The odious Rossworm had already seized upon one of the unfortunate girls to drag her away, when a great shouting reached their ears, and looking out of the window, he saw a large and threatening crowd, which had come in response to the innkeeper’s cries for help, gathered before the house. Thereupon he let his intended victim go, and told Bassompierre that they were in grave danger, and would need all their courage and presence of mind if they wanted to leave that house alive. Then, turning to the innkeeper, he told him--or rather made the page do so--that he would kill him, if he did not contrive their escape from the mob. Now, the innkeeper was wearing a long smock, under which Rossworm placed his poniard, pressing the point against the man’s flesh, and told Bassompierre to give his dagger to the page, that he might do likewise. In this fashion they went out of the room and along the passage to the door of the inn, where the trembling Boniface gave some apparently satisfactory explanation to his neighbours, for the latter, who, of course, could not see the poniards pressed against his back, began to disperse. Then Rossworm and the page, imagining that the danger was over, sheathed their poniards, and they and Bassompierre began to walk away in the direction of their coach. But they had gone but a few paces, when the innkeeper, recovering from his alarm, began to shout: “Murder! Murder!” again with all the strength of his lungs. They took to their heels and ran for their lives, pursued by an infuriated mob, who pelted them with volleys of stones, which they had apparently collected at the first alarm. “Then Rossworm cried out to me: ‘Brother, _sauve qui peut!_ If you fall, do not expect me to pick you up, for each of us must look to his own safety.’ We ran pretty fast, but the rain of stones incommoded us greatly, and one of them, striking Rossworm in the back, brought him to the ground. I, who did not wish to treat him in the manner in which he had just announced his intention of treating me, raised him up and helped him along for some twenty paces, when, happily, we reached our coach. Into this we threw ourselves, and were soon in safety in the Old Town, having escaped from the paws of more than four hundred people.”