w menaced London itself. At the sound of the clarion the valiant mob
dispersed in all directions, for even at that day mobs had an instinct
of terror at the approach of the military, and a quick reaction from
outrage to the fear of retaliation.

But, at the sound of martial music, the tymbesteres silenced their own
instruments, and instead of flying, they darted through the crowd, each
to seek the other, and unite as for counsel. Graul, pointing to Mr.
Sancroft's hostelry, whispered the bearers of the Eureka to seek refuge
there for the present, and to bear their trophy with the dawn to Friar
Bungey at the Tower; and then, gliding nimbly through the fugitive
rioters, sprang into the centre of the circle formed by her companions.

"Ye scent the coming battle?" said the arch-tymbestere.

"Ay, ay, ay!" answered the sisterhood.

"But we have gone miles since noon,--I am faint and weary!" said one
amongst them.

Red Grisell, the youngest of the band, struck her comrade on the
cheek--"Faint and weary, ronion, with blood and booty in the wind!"

The tymbesteres smiled grimly on their young sister; but the leader
whispered "Hush!" and they stood for a second or two with outstretched
throats, with dilated nostrils, with pent breath, listening to the
clarion and the hoofs and the rattling armour, the human vultures
foretasting their feast of carnage; then, obedient to a sign from
their chieftainess, they crept lightly and rapidly into the mouth of a
neighbouring alley, where they cowered by the squalid huts, concealed.
The troop passed on,--a gallant and serried band, horse and foot, about
fifteen hundred men. As they filed up the thoroughfare, and the tramp
of the last soldiers fell hollow on the starlit ground, the tymbesteres
stole from their retreat, and, at the distance of some few hundred
yards, followed the procession, with long, silent, stealthy strides,--as
the meaner beasts, in the instinct of hungry cunning, follow the lion
for the garbage of his prey.

CHAPTER V. THE FUGITIVES ARE CAPTURED--THE TYMBESTERES
REAPPEAR--MOONLIGHT ON THE REVEL OF THE LIVING--MOONLIGHT ON THE SLUMBER
OF THE DEAD.

The father and child made their resting-place under the giant oak. They
knew not whither to fly for refuge; the day and the night had become the
same to them,--the night menaced with robbers, the day with the mob. If
return to their home was forbidden, where in the wide world a shelter
for the would-be world-improve