I sprang up the stairs into the room and looked round, my eyes seeming to take in everything at once. It was a big bare room, with signs of habitation only in one corner. On the side toward the town was a long, low window, through which--a score of the diamond panes were broken already--the flare of the besiegers' torches fell luridly on the walls and vaulted roof. By the dull embers of a wood fire, over which hung a huge black pot, Master Bertie was lying on the boards, breathing loudly and painfully, his head pillowed on the Duchess's kerchief. Beside him sat Mistress Anne, her face hidden, the child wailing in her lap. A glance round assured me that there was no other staircase, and that on the side toward the country, the wall was pierced with no window bigger than a loophole or an arrow-slit; with no opening which even a boy could enter. For the present, therefore, unless the top of the tower should be escaladed from the adjacent houses--and I could do nothing to provide against that--we had nothing to fear except from the staircase and the window I have mentioned. Every moment, however, a missile or a shot crashed through the latter, adding the shiver of falling glass to the general din. No wonder the child wailed and the girl sank over it in abject terror. Those savage yells might well make a woman blench. They carried more fear and dread to my heart than did the real danger of our position, desperate as it was. And yet it was so desperate that, for a moment, I leant against the wall dazed and hopeless, listening to the infernal tumult without and within. Had Bertie been by my side to share the responsibility and join in the risk, I could have borne it better. I might have felt then some of the joy of battle, and the stern pleasure of the one matched against the many. But I was alone. How was I to save these women and that poor child from the yelling crew outside? How indeed? I did not know the enemy's language; I could not communicate with him, could not explain, could not even cry for quarter for the women.