But we hesitated a moment, and were lost. No doubt, though we saw but one, there were a score of people watching us, who took us for four men, Master Bertie and I being in front; and these, judging from the boldness of our entry that there were more behind, concluded that this was a foray upon the town. At any rate, they took instant advantage of our pause. With a swift whir an iron pot came hurtling past me, and, missing the Duchess by a hand's-breadth, went clanking under the gatehouse. That served for a signal. In a moment an alarm of hostile cries rose all round us. An arrow whizzed between my horse's feet. Half a dozen odd missiles, snatched up by hasty hands, came raining in on us out of the gloom. The town seemed to be rising as one man. A bell began to ring, and a hundred yards in front, where the street branched off to right and left, the way seemed suddenly alive from wall to wall with lights and voices and brandished arms, the gleam of steel, and the babel of a furious crowd--a crowd making down toward us with a purpose we needed no German to interpret. It was a horrible moment; the more horrible that I had not expected this fury, and was unnerved as well as taken aback by it. Remembering that I had brought my companions here, and that two were women, one was a child, I quailed. How could I protect them? There was no mistaking the stern meaning of those cries, of that rage so much surpassing anything I had feared. Though I did not know that the man we had struck down was a bridegroom, and that there were those in the crowd in whose ears the young wife's piercing scream still rang, I yet quailed before their yells and curses.