At last there were sounds outside, and the door creaked slowly open. A man’s head appeared, looking round in surprise and alarm for the prisoner. By a tremendous effort, Ferrers raised the weight as the gaoler advanced into the cell, and brought it down on his head. He fell with a crash, and an earthen vessel of water which he had been carrying was shivered on the floor. Ferrers had formed some vague plan of dressing himself in the gaoler’s clothes and taking possession of his keys, but this was now out of the question, for there was a sound of voices and a rush of steps towards his cell. He drew back into the shadow, intending to knock down the first man that entered as he had done the gaoler, but his temporary strength was gone. His arms refused to raise the weight more than an inch or two. With a cry of rage he dropped it, and charged furiously into the group of men who had been attracted by the noise, and were trying to screw up one another’s courage to enter the cell. One or two of them went down before his blows, others fled at the sight of the apparition, but there remained two who flung themselves upon Ferrers and grappled with him. Weakened by fasting and the blow he had received, he yet fought manfully, but they were slowly and surely forcing him back towards the cell, when one of them caught his foot in the chain. All three went down, Ferrers undermost, and once more he lost consciousness, the last thing he heard being a warning cry, “Do not kill him: it is his Highness’s order.”