The mob groaned,
and suddenly a volley of stones fell among the pikemen, whose corselets
rattled under the shower. The priest seized that moment. He sprang to
the ground, and to the front. He caught up his robe and waved his hand,
and the rabble, as if impelled by a single will, rolled forward in a huge
one-fronted thundering wave, before which the two handfuls of
pikemen--afraid to strike, yet afraid to fly--were swept away like straws
upon the tide.
But against the solid walls and oak-barred door of the house the wave
beat, only to fall back again, a broken, seething mass of brandished arms
and ravening faces. One point alone was vulnerable, the window, and
there in the gap stood Tavannes. Quick as thought he fired two pistols
into the crowd; then, while the smoke for a moment hid all, he whistled.
Whether the signal was a summons to his men to fight their way back--as
they were doing to the best of their power--or he had resources still
unseen, was not to be known. For as the smoke began to rise, and while
the rabble before the window, cowed by the fall of two of their number,
were still pushing backward instead of forward, there rose behind them
strange sounds--yells, and the clatter of hoofs, mingled with screams of
alarm. A second, and into the loose skirts of the crowd came charging
helter-skelter, pell-mell, a score of galloping, shrieking, cursing
horsemen, attended by twice as many footmen, who clung to their stirrups
or to the tails of the horses, and yelled and whooped, and struck in
unison with the maddened riders.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86