Fighting at daylight! She looked at the clock,--a quarter to five, and already the sky was growing brighter; the time was at hand then! Fear, grief, anxiety, and, not the least painful, resentment at her husband conflicted in her mind. But the sleeping figures behind the barricade seemed to be troubled by none of these feelings; they lay silent and still, weary men who had no cares. But she knew it was coming, something loud and terrible that would wake them with a start. She felt as though she was watching a play at the theatre, the window suggesting a box. She had turned from it for a moment, when suddenly a rifle-shot rang out, apparently about three hundred yards down the street towards the palace. Then there was a splutter of firing, a bugle-call, and the sound of shouting. The defenders of the barricade sprang up in mad haste and seized their weapons. There was more firing, but still they did not reply, and she dared not put her head out of the window to see what prevented them. They were all greatly excited, holding their rifles over the barricade, and many talking in quick short sentences. In a moment a crowd of men, nearly a hundred it seemed, ran up to the wall and began scrambling over, helped by the others. They were friends, then; it occurred to her that there must be another barricade, and that the one under the window was in the second line. This was actually the case, and the first had been captured. All the time firing from the direction of the palace continued. As soon as the fugitives were all across the wall, the defenders of the second line began to fire. The rifles close by sounded so much louder than the others, and gave forth such bright flashes. But the light was growing every minute, and soon she could see the darting puffs of smoke. The rebels were armed with many kinds of firearms. Some, with old, muzzle-loading muskets, had to stand up and descend from the barricade to use their ramrods; others, armed with more modern weapons, remained crouching behind their cover and fired continually. The scene, filled with little foreshortened figures, still suggested the stage of a theatre viewed from the gallery. She did not as yet feel frightened; no harm had been done, and no one seemed to be any the worse.