Gilbert was near the King, and sitting high on his great horse he saw farther than most men above the wild confusion. It was as if some frightful, unseen monster were gathering a hundred thousand men in iron coils, always inward, as great snakes crush their prey, thousands upon thousands, the bodies of horses and men upon men and horses, with resistless force, till the human beings could struggle no longer, and the beasts themselves could neither kick nor plunge, but only trample all that was near them, while they moved slowly towards the centre. In thousands and thousands again, on an almost even level, the small round caps of many colours were pressed together, till it seemed impossible that there could be room for the bodies that belonged to them. As when, in vintage time, the gathered fruit is brought home to the vats in the sweating panniers of wood, pressed down and level to the brim, and the red and white and blue and green grapes lie closely touching each other almost floating in the juice, rocking and bobbing all at once with every step of the laden mule--so, as Gilbert looked out before him, the bright-hued, close-fitting caps moved restlessly and without ceasing all round a central turmoil of splendid colour, shaded by tender tones of violet and olive, and shot by the glare of sunlit gold, and the sheen of silver, and the cold light of polished steel. But there in the heart of the press there was danger, and from far away Gilbert saw clearly enough, through the cloud of light and colour, the lifeless tones that are like nothing else of nature, the deadly unreflecting paleness of frightened faces, and the cries of women hurt and in terror came rising over the heads of the multitude. He sat still and looked before him as if his sight could distinguish the features of one or another at that distance, and he felt icy cold when he thought of what might happen, and that all those fair young girls and women, in their beauty and in their youth, in their fanciful dresses, might be crushed and trampled and kicked to death before thousands who would have died to save them. His first instinct was to charge the crowd before him, to force the way, even by the sword, and to bring the Queen and her ladies safely back; but a moment's thought showed him how utterly futile any such attempt must be, and that even if the whole throng had felt as he felt himself, and had wished to make way for any one, it would have had no power to do so. There was but one chance of saving the women, and that evidently lay in leading off the crowd by some excitement counter to its present fear.