For the moment, happily for us, none of this mob was mounted. Putting our horses at the press we clove a way through, still dealing fierce blows and receiving them; and at last, getting clear, we set off pell-mell down the street and through the narrow purlieus of the city. Under the cover of the darkness it began to seem that we had a reasonable prospect of escape. Our fleet horses, a little recovered from the fatigues of the day, began to outstrip our pursuers; yet our danger was still very real, since in the labyrinth of ways and byways we were likely to be entrapped. By a stroke of fortune Sir Richard Pendragon and the Count of Nullepart were familiar with Madrid, and were able to point a fair course to the southern gate of the city. However, no sooner had we come before it, with our pursuers well in the rear, than we had to encounter a new peril. The gate was locked for the night. The urgency of our cries, and loud bawling of “In the name of the King!” drew the porter out of his hut. In one hand he bore a lanthorn and in the other a key, which was strapped to his girdle. He was an old man, very querulous and apparently very sleepy. “Who are ye that ride forth at this hour?” he demanded. “Where are your passports signed by the constable of the city?” “It is here, father,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, leaning a little forward from the saddle and knocking the old man senseless with the hilt of his sword. Leaping down from his horse, Sir Richard tore the key from the porter’s girdle. In the next instant he had thrown back the gate, and our horses were through. Yet brief as this delay was, it was almost too much. Hardly had we crossed the boundary of the city ere the hue and cry was upon us. The Englishman, however, was in nowise daunted by the necessity for haste. With that self mastery and high instinct for action which a little time before had saved his life, he pulled the gate after him, and turned the key almost against the very noses of our pursuers. While some of them screamed oaths and shouted curses and administered to the senseless porter, and others attacked the staunch iron barrier, we rode into the darkness at a pace which was calculated not unduly to distress our already fatigued horses. When we had made a league and the shouts of our foes were no longer in our ears, my excitement, which I confess had been very great, abated sufficiently to enable me to remember that my friends had suffered scathe in the inn. To my inquiry they returned the answer that they had never felt happier in any situation; and further, I received their commendation upon the part I had played.