As I glanced round for a place of refuge, my eyes lit on an open doorway close to me, and close also to the brazier and halbert. It was a low stone doorway, beetle-browed, with a coat of arms carved over it. I saw in an instant that it must lead to the tower above us--the gatehouse; and I sprang from my horse, a fresh yell from the houses hailing the act. I saw that, if we were to gain a moment for parleying, we must take refuge there. I do not know how I did it, but somehow I made myself understood by the others and got the women off their horses and dragged Mistress Anne inside, where at once we both fell in the darkness over the lower steps of a spiral staircase. This hindered the Duchess, who was following, and I heard a scuffle taking place behind us. But in that confined space--the staircase was very narrow--I could give no help. I could only stumble upward, dragging the fainting girl after me, until we emerged through an open doorway at the top into a room. What kind of room I did not notice then, only that it was empty. Notice! It was no time for taking notice. The bell was clanging louder and louder outside. The mob were yelling like hounds in sight of their quarry. The shouts, the confused cries, and threats, and questions deafened me. I turned to learn what was happening behind me. The other two had not come up. I felt my way down again, one hand on the central pillar, my shoulder against the outside wall. The stair-foot was faintly lit by the glow from outside, and on the bottom step I came on some one, hurt or dead, just a dark mass at my feet. It was Master Bertie. I gave a cry and leaped over his body. The Duchess, brave wife, was standing before him, the halbert which she had snatched up presented at the doorway and the howling mob outside. Fortunately the crowd had not yet learned how few we were; nor saw, I think, that it was but a woman who confronted them. To rush into the low doorway and storm the narrow winding staircase in the face of unknown numbers was a task from which the bravest veterans might have flinched, and the townsfolk, furious as they were, hung back. I took advantage of the pause. I grasped the halbert myself and pushed the Duchess back. "Drag him up!" I muttered. "If you cannot manage it, call Anne!" But grief and hard necessity gave her strength, and, despite the noise in front of me, I heard her toil panting up with her burden. When I judged she had reached the room above, I too turned and ran up after her, posting myself in the last angle just below the room. There I was sheltered from missiles by the turn in the staircase, and was further protected by the darkness. Now I could hold the way with little risk, for only one could come up at a time, and he would be a brave man who should storm the stairs in my teeth.