But outside, the confusion grew and the noise increased as the people poured into the vast courtyard and pressed behind upon those who had entered before them. Then the door of the tower in the corner was opened from within, and the African mutes came out and joined the other soldiers, and from an upper window the captain and his wife looked down, and by the help of what she told him he understood that it was time to set his prisoner free, if he did not mean to risk being torn to shreds by the people, though he could not at all understand who it was whom he saw on horseback in the torchlight, dressed in cloth of gold, with the imperial head-dress on his head, for he knew well enough that so long as the key of the upper prison hung at his own belt, Johannes could not get out. Yet there was no mistaking the cry of the people, and his wife urged him not to lose time. The crowd was surging towards the tower now, led by Zeno and the Emperor, and they and their sailors and dockmen kept in front of the crowd to be the first to dismount and enter the tower, and then the sailors kept the throng back, telling them that Johannes had gone in to free his youngest son, and the two men who had the deep bags of money threw lavish handfuls to the people, to amuse them while they waited. But when Zeno and the Emperor came out again, Johannes' face was all uncovered, and the cloth-of-gold cope hung loosely on his shoulders; and by the glare of many torches every one knew that it was Johannes himself, and none other, and men cheered and yelled till they were hoarse. After the Emperor and Zeno came a man whom no one had seen go in with them, and he had a very scanty dark beard and was dressed in quiet brown, though he wore a horseman's boots, and he was Gorlias Pietrogliant, who had acted so well the part which Zoë had imagined for him.