strove to see where, in the midst of the square beyond the
serried ranks of pike-men, a post had been set up; a massy post, grim
and solitary, whose heavy chains and iron girdle gleamed ominous and
red in the last rays of sunset. Near by, upon a dais, they had set up a
chair fairly gilded, wherein Sir Gui was wont to sit and watch justice
done upon the writhing bodies of my lord Duke's enemies. Indeed, the
citizens of Belsaye had beheld sights many and dire of late, wherefore
now they blenched before this stark and grisly thing and looked
askance; but to these country folk such things were something newer,
wherefore they pushed and strove amid the press that they might view it
nearer--in especial two in miller's hooded smocks, tall and lusty
fellows these, who by dint of shoulder and elbow, won forward until
they were stayed by the file of Sir Gui's heavy-armed pikemen.
Thereupon spake one, close in his fellow's ear:--

"Where tarries Walkyn, think you?" said Beltane below his breath.

"Master, I know not--he vanished in the press but now--"

"And Eric?"

"He watcheth our meal-sacks. Shall I not go bid him strike flint and
steel? The time were fair, methinks?"

"Not so, wait you until Sir Gui be come and seated in his chair of
state: then haste you to bold Eric and, the sacks ablaze, shout 'fire;'
so will I here amid the press take up the cry, and in the rush join
with ye at the gate. Patience, Roger."

And now of a sudden the throng stirred, swayed and was still; but from
many a quivering lip a breath went up to heaven, a sigh--a whispered
groan, as, through the shrinking populace, the prisoner was brought. A
man of Belsaye he, a man strong and tender, whom many had loved full
well. Half borne, half dragged betwixt his gaolers, he came on
stumbling feet--a woeful shivering thing with languid head a-droop; a
thing of noisome rags that told of nights and days in dungeon black an