and saw what numbers numberless
The city gates outpour'd.

PARADISE REGAINED

A dead silence soon reigned over that great host which lay in leaguer
before Liege. For a long time the cries of the soldiers repeating their
signals, and seeking to join their several banners, sounded like
the howling of bewildered dogs seeking their masters. But at length,
overcome with weariness by the fatigues of the day, the dispersed
soldiers crowded under such shelter as they could meet with, and those
who could find none sunk down through very fatigue under walls, hedges,
and such temporary protection, there to await for morning--a morning
which some of them were never to behold. A dead sleep fell on almost
all, excepting those who kept a faint and wary watch by the lodgings
of the King and the Duke. The dangers and hopes of the morrow--even the
schemes of glory which many of the young nobility had founded upon the
splendid prize held out to him who should avenge the murdered Bishop of
Liege--glided from their recollection as they lay stupefied with fatigue
and sleep. But not so with Quentin Durward. The knowledge that he
alone was possessed of the means of distinguishing La Marck in
the contest--the recollection by whom that information had been
communicated, and the fair augury which might be drawn from her
conveying it to him--the thought that his fortune had brought him to a
most perilous and doubtful crisis indeed, but one where there was still,
at least, a chance of his coming off triumphant--banished every desire
to sleep and strung his nerves with vigour which defied fatigue.

Posted, by the King's express order, on the extreme point between the
French quarters and the town, a good way to the right of the suburb
which we have mentioned, he sharpened his eye to penetrate the mass
which lay before him, and excited his ears to catch the slightest sound
which might announce any commotion in the beleaguered city. But its
huge clocks had successively knelled three hours after midnight, and all
continued still and silent as the grave.

At length, and just when Quentin began to think the attack would be
deferred till daybreak, and joyfully recollected that there would be
then light enough to descry the Bar Sinister across the Fleur de lis of
Orleans, he thought he heard in the city a humming murmur, like that
of disturbed bees mustering for the defence of their hives.
He listened--the noise continued, but it was of a c