Gilderoy had risen.  
It was midnight. A great bell boomed and clashed over the city, with a roar of many voices floating on the wind, like the thunder of a rising sea. Torches flashed and along the streets, with hundreds of shadows, and a glinting of steel. Knots of armed men hurried towards the great , where, by the City Cross, Sforza the Gonfaloniere and his senators had gathered about the red and white Gonfalon of the Commune. All the companies were there with their banners and men-at-arms. "Fulviac," "Saint Yeoland," "Liberty and the Commune": such were the watchwords that filled the mouths of the mob.
 
Cressets had burst into flame on the castle's towers, a ; while from the steeps of the city, where stood the palaces of the nobles, smoke and flame began to rush into the night. Waves of ululations seemed to sweep the city from north, south, east, and west. were clanging in the castle, drums beating, fifes . Through the indescribable the great bell on, through the minutes like the heart of a god.
 
It will be remembered that the Lord Flavian was in Gilderoy for the purchasing of arms. At midnight you would have found him in his state bed-chamber in the abbot's palace, at his hose, at his points and doublet, on his sword. He was hardly awake with the single in the gloom. The ululations of the mob sounded through the house, with the clash of swords and the crash of hammers. The Lord Flavian craned from the window, saw what he could, heard much, and wondered if hell had broken loose.
 
"Fulviac and the Commune!"
 
"Saint Yeoland!"
 
"Down with the lords, down with the priests!"
 
The man at the window heard these cries, and puzzled them out in his . Certainly he was a lord; therefore unpopular. And Yeoland! Wherefore was that name sounding on the tongues of brothel-mongers and cooks! Was he still dreaming? Certes, these rallying-cries carried a certain blunt hint, advising him that he would have to care for his own skin.
 
Malise, his page, knelt at the door with his ear to the key-hole. The boy was in his shirt and breeches, and trembling like an aspen. Flavian stood over him. They heard a sound as of a gate giving, a roar as of water breaking through a dam, a , a scream or two, a confused of many voices.
 
Flavian told Malise to open the door and look out into the gallery. He did so. A man, more than the rest, sprang out of the dark and stabbed at the lad's throat. He fell with a whimper. Flavian his sword home, dragged Malise within, barred the door again. Very tenderly he lifted the boy in his arms. Malise's hands clung about his lord's neck; he moaned a little, and was very white.
 
"Save yourself, messire!"
 
Flavian bore him towards a door that stood open in the panelling. He felt the lad's blood soaking through his doublet; were poured into his ears.
 
"I die, I die; oh, the smart, the burn of it! Leave me, messire; let me lie still!"
 
"Nonsense----"
 
"It is no use; I have it deep, the man's knife went home."
 
Flavian felt the lad's hands relax, saw his head on his shoulder. He turned and put him down on the bed, and knelt there, while Malise panted and strove to speak.
 
"Go--messire."
 
Flavian was trying to staunch the flow from the boy's neck with a corner of the sheeting. His own doublet was with blood. In a minute he saw the of such unconscious ; the taper by the bed told that Malise's life would before its own light would be . Blows were being dealt upon the door. Flavian kissed the lad, took the taper, and passed out by the panel in the wainscotting.
 
A stairway led him to a little gate that opened on the abbot's garden. He more than thought to find the passage disputed, but the place stretched quiet before him as he came out with sword . The of the flowers and was heavy on the night air, and the shouts of the mob sounded over the black roofs, and rang in his ears with an inspiriting fury.
 
There was a gate at the far end of the garden, opening through a stone wall into a narrow , and Flavian, as he the paths, could see pike points bobbing above the wall, and a of torches. Men were breaking in even here, and he was caught like a rat in a corner. In an angle of the wall he found a big bed, and crawling under the leaves like a worm, he dirt over his face and clothes and awaited developments. In another minute the garden gate fell away, and a tatterdemalion poured in, and frothy as any pack. They spread over the garden towards the house, shouting and blaspheming like a of satyrs. Flavian saw his chance, plunged from his dark corner, and joined the mob of moving figures. Dirty face and dirtier clothes were in kindred keeping. He shouted as lustily as any, and by of gradual and circumlocutions, edged to the gate and escaped into the now- alley.
 
Running on, he skirted the abbey and came out into the square that flanked the abbey church, and the great gate. A hundred torches seemed moving behind the abbey windows. The square and smoked with riot. Flavian went in............