"Why, then," said the Englishman, "your followers will soon find you out. Arthur and I are paltry ciphers, and our absence might easily pass over unobserved; but you are too important a figure not to be missed and looked after, when the sum of your number is taken." "I well hope it will prove so," said the Landamman, "though methinks I show but scurvily, shut up here like a cat in a cupboard when he has been stealing cream.--Arthur, my brave boy, dost thou see no means of shooting back the bolt?" Arthur, who had been minutely examining the lock, replied in the negative; and added, that they must take patience perforce, and arm themselves to wait calmly their deliverance, which they could do nothing to accelerate. Arnold Biederman, however, felt somewhat severely the neglect of his sons and companions. "All my youths, uncertain whether I am alive or dead, are taking the opportunity of my absence, doubtless, for pillage and licence--and the politic Rudolph, I presume, cares not if I should never reappear on the stage--the Banneret, and the white-bearded fool Bonstetten, who calls me his friend--every neighbour has deserted me--and yet they know that I am anxious for the safety of the most insignificant of them all, as dearer to me than my own. By heavens! it looks like stratagem; and shows as if the rash young men desired to get rid of a rule too regular and peaceful to be pleasing to those who are eager for war and conquest." The Landamman, fretted out of his usual serenity of temper, and afraid of the misbehaviour of his countrymen in his absence, thus reflected upon his friends and companions, while the distant noise soon died away into the most absolute and total silence. "What is to do now?" said Arthur Philipson. "I trust they will take the opportunity of quiet to go through the roll-call, and inquire then who are a-missing." It seemed as if the young man's wish had some efficacy, for he had scarce uttered it before the lock was turned, and the door set ajar by some one who escaped upstairs from behind it, before those who were set at liberty could obtain a glance of their deliverer. "It is the jailer, doubtless," said the Landamman, "who may be apprehensive, as he has some reason, that we might prove more incensed at our detention in the dungeon, than grateful for our deliverance." As they spoke thus they ascended the narrow stairs, and issued from the door of the Gate-house tower, where a singular spectacle awaited them. The Swiss Deputies and their escort still remained standing fast and firm on the very spot where Hagenbach had proposed to assail them. A few of the late Governor's soldiers, disarmed, and cowering from the rage of a multitude of the citizens, who now filled the streets, stood with downcast looks behind the phalanx of the mountaineers, as their safest place of retreat. But this was not all.