There arose a perfect Babel of voices, out of which Richard could make nothing clearly; but he knew the permit was given, for in a few minutes Tarleton opened the street-door, and ordered his men to begin the search at the house on the lower corner, and proceed thence up the street, missing no dwelling. Every other street and alley in the town had been sentinelled, so he assured Cornwallis. The soldiers at the door dispersed, and a breathless silence filled the house. Richard dared not move lest his stiff joints pop, or his boots creak and betray him. He knew flight was impossible; for there was a stamping of horses in the rear court, proving that the house was surrounded. It were wiser to wait and face the fate that came to him, than go out to meet it on the way. The minutes that followed seemed interminable. He felt that his doom was sealed, and then there came upon him an overmastering desire to hear Joscelyn's voice once more. Why did she not come to him on some feigned pretext or other? Surely she must know how he suffered! Death were not so hard to meet, if he could but first hold her in his arms and hear her say some tender word. Then the noise in the street grew louder, and he knew that the search was drawing near. His nerves were strained to tautness, when presently he heard the party stop in the street below, and a voice downstairs cried out gayly:-- "They be going to call upon your kinsfolk, the Cleverings, Mistress Joscelyn. Let us out to the balcony and see the fun." In the confusion of scraping chairs and opening doors, Richard got to his feet. The cold and weariness in his limbs were forgotten in anxiety for his mother. A-tiptoe he crossed the room in the shadow of the furniture and gained Joscelyn's front window,--that window out of which he had seen her lean in her scarlet bodice the day he marched away so long ago. It was an easy thing to hide himself in the folds of the heavy curtains which had been drawn for the night; and thus concealed, to watch, through a crescent slit in the blind, the scene below, for the veranda was open with no roof to intervene. It was full moon, and the figures in the street, twenty men-at-arms, were plainly visible. Three of these passed silently to the rear of his mother's house, while the others drew up in line before the door. Then the leader smote the panels until they rang like a drum. Twice was the summons repeated ere a voice from an upper window demanded what might be the matter. "Matter enough that I knock," replied the man, so insolently that Richard's blood took fire, for every word could be distinctly heard from his coign of vantage. "Nay, we be but two lone women in this house, and we open not but to the proper authorities."