e could put a shot into it.
Next, ere one was aware, an arrow would whistle with a "_Hisst_!" past
one's breast-bone and stand quivering, head-covered in the clay. Vicious
things they were, too, steel-pointed and shafted with iron for half
their length.

But all waitings come to an end, even that of him who waits on a fair
woman's arraying of herself. Erdberg evidently did not know of the little
party down at the Burgomeister's below the pass of the ravine, or,
knowing, did not care. For, just as our half-hour was crawling to an
end, with a unanimous yell a crowd of wild men with weapons in their
hands poured in through the great door and ran shouting at our position.
At the same time the window at the end of the passage opened and a man
leaped through. Him I sharply attended to with the axe, and stood waiting
for the next. He also came, but not through the window. He ran at me,
head first, through the door, and, being stricken down, completely
blocked it up. Good service! And a usefully bulky man he was. But how he
bled!--Saint Christopher! that is the worst of bulky men, they can do
nothing featly--not even die!

One man won past me, indeed, darting under the stroke of my axe, but he
was little advantaged thereby. For I fetched a blow at the back of his
head with the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fell
at the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the Lady
Ysolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been a
work of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought her
to hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It was
deucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, I
suppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business would have done
the job neatly enough without my lady's dagger.

I tell you, the work was hot enough about those three doors during the
next few moments. I never again want to see warmer on this side of
Peter's gates--especially not since I got this wound in my thigh, with
its trick of reopening at the most inconvenient seasons. But the broadaxe
was a blessed thought of the little Helene's, and helped to keep the
castle right valiantly.

Yet I can testify that I was glad with more than mere joy when I heard
the "Trot, trot!" of the Prince's archers coming at the wolf's lope, all
in each other's footsteps, along the narrow ledge of the village street.

"Hurrah, lads!" I shouted; "quick and help