ering at the gates of Thorn.

"'Tis but the scaffold going up in the Grand Place without!" said the
soldier, carelessly; "I heard that the Duke had bidden them work all
night by torch-light."

I tried to sleep, but the knocking continued, aching across my brows
till I thought I must go mad. After a while I rose and went to the
window from which I had so often looked down wistfully upon the play of
the city children.

Opposite me, in the middle of the open space, loomed a dark mass--a
platform, it seemed, raised a dozen feet above the road--the black
silhouette of a ladder set anglewise against it, and that was all. Lower,
plainer, somehow deadlier than a gibbet with its flamboyant beam, which
one never sees empty without imagining the malefactor aswing upon it; the
heading-block did not frown, it grinned--yes, grinned like the eye-holes
of a skeleton with a candle behind them, while the torches glinted
through the interstices of the framework as it was being nailed together.

All night the dull _dunt-dunting_ went on without. And I sat awake by the
window and awaited the dawning.

The city seethed unslaked beneath. When first I looked from my chamber
window the square was free to all who chose to enter it. But as the
knocking went on the news spread through the town of Thorn.

"They are making the scaffold for our Saint Helena!" So the word ran.

And within an hour the courts and alleys of Thorn belched forth thousands
of angry men. Pikes were carried like staves, the steel head hidden up
the long white burgess sleeve. Working-men of the trades, 'prentices,
and market porters drew their swords and came forth with the bare blades
in their hands, leaving the scabbards at home to take care of themselves,
as was their custom.

Wives cried from escalier windows to their men to come in by and lie
decently down, to be ready for their work in the morning. And the men so
addressed paid not the least heed, as the manner of men is. These things
and many others I saw, scarce knowing what I saw.

And so, with the hum of gathering crowds, the hours passed slowly over.
But the temper of the people in the square grew more and more difficult,
and soon the guard had to be brought down from the castle. The great
gates beneath me were open, and the Wolfsberg vomited the black
men-at-arms to keep the Duke's peace.

But this brought only the quicker strife. Yells received them as soon as
their steel partisans showed up in the squa