. A tall fellow took up the priest's body, dead or
alive, I do not know which, and flung it as if it had been a sack of
corn over the rail. It fell with a heavy thud on the ground. I heard
a piercing scream that rose above that babel--one shrill scream! and
the mob closed round and hid the thing.

If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand
stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers' men who had kept
their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of us,
encumbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could have attacked
the handful on the gallery on both flanks. But the mob had no leaders,
and no plan of operations. They seized indeed two or three of the
scattered troopers, and tearing them from their horses, wreaked their
passion upon them horribly. But most of the Switzers escaped, thanks
to the attention the mob paid to the houses and what was going forward
on the galleries; and these, extricating themselves joined us one by
one, so that gradually a little ring of stern faces gathered about the
stair-foot. A moment's hesitation, and seeing no help for it, we
ranged ourselves with them; and, unchecked as unbidden, sprang on three
of the led horses.

All this passed more quickly than I can relate it: so that before our
feet were well in the stirrups a partial silence, then a mightier roar
of anger at once proclaimed and hailed the re-appearance of the Vidame.
Bigoted beyond belief were the mob of Paris of that day, cruel,
vengeful, and always athirst for blood; and this man had killed not
only their leader but a priest. He had committed sacrilege! What
would they do? I could just, by stooping forward, command a side view
of the gallery, and the scene passing there was such that I forgot in
it our own peril.

For surely in all his reckless life Bezers had never been so
emphatically the man for the situation--had never shown to such
advantage as at this moment when he stood confronting the sea of faces,
the sneer on his lip, a smile in his eyes; and looked down unblenching,
a figure of scorn, on the men who were literally agape for his life.
The calm defiance of his steadfast look fascinated even me. Wonder and
admiration for the time took the place of dislike. I could scarcely
believe that there was not some atom of good in this man so fearless.
And no face but one no face I think in the world, but one--could have
drawn my eyes from him. But that one face was b