Then without a sound a face appeared like a pale floating patch in the dark door that opened on to the court. It remained hung like a mask in the darkness for at least a minute; and then a man stepped through on to the cobblestones. Something on his head glimmered sharply in the starlight; and there was the same sparkle at the end of a pole that he carried in his hand; he turned and nodded; and three or four men appeared behind him. Then out of the darkness of the archway at the other end of the court appeared a similar group. Once a man slipped on the frozen stones and cursed under his breath, and the leader turned on him with a fierce indrawing of his breath; but no word was spoken. Then through both entrances streamed dark figures, each with a steely glitter on head and breast, and with something that shone in their hands; till the little court seemed half full of armed men; but the silence was still formidable in its depth. The two leaders came together to the door of the third house, and their heads were together; and a few sibilant consonants escaped them. The breath of the men that stood out under the starlight went up like smoke in the air. It was now a quarter-past five. Three notes of a hand-bell sounded behind the house; and then, without any further attempt at silence, the man who had entered the court first advanced to the door and struck three or four thundering blows on it with a mace, and shouted in a resonant voice: "Open in the Queen's Name." The men relaxed their cautious attitudes, and some grounded their weapons; others began to talk in low voices; a small party advanced nearer their leaders with weapons, axes and halberds, uplifted. By now the blows were thundering on the door; and the same shattering voice cried again and again: "Open in the Queen's name; open in the Queen's name!" The middle house of the three was unoccupied; but the windows of the house next the stable, and the windows in the loft over the archway, where the stable-boys slept, suddenly were illuminated; latches were lifted, the windows thrust open and heads out of them. Then one or two more pursuivants came up the dark passage bearing flaming torches with them. A figure appeared on the top of the blank wall at the end, and pointed and shouted. The stable-boys in a moment more appeared in their archway, and one or two persons came out of the house next the stable, queerly habited in cloaks and hats over their night-attire. * * * *