Claude thrust in his head and listened. He could hear, above the thick breathing of the Savoyard, the stir of men muttering and moving in the darkness below; and now the stealthy shuffle of feet, and again the faint clang of a weapon against the wall. Doubtless it had dawned on some one in command below, that here on this tower lay the keys of Geneva: that by themselves three hundred men could not take, nor hold if they took, a town manned by five or six thousand; consequently that if Savoy would succeed in the enterprise so boldly begun, she must by hook or crook raise this portcullis and open this gate. As a fact, Brunaulieu, the captain of the forlorn hope, had passed the word that the tower must be taken at any cost; and had come himself from the Porte Tertasse, where a brisk conflict was beginning, to see the thing done. Claude did not know this, but had he known it, it would not have reduced his courage. "Yes, I hear them," he whispered in answer to the soldier's words. "But they have not mounted far yet. And when they come, if two pikes cannot hold this doorway which they can pass but one at a time, there is no truth in Thermopylae!" "I know naught of that," the other answered, rising nervously to his feet. "I don't favour heights. Give me the lee of a wall and fair odds----" "Odds?" Claude echoed vain-gloriously--but only the stars attended to him--"I would not have another man!" Marcadel seized him by the sleeve. His voice rose almost to a scream. "But, by Heaven, there is another man!" he cried. "There!" He pointed with a shaking hand to the outer corner of the leads, in the neighbourhood of the place where the winch of the portcullis stood. "We are betrayed! We are dead men!" he babbled. Claude made out a dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and the thought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set a ladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. At any rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought the young man lowered his pike and charged the figure. With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before him. "Mercy!" cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement, spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!" he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?" The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room," he whimpered. "I had come with a message--from the Syndic." "The Syndic Blondel?" "Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at eleven exactly. It was late when I got there and they--oh, this dreadful night--they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs." "Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claude answered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except to heaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take the winch-bar if you can find nothing else! And----"